Well, there's not much point in singling out this Pope for criticism regarding the Church's traditional misogyny and (misguided) intrusion into the most intimate and personal of human affairs. He was born in 1920, NOT 1960 after all. Bound as he was by generational and institutional limitations, he did the very best he possibly could I suppose.

After all, Has the papal stance on human sexuality and the status of women changed at all in almost 500 years? I think not ...

"We have in our days the distinguished professor of divinity, brother Heinrich Kaltyseren, Inquisitor of Heretical Depravity. Last year, while he was exercising his inquisitorial office in the city of Cologne, as he himself told me, he found in the neighborhood a certain maiden who always went about in a man's dress, bore arms and dissolute garments like one of nobles' retainers; she danced in dances with men, and was so given to feasting and drink that she seemed altogether to pass the bounds of her sex, which she did not conceal ...

But the wretched woman would not obey the commands of the Church; the count protected her from arrest and brought her secretly out of Cologne; thus she did indeed escape from the inquisitor's hands but not from the sentence of excommunication. Thus bound under curse, she quitted Germany for France, where she married a certain knight, to protect herself against ecclesiastical interdict and the sword. Then a certain priest, or rather pimp, seduced this witch with talk of love; so that she stole away with him at length and went to Metz, where she lived as his concubine and showed all men openly by what spirit she was led...

Moreover, there was lately in France, within the last ten years, a maid of whom I have already spoken, named Joan, for her prophetic spirit and for the power of her miracles. For she always wore man's dress, nor could all the persuasions of any doctors [of divinity] bend her to put these aside and content herself with woman's garments, especially considering that she openly professed herself a woman and a maid. "In these masculine garment she said, "in token of future victory, I have been sent by God to preach both by word and by dress, to help Charles, the true king of France, and to set him firm upon his throne from whence the king of England and the duke of Burgundy are striving to chase him" ....

then at last, by God's will, as it is believed, she was taken in arms by the English and cast into prison. A great multitude were then summoned, of masters both in Canon and in Civil Law, and she was examined for many days. And, as I have heard from Master Nicolas Amfici [Coulton not: this seems to be a scribal error for Nicolas Midi] Licentiate of Theology, who was ambassador for the University of Paris, she at length confessed that she bad a familiar angel of God, which, by many conjectures, and proofs, and by the opinion of the most learned men, was judged to be an evil spirit; so that this spirit rendered her a sorceress; wherefore they permitted her to be burned at the stake by the common hangman ...

PUPIL: I cannot sufficiently marvel how the frail sex can to rush into such presumptuous things. MASTER: These things are marvelous to simple folk like you!, but they are not rare in the eyes of wise men. For there three things in nature, which, if they transgress the limits of their own condition, whether by diminution or by excess attain to the highest pinnacle whether of goodness or of evil. These are, the tongue, the ecclesiastic, and the woman; all of these are commonly best of all, so long as they are guided by a good spirit, but worst of all if guided by an evil spirit.

From C.G. Coulton, ed, Life in the Middle Ages, (New York: Macmillan, c.1910), Vol I, 210-213 [text slightly modernized]"


Hmmm - I wonder what commonly happens when the "holier" sex is guided by "evil spirits" (if such a thing is even possible)? Would Inquisitors of Heretical Depravity be then elevated to positions of public authority? Would the faithful be inundated by an onslaught of Papal Bull?    ;-)