The Deacon's Bench
From The Daily Mail:
Catholic schoolgirls are being taught that God is gender-neutral and banned from using the words ‘Lord’, ‘Father’ and ‘Son’ in prayers.
A number of elite Catholic schools in Brisbane are making moves to teach their students to use inclusive language when referring to God.
Top schools including All Hallows, Stuartholme, Loreto College and Stuartholme School are leading a push towards a feminist interpretation of the Christian Bible.
Students at Stuartholme School in Brisbane’s inner-city, which charges upwards of $40,000 a year, are taught to use the word ‘Godself’ instead of ‘himself’.
‘As we believe God is neither male or female, Stuartholme tries to use gender-neutral terms in prayers … so that our community deepens their understanding of who God is for them, how God reveals Godself through creation, our relationships with others and the person of Jesus,’ a spokeswoman told The Sunday Mail.
Loreto College in Coorparoo has taken the word ‘Lord’ from their prayers as it is a ‘male term’.
The school’s principal Kim Wickham said prayers written for use within the college didn’t assign God a gender.
Ms Wickham said the school had a commitment to inclusive language, but admitted there were instances where gendered language is appropriate.
St Rita’s College Clayfield tries to use gender-neutral terms but for traditional prayers still uses gendered language.
The assistant principal Richard Rogusz said context is important and helps decide what language is appropriate.
From the catechism:
238 Many religions invoke God as “Father”. The deity is often considered the “father of gods and of men”. In Israel, God is called “Father” inasmuch as he is Creator of the world. Even more, God is Father because of the covenant and the gift of the law to Israel, “his first-born son”. God is also called the Father of the king of Israel. Most especially he is “the Father of the poor”, of the orphaned and the widowed, who are under his loving protection.
239 By calling God “Father”, the language of faith indicates two main things: that God is the first origin of everything and transcendent authority; and that he is at the same time goodness and loving care for all his children. God’s parental tenderness can also be expressed by the image of motherhood, which emphasizes God’s immanence, the intimacy between Creator and creature. The language of faith thus draws on the human experience of parents, who are in a way the first representatives of God for man. But this experience also tells us that human parents are fallible and can disfigure the face of fatherhood and motherhood. We ought therefore to recall that God transcends the human distinction between the sexes. He is neither man nor woman: he is God. He also transcends human fatherhood and motherhood, although he is their origin and standard: no one is father as God is Father
Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In