Does anyone know why the Catholics thought women don't have souls at one point?

Question

I know a hundred years ago or more the Catholics held a convention to try and rule that the female gender was born w/o a soul. I'm not a christian so it won't offend me if you knock catholics...I just wanted to know why they were dehumanizing women.

Answer 1

This never happened. There was no "convention" nor is It written anywhere nor ordained that women "don't have a soul". Catholics believe that you are saved by faith that Jesus is our Lord and through a life of good works. It is a common misconception that gender issues played a radical stance in terms of the Church belief structure since the Holy See refuses to allow women to be ordained priests.

Answer 2

You are greatly misinformed bout the Catholic Church and before you question something so absurd, check it out. The other ones here who have written against the Catholic Church are writing out of ignorance and validating their answers with Hate Books against the Catholic Church.
The Catholic Church has never said in any of her documents that women have no soul. THERE HAS NEVER BEEN A CONVENTION TO RULE THAT THE FEMALE GENDER WAS BORN WITHOUT A SOUL.
Are you joking?
Women in the Catholic Church have always had an exalted place.. Just because women cannot become priest does not mean women have no place in the Church. If women have always had a role in the church, that should prove they have never been treated or are treated with comtempt or anything otherwise as absurd as believing that women have no soul.
Read the History of the Catholic Church's and you will see that through the ages, there have always been great women in the Church. Women have lead the Church in other ways. Read the life story of St. Catherine of Sienna. There have always been great women in the Catholic Church and the Church has always honored them.. We have so many women that are recognized as Doctors of the Church and many of these were not learned women.. The Church took their councel at their time and still does even today.
If the Church has honored women through the ages, it surely is not going to claim that women have no soul then or now... The very thought of it is so ridiculous.. How anyone can write such a thing of the Catholic Church is sad and slander. READ the Life of your Church, the Life of the Saints.
The very first apostles, (read the Acts of the Apostles) had women as disceples in the early ministery of the Church.. Jesus had many women that were his friends.. Jesus came to save all, the Jews, and Gentiles, male and female, black and white. Jesus came to save EVERYONE for everyone has a soul. Why would the Church that was founded by Jesus Christ himself..deny what Jesus taught.
The Catholic Church was and is and will be lead always and forever and ever by the Teaching of Jesus. Amen.
AS much as you hate to admit it... The Catholic Church is the only true Church founded by the Master himself, the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.. READ YOUR HISTROY.. and not gossip.
God have mercy on such lies and those that spread them.

Answer 3

You cite an "unnamed" convention held at a non-specific time.

Perhaps you should find out the name of this "convention", probably a Council or Synod, and the exact year(s) it took place, and then do a search of that event at newadvent.org, you will be able to read from a list of doctrinal developments made at that event. Then you will be able to know for sure whether or not the Catholic Church actually did attempt to "dehumanize" women.

Answer 4

I have a really hard time believing that the Roman Catholic Church ever had such a convention. It really sounds like either an exaggeration of a convention, or a lie that has been accepted as the truth by critics of the Church.

It is also possible that another group, perhaps calling itself "Catholic" (like the Latverian Catholic Church, or the Catholic Transylvania Church) held such a convention. No church can completely defend itself from being associated with fringe groups that use similar names. Ask the Baptists about the Westboro Baptist Church, if you want to see this in action!

Answer 5

I have heard of this, too, but I think it was considerably more than 100 years ago - more like at least 500 or 600 years ago. It is definitely something out of the dark ages.
The Catholic church has always been misogynistic in its practices because, supposedly, its founders were. I have come across a fair amount of printed material in the past few years indicating that Peter and Paul were both quite antagonistic toward women.
(While "THE DaVINCI CODE" was just a lot of sensationalistic pulp fiction, some of the research materials and non-fiction books it drew its basic premise from DO make for some VERY interesting reading.)

I am guessing the idea of women "having no souls" was a lame attempt at justifying the church's lack of consideration and compassion for them. And this lack of benevolence probably stemmed from the idea that was cited by one of your earlier answers - that Eve brought about the downfall of humanity.
One variation on the Genesis story has it that the tree Eve ate from was the "Tree of Knowledge". This co-incides with the idea that the god(s) who created man really wanted to limit his knowledge and capabilities, but Eve was not satisfied with those limitations. (We also see this theme echoed in the classic Greco-Roman mythologies where Promethius was eternally punished by the other gods for giving mankind the gift of fire.)

We know that the Catholic church has always been particularly jealous of and antagonistic toward ANYTHING it considers potential competition. I forget where i read this, but it was not till the early 12th century that mandatory celebacy was introduced. It came about because an archbishop in England decided that love for and devotion to wives and families was taking away from the priests' love and devotion to the church. Apparently, his idea must have appealed to whoever was the Pope at that time. This could not have gone over very well with the majority of the priesthood, so the idea that women "had no souls" could have been a handy justification (along with any other way they could find to villify women) to make an edict for celebacy more palatable to the rank-and-file clergy.
Whether this played a part in it or it was just a natural extension of their overall male-dominant misogyny, we will probably never know.
(I DO find it ironically amusing, however, that all the while they were so viciously denegrating normal, everyday women, they were exaulting the "Virgin Mary" to heights that no other Christian denomination ever has - a pathetic attempt at "damage control" to assuage their own guilt, perhaps?)

Then, of course, it could just have been blind, self-righteous ignorance on their parts. Anyone who has studied the tiniest bit of anything spiritual knows that the soul is NOT something one "HAS", but, rather, what one IS!

Remember, these were the same intellectual giants who spawned the various European "Holy Inquisitions" (both men AND women suffered horribly from THAT!) and are ALSO know to have debated about how many angels could sit on the head of a pin!

Answer 6

Catholics???? Catholics??? Dehumanizing women??? I believe, without proper citations of your sources, this is but another misguided attempt to bash the Catholics - I'm so sorry you have been given such false information.
The Catholics hold Mary (a woman) in the highest esteem after God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit. how anything degrading of women would come from them is beyond me.

Answer 7

Sorry, but that was never believed as far as I know. Women are God's daughters just like men are God's sons. We all have a soul. Always had, always will. The Church has never taught women have no soul.

God bless.

Answer 8

At the time almost all cultures had extreme gender bias. This interested me because as a Muslim I also read where early Arabians would bury daughters alive because the wanted male children. Women have gotten a bad wrap in many religions though. In Christianity, it was justified because it was taught that Eve tricked Adam thus damning humanity to mortality.

Answer 9

This is a new one.

Some people accuse us of worshipping the Blessed Virgin Mary as a goddess and then you come along try to claim we even tried to take her soul away.

Please cite the documents or provide links to your claim so that the rest of us can do proper research. Thank you.

With love in Christ.

Answer 10

Because Christians are taught that it is soley Eve's fault that they were cast out of the Garden of Eden and that Eve was the one who tricked Adam(PBUH*) to eat the fruit of the forbidden tree and that all women carry this guilt and that each woman is an "Eve" who inherits this sin and that women aren't to be trusted and this is why women are cursed with child birth and menstrual cycles. Which is the reason I left Christianity for Islam.