“Even if
your husband is unfaithful, a true proof of love is to keep loving him, with
tears in your eyes, as Jesus cried in the cross”. This phrase, among others
like: “Ill-treated women should not separate, because this is a proof of love”,
or “Abortion in case of rape is not tolerable, because even though it is a
terrible thing, you get something good, a child, a gift of God”, overfilled
students patience in the Church’s Social Doctrine class of professor Gloria
Casanova from the Cardenal Herrera Moncada University in Valencia Spain.
This
article is worthwhile reading, and it appeared in the Christian Holy week; in a
time when we officially remember Christ’s passion and death… and only as an
anecdote, his resurrection.
The article
says that the persons responsible of the University have hurriedly washed their
hands alleging “freedom of professorship”. We remember another person who washed his hands as well, and
ended as the villain of the story: Pontius Pilate. Evidently, students have
protested.
It is true
that this Holy week has turned into a vacation time; we think we are free from
the church’s oppression, which in other times, prohibited any expression of joy
during this week, even music that was not sacral. We now do want we want!
Yes… and
no. We still live in a Christian-Jewish culture, with a strong suffering, pain
and sickness paradigm. And even of we want it or not, this keeps surrounding
our lives; proof of this are this declarations which surprise students and readers,
even though they were made in a Catholic university.
We haven’t
got rid of those messages we have only masked them. But hey are still inside of
most of the people, especially women. Ill-treated women denounce abuses in a
very small percentage and abandon their abuser in a very small percentage as
well. Most of them hold on, they give second, third and fifth chances… Without
saying it out loud, they are thinking something like what the professor in this
article said.
Homophobia,
another subject in this professor’s class, is not in fashion, but is practiced,
and sometimes in a very cruel way. We do not think we have to give facts to
affirm this, we all know cases of this nature.
These are
extreme cases, but very frequent ones. The suffering paradigm is in our lives.
It seems that, if we do not suffer for our children is because we do not love
them enough; if we do not suffer with jealousy, is because we do not love; if
we do not sacrifice ourselves in our job, we are not doing enough. We are still
affiliated to suffering!
Please do
not think we are defending Gloria Casanova’s posture, but remember this is a
Church Social doctrine class, and these are the social ideas that the Catholic
Church has been transmitting during centuries.
So, it is
not our intention to judge or to debate about (as the university authorities
propose) what one person said, but to acknowledge that
this Social Doctrine still has a lot of influence on us. Although to
acknowledge is not to abolish, it is a first step.
If we only protest
about what others say, without analyzing what we feel or what women around us
feel, we will keep masking this terrible paradigm.
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