Pope attacks 'lethal effects' of feminists on family life

Feminist thinkers have hit back at the Catholic Church after a Vatican statement criticised the female liberation movement and insisted that men and women are fundamentally different.

Feminist thinkers have hit back at the Catholic Church after a Vatican statement criticised the female liberation movement and insisted that men and women are fundamentally different.

Published yesterday in the form of a letter to all Catholic bishops, the statement says that feminism can persuade women to become "adversaries of men" and that this can have "lethal effects in the structure of the family".

The 37-page document was signed by the hardline conservative thinker Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, who heads the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, and was approved by Pope John Paul II.

It said women should be respected and have equal rights in the workplace, that but differences between the sexes must be recognised. It criticised feminist attempts to erase gender differences, saying they have "inspired ideologies which, for example, call into question the family in its natural two-parent structure of mother and father, and make homosexuality and heterosexuality virtually equivalent".

The Vatican called for greater recognition of motherhood and urged society to recognise caring for children as real work. Yet women's access to positions of authority should not be limited, it said. Governments should make it easier for women to hold jobs without "relinquishing their family life".

Erin Pizzey, founder of the international women's refuge movement, said: "I don't think the Catholic Church - whose own priests and bishops cannot marry - is in a position to make such statements. It is one of the most emotionally illiterate organisations I know, and they need to put their own house in order first."

Angela Phillips, a lecturer at Goldsmiths College, London, said: "Social changes are uncomfortable for people who are part of structures of a previous society, and so they try to maintain the status quo that women have fought against."

The letter, titled "On the collaboration of men and women in the Church and the World", is an attempt to take account of the changing role of women. Catherine Pepinster, editor of The Tablet, a liberal Catholic weekly, said that the document is less "anti-feminist" than the hostile reaction suggests. In Vatican terms, it is a breakthrough because it recognises the wider debate, she said.

"It does emphasise that there's a physical difference that you can't deny or ignore between men and women. It talks about men and women being complementary. But that's not the same as saying women should be subservient or acquiescent," she said.

"Much as people may want to welcome what this document has got to say, many would also like to have seen more recognition for the role of women in the Church. We're starting to see that, but only very recently."

It is an irony, she said, that much of the document has been informed by feminist thinkers - but this fact is not acknowledged by the Vatican.