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Emancipation's Mess of Pottage (Gen. XXV, 29-34)
Bishop Williamson's Letters
This letter which has been in the public domain for a considerable time,
is here published because of its public interest. The letter is also available
in book form here: Volume II: The Winona Letters, Part I From The Episcopal
Consecrations of 1988 to The Second General Chapter of the SSPX August 1988 -
August 1994 Rt. Rev. Richard Williamson With an introduction by Dr. David Allen
White Order Now! Price: $29.99
Winona, September 1, 2001
Dear Friends and Benefactors:
Canadians strike me as a gentle people; but "strike" is the word! Ten
years ago I was innocently asked in Canada whether women should wear trousers.
Some ten weeks ago, also in Canada, I was asked whether a girl should go to a
conservative Novus Ordo university. The answer now to the second question may
be as stormy as the answer to the first:- because of all kinds of natural
reasons, almost no girl should go to any university!
The deep-down reason is the same as for the wrongness of women's
trousers: the unwomaning of woman. The deep-down cause in both cases is that
Revolutionary man has betrayed modem woman; since she is not respected and
loved for being a woman, she tries to make herself a man. Since modem man does
not want her to do what God meant her to do, namely to have children, she takes
her revenge by invading all kinds of things that man is meant to do. What else
was to be expected? Modern man has only himself to blame.
In fact, only in modern times have women dreamt of going to university,
but the idea has now become so normal that even Catholics, whose Faith guards
Nature, may have difficulty in seeing the problem. However, here is a pointer
in the direction of normalcy: any Catholic with the least respect for Tradition
recognizes that women should not be priests - can he deny that if few women
went to university, almost none would wish to be priests? Alas, women going to
university is part of the whole massive onslaught on God's Nature which
characterizes our times. That girls should not be in universities flows from
the nature of universities and from the nature of girls: true universities are
for ideas, ideas are not for true girls, so true universities are not for true
girls.
NATURE OF UNIVERSITIES
Let us begin with the true university. As defined by Cardinal Newman in
his famous "Idea of a University", it is "a place of teaching universal
knowledge". Universities in this sense were a creation of the Catholic Church
in the Middle Ages, and, as the Cardinal splendidly recalls, theology held
pride of place there because, as science of the Supreme Being, it is the
supreme science which alone can appoint to all other sciences their proper
place. So a true university is a place for all-round learning of reality
beneath the queenship of Catholic theology. The value of sciences and this need
of theirs for theology is why the Catholic Church is always tending to create
universities, and why she alone can create true universities, directing all
study ultimately to the glory of God and the salvation of souls.
From which, one must question what kind of queenship can be exercised by
Novus Ordo theologians, even conservative. Normally, "conservative" Catholics
who have left Tradition are in bad faith, so will be bad teachers, while those
who have never known Tradition will be ignorant, and so bad teachers. Both will
make a point of "rescuing" a damsel in"schismatic" or "excommunicated"
distress. Therefore a Traditional girl putting herself under "conservative"
teachers will, to keep her Faith, require a special effort to resist the
menfolk whom God designed (and her parents paid) her to follow. She will then
be voluntarily so setting her true Catholic Faith against her true feminine
nature that one or the other is almost bound to suffer.
It also follows from the queenship of Theology that a democratic age
like ours, rejecting God and dethroning Theology, will make a nonsense of
universities. Sure enough. All around us we see "universities" which are much
worse than brothels, because not only does democratic "equality"
indiscriminately herd there together all kinds of boys and girls with little or
no interest in ideas so that they should not be studying in the first place,
but also, by silencing Theology and rendering Philosophy ridiculous, these
"universities" corrupt the highest part of the youngsters' nature, their minds,
leaving their lower nature with little or no means of resisting the aided and
abetted promiscuity of the two young sexes. Survey the waste on any
"university" campus today - feckless unmen and trashy unwomen whose noblest
activity is throwing frisbees at one another!
Such "universities" dedicated to the defiance of God and Nature, make
mincemeat of the youngsters' Faith (if they had any), of their morals and of
their common sense. Poor parents. But they have mocked God, and God is not
mocked. Obviously no boy, let alone any girl, should be sent to such a
"university". What needs to be proved is that even to a decent university, if
such could be found, few or no girls should be sent. This is because of the
God-given nature of girls. Which, despite today's massive propaganda to the
contrary, is quite different from the God-given nature of boys!
NATURE OF GIRLS
For a sane grasp of woman's nature, let me appeal to the Church's Common
Doctor, St. Thomas Aquinas, distant now by three-quarters of a millennium from
our own disturbed times. The three reasons he gives in his Summa Theologiae
(2a, 2ae, 177,2) why woman should not teach in Church in public can all be
applied to why she should not teach or learn in a public university. Firstly,
he says, teaching is for superiors, and women are- not to be superior, but
subject, to their men (Gen III,16).
Secondly, women stepping up to teach in public can easily inflame men's
lust (Ecclus IX,11). Thirdly, "Women are not usually ("communiter") perfect in
wisdom".
To grasp these three reasons, let us back up another five millennia, to
Adam and Eve. Since the word "nature" comes from the Latin word for "being
born", then to study a thing's nature one goes back to its birth. Eve was
created by God to be a "help" to Adam (Gen. 11,18). She was to help him, says
St Thomas Aquinas elsewhere (1a,92,1), not for any other work than that of
generation (or reproduction), because for any other work man could be more
suitably helped by another man. It follows that woman's nature is
intrinsically geared to motherhood, so that in all things pertaining to
motherhood she is man's superior, in all else she is his inferior, and in none
of all the things in which the two sexes are complementary are they equal
Now to attract a man so as to marry and become a mother, to nurture and
rear children and to retain their father, she needs superior gifts of feeling
and instinct, e.g. sensitivity, delicacy, tact, perspicacity, tenderness, etc.
by which her mind
will
correspondingly be swayed, which is why no husband can understand how the mind
of his wife works! For to do the work of generation, i.e. to ensure nothing
less than the survival and continuation of mankind, God designed her mind to
run on a complementary and different basis from her man's. His mind is
designed not to be swayed by feelings but on the contrary to control them, so
that while his feelings may be inferior to hers, his reason is superior. And
reason being meant to rule in rational beings, then he is natured to rule over
her (Gen. III, 16), as can be seen for example whenever she needs to resort to
him for her feelings not to get out of control.
Correspondingly, while she senses family (and loves to talk about it),
he responds to the world around and wants to master it (Gen II,15,19,20). While
she is people-oriented, he is reality-oriented. (How often will a woman pull an
idea or a question of reality back to family! - "You're against drink? You're
attacking my husband!" This is in woman's nature. One does not mock her for
it.) So while she is queen of feeling within the home, he must be king of
reason over the home. So while he must love her and listen to her, at the end
of the day she must obey him, because he is natured to take the broader view
and to be the more reasonable (Eph V 22,25: Col III, 18,19).
FIRST REASON
Now what does a university call for? Whereas in modem "universities" the
males all believe in "if it feels good, do it," which is why they are, as they
wish, overrun by feeling females, on the contrary in a true university one
thinks about universal reality, which is the prerogative of men. A woman can
think in this way, or do a good imitation of handling ideas, but then she will
not be properly thinking as woman. The dilemma is inescapable: she cannot do
what is properly men's thinking or work without cutting across her deepest
nature. Did this lawyeress check her hair-do just before coming into court? If
she did, she is one distracted lawyer. If she did not, she is one distorted
woman.
Moreover, true university thinking tends to produce leaders because true
students have pondered on more or less universal reality. Cardinal Newman may
argue that the cultivated mind is an end in itself, but if Mother Church has
always raised universities, is it not because an elite of all-round minds will
in any society powerfully help many souls to get to Heaven, if those minds'
studying has been governed over all by the true Faith? But women are neither
meant, nor normally gifted, to be leaders! Therefore girls should not be at
university. As for a Queen Isabella the Catholic, Spain was her family and she
never went to university! Nor did Theresa of Avila, Catherine of Sienna or Joan
of Arc.
Concretely, if a girl devotes several years of her youth and much money
of her parents to acquiring a university education, especially a decent one,
how easily will she submit to her husband, especially if he has not had that
education? And how may she not argue with him if he has had it? And if she has
a "degree", how will she not think herself above the multiple humiliations of
being "barefoot and pregnant"? And if she is a "graduate", how will she not
hold-herself superior to being-a “vegetable at the-kitchen-sink"? And if
making a family makes her forget in the right kind of way all about
"graduating", "degrees" and "university", why go there in the first place? The
dilemma is inescapable: in doing manly things like going to a university,
either she is merely going through the motions or she is damaging her potential
for motherhood - conclusion: she should not go there.
SECOND REASON
We come to St Thomas' second reason: the inflaming of lust. Enough said
about today's unibrothels. What will happen if heaps of boys and girls are
thrown together with mention of God even forbidden is massive common sense, but
that is not the whole story!
Just suppose that a decent girl can find a decent university which is
cultivating on a broad front minds of an elite of boys who will provide
tomorrows world with its leaders. If she is smart enough to study, will she not
be smart enough to know that even if she does not wish to distract the boys,
she will still be a distraction? To this reason there is no exception. So if
she is that decent, will she not prefer to hang back from distracting the
future leaders that she and all her society tomorrow will need?
Then the more decent the university, will she not the more keep away?
What woman can be imagined taking part in Plato's Dialogues? Not even the
Blessed Virgin Mary took part in the Last Supper. Girls at university are a
double source of confusion, both doing what girls were not created to do, and
distracting the boys from doing what the boys were created to do.
At any true university, the worthwhile students do not want to be
distracted by girls. Those are exactly the potential husbands that the really
intelligent girls will go after. That is why even really intelligent girls
should not be at university.
THIRD REASON
For indeed - St. Thomas's third reason - "women are not usually perfect
in wisdom". This is because woman's family-wisdom is priceless, it comes
straight from God, but it isas wisdom, because it orders only a part of
reality.
Woman's thinking is subjective, inward, intuitive, concrete,
small-scale, with a gift for loving details. University thinking needs to be
objective, outward, rational, abstract, large-scale, with a drive towards the
grand principles. Her thinking follows her heart. University thinking can only
follow the head. While a university professor is teaching, the boy will be
listening to and learning from the words but the girl will naturally be
listening to the man and learning by osmosis. Only by an effort will she listen
to the words, because her heart is elsewhere - usually on the boys. Naturally
docile and possibly possessed of more than sufficient brains, she can always do
a good imitation of a good student, especially if she wishes to please a
particular male professor. Nor, again, should she be mocked for that, insofar
as God designed her to please and to attract - a husband. Rarely, however, will
the impressive studentess be a really good student, because the Lord God simply
designed her heart and mind for a quite other task. Girls, do you really want
to spend so much of your time and of your parents' money on doing something God
almost for sure did not mean you to be doing?
OBJECTIONS
But Pius XII encouraged you to make the best of being forced out into
the world? - Maybe he was making the best of an already bad situation in
the 1940's and 1950's, when he hoped women would bring to bear their femininity
on the public domain. However, by the definitions of "feminine" and "public",
that is a contradiction in terms. Fifty years later, who can deny that the
public domain has de-feminized, woman? As a friend said, "Women used to have
careers open to them only in nursing and teaching, which they did well. Now
they no longer know how to do either!"
It is high time for Catholics to buck the current and to buck the world!
Europe, center of Christendom, is collapsing, because European girls are all
being taught to go to "university" and to "put off' having babies! Woman and
family are in desperate crisis - do we want to follow the swine over the
cliff?
But men today are unfit to lead, so you have to go to university to
take their place? – You cannot take their place!!!! (The exception
proves the rule). Today you are merely following them into "universities",
tomorrow you will be following them out. By hook or by crook, do something
motherly, play your part as God meant you to do, and God can give you back from
above the manly leaders and the husband that you pray for and need, but that
you cannot by the nature of things wrest to yourselves from below. You cannot
restore God's order by breaking it. Get behind your men! Behind, you have an
enormous power to inspire and guide. In front, you will merely make them
more irresponsible than ever...
But what about the Dominicans' school for girls in Idaho? - As much as
St Thomas Aquinas disapproves women teaching in public, he approves their
teaching in private, in other words at home, "or in a home-like setting". A
university cannot resemble a home, but wise Mothers can keep a girls' secondary
school like a home. See the enclosed flyer for an encouragement to support the
same Dominican Mothers' primary and secondary schooling in France.
But where will girls' secondary schools find women teachers if no girls
go to university? -One needs no university to learn most of what secondary
schoolgirls need to be taught, for instance "domestic economy, setting up home,
running a house, the care and education of children, the spiritual and social
preparation for marriage" - Pius XII's timeless list, to the Union of Catholic
Women, June 24, 1949. Of course if the law of the land, as now in France,
demands "university" "diplomas" for women to teach or to open girls' schools,
then some women's "university" attendance becomes, for the duration of that
law, an exceptional necessity. However, exceptions make bad rules!
But what about the co-educational college of the Society of St Pius X
at St. Mary's in Kansas? - It is still a family-scale operation, typical of
the true Church's drive to teach the true Faith in as much depth as possible
amidst difficult circumstances, but according as it may expand and rise in the
future to a truly university level of teaching, I for one piously hope that the
boys will by then be giving such a lead and example, creating such a new world,
that the girls will no longer feel any need to attend.
But what are girls
in the meantime to do, who have a brain and are not ready to get married?-
Let them use their brain: firstly, to grasp how God designed them, and
for what role; secondly, to pray God He grant us all some men; thirdly, to read
at home on their own (for instance Jane Austen, a classic example of how much
domestic woman can do); fourthly, to devise with their parents a feminine place
and function where they can mature towards marriage. Or - for Heaven's sakes -
let them think of a vocation! Old saying: "A woman is once a woman, a nun is
twice a woman"!
CONCLUSION
For all these reasons, domestic girls are not by nature for public
universities. Where did modern man go wrong?
As man puts himself in the place of God, so this life on earth blocks
out of view any after-life in God's Heaven or Hell. Man's pride unchains his
inclination to pleasure here below. Self comes first But children- however
unconsciously -demand and reward selflessness in their parents. Therefore the
children, and the demand, and the reward, most go. But woman's life is natured
to center around children. Therefore woman's life in particular becomes empty,
as does her home, especially if working conditions take her husband also away.
She will inevitably follow him into his domains, eg. university, where she is
liable to impose female patterns that do not belong, but that are frustrated at
home. She will not let her being remain meaningless!
As this letter has often argued, such a breaking of family, home and
woman is too deep a violation of Nature for the modern way of life to be able
to survive. With men in the lead, Catholics, whose Faith should give
them a handle on Nature, will be wise, according to circumstances, to
take remedial action now. The journey of a thousand miles begins with the first
step.
Men, think! Give substance to the home! Girls, I bless you,
your parents and all dear readers.
Sincerely yours in Christ,
+Richard Williamson
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