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| plus information dans notre section anglaise |
It is difficult in our time to keep a sense of balance.
On the one hand, Christian culture still carries the scars of associating body and sin, and of considering nakedness, especially that of a naked woman, a symbol of seduction and sex. On the other hand, the permissive culture of secular society cheapens respect for the body, and degrades sexual love and chastity. So I want to start with a principle. As Christians, we believe in the essential wholesomeness of all human bodies. We believe that we were created by a God who loves us as we are, body and soul. Our bodies, as God’s creation, are nothing for us to be ashamed of.
In this document we focus on nudity and its role in the exclusion of women from being fully accepted in the Church. The way nakedness was understood and represented has deeply effected, and continues to effect, the way women are perceived by many members in the Church, including some of our leaders.
| The second creation story in Genesis
described how Adam and Eve lost their original innocence. Shame for nakedness shows awareness of sin. |
“And when Eve saw that the tree was good for food, and that
it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise, she
took of the fruit thereof, and did eat, and gave also unto her husband with
her; and he did eat. |
 Notice how Eve and Satan both wear the same face and have the same (female) body! To enlarge, click on the picture or here. To see the whole painting, click here. |
Genesis, however, began to be interpreted so as to demonize the
body and sexuality. “The myth in Genesis, even read with earnest doctrinal
intention, does not name sexuality but the breaking of Yahweh’s
commandment as the cause of expulsion into the human condition, nor can the
knowledge of good and evil, which they gained by their act of
disobedience’ be totally explained in terms of sexual knowledge. Yet both
the disobedience and the knowledge soon became associated with sexuality
because the first thing Adam and Eve ‘saw’ when ‘their eyes were
opened’ was that they were naked. Before that they were naked and
unashamed; afterwards, it is implied, they were ashamed because they knew they
were naked, not because they had broken the word of their Lord God. Shameful
nakedness soon became sinful sexuality, ... A view of sexuality as
‘ungodly’, underpins the character of Eve herself.” See the excellent account in ‘Eve: the Mother of All Living’, by Anne Baring and Jules Cashford. |
| Some influential Latin Fathers of the
Church saw a direct link between a woman’s nakedness and marriage. Jerome held that marriage was only instituted after the fall. Marriage partakes in the effects of sin. Augustine thought that original sin was transmitted by sex, and that sexual pleasure itself was sinful. Tertullian taught that Eve’s curse lies on every woman. Thus arose one of the reasons why women could never be admitted to holy orders: because every woman is a creature riddled with sin. “Woman was the effective cause of damnation since she was the origin of transgression and Adam was deceived through her, and thus she cannot be the effective cause of salvation, because holy orders causes grace in others and so salvation.Guido de Baysio (1296 AD) |
 To enlarge, click on the picture or here. |
The association between woman, sin and death, as well as the fear of menstruation, led to Church customs, and later Church laws, forbidding any woman to touch sacred things. “No woman may receive the holy eucharist with bare hands.” “Every woman must have her dominicale ( = a linen cloth to cover her hand) at communion”. Canons 36 and 42, diocesan synod of Auxerre, France, in 585 or 588 AD.. Until 1914, the general code of the Church contained these laws: |
 To enlarge, click on the picture or here. |
| It is not to be wondered at that, when
catechumens were led to baptism, they were first anointed over their whole
bodies, and then immersed in the baptismal water. The whole body needed to be
cleansed and to be reborn. That is why ordained women deacons were required, viz. to anoint and immerse female catechumens. |
“The baptizer pours the oil for anointing into the cup of his hands and rubs it on the whole body of the catechumen, also in between the fingers of his hands and the toes of his feet, and his limbs, and his front and his back.” |
 To see the whole painting, click here. |
It is interesting that, in Walesby, England, a lead baptismal font of the 5th cent. was found that shows two women, probably women deacons, preparing a female catechumen for baptism. |
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Jesus probably hung naked on the cross. It showed his human vulnerability, in solidarity with us. |
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“An object of curiosity or rejection, This is how Catholic women feel whose vocation to the priesthood is rudely rejected. |
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Christ’s nakedness on the cross is at times invoked to
demonstrate that only a male priest can represent him at the
Eucharist! |
“The priest consecrates at the head of the people because God
has singled him out in his maleness to be Christ for the people, the summation
of the naked man before his mother at Golgotha and the whitely robed man before
the harlot in the Garden: Sex and Eucharist are together”. |
The Belgian artist, Malagoli, painted the Pregnant Virgin in 2002. To enlarge, click on the picture or here. |
As she describes in the accompanying article, she was amazed to find how many Catholics took exception at this representation. She asks: How can a religion that believes in the Word made Flesh object to imagining and representing this flesh that welcomed the Word? |
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An English artist, Guy Reid, produced a sculpture of Mary and Child in which both figures are totally naked. He said his intention was to portray the New Adam and New Eve. |
About this naked figure of Mary, read the following
reflections: |
| Nouvelles perspectives dans la morale sexuelle catholique/ Sources académiques |
| Le plaisir chrétien du sexe | Questions souvent posées | ||||
| Fantaisies | Nudité | Contraceptifs | Culpabilité | Homosexualité | Masturbation |
