Is Catholicism Just or a System of Oppression?

        I was raised in the Catholic Church throughout my entire childhood and teenage years. As a kid I was a strong believer in Catholic teaching and began to strengthen that when I began attending a Catholic elementary/middle school. My grandmother is one of the most religious people I know and an extremely firm believe in the Catholic Church. However, my belief in the Catholic Church began to diminish as I got older. Despite attending a private Catholic high school, St. Bernard High School in Play Del Rey, I slowly began seeing so many flaws in the Catholic Church. It started with the molestation cases that were brought to court with different priests and deacons. I was appalled that the church that I grew up in had such evil present in its leaders. I was starting to question everything about the Catholic Church. I never understood why parishioners were never more upset about these cases as they arose and would cease to talk about them and practically sweep it under the rug as if it never happened. I continued to question the church as I got into college and learned more about oppression and especially the oppression of minorities and women. 

I began to wonder why women in the Catholic Church were not allowed to be priests or have high powered positions within the church outside of the sisterhood and being a nun. That didn’t make sense to me. This has been the case for centuries now. This past December of 2016 one of my favorite artists, Ab-Soul released his highly anticipated album. He tackled the oppression of women and womanism throughout while referencing parallels to his own life. He brought several interesting points throughout his album. In his song, “Threatening Nature,” Ab-Soul Rapped “You singing’ hymns in church, I’m lookin’ for the her’s. In 66 books in the Bible, they ain’t let a lady say one word.” Though there are a few books named after women like the Book of Ruth, these women’s stories were written through the lens of a man. That is weird  and truly does not sit right with me. No women were included in deciding which books would be apart of the Bible. 

The common perception is that God is a man which is something I don’t really believe. God is a woman or of no gender in my opinion. The creation story doesn’t make sense to me (written by men) either. The story explains that God placed Adam on the Earth and Eve was created from his rib. However every single human being, man and woman, are born from the womb of a woman. This story has been used to restrict women and ingrain in their minds from a young age that they are less than man and to be submissive to the man’s wants and desires. Also look at who made the decision that abortion should be illegal and condemned by Christian churches, men. 

Apart of many of the problems women face in society of not being equal comes directly from centuries of oppression via religions like Catholicism that hold substantial power throughout the world. Men have used Christianity and religion as a means of oppression for women for centuries now and if there will ever be a change, religious teachings must change.