God has revealed (excuse and forgive me) “God’s self” as Father. Neither does this mean that men are better, etc. I know that this has been used as an argument and means to subjugate women historically. But that does not mean any change in terminology or theology is called for. What is called for is a change in attitude and behavior.

So, before we go there I think we need to put aside any discussion of whether men are better than women because that is not even a question supported by the texts being discussed or by anyone serious about theology.

Sorry for the rant.

Genevieve, It seems to me that there are three degrees of being in the image of God. The first is as we come into this world endowed with a soul with the faculties of intellect and will. Men and women image God equally in this way. Interestingly Saint Thomas says angels are made more in the image of God since they have greater intellect. The second way to image God is to be baptized and to share in the life of God by receiving Sanctifying Grace and the third is to grow in that life of grace as Clara says by employing our intellect and will in the practice of the virtues. Obviously men and women can be equal in this competition of drawing closer and closer to the image of God, yet no one will ever attain the degree in which the Blessed Virgin Mary is the image of God.

However, Saint Thomas says: “But in a secondary sense the image of God is found in man, and not in woman; for man is the beginning and end of woman; as God is the beginning and end of every creature.” We wish he had expounded more on this “secondary sense” but nevertheless I take it to mean that as God is the Father and Creator, man alone represents that basic aspect.

“I believe in God, the Father Almighty, Creator of Heaven and earth, and in Jesus Christ, His only Son,” is what the Apostles gave us. I think those words better represent to us the image of God better than words of feminine nature. In fact it would be blasphemous to exchange goddess for God, mother for Father, daughter for Son. Great Christian artists have depicted the Trinity in their art. I know it’s impossible yet man needs some type of mental image. In the Sistine Chapel, for 500 years the Popes have looked upon one of the masterpieces of Michelangelo. The forms are far from being angelic or gender-neutral and over the years objections have been made. Nevertheless no one objected to the image of God as an older bearded man stretching forth his finger to instill life and His image into Adam. Could we ever change that and depict God as a woman? Some have seen fit to exclude sexist language from the sacrament of Baptism and insert gender-neutral names for the Trinity. All such “baptisms” Rome declared are invalid. I hope this answers your question.

Consider John Paul II’s phenomenological arguments about the good of marriage. He discusses the attraction that men have for women and women for men, the effects that marriage and sex have for each of them emotionally and spiritually, and so forth. This is phenomenology. He is not arguing from higher and more abstract metaphysical principles, but rather from on-the-ground observations about human interaction. Now, a skeptic might look at that and say, “Ah, the pope has shown that marriage is just a human construct! We just order things that way because of human needs and the sorts of experiences that humans have in their relationships!” He would be mistaken, because he would be missing a critical point: these proclivities are ours by nature and are given to us by God. Thus was can presume that they reflect something true about the natural order of things to which we, as creatures ourselves, should be attentive.

I don’t really understand your complaint about “uneven application.” It’s quite normal for us to be prescribed particular customs or devotional practices that are observed at particular special times. We fast during Lent and feast during Paschaltide, even though we ourselves presumably don’t change much from one season to the next. We kneel when we’re praying and stand up the rest of the time, though in a sense we’re always equally subject to God’s command. We dress more nicely for Mass than for everyday occasions, though in some sense we live constantly in God’s presence and should always be awed by His condescension towards us. Such are the variations of Catholic life, which is presumably ordered that way to tend to our impatient and variable natures.

1. I have the uncomfortable feeling, due to some snippets and exchanges above that some think that men are more perfectly in the “image and likeness of God” than women are, for a variety of stated reasons. This is contrary to Church teaching, as clarified in the Catechism and Mulieris Dignitatem. Could someone clarify that I have misunderstood comments above? I wouldn’t want long answers, a simple yes or no would suffice: Are men and women equal in the way they image God? (Not the same, but fundamentally equal. And this is different than the question of authority and wifely obedience, to which I fully subscribe.)

2. Concerning this comment (“However, I do fully concur with the idea that the head has particular significance phenomenologically. I talked about this in my initial post, in fact, when I discussed the way we identify ourselves especially with our heads; it is much more than the sum of its surface area. Covering the head seems like a mark of humility, and by the same token, we often mark people of significance with fancy headgear of some sort.”)

This has always been my simple point. “We often mark” indicates that WE create constructs to make larger points. Covering the head has muliple meanings, given the context. I’m saying that there’s no over-riding context that demands veiling now. It’s nice, but a secondary thing.

If women are to veil, they should also keep quiet, and veil in the home upon marriage. But then, why not as children to show their obedience to their father? Why not every woman everywhere since God always sees us? It’s unevenly applied because of confusion about what significance WE want to give it.

“Christ is a male (extra point: He doesn’t cover His Head to submit to the Father, now does He?)”

Actually, in His earthly life, Our Lord would have been expected to do this. I guess we have no concrete evidence on the matter; He could have been a rebel and refused, I suppose. Anyway.

But my goodness, there’s no need to have an inferiority complex about all this just because you can’t wear a veil! I’ve already agreed that the man manifests certain divine perfections more clearly than the woman through his attire and through the exercise of his authority (in the home if nowhere else.) But on the flip side of that, it seems perfectly obvious that women represent Christian submission more fully with their prayerful attire. In bringing themselves before God, they take on the garb of the Church, the Bride of Christ, receptive to divine graces. That seems obviously to be a more complete or perfect expression of humility before the Almighty than being bareheaded, which, as you’ve agreed, is largely a mark of freedom, independence and authority. You seem all in a twist to argue that veiling for women is FIRST AND FOREMOST a mark of submission to men, and then ONLY BY ANALOGY the image of the receptive Church. Why? It doesn’t seem like good theology to me… generally it works the other way. That is to say, we can generally take it that we are made the way we are (or ordered to live in a particular way) in reflection of some more real, higher thing, and not the other way around. Which, incidentally, seems to have been St. John Chrysostom’s position on this passage, from what I remember from Raindear’s comment much earlier in this conversation. The Church isn’t portrayed as a veiled woman in imitation of Christian women submitting to their husbands. Women veil and submit to their husbands in imitation of the spotless Bride of Christ.

That’s obviously not to say that men can’t veil because of an inherent imperfection. That would be just as silly as saying that women can’t be priests, or the heads of families, because of some inherent defect in them. Not at all! It’s just that each sex, as I have said repeatedly, manifests certain of the virtues more clearly than the other. Of course you’re right that it can be an act of submission not to be more submissive than God wills (just as, by the same token, it can be an act of pride to clothe oneself with more humility than is decorous, as for example if the Holy Father insisted on wearing rags instead of the garments appropriate to his office.) But for those who are permitted to “clothe themselves with submission”, if you will, it seems perfectly proper to take joy in the privilege. Charging me with “veil supremacy” for doing so is, it seems to me, rather ungracious.

Do monks and friars remove the cowl for Holy Communion? Do prelates remove zucchetti? I think we’re getting close to the point where we can say that even in all-male settings, at the most intimate moments of prayer (like the Consecration and Communion) all men say “hats off” to the Lord, whereas women are extra certain to be veiled at those times.

How far afield we’ve come from the original point of dispute: men ain’t supposed to be veiled. Clara errs here — female veiling is not “something-men-ought-to-be-doing-but-can’t-because-of-some-contingent-circumstance.” No, St. Paul says that men disgrace their heads by covering them, period. Men show submission to God in prayer by having their heads uncovered. There is nothing specially or specifically submissive *to God* about covering the head, just something submissive in a specifically *female way.*

Clara’s argument seems to be:

A. The veil (shorthand for covering the head) is appropriate to women submitting to God.

B. The Church is represented as a woman submissive to Christ, the Bridegroom.

C. Men are part of the Church.

D. Ergo, *all things being equal,* men should be covering their heads to be like the Church to which they belong.

E. But the contingency of the presence of women means that not all things are equal. And us poor men have the misfortune of never experiencing the covering the head, as we ought.

St. Paul does not say this at all. He says:
1) Veiling is appropriate for women alone, not for men.
2) Bareheadedness is appropriate for men alone, not for women.
So at prayer both must be equally submissive *to God.* The man displays the head, since he is created first and has God’s image in a special, secondary way that the woman does not. The woman hides the head, since she is created for the man. Neither bareheadedness nor veiling has an extra value qua submission to God. Baring the male head is to expose the extra share in the divine image that men have, which is to submit to God who gave us that image and glory. Veiling the female head is to acknowledge the headship given to the man and to acknowledge that the woman is the glory of the man, not vice versa. As far as submitting to God, both are doing it the right way. Baring and covering both are acts of submission, each being appropriate for one gender and not for the other.

What of the Church as woman, then? Why is she depicted as a veiled woman? Here is how the argument should be framed, so as to avoid saying what *St. Paul vehemently rejects,* namely Clara’s proposal about men covering the head to submit to God.

A. Christ and the Church are depicted as a married couple.

B. Christ is a male (extra point: He doesn’t cover His Head to submit to the Father, now does He?)

C. Since Christ is a male, the Church is depicted as female so it can be seen as His Bride.

D. Women show submission by veiling.

E. The Church is depicted as a veiled woman.

Ergo, it is not as though veiling is the appropriate sign of submission for the Christian qua Christian. No, just of the Christian woman qua Christian woman. The Church is represented as a woman, but obviously it includes men. Men should no more veil in order to better “represent” submission than they should grow their hair long and act effeminate. They have their own stance for prayer and prophecy, and that is to have the head uncovered (or else to have attention drawn to it; in any case, the sign of the hats in question is not to veil/obscure the head).

Clara, your quixotic veil-supremacy runs right smack up against the Vessel of Election. Which is why this won’t work:

“Men can’t illustrate this as perfectly because of the presence of their wives, who still require their headship even at times when they all collectively are submitting themselves to God. But the men might perhaps take some inspiration from the sight of the veiled women in the congregation, who visually represent what, in a broader sense, they too are doing (that is, submitting themselves to God) as members of the congregation.”

St. Paul nowhere says that men are doing anything imperfectly by not covering our heads. He says we’re doing exactly what we should by *not* covering them. Why are we supposed to look to women to represent what we “in a broader sense” are doing when in the narrow sense we are already doing it? We are appearing at Mass in the way God, via nature and St. Paul, told us to — bareheaded. We *are* submitting as members of the congregation — male congregants, who are supposed to have our heads uncovered. Your speculations, Clara, just don’t have any firm basis and they run contrary to God’s revelation on the matter. Not all of the terms are spelled out with perfect philosophical precision — that virtually never happens in Scripture. I do know what is clear, and it is that veiling is not something men refrain from because of some imperfection. Rather, our own peculiar *perfections* as men dictate that we *not* veil as a sign of our submission. Veiling is for women, and it is by no defect that men do not veil. Following St. Paul, it would be just as logical to ask women to draw inspiration from their husbands, who humbly present themselves before God with bared head, presenting their peculiar share in the divine image for comparison (good or ill) against the divine model, any damage wrought by sin being exposed for all to see, the head unhelmeted against any blow from above.

And I’m serious about that last part — there’s a phenomenology of submission in baring the head, too. Via headship men take on extra responsibility and from those who have responsibility more is asked. More *exposure* for criticism — putting the neck on the line (pretty hard to dow when wearing a veil) — and more exposure for blows (no helmet for extra protection). Nakedness/exposure of the head can mean something religious, too. There’s also the removal of any rank that a hat might signify — as I say, even bishops take off the miter in the course of the Mass. To be bareheaded is to be equal with all the other men, not to hide behind rank, but to hold up one’s “headship” for comparison with the divine original and take whatever comes with that.

Anyway, but my point is, that relationship doesn’t hold between man and woman. Perhaps you’ll just say that Bishop MacEvilly never meant to imply any such thing, but in that case it’s not at all clear to me what he did mean when he said that woman is “immediately in the image of the man.” Why else would he say such a thing? St. Paul doesn’t. St. Thomas doesn’t. The interpretation I suggest has a certain affinity, I think, with ancient and medieval philosophy, which is why I supposed the Bishop must have been thinking along those lines. Of course, for reasons I’ve already given, I don’t think he can ultimately be right in this case.

But that intuition has no place here, because Adam didn’t make Eve, nor did God set out to “copy” man when he made woman. He used Adam’s flesh as the matter, but His own image in the form, just as in Adam’s case. There’s really no sense in which God’s image is funneled to Eve through Adam.

The only reason I got into it anyway was by way of spelling out the error of the interpretation advanced above, wherein woman was deemed to be in God’s image only mediante viro, and to a lesser degree. Presumably neither St. Thomas nor St. Paul was specifically looking to deny that proposition in their writings on this general subject, so the same details might not have been relevant to their minds.

If you just want to make the point that not every aspect of my interpretation can be taken directly from the passages that we’ve been looking at, then yes, that’s perfectly true.

I doubt that it is harmonious. St. Thomas says, “But in a secondary sense the image of God is found in man, and not in woman.” This is a question of men having vs. women lacking the secondary, particular way (which I admit is both secondary and particular), not of how each sex has its own peculiar share. St. Thomas does not give any reason to think that there is any other “particular way” at all. The text of St. Paul does not say so, either. Both men and women share in intellect and will, men alone possess the secondary glory in question in Corinthians, as is proved by the fact of who was created for whom and not vice versa.