Remembering Mary Daly, a mother of contemporary feminist theology
Mark Vernon* article published on the newspaper website The Guardian (Great Britain) on January 6, 2010, freely translated by Diana
Mary Daly, feminist theologian and philosopher, is dead. It was a boldly creative spirit; A witty, uncomfortable and terribly serious writer. He probably developed more than any other the thought of contemporary feminist theology. Here is a taste of what was willing to say.
In books like Gyn/Ecology (Gino/ecology) is Beyond God the Father (Beyond God the Father) imagined the Trinity - Father, Son and Holy Spirit: all male, three in one - like an eternal homosexual orgy. He claimed that calling God Father it means making the fathers of the gods, apologizing to all horrors, from religious totalitarianism to domestic violence: "The character of Vito Corleina in the godfather is a vivid illustration of the marriage between tenderness and violence, so intrinsic in the ideal of the patriarchate", wrote in the book Beyond God the Father. Without a doubt he tried to provoke, but not for his interest or to arouse a sensation; Rather, his radical reinterpretation is a challenge to think differently.
I was advised to read his books by a professor from boston College, The catholic university with which he collaborated for more than 30 years, with difficulty. This is a story that has told in Amazon Grace: Re-Calling the courage to sin big (The grace of the Amazon: recall the courage to sin big).
Those who advised me was a Jesuit, a man who had never heard her speak, because she forbidden men to attend her lessons, claiming that it was a right act and compensation for the long silence of women. His lessons were as incisive as his words.
(It is worth adding that Boston's Jesuits were not fearful of Rome. While I was with them, a letter was sent from the Holy See with the aim of censoring the Catholic institutions. The Jesuits, reading the letter in the morning edition of the newspaper, protested with obscene gestures and with type comments "Rome is far from Massachussetts").
Theologians contested Daly's statements: the feminist theologians who remained within the Christian tradition emphasize that alongside the male images of God as the Father and Son there are the most ambiguous of God as a Holy Spirit. In the Jewish Bible the Spirit of God is conceived as a wise woman, Sofia. Sofia was even joined to the figure of Christ: in the time of Jesus it was well rooted as a symbol of relationship with Jesus. Paul in 1 Corinthian connects the figure of wisdom with the person of Jesus, claiming that the wisdom of God makes wisdom shocked of the world.
Furthermore, it is surprising That paolo contrasties the true (feminine) wisdom to the False (male) wisdom of scholars, philosophers and essays: a sketch of protofeminist movement. Still, Jesus was a man. The female word Sofia he lost himself, and became the male Logos when it was about to interpret the metaphysics of the son.
Mary Dady also passed through Christianity. However, there is a feminist juice in Christian stories, and she encouraged other theologians to extract it. In the heart of Christian history there is the image of the man who died on the cross: a victim of male violence, violence in which God the Father was at least implicitly accomplice: "My God, my God why did you abandon me?", shouts the broken figure.
Thus, the story can be read transgressively, at the same time terrible and full of hope. For a feminist believer, Jesus could be identified as queer with suffering women, thus offering hope of redemption, interrupting the cycle of male violence. It is as if the perverse ideal patriarchal of "Tender violence", as Mary Dady wrote, collapsed under the weight of her hateful contradictions.
Dady could reply that this concept is even more questionable: history perpetuates the dependence of women on men, also to alleviate their suffering. Dady was not one of those who let the Christian patriarchate lose. But, at least, this reading places the responsibility for violence precisely on the shoulders of men. Dady inspired a generation to seek the possibility that Christianity has the ability to eradicate their patriarchate.
* Mark Vernon is a psychotherapist, writer and teacher, and is interested in particular of ancient philosophy and its importance for today. He practices the profession of psychotherapist privately, manages groups based on constellations and works at the Maudsley psychiatric hospital in London. He teaches the Idler Academy and the School of Life. In Italian his book God appeared (Daedalo, 2012). For more information visit your website: www.markvernon.com
Original text: Mary Daly, uppity theologian
