The Bridgeport evening farmer. [volume] (Bridgeport, Conn.) 1866-1917, 1911-06-09
The Catholic Church
And Woman Suffrage
Can Address by Rev. M. M Sheedy,
DID,, of Altoona, Pal

Can Address by Rev. M M. sheedy
DID,, of Altoona, Pa.)
Ours is an era of change, said tn,
preacher There has been no great
er change than the present altered
posltlon OF woman. We are read
| justing many Of our traditional ideas
on the status of woman Unde
modern conditions-condition which
have not halted, but are still COINS
| forward-a new solution for man,
old problems is demanded. We have
with us the eternal problem of WON.
an. The inherited idea, that woman
was emphatically q being to be tax.
en- care of, one not to be trusted, but
hedged in by defined safeguards and
social regulations, is giving place to a
new idea or estimate of woman. That
new idea is that she is a being fully
capable of taking care Of herself, able
to defend herself and to share in car
rying the burdens hitherto exclusively
reserved for men
The problem as it presents itself
from the Catholic standpoint is this:
status be made without any sacrifice
of those gracious qualities of mind
and heart which form the charm the
refining influence, the moral elevation
of womankind?
From the beginning the Catholic
Church mas given us the true ideal
Of Womanhood. When Christianity
appeared it found woman practically
a slave or the sport of mems pleas
ures. Under the protection of the
Church, with the gradual abolition of
slavery, took place the elevation of
woman and her redemption from po-
lygamy. Lecky, the historian, points
out that mo idea has exercised a
more salutary influence than the Cath
Ole Church's conception of the Vir-
gin and the veneration paid to her."
For the first time woman was raised
to her rightful position and the sane
tlty of weakness was recognized mo
longer, he writes, 'the slave, the toy
of man, no longer associated only with
the ideas of degradation and sensual
1ty, woman rose in the person of the
Virgin Mother into a new sphere and
became the object of a reverential
homage of which antiquity had no
conception
Church Brings Freedom.
To the Church, then, woman owes
her present position of freedom. But
the world of to-day is progressive in
its ideas and woman demands the
fullest liberty. She is demanding
equal rights with man. Hence we
have all over the world at the pres
ent time movement on the part of
woman for political rights. including
is most intense to-day in England.
In elections held last week in Italy
there was for the first time a woman
suffrage plank. Here in the United
States there is a growing demand for
woman suffrage. A bill for the re-
form of the electoral law passed the
Swedish Diet on February Is last. 1t
provides for proportional representa-
ton in Parliament, and all persons
over tWenty-four years of age are en-
titled to vote without discrimination
on account of sex. Women have
now complete suffrage in the three
Scandinavian countries of Norway.
Sweden and Finland. as we'll as in the
British colonies of Australia and New
Zealand, and the American States of
Wyoming, Colorado, Idaho and Utah.
So you see the question has assumed
a very practical form indeed.
What is the attitude of the Catho-
lie Church towards the general
movement for woman suffrage? I'm
like the subject with which we We're
dealing last Sunday evening. the
Catholic Church has so far said moth