The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1912-11-21
MEN AND WOMEN tQUaL,
 IS CATHOLIC TEACHING
Women in Marriage Implies No Inferiority.

New York. Nov. 21-At Delmonico's yesterday afternoon the Rev. Joseph H. McMahon of the Church of Our Lady of Lourdes, in 142d street, de- Hvered the frst of course of three lectures on esThe Catholic Church and the Woman Question"
 s t"The idea of the subjection of the woman to the man is insisted on in man must be the head of the home [ It is physio1ogicany necessary that he should be. But that does not mean that wdnlan is inferior to him.
 AThe Catholic Church is said to teach that she is inferior morally, mentally and physically On the con- trary the Catholic teaching and prac- tice is that there is but one law for the man and the woman. The Church recognizes no difference between them.
 pseudo scientific fakers, has made the remarkable claim that men are more moral than women. It is not sub- ject for public discussion, but it surely is significant that the weight of the worlds opinion is to the contrary.
 "As for women being inferior men, tally, that is not yet proved. It is only a short time that women have been receiving an education comparable to that afforded to men, They used to step from elementary arithmetic There have been women who have written great books, women who have shown great intellectual powers. The time has not come when we can say what they are capable of when train ed through generations as men have been.
 is that it excludes women from the priesthood The Church did not do 1t. Christ, who founded the Church. did it, and later developments seem to prove it was wisely done. Women were priestesses in the old pagan re- ligions and also in certain later sects, like the Gnostics. The horrible con- ditions which resulted are well known.
 .'It seems to have remained for the Christian Scientists to introduce wom- en priestesses in modern times. The arrangement has not developed any trying to decide whether Christian Sci ence is a. religion or business.
 tTt is beyond question that women should not be in the Catholic priest hood. Consider the duties of a priest; not perhaps in fashionable parish, but in the sluns. He is called out Der haps half a dozen times in the course of a night in all kinds of weather. He must go into the most evil places. Take a recent case up in The Bronx half dozen. The priest had to go into the shambles Could g. woman do that? No. It is impossible.
 etAnd now with regard to St. Paul. Poor St. Paul. He comes in for much abuse at the hands of inffdel and ire 1igious suffragists- But in St. PauPs
 
 lent in the churches he but carried out the Lords plan that they should not enter the priesthood.
 "As for the talk about women be- ing yelled or covered in church, much of it is an exaggeration of trifles. The original law to that effect was proper and necessary in the times of St. Paul and St. John Chrysostom, from whose writings the busy infidel suffragists have extracted their charges.
 s'At that time these laws were made n11y nrntacTiO0 They are not necessary now And the priest who stands. at the door of his church Arbitrarily requiring some specific kind of head covering of the women who wish to enter is ridicu- 1ouS.'
 Some of the women besieged the rev. erend father after his lecture with questions to his own attitude on suffrage. But he only smiled and told them to wait for the next two lectures. The course is given under the auspices of the Catholic Library Association. The second lecture will be at DelT11on- ico5s, Dec. Il, at o'clock.