Can John Paul II's Interpretation be Reconciled With Tradition?

The problem with this type of defense is manifold. First, as we have seen, neither the Fathers, the medievals, the doctors or previous popes have made such a distinction. No one has ever stated, based on the biblical passages in view, that the husband is to be subject to the wife as the wife is subject to the husband. All the major exegetes have understood Ephesians 5:21 as a general admonition to all Christians to promote a common deferential relationship with one another, not as something exclusive to the spousal relationship, or something that defines or modifies the wife's legal responsibility to submit to her husband. Against this tradition, John Paul II insists that the husband is not only to be subject to the wife, but the subjection is "just as" the wife's subjection.

The equality of submission is also denoted by the pope's use of the word "mutual," since its technical meaning requires that whatever is true for the wife's subjection to the husband must be true for the husband's subjection to the wife. "Mutual" means: "having the same relationship, each to the other," or "belonging to, shared with, or applicable to all alike."(8) If the submission is "mutual" and "just as" the other, then it is apparent John Paul does not contest that he would have it understood that in this "two-sided" relationship the husband is obligated to submit to the wife on the same level as the wife is obligated to submit to the husband, whereas in the "one-sided" relationship, Christ is not obligated to submit to the Church. As the astute scholar he is purported to be, John Paul has to know that his "mutual submission" interpretation was not taught by his predecessors. As such, the fact that he does not even make reference to their traditional teaching on these decisive biblical passages, let alone interact with them, is most disturbing.

Second, John Paul does not make the proper distinctions between the various types of submission involved. It is obvious from a reading of the Pauline and Petrine passages that the wife is told more than a half-dozen times to be in legal submission to her husband, whereas the husband is never told to do the same. As such, the New Testament designates a special category for the wife's submission to her husband that precludes it from being mixed with or made equal to the common submission that Christians generally give toward one another. Left without distinctions, "mutual submission" is an oxymoron.(9) Theology is a science of making the proper distinctions, and unfortunately, all kinds of false ideas, and even heresies, are the result of a failure to do so, though most of them sound good on the surface.

Third, John Paul's views on this subject are somewhat contradictory. As we have seen earlier, on the one hand, John Paul states in Mulieris Dignitatem that spousal submission is not like the submission between Christ and the Church, since the latter is a "one-sided" submission. This means that Christ does not submit to the Church (at least in the same way as the Church submits to Christ). Hence, Christ's love for the Church (i.e., Eph. 5:25) cannot be considered, or result in, a submission to the Church, since love does not necessitate submission. Yet in his General Audience address of August 11, 1982, John Paul says that "love makes the husband simultaneously subject to the wife...just as the wife is to the husband." Thus the husband is said to be made subject to the wife because of love, whereas love is not said to make Christ subject to the Church. The contradiction John Paul displays is in the face of the context of Ephesians 5:22-33 which gives no distinction between the Church's submission to Christ and the wife's submission to the husband, but actually compares one to the other.

What Did Previous Popes Say?

The confusion in John Paul II's view is not seen in the teachings of his predecessors. They took the same view as the Fathers and medievals we have already covered. The most recent pope to speak on this issue was Pope Pius XI. He stated it thus:

Domestic society being confirmed, therefore, by this bond of love, there should flourish in it that "order of love," as St. Augustine calls it. This order includes both the primacy of the husband with regard to the wife and children, the ready subjection of the wife and her willing obedience, which the Apostle commands in these words: "Let women be subject to their husbands as to the Lord, because the husband is head of the wife, as Christ is the head of the Church." (Casti Connubii, 30).

The only thing Pius XI added, and rightly so, was an explanation of the conditions and limitations of the husband's authority over the wife. He writes:

This subjection, however, does not deny or take away the liberty which fully belongs to the woman both in view of her dignity as a human person, and in view of her most noble office as wife and mother and companion; nor does it bid her obey her husband's every request if not in harmony with right reason or with the dignity due to wife; nor, in fine, does it imply that the wife should be put on a level with those persons who in law are called minors, to whom it is not customary to allow free exercise of their rights on account of their lack of mature judgment, or of their ignorance of human affairs. But it forbids that exaggerated liberty which cares not for the good of the family; it forbids that in this body which is the family, the heart be separated from the head to the great detriment of the whole body and the proximate danger of ruin. For if the man is the head, the woman is the heart, and as he occupies the chief place in ruling, so she may and ought to claim for herself the chief place in love.

Again, this subjection of wife to husband in its degree and manner may vary according to the different condition of persons, place and time. In fact, if the husband neglect his duty, it falls to the wife to take his place in directing the family. But the structure of the family and its fundamental law, established and confirmed by God, must always and everywhere be maintained intact. (Ibid).

Prior to Pius XI, Pope Leo XIII gave the same consensus as the Fathers and medievals. Pius XI refers to his words in Casti Connubii:

With great wisdom Our Predecessor Leo XIII, of happy memory, in the Encyclical on "Christian Marriage" which We have already mentioned, speaking of this order to be maintained between man and wife, teaches: "The man is the ruler of the family, and the head of the woman; but because she is flesh of his flesh and bone of his bone, let her be subject and obedient to the man, not as a servant but as a companion, so that nothing be lacking of honor or of dignity in the obedience which she pays. Let divine charity be the constant guide of their mutual relations, both in him who rules and in her who obeys, since each bears the image, the one of Christ, the other of the Church." (10)

Obviously, we see nothing in either Pius XI or Leo XIII regarding "mutual submission." Leo XIII speaks only of "mutual relations,' but in "both in him who rules and in her who obeys," thus clearly defining the separate roles of both husband and wife.

More Analysis of Mulieris Dignitatem:

Let's analyze more of Mulieris Dignitatem to round out the picture. I will underline the problematic sentences. John Paul II writes:

The author of the Letter to the Ephesians sees no contradiction between an exhortation formulated in this way and the words: "Wives, be subject to your husbands, as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife" (5:22-23). The author knows that this way of speaking, so profoundly rooted in the customs and religious tradition of the time, is to be understood and carried out in a new way: as a "mutual subjection out of reverence for Christ" (cf. Eph 5:21). This is especially true because the husband is called the "head" of the wife as Christ is the head of the Church; he is so in order to give "himself up for her" (Eph 5:25), and giving himself up for her means giving up even his own life. However, whereas in the relationship between Christ and the Church the subjection is only on the part of the Church, in the relationship between husband and wife the "subjection" is not one-sided but mutual.

Here John Paul says that St. Paul's command is a "new way" of understanding husband and wife relations. Is it? Does St. Paul say that he is giving a new command? We saw earlier that St. Peter, basing his teaching on the principles of the Old Testament, told the Christian wives of his day to "be subject to their husbands...like Sarah who was obedient to Abraham and called him lord" (1 Peter 3:1, 5). If today the wife's submission is based on a woman who lived 4,000 years ago, there is certainly nothing "new" about requiring the wife to submit to her husband. Similarly, in 1 Cor. 14:34-35 St. Paul tells the women to "keep silent in the churches" and to "ask questions of their husbands at home" and thus he bases his command on "the Law" of the Old Testament and on "the Lord's commandment" given directly to him. There is certainly nothing "new" about those two sources. Similarly, in 1 Cor 11:3f and 1 Timothy 2:11-15, St. Paul bases the commands for woman to be in subjection to the man on the relationship stemming from the time of Adam and Eve when their respective roles were put in place by God. Obviously, there is nothing "new" about Adam and Eve. Hence, there is nothing "new" in any of St. Paul's writings regarding a woman's role, and certainly nothing regarding "mutual submission" as the sense in which the wife's subjection to her husband is to be understood. In fact, there are more passages in the New Testament that directly command the wife to be in submission to her husband than in the Old Testament!

John Paul II continues:

But the challenge presented by the "ethos" of the Redemption is clear and definitive. All the reasons in favor of the "subjection" of woman to man in marriage must be understood in the sense of a "mutual subjection" of both "out of reverence for Christ." The measure of true spousal love finds its deepest source in Christ, who is the Bridegroom of the Church, his Bride.

Unless we are misunderstanding him, John Paul II is advocating that the references to the "subjection of woman" in Scripture cannot be understood as a command which singles out the sole responsibility of the wife. In so many words, John Paul claims that when you see "woman be subject" you must read "both be subject." This is in the face of the fact that Ephesians 5:21 is the only place in Scripture where a general command to submit oneself to another appears in the same vicinity as the command for wives to submit themselves to their husbands.(11) "Mutual submission," as we have noted earlier, means that whatever is true for the wife's submission to the husband must be true for the husband's submission to the wife, for that is what the word "mutual" means. Hence, if the wife's submission is legally mandated, then the husband's submission is legally mandated. But as we have seen from an analysis of the Fathers, the medievals and two other popes, no one has ever taught that kind of legal interchange between spouses. John Paul II, as he appears in various other cases, stands alone in the history of the Catholic Church.

If John Paul II does not intend to teach what I have described above, it surely is not clear in Mulieris Dignitatem. For the sake of the faithful, if he does not intend to teach it, he needs to make it clear. In the meantime, is a good Catholic obliged to give the pope the benefit of the doubt in instances like this? Certainly, in his general approach to the pope, charity and humility ought to lead a good Catholic to do so. However, in light of the specific Patristic, Magisterial and Scriptural evidence laid out thus far, and the additional information we are about to share, it is very difficult to do so. Catholics are not required to put blinders on, even in humble deference to the pope. This would indeed be a very dangerous and extreme kind of deference, and certainly not a genuine service to the Church or the Holy Father. Hence, we are obliged to raise our concerns, respectfully yet confidently, to the degree our abilities and calling require, which we are presently endeavoring to do in this essay. As for now, since there is no other statement in the last 25 years (at least one that I know of) in which John Paul modifies or clarifies his statement regarding "mutual submission," then according to Canon Law, it is our "right and duty" to take him at his word and offer our conscientious and responsible objections.(12)

If John Paul's view were the correct one, St. Paul and St. Peter had many opportunities to say so. All they needed to do was add the necessary qualification regarding spousal submission, and a simple one it would have been. But they never did. They told husbands to love their wives, not to be subject to them. There is not one command, or even a suggestion in the whole Bible, or in the patristics, or in any papal, doctoral or conciliar statement, that men are to submit to their wives. Granted, all Christians, whether they be popes, bishops, employers, husbands, government officials, etc, should all have an attitude of spiritual "submission" to one another, for we are all "foot washers" in the general sense of the term. Unfortunately, unless one distinguishes between the general spiritual submission Christians offer to one another over against the specific legal submission required of those under authority, this will create undue confusion and distort St. Paul's teaching, and this has occurred in many Catholic circles today. Many think wives are no longer required to be obedient to their husbands because of the "new" interpretations of Scripture. Many contemporary wedding vows are minus a reference to the wife promising obedience. This is a recipe for disaster. The statistics for divorce ever since the women's liberation movement bear this out. Unfortunately, some of this thinking is due to the ambiguous and misleading statements in Mulieris Dignitatem. As we have seen from the traditional teaching, however, the submission of the wife to the husband is not voluntary. The wife is as much obliged to submit to her husband as a priest is to a bishop or a citizen is to the government, and the submission on that level is not mutual.