Women: rights and responsibilities

Promoting an anthropology that will enhance women’s gifts along with gender differences and equality. These are the goals of the second International Women’s Forum, due to be celebrated in El Escorial (Madrid), from April 17 to 19, to which will take part, inter alia, bishops Carlos Osoro Sierra, José Ignacio Munilla Aguirre and Raúl Berzosa Martínez, as well as experts like Mar Sánchez Marchori, Jokin de Irala, Mónica López Barahona, Lydia Jiménez and Ángela Varela. The theme chosen for this edition is “Woman, responsible of the civilization of life and love”, that refers to the encyclical of Saint John Paul II “Mulieris Dignitatem”. In the meantime, on April 18 will take place the national congress of Catholic educators, dedicated to women. The national congress of Catholic educators, dedicated to women, is scheduled to take place April 18. For a civilization of love. Just like “the Communist ideology and of the superiority of the Arian race have been overcome”, in the same way “gender ideology will collapse”, said at the presentation of the Forum Susana Sánchez, responsible of the Federation of the Associations of Saint Thomas D’Aquinas (Federación de Agrupaciones de Santo Tomás de Aquino – Fasta), an institution founded in Argentina that promotes the event. For Sánchez “gender ideology is an artificial attempt to self-development without taking into account physical and psychological differences”. In fact, “it would be enough to look at ourselves to see how we are”. “We are similar and we are different and we intend to emphasize it”, said Mar Sánchez Marchori, University Professor, mother of a large family, who presented with Sánchez and María Ángeles Burguete this event promoted by the Pontifical Council for Culture and the Laity and by institutions such as the University of Avila and the Saint Benito Forum. Marchori, who is also coordinator of the Catholic Association of Women Entrepreneurs, underlined that the Forum will seek “to find the answers to the new social and personal challenges” in present society. It’s the “Church Magisterium”, she explained, that provides the most appropriate foundations to carry out an in depth analysis of “men-women” relations, thereby avoiding the “trap” of a superficial approach to the question of rights. María Ángeles Burguete tackled the frustration experienced by a large number of women owing to the obstacles encountered in reconciling maternity and professional success, and claimed the need for “a remunerated job” for women who freely decide to be mothers and housewives. The program of the Forum envisages also panel lectures on Saint Teresa of Jesus, Saint Catherine of Siena and Isabella the Catholic, along with a play on Catherine of Aragon. A bastion of education. “Women against the flow, a bastion of education”, is the theme of the sixth edition of the national congress of Catholic educators promoted by the Fundación Educatio Servanda, scheduled to take place April 18 in the John Paul II College of Alcorcón. Teresa López, member of the team that organizes the congress, underlined: “We have to realize that we are a fundamental bastion of education and that we have to swim upstream if we want the world to become a better place for everyone”. The Congress will also seek to provide the answers to a set of questions: men and women are the same in their dignity and value because they were both created to God’s image and likeness: does this mean their moulds are equal in nature? Or is there the possibility that they are radically different in anthropological terms? In this case, are men and women bound to be undaunted enemies, as gender ideology seems to suggest? Or, conversely, do they complement one another precisely because of these very differences? Who is the woman? What is the female genius? Is she aware that she was called by God to the world’s transformation? These themes will be addressed by national and international experts such as University Professor María Lacalle – one of the six Spanish citizens who took part in the extraordinary Synod for the Family -, anthropologist Blanca Castilla de Cortázar, María Sánchez-Arjona, president of the More Human Foundation (Fundación Máshumano), Father Javier Mairata and filmmaker Jerónimo José Martín.