Is the Body of Christ Male or Female?

I have one quibble with this otherwise excellent essay. The Body of Christ was NOT 'torn into tens of thousands of different pieces'! The Body of Christ remained one, whole and entire in the One, Holy, Ctholic, and Apostolic Church under the Roman Pontiff. I refer you to the Catechism of St Pius X, the Ninth Article of the Creed, question 12:

Q. The many societies of persons who are baptised but who do not acknowledge the Roman Pontiff as their Head do not, then, belong to the Church of Jesus Christ?
A. No, those who do not acknowledge the Roman Pontiff as their Head do not belong to the Church of Jesus Christ.

From Catholic Stand

By The Unknown Centurion

We are in post-Christian, neo-pagan times. If we truly are in Apostolic times where the culture is disordered and decadent, and practicing Christians are a persecuted minority, the Acts of the Apostles, which documented the original apostolic times should be somewhat of a roadmap for us. As faithful and important women were in the Early Church, their role according to sacred Scripture, for the most part, was one of support, not primary. The names of those who left their lands, livelihoods, and even their lives behind to spread the gospel were men.

True, holy women did provide much needed support (financial, food, lodging, faithful witness, etc.), but men risked their lives to go forth and convert others, according to the final commandment and commission of Christ (Matthew 28:18-20). St. Luke records that men were the ones who became bishops, deacons and priests, and who set up churches and Christian communities in distant lands. Men were the ones chosen by Christ to die as He died. For what kind of faith would ask its women to go out in a dangerous world to suffer rejection, hardship abuse, torture and even death, while its men remained behind in the safety of their homes?

But sadly, in our feminized Church today, the women who are far more plentiful and involved, seem to be the ones doing most of the work, because men have abdicated their duty to tend, defend and rebuild. And if there is a woman-led renewal, what would that look like, in our overly tolerant, politically-correct, culture where everyone is a victim and easily offended? Women by nature are more intuitive, sensitive, emotional, and empathetic, thank God, so they probably shouldn’t be the ones to draw the hard lines that need to be drawn, and they shouldn’t be put on the front lines to be the Enemy’s cannon fodder. Many if not most of the brave female martyrs of the early Church were not killed for their in-your-face preaching, their confronting heretics or pagan authorities, or their active evangelization in faraway lands, as were the Apostles, their companions, and their successors. Men according to our sacred duty are to be the ones who protect our wives, daughters, and mothers, we guard their purity, keep them safe from danger, and defend them with our lives. Men aren’t supposed to just sit back in a comfortable chair with a beer and let them fight our battles for us.

Mother Church didn’t always used to be a mother. It was established to be a patriarchy, but today, in line with the times, it has transitioned into a matriarchy. While I cannot speak to the supernatural ramifications of making the Body of Christ female, the symbolic effect and all leading indicators are beyond catastrophic. Completely contrary to its conception from the visceral, violent piercing of the Heart of Christ, the Church is soft, sensitive, permissive, and effeminate, run to a great degree by fancy, feminine bureaucrats in chanceries and frustrated church ladies in the pews. Where are the
Peters, Pauls, Barnabasses, and Batholomews, the last of whom was martyred by being slowly skinned alive, while he manfully kept the faith.  We do have more than our share, however, of Uncle Teds and whiny Karens.

Gone are the days when courageous, faithful, manly men led and set the tone for the universal Church by word and example. If men who were ordained to courageously lead this sacred Divine/Human institution don’t, then they create disorder, feminizing the very Body of Christ. And if there is disorder in the Body of Christ then it will not function as it needs to do, and is opened to diabolical attack. One remedy for our spiritual sickness and the prerequisite for any renewal is for men to act manfully, and to step up to our God-given roles as the leaders and defenders of the Church. The Church can no longer cower and coddle as overindulgent mothers, We must call out and correct as disciplinary fathers.

We need to reclaim the use of words such as heretic and anathema, replacing the overused words of accompany and pastoral. We need to preach fearlessly about issues of sin, hell, homosexuality, abortion, effeminacy and the devil, rather than Milquetoast messages of tolerance diversity, social justice, cheap mercy and all are welcome. We need to remember that we are a Church that condemned heretics, called for Crusades, conducted inquisitions, and stripped erring and enemy clerics of their titles, ensuring that the Church would remain strong, pure, and solid against the unceasing attacks of the Enemy. Today we concede, compromise, capitulate and cede ground to the world and its Prince at almost every turn, opening our gates, laying down our arms, disbanding our military, and letting the enemy have his way with the souls we are supposed to protect.

There is a legend, and I hope it is true, that we even had the original Arian Bishop getting punched in the face by Santa Claus, St. Nicholas himself. While I no way intend to advocate violence, but perhaps if we treated the heretic and schismatic Luther in a similar, masculine fashion, the Body of Christ would not have been torn into tens of thousands of different pieces. Have you ever heard of St. Peter Damien? He was a zealous priest so incensed with the festering evil among his fellow clerics that he wrote the Book of Gomorrah which railed against the concentric crises of clerical effeminacy, homosexuality, and worldliness. His solution to address the homosexual priests who prey upon the young and vulnerable, was not to transfer them from parish to parish as a lenient mother, but to publicly beat and bind in chains as a disciplinary-minded father to punish, deter, and potentially to correct the abhorrent behavior.

Using words such blunt words as the “cancer of sodomic impurity” which was “raging like a cruel beast within the sheepfold of Christ” earned Peter Damien an archbishopship and elevation as the Pope’s number two, and eventually sainthood. Today any priest speaking less direct words with a far less challenging tone would find himself immediately cancelled and sidelined in almost every diocese requiring public repentance, renunciation, and reprogramming at some secular psychological institution before he would be allowed to return to active ministry.

Yet the same petty and effeminate men who cancel and sideline priests for being orthodox and outspoken seem to be the same ones who continue to coddle, as lenient, permissive mothers, the liturgically lax, the active homosexuals, the heterodox and heretics. And to think some frustrated feminists who advocate for women priests still decry the Church as a male- dominant, misogynistic, patriarchal institution. It may in a very technical sense be led by biological males who occupy its highest positions of power, but even so, it is much more of a matriarchy in her governance, as most of the males in charge are anything but manly. While the Church truly benefits in ways we may never know from the feminine genius and spiritual maternity, especially from the growing, vibrant, Eucharistic-centered religious orders, we don’t need spiritual maternity from our priests and bishops.

Men first reclaim right order in family as spiritual fathers and protectors rejecting the chaos, disorder, and diabolical ramifications which flow from this original abdication. Exorcists say that demons exploit weaknesses and enter families where men abdicate their duties to defend, protect, and lead in spiritual matters. Husbands can’t expect their wives to lead in spiritual matters and think everything will somehow work out alright. They can’t rely on their wives’ prayers alone, or their wives alone taking their children to Mass and expect that the Enemy will not exploit his spiritual weakness and infiltrate into the family home. This is why the faith is passed down to the children in a much higher percentage when men actively practice their faith and are the spiritual fathers they were created to be. Such families are rightly ordered and well positioned against the attacks of the Enemy. When they are not rightly ordered spiritually, the Enemy can and will enter, and it will be our fault, for failing to be the leaders and defenders we were created to be.

So too for the sacred institution of the Church. If the Body of Christ is similarly disordered where those ordained men are effeminate, homosexual, capitulate, abdicate, allow the feminine to lead, and otherwise fail to act manfully, then the Enemy will easily enter within our undefended gates, and spread his errors and influence like a spiritual poison. The Evil One encourages such diabolical disorder and spiritual chaos, because in it he thrives and is at his most effective. What is true for fathers who fail to sacrifice, lead and protect is also true for the Church which is experiencing a similar absence of spiritual fatherhood and authentic masculinity, resulting in its children being left without masculine models, mentors, abandoned and uneducated in the things that matter most.

We shouldn’t be at all surprised. Before we can reclaim the masculine spiritually of the Early Church, we must reclaim masculinity. Before we can restore authentic Christian manhood among bishops, priests, and lay and religious men, we must restore manhood itself. As grace builds upon nature, when the nature of modern man is soft, weak, fearful, and feminine, it can only accomplish so much. The main reason why there is so much confusion, chaos, disorder and division in the Church and the world is because there is so much confusion, chaos, disorder and division in manhood itself, from where
those who have been entrusted and ordained to lead guide protect and defend it necessarily come. Bishops, priests, and popes abdicate, vacillate, and capitulate, because that is the sad state of modern manhood.

To withstand the attacks of the Enemy, the Church Militant must adhere to the structures of the institution established by Christ, and priests and bishops must be rightly-ordered in order to act in persona Christi. Popes and bishops can’t abdicate their authority, or act contrary to it, and think that the divine/human institution they oversee will not be undermined, divided, and attacked at every turn. When Christ established His Church, He did so not haphazardly but with a definitive structure, order, and masculine hierarchy to keep it protected from the gates of hell. Such a masculine religious
structure was also established by the Father in the Old Testament, which was not, as critical theorists claim, based on male-dominated, cultural determinants. For other peoples of that era had women priestesses, but God chose otherwise.

When those established patriarchal structures break down, and the men in charge fail to defend and protect her, allowing feminine men and women to rule, the smoke of Satan easily enters, divides, disorients and overwhelms. It’s the same tactic he exploited in corrupting all humanity – getting Adam to abdicate his duty to defend and allowing his wife to lead him away from the will of God. Because it’s been so successful, he employs this same strategy of getting men to abdicate and forcing the women to lead, where he and his fallen angels then attack her and her children with impunity without the protection of her husband. This may be why the devil hates and fears the Blessed Mother so much, because this strategy will never work against her, and it humiliates him to lose to a human girl. Let us pray for the intercession of the Virgin Mary, St. Michael the Archangel, and St. Joseph, the terror of demons, and act, and encourage men to act manfully, while holding those who fail to account.