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Catholic schoolgirls are now taught that God is Gender Neutral
by Claudia Poposki via judy - Daily Mail (Oz) Saturday, Jun 1 2019, 10:15pm
international / prose / post

Catholic schoolgirls are being taught that God is gender-neutral and are banned from using the words 'Lord', 'Father' and 'Son' in prayers.

Another take: Ardhanarishvara, Androgynous Hindu Deity

A number of elite Catholic schools in Brisbane are making moves to teach their students to use inclusive language when referring to God.

Top schools including All Hallows, Stuartholme, Loreto College and Stuartholme School are leading a push towards a feminist interpretation of the Christian Bible.

Students at Stuartholme School in Brisbane's inner-city, which charges upwards of $40,000 a year, are taught to use the word 'Godself' instead of 'himself'.

'As we believe God is neither male or female, Stuartholme tries to use gender-neutral terms in prayers … so that our community deepens their understanding of who God is for them, how God reveals Godself through creation, our relationships with others and the person of Jesus,' a spokeswoman told The Sunday Mail.

Loreto College in Coorparoo has taken the word 'Lord' from their prayers as it is a 'male term'.

The school's principal Kim Wickham said prayers written for use within the college didn't assign God a gender.

Ms Wickham said the school had a commitment to inclusive language, but admitted there were instances where gendered language is appropriate.

St Rita's College Clayfield tries to use gender-neutral terms but for traditional prayers still uses gendered language.

The assistant principal Richard Rogusz said context is important and helps decide what language is appropriate.

The Catholic Office for the Participation of Women director Andrea Dean told the publication that she was 'thrilled' and it was 'terrific' schools were moving towards inclusive language.

The Queensland Catholic Education Commission does not provide guidelines for what language is appropriate but the Australian Catholic Bishops Conference did suggest schools use gender-neutral terms where appropriate.

Brisbane's top Catholic boys' school St Joseph's College has replaced the term 'brothers' with 'sisters and brothers' and 'brotherhood' with 'international community'.

'This has been an area of growth for us in recent times,' a spokesman told Sunday Times.

'We have made changes to a number of prayers to be more gender-inclusive.'

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[Some readers may find the associated email from the contributor, useful:]

"just got this news and i would have thought that the reformists would have led this charge tho the catholics attempted to compensate for the lack of the female aspect by elevating Mary to almost goddess stature -- tho clearly her 'immaculate conception' (ridiculous fairy tale) was obviously a lie, the creative principle does not subvert its own locked in, supremely harmonious natural laws on this or any other plane:

post-modernism in the form of political correctness, seems to be making inroads into western religion, as clearly god must either incorporate both genders on this plane or indeed must be gender neutral, which is correct in my view. In this sense it trails the Eastern religions where God is denoted as Self (upper case 'S') as distinct from ego based culturally created 'self.'

Historically, the judeo-christian/islamic (Abrahamic) patriarchal religions seemed to have been a reaction to the previous matriarchal female deities that ruled prior to male dominance by the clearly anal/authoritarian Jewish priest class, which did everything possible to oppress the female in all its aspects, such was their obvious fear of it, especially as expressed by the misogynistic saul/paul's negative and biased view of the female, woman --

furthermore, i have never encountered jesus sharing this male bias, in fact the opposite is evident in the gospels as jesus defended oppressed females in jewish society, which was extremely radical at the time, 'onya JC!.

in a broader perspective i find PC stifling -- transgender toilets in schools etc -- however, in this instance it is right on the mark. who knows what may come of it? -- though if we return to jesus pure and abandon the teachings of the misogynist usurper paul, we are clearly safe.

It is also interesting to note that the original trinity, derived from the egyptian view was, Osiris, Isis and Horus, Isis and Osiris shared equal 'stature' in egyptian society tho they were 'functionally' quite different; nevertheless, if the all male christian trinity was derived from the egyptian model, which seems to be the case, then it is a perversion of the original, but then who claims that scribes ruled by politicians, didn't get it wrong. It is simply absurd to entertain a gender specific divine creator, tho not the male and female 'aspects' -- all things are contained within that 'genderless' creative principle.

all best and comments welcome."

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7094893/Catholic-schoolgirls-taught-God-gender-neutral.html