Fisher of men? Or fisher of people? On Canadian Catholic Fem-speak

At a recent RCIA meeting I attended, we read the following from Luke’s gospel: “Then Jesus said to Simon, ‘Do not be afraid; from now on you will be catching people.’” (Lk 5:10)

One of the RCIA candidates sniffed out something fishy about this. She mentioned that she seemed to remember a more classical reading of “fisher of men.” The leader mentioned something about different translations and one person piped in something about the passage used to apply to just men (male men, that is), but now it applies to women too (including female postal carriers)!

Of course the expression “fisher of men” always did apply to ‘catching’ males and females, and until feminism came along no one was misled into thinking otherwise by the use of the generic term ‘men.’ As philosopher Michael Levin writes (my comments in square brackets):

We may dismiss the idea that masculine pronouns [or masculine nouns, used in a generic sense] are misleading. Words are misleading when they mislead. If nobody is misled by a turn of phrase, it is not misleading, and there is no one over the age of three who has been fooled by “he” [or “fisher of men”] into thinking that women are unpersons [or into thinking the Jesus intended Simon Peter’s mission to be to adult males only]. It is not possible to produce a woman who believed (until feminists cleared things up) that “He who hesitates is lost” did not apply to her. It is universally understood that “he” is used with the intention of referring to both men and women, and that this intention has settled into a convention. Nothing more is required for a purely designative expression like “he” [or “men”] to mean men and women both. (from Michael Levin, Feminism, Freedom, and Language)

However, now that feminist ideology is increasingly being insinuated into our language, and thence into our thinking, people (apparently!) really are increasingly getting confused about some of the basic intentions and conventions that find expression in the English language, and on the basis of the linguistic confusion we are (apparently!) in danger of passing on to some quite farcically naïve suggestions about the scope of the Church’s mission, past vs. present, as noted above. (I say “apparently,” because one should be cautious about reading too much into what were perhaps mere idle remarks.)

The RCIA candidate responded to the vague comments about different translations by saying, in a somewhat uneasy tone, something like, “Okay, so the Church decided to change the translation.” To which some of the leaders responded with something like, “quite so, and indeed it’s important to remember that the Church is always changing.”

Well, something like that. It might have been more accurate, however, if the RCIA candidate had said (still in a somewhat uneasy tone), “So in formulating the lectionary readings for use in Canada, the Church in Canada has decided to follow the advice of feminist ideologues.” Whereas, by contrast, we find in the US lectionary – a lectionary apparently less under the influence of feminist ideologues (see usccb.org) – “Jesus said to Simon, ‘Do not be afraid; from now on you will be catching men.’"

Now you might still wonder what happened to the classic “fisher of men” expression. In fact that’s the expression used in the parallel passage in Matthew’s gospel (see Mt 4:19), but in Luke the expression is just “catching men” (the generic ‘men,’ of course – anthropous in Greek and homines in Latin).

You might think that ‘people’ vs. (generic) ‘men’ is perhaps an issue for felicity of expression, for poetry, for tradition, etc., but not necessarily a strictly translation (i.e., accuracy) issue. Granted. So to take a more blatant example of fem-speak in the Canadian lectionary, consider the gospel reading for March 3. From the US bishops’ website we get the following (accurate) translation:

Why do you notice the splinter in your brother's eye,

but do not perceive the wooden beam in your own?

How can you say to your brother,

'Brother, let me remove that splinter in your eye,'

when you do not even notice the wooden beam in your own eye?

You hypocrite!  Remove the wooden beam from your eye first;

then you will see clearly

to remove the splinter in your brother's eye.

In the Canadian lectionary we find the following:

Why do you see the speck in your neighbour's eye,

but do not notice the log in your own eye?

Or how can you say to your neighbour,

'Friend, let me take out the speck in your eye,'

when you yourself do not see the log in your own eye?

You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye;

then you will see clearly

to take the speck out of your neighbour's eye.

Now brother is clearly stronger, richer, than neighbour/friend. Still, slight differences of meaning, surely! Which might invite the question: Isn’t the advancement of feminist ideology more important than fidelity to the revealed word of God? And really that is the question, and those answering it, unfortunately, are divided. In any case, the CCCB seems to have gone with a “yes.” But this “yes” to the advancement of feminist ideology has consequences. We might consider in this connection clericalism and ecumenism.

First, I think the Canadian lectionary is an embodiment of (bad) clericalism. Scripture has been manipulated and filtered by the clerics before being presented to the laity. This is inevitable in a selective lectionary, because it is selective. But what is selected should at least be presented faithfully. Instead the authentic language of the revealed word of God is effectively hidden, seen only by the diligent few who dare to look behind the veil the Church (in Canada) has drawn over the scriptures read at mass. The clerics, and those who advise them, have taken it upon themselves to bowdlerize the word of God and then, at mass, to dishonestly proclaim this feminist redaction as “the holy gospel according to Luke” (for example) – that is, the hypothetical incarnation of Luke as a 21^st-century feminist, who has been enlightened about the prejudicial, exclusionary import of his original language choices in the composition of his gospel.

This issue matters also from the standpoint of ecumenism. This feminist policy/practice, one may suppose, is helpful for ecumenism with other Church communities whose version of Christian faith has (also) been influenced by feminist ideology. For those separated brethren who are actually closer to the authentic Catholic faith, however, who actually have a deep love and respect for the revealed word of God, for the “full gospel”  (notwithstanding their flawed understanding of it), this practice is surely a stumbling block. It must remind them of the old canard about the Church chaining up scriptures.  Ironically churches used to chain up the scriptures because, given their great value, they wanted to prevent their being stolen. It was about protecting a treasure. Now that treasure of the inspired word of God has been distorted by feminist ideologues (in the Church in Canada, anyway) and is handed out in missalettes like cheap candy! Better, perhaps, were it still chained! But the question is whether ecumenism – or more generally evangelization – should be about catching flies with honey (feminist-devised or otherwise) or about seeking authentic Christian unity through true faith in Christ. And the Catholic Church (notwithstanding various national aberrations) of course teaches that it should be the latter.