L’Osservatore Romano has published an essay by Sister Sara Butler, an American nun who serves on the International Theological Commission, defending the notion of the complementarity of men and women in the face of various feminist critiques.

“Creation in two sexes belongs to God’s revelation,” writes Sister Butler, a Mundelein theologian known for her defense of Catholic teaching on the ordination of women. “It is Catholic doctrine, not simply one theory among many (cf. Catechism of the Catholic Church , §§ 369-72). To overcome sexism, it is not necessary to eradicate the difference between the sexes, but only to end the opposition between them that results from sin.”

http://www.catholicculture.org/news/headlines/index.cfm?storyid=21384

Julia Maria Ledóchowska was born in Austria in 1865, the daughter of a Polish count and a Swiss noblewoman. Her large family was a school of saints. Her uncle, Cardinal Mieczyslaw Ledóchowski, the Primate of Poland, was persecuted and imprisoned for his opposition to the policies of the Prussian Kulturkampf [“culture war”]. Her older sister, Blessed Maria Teresa Ledóchowska, founded the Missionary Sisters of S. Peter Claver and is affectionately known as the “Mother of Black Africa”.

Julia Maria moved with her family to Poland when her father became ill in 1883. He died soon after, having given his blessing to her plans to enter the Convent of the Ursuline Sisters in Krakow. Julia took the religious name of “Maria Ursula of Jesus” and devoted herself to the care and education of youth. She organized the first residence in Poland for female university students.

As prioress of the convent after the turn of the century, she received a request to found a boarding school for Polish girls in St. Petersburg, Russia, then a cosmopolitan, industrial city. The pastor of St. Catherine’s Church, Msgr. Constantine Budkiewicz (a Polish nobleman), extended the invitation, and Pope St. Pius X gave his approval. So in 1907 Mother Ursula went with another sister to Russia to found a new convent and work among the Catholic immigrants. Although the nuns wore lay clothing, they were under constant surveillance by the secret police.

At the beginning of World War I, Mother Ursula was expelled from Russia as an Austrian national. The Monsignor would be martyred by the Bolsheviks, and St. Petersburg would eventually be renamed “Leningrad”.

Mother Ursula fled to neutral Sweden. She organized relief efforts for war victims and charitable programs for Polish people living in exile, founded a monthly Catholic newspaper, and made extensive ecuмenical contacts with Lutherans in Scandinavia.

In 1920 M. Ursula, her sisters, and dozens of orphans (the children of immigrants) made their way back to Poland. During the tumultuous years that they had spent abroad, the growing Ursuline community had developed a distinctive charism and apostolate. Therefore Mother Ursula founded her own Congregation, the Ursuline Sisters of the Heart of Jesus in Agony. Her brother Vladimir, who had become Superior General of the Jesuits, helped to obtain Vatican approval of the new institute, which was to be devoted to “the education and training of children and youth, and service to the poorest and the oppressed among our brethren” (from the Constitutions).

Between the two world wars, M. Ursula and her nuns taught catechism in the enormous factory town of Lodz. She organized a “Eucharistic Crusade” among the working-class children, encouraging those little “Knights of the Crusade” to write to Pope Pius XI in honor of the fiftieth anniversary of his priestly ordination. Some children wrote that they loved the Holy Father as much as their own parents. Others spoke of receiving Our Lord in their First Holy Communion, of wanting to be His apostles and missionaries. One child wrote: “How beautiful it would be if the Holy Father were to come to Poland.” Mother Ursula Ledóchowska died on May 29, 1939 at the general house of her community in Rome.

Pope John Paul II beatified her during his second pastoral visit to Poland, in 1983, the Holy Year of Redemption and the sixth centenary of Our Lady of Jasna Gora, in the city of Poznan, with schoolchildren from Lodz in attendance.

While visiting his homeland in June 1983, the Holy Father spoke the following words: “It is the Saints and the Blessed who show us the path to the victory that God achieves in human history. Every individual is called to a similar victory. Every son and daughter of Poland who follows the example of her saints and beati. Their elevation to the altars in their homeland is the sign of that strength which is more powerful than any human weakness and more powerful than any situation, even the most difficult, not excluding the arrogant use of power.”

Less than a decade later, in 1991, when Pope John Paul II returned to Poland to beatify Bishop Pelczar, Solidarity had prevailed, the Berlin Wall had fallen, and the Catholic hierarchy had been restored in most Eastern European nations.

http://www.catholic.org/saints/saint.php?saint_id=5609

St. Juliana of Falconieri
Juliana was born in 1270 of the illustrious Florentine family of the Falconieri when her parents were already well advanced in years. Her uncle, the saintly Alexius Falconieri, declared to her mother that she had given birth "not to a girl but to an angel." At the age of fifteen she renounced her inheritance and was the first to receive from the hand of St. Philip Benizi the habit of a Mantellate nun. Many women followed her example; even her mother placed herself under Juliana's spiritual direction.

St. Philip Benizi commended to her care and protection the Servite Order over which he had charge. So severe were her mortifications and fastings that a grave stomach ailment developed; she could take no food, not even the sacred Host. At the point of death she asked that a consecrated Host be placed against her heart. Then occurred a miracle — the Host vanished, and Juliana died with a radiant face. After her death the picture of the Crucified, as it had been on the sacred Host, was found impressed upon her breast.

http://www.catholicculture.org/culture/liturgicalyear/calendar/day.cfm?date=2014-06-19

St. Maria Goretti
St. Maria Goretti was born of a poor family in Corinaldi, Italy, in 1890. Near Nettuno she spent a difficult childhood assisting her mother in domestic duties. She was of a pious nature and often at prayer. In 1902 she was stabbed to death, preferring to die rather than be raped. (Office of Readings)

"It is well known how this young girl had to face a bitter struggle with no way to defend herself. Without warning a vicious stranger (actually Alessandro Serenelli who lived with his father in the same house as the Goretti's.) burst upon her, bent on raping her and destroying her childlike purity. In that moment of crisis she could have spoken to her Redeemer in the words of that classic, The Imitation of Christ: "Though tested and plagued by a host of misfortunes, I have no fear so long as your grace is with me. It is my strength, stronger than any adversary; it helps me and gives me guidance." With splendid courage she surrendered herself to God and his grace and so gave her life to protect her virginity.

"The life of this simple girl—I shall concern myself only with highlights—we can see as worthy of heaven. Even today people can look upon it with admiration and respect. Parents can learn from her story how to raise their God-given children in virtue, courage and holiness; they can learn to train them in the Catholic faith so that, when put to the test, God's grace will support them and they will come through undefeated, unscathed and untarnished.

"From Maria's story carefree children and young people with their zest for life can learn not to be led astray by attractive pleasures which are not only ephemeral and empty but also sinful. Instead they can fix their sights on achieving Christian moral perfection, however difficult and hazardous that course may prove. With determination and God's help all of us can attain that goal by persistent effort and prayer.

"Not all of us are expected to die a martyr's death, but we are all called to the pursuit of Christian virtue. This demands strength of character though it may not match that of this innocent girl. Still, a constant, persistent and relentless effort is asked of us right up to the moment of our death. This may be conceived as a slow steady martyrdom which Christ urged upon us when he said: The kingdom of heaven is set upon and laid waste by violent forces.

"So let us all, with God's grace, strive to reach the goal that the example of the virgin martyr, Saint Maria Goretti, sets before us. Through her prayers to the Redeemer may all of us, each in his own way, joyfully try to follow the inspiring example of Maria Goretti who now enjoys eternal happiness in heaven."

http://www.catholicculture.org/culture/liturgicalyear/calendar/day.cfm?date=2013-07-06

St. Kateri Tekakwitha
[Pronounce: Gah-deh-lee Deh-gah-quee-tah]
The blood of martyrs is the seed of saints. Nine years after the Jesuits Isaac Jogues and John de Brebeuf were tortured to death by Huron and Iroquois Native American nations, a baby girl was born near the place of their martyrdom, Auriesville, New York. She was to be the first person born in North America to be beatified. Her mother was a Christian Algonquin, taken captive by the Iroquois and given as wife to the chief of the Mohawk clan, the boldest and fiercest of the Five Nations. When she was four, Kateri lost her parents and little brother in a smallpox epidemic that left her disfigured and half blind. She was adopted by an uncle, who succeeded her father as chief. He hated the coming of the Blackrobes (missionaries), but could do nothing to them because a peace treaty with the French required their presence in villages with Christian captives. She was moved by the words of three Blackrobes who lodged with her uncle, but fear of him kept her from seeking instruction. She refused to marry a Mohawk man and at nineteen finally got the courage to take the step of converting. She was baptized with the name Kateri (Catherine) on Easter Sunday.

Now she would be treated as a slave. Because she would not work on Sunday, she received no food that day. Her life in grace grew rapidly. She told a missionary that she often meditated on the great dignity of being baptized. She was powerfully moved by God's love for human beings and saw the dignity of each of her people. She was always in danger, for her conversion and holy life created great opposition. On the advice of a priest, she stole away one night and began a two-hundred-mile walking journey to a Christian Native American village at Sault St. Louis, near Montreal.

For three years she grew in holiness under the direction of a priest and an older Iroquois woman, giving herself totally to God in long hours of prayer, in charity and in strenuous penance. At twenty three she took a vow of virginity, an unprecedented act for a Native American woman, whose future depended on being married. She found a place in the woods where she could pray an hour a day and was accused of meeting a man there! Her dedication to virginity was instinctive: She did not know about religious life for women until she visited Montreal. Inspired by this, she and two friends wanted to start a community, but the local priest dissuaded her. She humbly accepted an "ordinary" life. She practiced extremely severe fasting as penance for the conversion of her nation. She died the afternoon before Holy Thursday. Witnesses said that her emaciated face changed color and became like that of a healthy child. The lines of suffering, even the pockmarks, disappeared and the touch of a smile came upon her lips. She was beatified in 1980.

http://www.catholicculture.org/culture/liturgicalyear/calendar/day.cfm?date=2014-07-14

catholicculture.org says:

St. Praxedes
A virgin saint from the earliest Christian times who placed her goods and her services at the disposal of the Church! The life of this saint, like that of most other early Christian saints, remains concealed in the obscurities of legend.

Well, not really that obscured:

Rome! Every place in Italy has its own history and story to tell, but Rome is truly superlative!

Our hotel was just a short walk from the Basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore, which in turn is just a stone’s throw from my very favourite church in the whole wide world – the Church of Santa Praxedes *. Just cross the road in front of the Basilica, take the road on your far right, and turn first right into via Santa Praxedes, at the end of which is access from the side, though most often used, door. I would happily spend a good deal of my time in Rome in this rather hidden church.

Praxedes’ father, Pudens, was the Roman senator, mentioned by St Paul in his Second Letter to Timothy (4:21): “Make haste to come before winter. Eubulus, Pudens, Linus, Claudia and all the brethren salute thee”. He, his wife Sabina, Praxedes, and her sister, Pudentiana, hosted St Peter in their home right there where the church now stands.

Now when a Roman senator fraternised with and gave hospitality to the likes of Sts Peter and Paul, he was more than likely to meet an early and violent death; and that is precisely what happened to Pudens and Sabina.

After her parents’ death, Praxedes had a baptistery built in her home. She gave refuge to many Christians whose lives were at risk, and she had the habit to go out under cover of darkness and scoop up the precious blood of her martyr friends which stained the earth of the Coliseum. She reverenced the blood of these martyrs with all her being.

It was only a matter of time before she too would die a martyr’s death, meet her Redeemer and receive the reward of her great love. You can visit the tomb where her body still lies if you take the steps that lead down to the rustic crypt under the main altar. It seems as though she, along with Pudentiana, is still “at home” and welcoming visitors. This church contains the remains of no fewer that 2,300 saints and martyrs.

To the right of the sanctuary is the chapel dedicated to, and containing the column at which our Lord was scourged. This column has been here since 1699. Brought to Rome in 1223, during the 5th Crusade, it is an object of special devotion, and greatly reverenced by believers. It is truly uplifting to spend time in the presence of such an awesome treasure of faith. The beauty of the mosaics, frescoes, sculptures and other works of sacred art is awe-inspiring.

St Charles Borromeo had been the titular Cardinal of Santa Praxedes from 1564 to 1584 and a special chapel dedicated to him contained the table from which he used to feed the poor, along with more magnificent and exquisite paintings featuring events in his life.

For more than 800 years the Church of Santa Praxedes has been in the custody of the Vallombrosan monks, founded by St John Gualbert in 1073, and of course he too is honoured by wonderful paintings of events in his life.

And that is merely touching the surface of only one church, exceptionally amazing though it is. In Santa Praxedes you may relive 2,000 years of Roman history; not only history, not only art, but the lifeblood of a living faith still flows in such a place. It is not a museum as many churches seem to have become, though even these are redeemed by the Blessed Sacrament chapels where the peace is palpable.

We spent 3 nights and 2 days in Rome. As I said, Rome is superlative in every way – that is, in the delightful and the disagreeable. It is a crowded place visited by millions of tourists. It is a chaotic place, especially during the summer months of July and August when, as well as foreign tourists and other adventurers, swarms of Italians take their annual holidays.

* http://www.sacred-destinations.com/italy/rome-santa-prassede

An educated woman can do whatever she wants and if she is vain, well, it's not going to be a good ending.

I think women should embrace Traditional Catholicism with all their heart, all their soul and all their mind.

A woman has to choose if she will belong to the world and it's prince or if she will belong to Our Lord Jesus Christ.  She can't do both at the same time and she's fooling herself if she thinks she is.

That is what this thread is all about, the real holiness that women are capable of.