Edith Stein et la femme. Perspectives anthropologiques et spirituelles
Sophie BinggeliEdith Stein (1891-1942) has been led to discuss various questions which have faced German women in the first half of the twentieth century. The most fundamental of those questions concerns the specificity of womanhood. Its maternal finality rests on a typical faculty: the Gemüt (heart). Is sexual difference merely accidental? Sexual difference is a natural fact which is subjected to growth and which is endowed with a positive significance, bound to last for all eternity. The difference between man and woman raises the much debated question of the access of women to priesthood. Edith Stein proposes a comparison between woman's consecration as sponsa Christi and man's consecration as Christ's representative in the priesthood, a consideration of the mystery of virginity, a contemplation of Mary and of God-Love. These various intuitions are apt to foster a feminist reflexion in search of an anthropology and a spirituality of women.