Discretae mulieres a viris

Yesterday I went to a gathering with the Prelate of Opus Dei in Manhattan, together with hundreds of professional men from the New York metropolitan area. I came away a better man for having been with those men of solid Catholic faith, enthusiastic for transmitting the joy of the Gospel, the knowledge of Jesus Christ.

Then, this morning, thumbing through a classic 1676 book on the liturgy (Joanne Bona, Rerum Liturgicarum, Paris: Billaine, 1676, 229-231) I came across something which I have only seen in Orthodox Churches and in Muslim and Jewish worship: the liturgical separation of the sexes. The title of that section (Book I, Chapter XX, VI) is Discretae mulieres a viris (p. 253 in this Google 1739 edition link). The author quotes the Church Fathers on what he calls "the very ancient custom" of separating the women from the men in the church for divine worship.

It occurs to me to ask, how much of the moral, intellectual and religious demise of Western civilization in the past 200 years is due to the desegregation of the sexes in worship, in education, and in society? I understand that New York still has some very elite clubs which are men-only clubs. I felt the power of that yesterday. My three years at The Mount also gave me a sense of the greatness of that all male Catholic force for the transformation of the world for Christ. We need to isolate our women, for their good and ours, similar to the way we take extra precautions in our care and formation of children at different ages, because of their different needs. So it is, according to our most ancient traditions, with the difference between women and men. In order to cater best to their distinctive needs they must be separate.