The Primacy of Persons: Edith Stein and Pope John Paul II

Laura Garcia The Primacy of Persons: Edith Stein and Pope John Paul II Anyone familiar with Pope John Paul II's encyclical on The Dignity and Vocation of Woman or his more recent Letter to Women will hear echoes of Editii Stein's pioneering work on die nature and role ofwomen. Most ofStein's essays on this topic stem from the decade of her professional life between her conversion from Judaism to die Catiiolic faith and her entrance into the Carmelite community at Cologne, roughly 1923 to 1933. Their importance cannot be overestimated , both in terms ofdieir originality and level ofinsight,but also in terms oftheir influence on the diought ofotiiers. On a recent visit to the United States, Cardinal Lustiger ofParis, himselfa Jewish convert to Cadiolicism, referred to Stein as one of die greatest philosophers ofour time. "Her best pupil,"he said, "is the Holy Father." Edith Stein's first academic position was at a convent school devoted primarily to teacher training. Partofdiemotivation forher inquiries into die nature and vocation ofwoman was die need to educate women in a way that would be perfective ofdiem, notjustgenerically as human beings, but precisely as women. In organizing the curriculum ofa high Logos 1:2 1997 The Primacy of Persons school or university, she argued for a reexamination of the prevailing assumption that an educational system set up originally to meet the needs ofmen will be equally suitable for die formation ofwomen. One can already see in tiiis way offraming the question diat Stein rejected die claim that diere are no important differences between men and women. She saw tiiis claim as a kind of strategy for convincing a male-dominated world to admit women to university education and die professions and to give them die vote. By die late 1920s and early 30s, the impact of the firstWorld War had forced women into virtually every profession and accelerated women's emancipation as conceived by die founders of die movement. Stein felt diat it was now possible to return to a calmer discussion of the obvious differences between men and women, with a view to discovering woman's unique gifts and calling and to tailoring woman's education to prepare her to take her place in the world. As a philosopher, she naturally begins with an effort to analyze the true nature offeminine humanity, or with what might be called an ontology of woman. She saw her work as barely more dian a beginning, as pointing a direction which others might be able to develop more fully. Edidi Stein was herself one of the first women to benefit from the opening of the German universities to women, and her talents were quickly recognized by the founder of phenomenology , Edmund Husserl. She became one of Husserl's star pupils and was chosen to serve as his assistant while in graduate school. After her conversion to Catholicism in 1922, Stein turned to an intense study ofthe great Catholic philosopher and Doctor of the Church, St. Thomas Aquinas. Stein was fascinated by St.Thomas' view of the human person, adopted from Aristotle, according to which the soul is the form of the body. Unlike the radical dualism of Descartes, which represents soul and body as so radically distinct as to be two different entities, Thomas insists upon the unity of the person, since each natural substance is a composite ofform and matter. Further, since 91 92 Logos matter is what distinguishes one human being from another, the body is essential to the person, not simply a machine or a ship that can be discarded widiout serious loss to the "real" self. Along witii St.Thomas andAristotle, Stein acknowledges tiiat there are traits unique to die human soul, abilities (or at least dispositional traits) that are shared by every member ofthe species. Rationality, and along with it the ability of free choice, belong to every human being and hence to every woman as a human person. But if die soul is die form of die body, and die form ofhumanity is individuated by being united widi tiiis body or mat one, Stein reasons diat die woman's soul will have a spiritual quality distinct from die...