Leaving Women Out

Ruth Fox points out how the Roman Catholic lectionary deletes passages that have to do with heroic women. This happens so consistently that even the most anti-feminist reader has to get a tad suspicious.

Among the more egregious examples is this one: “A survey of the lectionary reveals that the account of the two brave midwives, Shiphrah and Puah of the Book of Exodus, is omitted entirely from the lectionary. The weekday reading of Exodus 1:8-22 (lectionary #389, Monday of the Fifteenth Week in Ordinary Time, Year I) skips from verse 14 to verse 22, thus excising the story of these valiant women who put their own lives at risk by defying the Pharaoh’s law of death in order to uphold God’s law of life.”