By Richard A. Spinello and Elizabeth A. Mitchell, The Catholic Thing, Aug. 9, 2025
Note: On the feast of this great saint and martyr, we bring you two different but mutually supporting commentaries on her life and thought. And those of you wanting to know more can register by clicking here for Elizabeth Mitchell’s course on Edith Stein’s great book The Science of the Cross, which will begin on September 10. – Robert Royal
Edith Stein and the Soul of a Woman, by Richard A. Spinello
Controversies continue over the nature and role of women as modern society edges ever closer to embracing an androgynous anthropology. During the last Olympic Games, spectators were exposed to the surreal exhibition of biological males pummeling women boxers. Those who protested were informed that there is no scientific way to differentiate men from women.
The secular mentality has lost sight of what it means to be a woman. There are many reasons for this tragic exit of womanhood, but foremost among them is the negation of transcendence, which obscures the light that shines forth about the truth of our humanity. As Carrie Gress has pointed out, the poisonous influence of anti-Christian feminism has led to the “end of woman” because we have no answers to the question of what makes a woman a woman. ………..
Beauty Awakens the Soul, by Elizabeth A. Mitchell, S.C.D.
Hurrying about gaping at our cellphones, we have become a society that no longer knows how to see. We prefer texting to eye contact, virtual reality to actual reality.
We have become essentially immune to our surroundings, unaffected by the beauty in front of us. But this failure to see causes us to become both individually and collectively impoverished.
Walking across London Bridge, for example, souls who are spiritually dead were observed by T.S. Eliot, who noted, channeling Dante, “I had not thought death had undone so many.” (“The Wasteland”) ….
