Casta Subdita Velata

The Role of Women in the Christian Doctrine
Il ruolo della donna nella dottrina Cristiana
Dag Tessore
Fazi Editore – October 2004


Book description:
Casta Subdita Velata is a new disturbing study by the brilliant, fast-rising author Dag Tessore that reveals in detail how the Church’s attitude towards women has been, until extremely recent times, at least as severe as that of the most extreme fringes of Islam. A lot is said nowadays about the condition of women in Islam and most of Western secular culture continues to struggle for the emancipation of women worldwide. On some aspects of this struggle it finds a partial ally in Catholicism: the Church has in fact been insisting for some decades now on the creation of a “Christian” model of a modern and autonomous woman – an alternative to the “reacionary” Islamic model. Hence, even in many Islamic countries, often Christian women don’t wear a veil and follow a Western lifestyle.

Nonetheless, the traditional Christian doctrine, enforced for at least one thousand nine hundred years, propose a female model that is diametrically opposite to that of the modern (Christian) woman, and in line with the most controversial aspects of the way women are viewed in the Islamic world. CASTA SUBDITA VELATA analyzes such a model in disturbing detail: submission and obedience to man, a radically patriarchal family structure, compulsory veil for women (which, according to many Fathers, should conceal the entire face), prohibition for women to wear make-up and male (or even slightly skin-revealing) clothes (including trousers), prohibition to hold public office, to witness in court, to earn or possess their own money, to teach, to leave home alone if not in extreme cases, to frequent gyms, restaurants, ballrooms, to enter a church during the days of menstrual impurity and so on.Such precepts, to which the Fathers of the Church have dedicated long and meticulous treaties, and which have continually been reaffirmed up to the eve of the Second Vatican Council, are the expression of a surprising unanimity between the two religions.

Dag Tessore doesn’t simply expound the Fathers’ doctrine, though, but he explains the deeper motivations behind their attitude – so manifestly misogynous in our eyes – and sheds a light on the spiritual background at the origin of their ethical teaching, revealing us somewhat na insider’s view of the phenomenon and therefore giving us the chance to judge it more authoritatively and, parallely to this, to deal with better instruments with the issue of the current treatment of women in Islam and other cultures.

About the author:
Dag Tessore is specialized in history of the Church and Christian and Islamic theology, with a focus on the phenomenon of religious extremism. With Fazi Editore he has published LA MISTICA DELLA GUERRA: SPIRITUALITÀ DELLE ARMI NEL CHRISTIANISMO E NELL’ISLAM (currently in translation in Germany and Hungary). He is also the author of a biography of Gregorio VII and a translation from Latin of Charlemagne’s Lettere and of St. Stephen of Hungary’s Esortazioni al Figlio.