mistress of the vatican.pdf - End Time Deception

Mistress of the Vatican
new in accepting bribes in return for her influence. Her zeal for power
and wealth would have been lauded in a man; after all, almost every
cardinal and Roman nobleman had the same aspirations. But there was
one problem with Olimpia: she was a woman, operating at the apex of
the oldest continuously existing misogynistic institution in the world.
To understand Olimpia’s position in the Vatican, and public reaction to
it, we must first take a look at the historical relationship of the Catholic
Church and women. It had started off well enough; Jesus and Paul had
been close to women, traveling with them to spread the word of God.
Jesus’ female followers stood loyally at the cross when his male disciples
ran away to hide. After the crucifixion, many apostles traveled with
their wives to spread the gospel. In 1 Corinthians 9:5, Paul wrote, “Don’t
we have the right to take believing wives along with us, as do the other
apostles and the Lord’s brothers and Peter?”
For three centuries after Jesus, Christianity was not an official Roman
imperial religion and as such had no public churches for worship.
Church services were held in homes, the accepted domain of women.
And here women played a major role—teaching, disciplining, and
managing material resources. According to tombstones found in France,
Turkey, Greece, Italy, and Yugoslavia, some of these women were
priests.
Women lost ground when Constantine legalized Christianity and
built grand basilicas—the public sphere of men—for the church. A
new generation of male leaders marched in, casting the women aside.
The flexible hierarchy of the house churches yielded to a more rigid
structure of parishes and dioceses, all run by men.
To excise traces of women’s role in the early church, the apostle
Junia, whom Paul hailed in Romans 16:7 as “foremost among the
apostles,” was transformed into Junias, a male name that incorrectly
persists in Bibles today. In the ancient Roman Church of Saint
Prassede, the mosaic of Bishop Theodora has had the feminine ending
of her name scratched off, leaving Bishop Theodo wearing a
woman’s headdress.
q
[ 173 ]