Pope John Paul II on women who work

from the Letter to Women, written in June 1995:

“Thank you, women who work! You are present and active in every area of life—social, economic, cultural, artistic AND POLITICAL (emphasis mine). In this way you make an indispensable contribution to the growth of a culture which unites reason and feeling, to a model of life ever open to the sense of “mystery,” to the establishment of economic and political structures ever more worthy of humanity. . . . Thank you, every woman, for the simple fact of being a woman! Through the insight which is so much a part of your womanhood you enrich the world’s understanding and help to make human relations more honest and authentic.”

“Women’s dignity has often been unacknowledged and their prerogatives misrepresented; they have often been relegated to the margins of society and even reduced to servitude. This has prevented women from truly being themselves and it has resulted in a spiritual impoverishment of humanity.”

“Women will increasingly play a part in the solution of the serious problems of the future: leisure time, the quality of life, migration, social services, euthanasia, drugs, health care, the ecology, etc. In all these areas a greater presence of women in society will prove most valuable, for it will help to manifest the contradictions present when society is organized solely according to the criteria of efficiency and productivity, and it will force systems to be redesigned in a way which favors the processes of humanization which mark the “civilization of love.”

“It is thus my hope, dear sisters, that you will reflect carefully on what it means to speak of the “genius of women,” not only in order to be able to see in this phrase a specific part of God’s plan which needs to be accepted and appreciated, but also in order to let this genius be more fully expressed in the life of society as a whole, as well as the life of the Church.”

Read the whole thing here: http://www.vatican.va/ holy_fathe...5_women_en.html

I believe that Sarah Palin has already expressed the "genius of women" by cleaning up the corruption and waste in Alaska's politics, and running a honest, responsive state governement and winning an 80-90% approval rating from her constituency. She has expressed the feminine genius in her personal life by being the proud mother of five, including her son Trig with Down syndrome. She considers him a gift, and seems to be doing a fine job juggling her family and political responsibilities. I believe Sarah Palin is the type of woman our Holy Father had in mind when he wrote this letter.