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The Baptism of Eros

Abstract This article considers the Catholic Church's rejection of female sexed bodies as capable of symbolizing Christ in the Eucharist of God's agency in the world. The theories of René Girard provide a useful resource for analyzing the fear of female sexuality within Catholicism. They reveal that an obsessive focus upon sex has been the means through which the male tendency towards sacrificial violence, forbidden within Christianity, has continued to exert a powerful influence. A recognition of this substitutory process would not only enable a revisioning of the roles women and men might play within the Church, but also enable the Church to more effectively oppose the ‘culture of death’ which endangers us all.