Preface

Exploring the different religions, their history, rituals and symbols, to understand who we are and what we carry from the past into today’s world, seems to be necessary and meaningful.

Certainly, for us in the West, the three main monotheist religlions, Judaism, Catholicism and Islam are the most relevant and influencial. But the influence of Buddhism and Induism have also developed significantly in our globalized western world.

Nevertheless, religion is not a simple matter that can be studied only in books without a presonal research for meaning. And to avoid getting lost in its complexity or having a very superficial approach it is necessary to limit the subject and choose a specific approach.

This is why I chose “The cat and its relationship with the feminine: from the sacred creature in Egypt to the embodiment of the Devil in the Middle Ages for the Catholic Church” as the subject of this paper:

1. I grew up in a Catholic family and environment as most Italians, but I knew very little about my own religion, except what I learnt when I was a young girl in a very superficial way, and later my refusal of Catholicism in my teens.

2. I see and feel the role of patriarchal/masculine one sidedness in our lives and in the world.

3. As for any very complex subject, although today I don’t “believe” as I was tought in my youth in Catholicism and in its embodiement in the Church. I nevertheless think I should also be opened to welcoming the positive aspects and results of Catholicism (just think of the amazing artistic realizations it has inspired in architecture, sculpture, paintings, music!) and understand more deeply what does not fit in today’s path of my specicific “Indiviuation process”.

Now that Cat Ladies have emerged powerfully into the US Presidential Campaign, after Vance treated Kamala Harris as a “Childless Cat Laty”, the meaning of this paper seams to come to life collectively and become relevant way beyond my intentions. I truly hope that learning a bit more about the symbolism of cats may bring a small contribution to the renewed energy in preparing for a presidential election, that will influence the future of the entire world.

-An Italian Cat Lady with a wonderful son, two cats and a dog.

Read The Cat and its Relationship with the Feminine in its entirety here.