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  "path": "/2026/05/13/curiositas-feminine-genius/",
  "publishedAt": "2026-05-13T05:07:00.000Z",
  "site": "https://juicyecumenism.com",
  "tags": [
    "Catholicism",
    "Erika Kirk crying",
    "curiositas",
    "King Saul",
    "Adam and Eve",
    "Hans Boersma",
    "Jeremy Boreing",
    "80 percent",
    "feminine genius",
    "me",
    "wrote",
    "Catholic Influencers’ Antisemitism Problem",
    "Reflections on the United Methodist Women: Recipe Included",
    "‘Men Without Chests’ and Scent of a Woman",
    "Curiositas and the Feminine Genius",
    "Juicy Ecumenism"
  ],
  "textContent": "In the wake of the attempted shooting at the April 25 White House Correspondents’ Dinner, the media response caused me to reflect on a topic that I almost wrote about during Lent.\n\nI know, the news media thrives on any drama it can find, but I was struck by the relentless fixation on repeatedly re-airing video footage of Erika Kirk crying. Why are so many fixated upon seeing a widow grieve, such that multiple videos from multiple angles are necessary to analyze and determine if she was properly distraught to their satisfaction?\n\nThe answer, I think, is a vice, which we have come to prize as virtue. This vice, because of its hallmarks, wreaks particular havoc when displayed in women.\n\nThomas Aquinas wrote of the sin of “curiositas,” Latin for curiosity. Today, it’s hard to believe that Aquinas would see curiosity as anything but a virtue. We are materialistic people, and as such, we see all acquisition as a good; this includes knowledge, no matter how trivial or inconsequential to us.\n\nAquinas did appreciate acquiring knowledge in the right way, for the right reasons and purposes. Curiositas is different. We all know that there are wrong ways of acquiring knowledge including: stealing, eavesdropping, or turning to the demonic. King Saul exemplifies someone who was undone by curiositas. But it goes further, there is some knowledge which we shouldn’t pursue; it’s not edifying: it is corrupting (ask Adam and Eve), it is knowledge that we do not have the capacity to put into proper use, and of course, there is gossip. Curiositas is also knowledge that is sought for the wrong reason. It can be sought for pride or, in the popular rhetoric, “to just ask questions.”\n\nAnglican Theologian Hans Boersma writes, “Curiosity is the lustful pursuit of the pleasures of the eyes…” In Aristotelian terms, it is a vice of excess. And it can never be satisfied. It’s why we doom scroll and binge-watch, taking in the trivial.\n\nTrue knowledge that we should seek has a real and incarnational purpose. We learn so that we can act in the world. We learn a vocation, we learn about God, and we know our neighbors. All of this knowledge is connected to action, to real incarnational work. Scrolling through Twitter/X, binge watching TV, learning the latest gossip has no incarnational outlet, and so many people become keyboard warriors feeding into the very monster that is making them.\n\nAll of this takes us away from the incarnational work of the Christian. We learn about God to love and serve Him better. We go into the community and learn about our neighbors so that we can better care for them. Real knowledge allows this; it enables action in love.\n\nWhat does this have to do with the videos of Erika Kirk? It is real curiositas on our part to need to witness the grief in order to make sure that Kirk is grieving to our standards. How many people can share all the details of Candace Owen’s “investigation” into Mrs. Kirk and are, at the same time, completely oblivious to the widow on their street who feels alone? How many people are wrapped up in online keyboard warring and never meet the poor, the sick, or the lonely?\n\nAs I listened to Jeremy Boreing, Owens former employer, speak in a podcast on toxic femininity in relation to Erica Kirk, it finally struck me why we witness a particularly ugly display from women online. Boreing notes that, along with much of catty gossip online, overly conspiratorially minded women are also turning to shows such as Owens’ podcast, as well as true crime podcasts, 80 percent of whose listeners are women. Both, of course, claim to share intimate details about specific people, who are persons the viewer will never meet. Both allow the viewer to make hard judgments about persons they don’t know but feel they know intimately, and they offer no incarnational outlet for this knowledge.\n\nBoth sexes are prone to all vices just as they are capable of all virtues, but each manifests differently in each. It is why it is so off-putting to see cowardly men and uncompassionate women.\n\nIn women, curiosistas is a perversion and corruption of what Pope John Paul II called the feminine genius. It is the hallmark of the feminine, receptivity of the other in order to understand their needs and nurture them there on the way to heaven. It is what makes women good at meeting the physical and spiritual needs of others. It’s why women can tell all the details of a conversation; they are storing that information for future use in service to the other. The feminine genius is displayed vibrantly in the lives of Saints as varied as Joan of Arc and Saint Thérèse of Lisieux. It is, of course, best displayed by the Blessed Mother, whose words, “be it done unto me,” are the epitome of receptivity.\n\nBut every girl bullied in high school knows just how ugly it is to have the feminine genius corrupted and turned on her. Weaknesses sized up, hurts shared with the student population. We unfortunately see this in a public way with content that many, particularly women, choose to consume.\n\nWe should pray for Kirk and even for Owens. And we should teach women to reject curiositas and encourage them to lean fully into the receptivity, sensitivity, and generosity that are hallmarks of Christian womanhood.\n\nAs John Paul II wrote, “In this vast domain of service, the Church’s two-thousand-year history, for all its historical conditioning, has truly experienced the “genius of woman’; from the heart of the Church there have emerged women of the highest caliber who have left an impressive and beneficial mark in history.” May we strive to be among them.\n\n**More from IRD** :\n\nCatholic Influencers’ Antisemitism Problem\n\nReflections on the United Methodist Women: Recipe Included\n\n‘Men Without Chests’ and Scent of a Woman\n\nThe post Curiositas and the Feminine Genius appeared first on Juicy Ecumenism.",
  "title": "Curiositas and the Feminine Genius"
}