Misogyny threatens love, says writer-director at Vatican conference

Published: 2006-01-25

VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- An Italian writer-director whose films often deal with love and faith told a Vatican conference that misogyny, or hatred of women, is the greatest threat to self-giving love. Liliana Cavani, who wrote and directed the 2002 film "Ripley's Game" and the 1989 "St. Francis of Assisi," was asked to give an artist's view of Pope Benedict XVI's encyclical "Deus Caritas Est" ("God Is Love") at a Vatican conference Jan. 24, a day before the encyclical was released. Cavani said it was important for the pope and the Catholic Church to tell the world that it believes people were made to love and that love, "which initially appears mostly as eros between a man a woman, must transform itself into agape, into self-giving, which responds to the true nature of eros." The director told the conference, sponsored by the Pontifical Council Cor Unum, that misogyny is the greatest threat to the realization of the kind of love the encyclical promotes.

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