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Feminist Theology, Roman Catholicism, and Alienation
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 09 September 2014
Abstract
The topic of this article is the effects that the writings of feminist theologians, many of whom are Roman Catholic, have upon Catholic students. The questions it attempts to answer are: Has feminist theology served to alienate American Catholics further from the church, discouraging them from identifying with the tradition or institution, or has it awakened them to retrieve the tradition in a creative way and to take responsibility within the institution and reshape it? The article further seeks to differentiate between spirituality, theology, and religious institution. How will Catholicism affect the larger culture if this generation is alienated from institutional identification? If they settle permanently on alternative forms of religious identification and spiritual fulfillment the face of Catholicism in the future will be even more conservative than it is today. However, feminist theology may be the basis for hope. Seriously attended to by the church, it could help to inform the consciousness of the next generation.
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- Copyright © The College Theology Society 1993
References
1 Greeley, Andrew M., The Catholic Myth: The Behavior and Beliefs of American Catholics (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1990), 16.Google Scholar
2 See ibid., 26.
3 Unlike sociologists, I cannot quantify how many since my methods and concerns are theological and not sociological and I recognize that my research may not withstand a critique offered from the perspective of sociological methods.
4 Ibid., 63.
5 I recognize that Roman Catholicism has many expressions, interpretations, and dimensions. Thus the term does not indicate a monolithic understanding. Here I use the term specifically indicating institutional Catholicism in the same way that Mary Jo Weaver writes about women making decisions to stay within or leave institutional Catholicism in Springs of Water in a Dry Land: Spiritual Survival for Catholic Women Today (Boston: Beacon, 1993), xi.Google Scholar
6 Of course, it could be argued that institutional/traditional linkage may not be essential for Catholicism, but here I consider them essential qualities that, in part at least, determine Catholicism in its private and public character.
7 These reflections have been chosen with a theological objective in mind, that is, to illustrate the positions and sophistication of argument found among these students. It differs from other approaches such as that of Redmont, Jane in her book Generous Lives: American Catholic Women Today (New York: Morrow, 1992)Google Scholar, who chronicles the reflections of many Catholic women without employing a particular theological method or argument. While this convenience sampling does not constitue one that would meet social scientific criteria of acceptability, it does indicate the opinions and attitudes of a segment of the Catholic college population. Some of the characteristics of this group are that they are traditional-age (18-22), upper-middle class, representing fifty states, approximately 80 percent white and 80 percent female.
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33 This raises a more complex question of spiritual and psychological development that cannot be addressed adequately here. The work of Greeley on the various stages of religious identification and faith development could be compared fruitfully with that of James Fowler, Sharon Parks, Brennan Hill, and Carol Gilligan. Although it is beyond the scope of this article, it would be interesting to examine these theories of faith development specifically in relation to students' encounter with feminist theology.
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