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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 09 September 2014
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.
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.
8 Steichen, Donna, Ungodly Rage (Omaha, NE: Ignatius, 1991), 25.Google Scholar
9 Weaver, Mary Jo, New Catholic Women: A Contemporary Challenge to Traditional Religious Authority (San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1985), 39.Google Scholar
10 Daly, Mary, Beyond God the Father: Towards a Philosophy of Women's Liberation, 2nd ed. (Boston: Beacon, 1985), 18.Google Scholar
11 Chopp, Rebecca S., The Power to Speak: Feminism, Language, God (New York: Crossroad, 1989), 6.Google Scholar
12 Carr, Anne E., Transforming Grace: Christian Experience and Women's Experience (San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1988), 3.Google Scholar
13 This reflects the tension felt by Catholic women between spiritual identification and institutional alienation described by Mary Jo Weaver in Spring of Water in a Dry Land.
14 Fiorenza, Elisabeth Schüssler, Bread Not Stone (Boston: Beacon, 1984).Google Scholar
15 Plaskow, Judith, Standing Again at Sinai: Judaism from a Feminist Perspective (San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1990), 13–15.Google Scholar
16 Schneiders, Sandra M., Beyond Patching: Faith and Feminism in the Catholic Church (New York: Paulist, 1991), 3.Google Scholar
17 Weaver, , New Catholic Women, 36–39.Google Scholar
18 A “women-church” group and liturgies are available in the Washington Metropolitan area at WATER (Women's Alliance for Theology, Ethics and Ritual) in Silver Spring, Maryland.
19 However, within Catholic higher education, Georgetown is sensitive to women's issues and to academic freedom on issues affecting women. There is a Women's Studies Program and the university has supported freedom of speech concerning the reproductive rights of women, while opposing advocacy for abortion.
20 Schneiders, , Beyond Patching, 93.Google Scholar
21 E.g., Fiorenza's, Elisabeth Schüssler In Memory of Her (New York: Crossroad, 1987)Google Scholar and Ruether's, Rosemary RadfordSexism and God-Talk (Boston: Beacon, 1983).Google Scholar For a discussion of introductory feminist theology see Gillis, Chester, “Teaching Feminist Theology: A Male Perspective,” Horizons 17/2 (Fall 1990): 244–55.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
22 Schneiders, , Beyond Patching, 94.Google Scholar
23 Ibid., 73.
24 A recent survey indicated that 87 percent of Catholics under 35 years of age hold this view. See “Report on the Gallup Survey of Catholic Opinion: Documenting a Quiet but Massive Revolution in Catholic Opinion on Church Issues,” prepared by Catholics Speak Out, A Project of the Quixote Center, Hyattsville, MD, 1992.Google Scholar
25 See Hunt, Mary, The Inside Stories: 13 Valiant Women Changing the Church, ed. Milhaven, Annie Lally (Mystic, CT: Twenty-Third Publications, 1987), 119–46.Google Scholar
26 Hunt, Mary, Fierce Tenderness: A Feminist Theology of Friendship (New York: Crossroad, 1992), 12–16.Google Scholar
27 Hunt, Mary, “Latest Pastoral—Less of the Same,” WaterWheel 5/1 (1992): 3.Google Scholar
28 Fiorenza, Elisabeth Schüssler, “Feminist Theology as a Critical Theology of Liberation” in Woman: New Dimensions, ed. Burkhardt, Walter S.J., (New York: Paulist, 1975), 32–35.Google Scholar
29 Bishop Raymond Lucker suggested that the bishops “drop the pastoral, but continue the dialogue.” See Lucker, Raymond A., “A Modest Proposal for the Pastoral on Women,” New Women, New Church 15/2–4 (1992): 3, 20.Google Scholar
30 Fitzpatrick, Ruth, “Women's Ordination Conference Responds to the Bishop's Third Draft of the Pastoral on ‘Women's Concerns,’” New Women, New Church 15/2–4 (1992): 3.Google Scholar
31 Weaver, , New Catholic Women, 39.Google Scholar
32 Mary Jo Weaver has correctly observed that: “The American Catholic church has always counted on its women. In every conceivable setting—urban, rural, suburban—women have been the mainstays of the congregation, the tireless supporters of parish life whose labor-intensive projects have sustained everything from works of mercy to the school system” (ibid., 38).
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.
34 As quoted in “Bishops Weigh Women's Role,” The Washington Post, 11 16, 1992, 5.Google Scholar
35 Weakland, Rembert, “Bishops Refuse to Reaffirm Traditional Roles of Women,” The Washington Post, November 19, 1992, A11.Google Scholar
36 Greeley, , The Catholic Myth, 232.Google Scholar
37 Ibid., 241.