The Second Vatican Council highlighted the role of the laity in the Roman Catholic Church, leading many to think that it acted as a hinge point in the history of Catholicism, enabling the laity to become active within the Church. However, historians such as Leonardo Franchi and Alana Harris are showing that the lived experience of lay Catholics, particularly in Britain, is much richer and more complex than previously supposed. This important publication by Boston University historian, Dr Kathryn G. Lamontagne adds to this growing body of evidence with a persuasively written and thoroughly researched monograph which shows that lay women have had agency within the Catholic Church since the late nineteenth century. Furthermore, in doing so, she deftly undermines the assumption that Catholicism is a patriarchal institution that effectively controls the lives of its female adherents. In the introduction, Lamontagne sets out her aims thus:
I will show how some exceptional, devout lay Catholic women rethought aspects of Catholic womanhood, traditional gender roles, and domestic patterns. This seemingly patriarchal religion became a source of agency and autonomy for some women, where they could revise some perceived aspects of Catholic womanhood and domesticity while actively participating in the practice of their faith. (p. 2)
She achieves this through a study of the lived religious experiences of four women, Margaret Fletcher, a middle class convert and founder of the Catholic Women’s League; Maude Petre, a born or cradle Catholic from a recusant family who dared to challenge the Catholic hierarchy; and Mabel Batten and Radclyffe Hall, converts and society sapphists who met the pope and expressed their faith through material culture and orthodoxy. Lamontagne argues that each of these women found an agency and freedom within Catholicism that would otherwise have been denied them. Lamontagne openly admits that this work is hindered by the fact that these women are all educated and come from privileged backgrounds: ‘The women with voices are largely the women who already had agency in most areas. Accordingly, these women were all economically and geographically privileged. They have left traces due to their status in society’ (p. 161). This factor should not, however, detract from the importance of a monograph which contributes to the historiography by bringing early twentieth century women firmly into the conversation about the lived experience of Catholicism in Britain.
Lamontagne is meticulous in her approach to this topic. She has done much to uncover papers and material that would otherwise have been lost. For instance, in her acknowledgements she speaks of visiting the homes of her subjects’ descendants and sitting at their kitchen tables working on source material. As most of us who work on history of the lived experience of religion know, this is often the only way to unearth the historical record; and it is a testimony to Lamontagne’s tenacity and interpersonal skills that she has been able to achieve the trust necessary to gain access to what are often precious family heirlooms. This meticulousness is translated into the structure of the monograph itself. The main text is prefaced by a section on terminology which provides a useful glossary when reading the case studies and prevents the narrative of these women’s lived experiences from becoming overwhelmed by explanations of beliefs, such as transubstantiation, or movements, such as modernism. Lamontagne is good at expressing the meaning of these ideas and terms in a simple manner without losing depth or importance. Similarly, in the introduction and first chapter, ‘Catholicism and Lay Womanhood’, the research is sited within the historical context and the historiography in a lucid style which provides a robust foundation for the case studies and again allows the reader to fully appreciate the significance of these women’s lives and experiences within the Catholic Church. However, this monograph really comes to life in the case studies of the four women: Fletcher, Petre, Batten and Hall who each in their own way challenged traditional perceptions of Catholic womanhood and in doing so moved away from conventional gender roles. Through their stories, Lamontagne shows that ‘Catholicism was, in many ways, much more accepting or tolerant of alternative interpretations of lay Catholic womanhood than commonly supposed’ (p. 2). Lamontagne also shows that class was as important as gender to the experiences of these women, affecting how they asserted themselves within the institution.
Lamontagne tells us that ‘these women are not meant to be representative of all Catholic women, but their stories demonstrate that in interactions between Catholic women and the Catholic hierarchy there was considerable space for negotiation’ (p. 11). Throughout this excellent monograph, she proves this argument consistently and persuasively resulting in an exceptional contribution to the historiography of modern British Catholicism.
