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Faith, Feminism, and the Catholic Church with Natalia Lee and Julie Rubio

Written on . Posted in Women Erased, Women In Church Leadership.

FutureChurch welcomes Professors Julie Hanlon Rubio and Natalia Imperatori-Lee for a conversation on faith, feminism, and the Catholic Church. Both scholars have recently written critically acclaimed books on the topic.

In Women and the Church: From Devil’s Gateway to Discipleship Natalia Imperatori Lee examines the history of Christian feminism as a response to patriarchy, the ways in which women have been portrayed in scripture and women’s hermeneutical strategies, and the contributions of women to the subfields of systematic theology.

In Can You Be a Catholic and a Feminist? Julie Hanlon Rubio explores the enduring but newly urgent question, arguing that a Catholic feminist identity is only tenable if we frankly acknowledge tensions between Catholicism and feminism, bring forward shared concerns, and embrace the future with ambiguity and creativity.

Natalia Imperatori-Lee is professor of religious studies at Manhattan College in Riverdale, Bronx, New York. She teaches in the areas of Catholic ecclesiology, gender studies, and Latinx theologies. Imperatori-Lee holds degrees from Fordham University, the University of Chicago, and the University of Notre Dame.

Julie Hanlon Rubio is the Shea-Heusaman Professor of Christian Social Ethics and Associate Dean at Jesuit School of Theology of Santa Clara University in Berkeley, California. She previously taught in the department of theological studies at St. Louis University for nearly two decades. Her research focuses on family, feminism, sex, and politics.

Working Document Listening Session with Dr. Cynthia Bailey Manns

Written on . Posted in Justice In the Church, Synod on Synodality.

Synod Delegate, Dr. Cynthia Bailey Manns, joins FutureChurch to host a listening session in preparation for the October 2024 Assembly of the Synod on Communion, Participation, and Mission.

Dr. Bailey Manns joins in conversation with a number of listening session participants regarding details of the newly released working document that will guide the October 2024 Assembly. Of note, participants discuss the development that discussion of women deacons has now been “entrusted” to the Dicastery for the Doctrine of Faith.

We apologize that, because of technical issues, the recording begins a few minutes into the conversation as Deborah Rose is sharing her thoughts about the news that discussion of women deacons was being taken up by the Dicastery for the Doctrine of faith.

Dr. Cynthia Bailey Manns is one of four lay people from the United States who were appointed by Pope Francis as the first lay women and men voting delegates to participate at the first general assembly of the Synod of Bishops on Synodality this past October and again in October 2024. She is also one of the six St. Paul & Minneapolis Archdiocesan representatives in the Continental phase of the pre-Synod preparations and at Archbishop Hebda’s request, ably represented the Archdiocese on the team that worked with the World Council of Churches and the Dicastery for the Promotion of Christian Unity to draft the international materials for the 2023 Week of Prayer for Christian Unity.

Dr. Bailey Manns is the Director of Adult Learning at Saint Joan of Arc Catholic Community in Minneapolis—a community whose vision is to be a visible, progressive Catholic Community, compassionate and welcoming to all. She holds a Doctor of Ministry in Spiritual Direction from the Graduate Theological Foundation in Florida and currently serves as Adjunct Faculty at United Theological Seminary of the Twin Cities. She is an experienced soul companion/spiritual director, supervisor, and retreat leader with emphasis on human development, spirituality, spiritual formation, soul care for lay and ordained leaders, and sacred activism. She lives with her family in Bloomington, Minnesota.

Women in the Church Listening Session with Dr. Cynthia Bailey Manns

Written on . Posted in Justice In the Church, Synod on Synodality.

Synod Delegate, Dr. Cynthia Bailey Manns, joins FutureChurch to host a listening session in preparation for the October 2024 Assembly of the Synod on Communion, Participation, and Mission. The listening session begins with Dr. Bailey Manns’s review of the Synod so far including developments since the October 2023 assembly and steps toward the October 2024 assembly. Dr. Bailey Manns then receives input and takes questions from those gathered.

Dr. Cynthia Bailey Manns is one of four lay people from the United States who were appointed by Pope Francis as the first lay women and men voting delegates to participate at the first general assembly of the Synod of Bishops on Synodality this past October and again in October 2024. She is also one of the six St. Paul & Minneapolis Archdiocesan representatives in the Continental phase of the pre-Synod preparations and at Archbishop Hebda’s request, ably represented the Archdiocese on the team that worked with the World Council of Churches and the Dicastery for the Promotion of Christian Unity to draft the international materials for the 2023 Week of Prayer for Christian Unity.

Dr. Bailey Manns is the Director of Adult Learning at Saint Joan of Arc Catholic Community in Minneapolis—a community whose vision is to be a visible, progressive Catholic Community, compassionate and welcoming to all. She holds a Doctor of Ministry in Spiritual Direction from the Graduate Theological Foundation in Florida and currently serves as Adjunct Faculty at United Theological Seminary of the Twin Cities. She is an experienced soul companion/spiritual director, supervisor, and retreat leader with emphasis on human development, spirituality, spiritual formation, soul care for lay and ordained leaders, and sacred activism. She lives with her family in Bloomington, Minnesota.

Queer Saints and Ancestors: Spiritual Practices of Recovery and Imagination with Flora x. Tang

Written on . Posted in Justice In the Church.

Throughout church history, Catholics and other Christians have turned to the saints as sources of hope, inspiration, friendship, and community. How have queer Catholics turned to a similar spirituality of saints and ancestors to sustain them in their faith and justice? How have stories of queer saints been a source of inspiration, but also a site of contestation? In her presentation, Flora Tang explores how queer Catholics have retrieved stories of queer saints and queer ancestors and guides us through a practice re-imagining the saints and their presence in our lives.

Flora x. Tang is a doctoral candidate in theology and peace studies at the University of Notre Dame, where she writes and researches about post-traumatic theology, queer theology, and decolonial Asian theology. Flora has previously worked as a hospital chaplain, a campus ministry fellow, and a service-learning program coordinator for college students. Her theology and preaching draw from her complex faith journey to and within Catholicism: from becoming Catholic at age 19 after living and serving with Catholic sisters, to deconstructing her faith while living in Palestine, to discovering her own queer Catholic expressions of faith. Flora is committed to reimagining God’s love while standing on the margins of the Catholic faith.

A Queer Blessing – by Flora Tang (2024)

Blessed be God.
Blessed be God’s many names and faces.
Blessed be God in the whispering breeze and the blazing flame.
Blessed be God the mother, who gave birth to the world, and who never fails to listen to the cries of her children.
Blessed be God the father, who adorns himself in glory and radiance.
Blessed be God beyond all genders: God the mother, father, and parent, whose name is simply “I am who I am.”

Blessed be our father Jacob, who wrestles with an angel all night for a blessing.
Blessed be our mother Hagar, who sees God in the desert in times of desperation.
Blessed be the prophets Elijah and Elisha, who swore to one another the oath of love, “as long as the Lord lives, and as you yourself live, I will not leave you.”
Blessed be Mary and Martha, partners and sisters, who rested by one another, loving one another from death to resurrection.
Blessed be Jesus in the poor, in the marginalized, and in the forgotten queer names and faces.
Blessed be the queer spirits, the queer angels, the queer saints, and the queer ancestors, whose intercessions and blessings instill a love within us that transgresses all and consumes all.

Blessed are you:
   you who resist, you who love,
   you who desire, you who struggle.

And blessed am I,
and blessed are we, children of God,
now and forever, Amen. 

Download “A Queer Blessing” by Flora Tang

 

Celebrating Queer Becoming with Barbara Anne Kozee

Written on . Posted in Justice In the Church.

Content warning: This presentation begins with a discussion on statistics of physical and sexual violence. If you may be sensitive to this type of content, we advise skipping forward to the 8 minute 30 second mark.

Doctoral student, Barbara Anne Kozee, continues FutureChurch’s Pride Month series with a presentation on “Celebrating Queer Becoming.” In her presentation, Barbara brings contemporary queer theory into conversation with the contemplative theology and spirituality of Karl Rahner, SJ to illuminate a liberating pathway forward for all – and especially queer Catholics – based on “becoming.”

Barbara Anne Kozee is entering her third year as a PhD student in Theological Ethics at Boston College. Barb completed her Master of Divinity at Jesuit School of Theology of Santa Clara University with a certificate in women’s studies in religion. Her research focuses on issues of gender, sexuality, culture, and politics with an emphasis on interdisciplinary and qualitative methods.

Additional Resources from this Talk

Working Together: Feminist and Queer Theology in Conversation with Mary E. Hunt, Ph.D.

Written on . Posted in Justice In the Church.

Mary Hunt, Ph.D. kicks off FutureChurch’s Pride Month series with a presentation on “Working Together: Feminist and Queer Theology in Conversation.”

Dr. Hunt’s presentation names the current lived reality for women and LGBTQ+ people in the Catholic Church, explores the histories and intersection of both feminist and queer theologies, and offers practical suggestions and principles for working together toward justice in the world and church. Dr. Hunt then engages in conversation with several participants.

Mary E. Hunt, Ph.D., is a feminist theologian who is cofounder and co director of the Women’s Alliance for Theology, Ethics, and Ritual (WATER) in Silver Spring, Maryland, USA. A Catholic active in the women-church movement, she lectures and writes on theology and ethics with particular attention to social justice concerns. Visit the WATER website to learn more about their work and about Dr. Hunt and her publications.

Reading List

Mary E. Hunt (5.4.24) mentioned a variety of foundational historical sources in feminist, liberation, and queer theologies on which current work is built. These sources are meant to be illustrative not exhaustive.

Early feminist work:

  1. Elizabeth Cady Stanton, The Woman’s Bible,1895
  2. Valerie Saiving, “The Human Situation: A Feminine View,” The Journal of Religion, Vol. 40, No. 2, Apr., 1960, pp. 100-112, published by: The University of Chicago Press; Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1200194

Basic texts in pioneering feminist work in religion:

  1. Mary Daly, Beyond God the Father, 1973
  2. Rosemary Radford Ruether, Sexism and God-talk: Toward a Feminist Theology, 1983
  3. Shawn Copeland, Enfleshing Freedom: Body, Race and Being, 2010
  4. Elisabeth Schüssler Fiorenza, In Memory of Her: A Feminist Theological Reconstruction of Christian Origins, 1984
  5. Katie Geneva Cannon, Black Womanist Ethics, 1988
  6. Ivone Gebara, Longing for Running Water: Ecofeminism and Liberation, 1999

Key texts for various other liberation theologies:

  1. Gustavo Gutierrez, A Theology of Liberation, 1971
  2. James Cone, Black Theology and Black Power, 1969
  3. Nancy Eiesland, The Disabled God: Toward a Liberatory Theology of Disability, 1994

Roots of contemporary Queer Theology

  1. John McNeill, The Church and the Homosexual, 1976
  2. Kevin Gordon, Report, San Francisco Archdiocesan Commission on Social Justice’s Task Force on Gay/Lesbian Issues, 1982
  3. John Boswell, Christianity, Social Tolerance, and Homosexuality: Gay People in Western Europe from the Beginning of the Christian Era to the Fourteenth Century, 1981
  4. Bernadette Brooten, Love Between Women: Early Christian Responses to Female Homoeroticism, 1996
  5. Sally Miller Gearhart, The Lesbian and God-the-Father, 1973 (see LGBTQ-Religious Archives Network)
  6. Virginia Ramey Mollenkott, Sensuous Spirituality: Out from Fundamentalism, 1992
  7. Virginia Ramey Mollenkott and Letha Scanzoni, Is the Homosexual My Neighbor? A Positive Christian Response, 1994
  8. Virginia Ramey Mollenkott, Omni-Gender: A Trans Religious Approach, 2007

How Do Roman Catholic Womenpriests Contribute to Our Understanding of Church

Written on . Posted in Respect Women Series, Women Erased, Women In Church Leadership.

FutureChurch welcomes co-authors, Sharon Henderson Callahan and Jeanette Rodriguez, to discuss their new book,  Women Called to Catholic Priesthood: From Ecclesial Challenge to Spiritual Renewal (Fortress Press, 2024).

In their compelling and carefully crafted ethnographic work, Sharon Callahan and Jeanette Rodriguez explore the contexts, calls, journeys, spirituality, and theology of women called to priesthood in the Roman Catholic Church. Posing the questions of how womenpriests’ stories illustrate both ecclesial challenges and spiritual renewal, the authors encourage readers to thoughtfully engage these women on their own terms.

Sharon Henderson Callahan, EdD, is professor emerita and past academic dean of the School of Theology and Ministry at Seattle University. A scholar of ministry and leadership , Callahan has focused her research on both Roman Catholic and mainline Protestant ecclesial formation.

Jeanette Rodriguez, PhD, is a professor of theology and religious studies at Seattle University. Currently she also serves as Executive Director of the Institute for Catholic Thought and Culture at the university. She is a ‘border theologian” studying Christian faith experience among different cultural groups; her books include studies of Haudenosaunee and Mexican American cultural identity.

Both Callahan and Rodriguez have performed qualitative, ethnographic research in locations around the world.

Purchase the book in paperback or Kindle on Amazon.