Category: Feminism

Much of what we do in our circles of progressive Catholicism today draws directly on the work of those who acted for change in the wake of the Second Vatican Council. One of these key post-Vatican II leaders is the Peruvian priest Gustavo Gutiérrez, OP (1928-), whose foundational text, Teología de la liberación, perspectivas (1971),…
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I just read Krista Tippett’s recent interview with author Katherine May, on NPR’s “On Being.” May’s book is Wintering: The Power of Rest and Retreat in Difficult Times. I have to admit, as relevant as the topic seemed, I had to force myself to continue past the subtitle. I’m inordinately wary of the “rest, relax,…
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I always start my class with a temperature check to gauge how much energy my students have. My favorite and easiest way to do this is by asking them to show me, on a scale of zero to three, where their energy level is. They then hold up that number of fingers in front of…
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Okay, I admit I’m just showing off by using the above title. I liked the sound but I did have to look up the meaning (so much for my two years of formally studying Latin and endless years of hearing it in church). It means, by the way, “incidental remark”. Remember the line to be…
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Isn’t this painting magnificent? Artist Bryn Gillette sweeps us into the swirl of life surrounding women who are with child. Out of whirlpools of love and suffering and chaos, they are bringing forth new life in all its variety, in all its sweetness, in all its hues and tints and tones, in all its depth…
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“A valiant woman” is the lovely complement that Pope Francis gives to Sister of Loretto Jeannine Gramick in a handwritten note to New Ways Ministry last June. NCR reports: “I know how much she has suffered,” the pope wrote. “She is a valiant woman who makes her decisions in prayer.”  New Ways Executive Director Frank…
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Annunciation Even if I don’t see it again—nor ever feel it I know it is—and that if once it hailed me it ever does— And so it is myself I want to turn in that direction not as towards a place, but it was a tilting within myself, as one turns a mirror to flash…
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After a month of looking at issues of oppression that we can use our priesthood to address, I am delighted to find important articles on ordination.  In La Croix International, George Wilson presents a deceptively simple analysis of the situation. He begins slowly: it’s a “policy” to exclude a “class” of people based on “gender.”…
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Casey Cep wrote that line in a book review for the New Yorker, and it jumped right out of context and into my consciousness. In fact, I read that line soon after returning from the Catholics Organized for Renewal witness and march at the Baltimore U.S. Bishops’ conference. We walked the chilly streets chanting “Bread…
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We will be doing some dramatic gathering together, especially this month. The obvious, what I call “dramatic” gathering, will be for the Thanksgiving feast. The other major coming together will be to fulfill the request of the Pope to gather as a community to begin to dialogue about what we envision as a “synodal” new…
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