Unruly Catholic Feminists

Prose, Poetry, and the Future of the Faith

Jeana DelRosso, Leigh Eicke, Ana Kothe, Jeana DelRosso, Leigh Eicke, Ana Kothe

• Publisher: Excelsior Editions
• Year: 2021
• Print ISBN: 9781438485003, 9781438485010
• eBook ISBN: 9781438485027
• Topic: Teologia e religione
• Subtopic: Biografie nell'ambito delle scienze sociali

Third- and fourth-wave feminists write about their experiences with Catholicism and their visions for the future of women in the Church.

A collection of creative pieces, Unruly Catholic Feminists explores how women are coming to terms with their feminism and Catholicism in the twenty-first century. Through short stories, poems, and personal essays, third- and fourth-wave feminists write about the issues, reforms, and potential for progress. Giving voice to many younger writers, the book includes a variety of geographic and ethnic points of view from which women write about their experiences with Catholicism and their visions for the future. While change in the church may be slow to come, even the promise of progress may provide hope for women struggling with the conflicts between their religion and their sense of their own spirituality. Rather than always only oppressing or containing women, Catholicism also drives or inspires many to challenge literary, social, political, or religious hierarchies. By examining how women attempt to reconcile their unruliness with their Catholic backgrounds or conversions and their future hopes and dreams, Unruly Catholic Feminists offers new perspectives on gender and religion today-and for the days yet to come.

Part One

Domestic and Global Social Justice

Mary

Elizabeth Brulé Farrell

Dusty wooden statue of Mary,

Virgin of Guadalupe, cobwebs hang

from your rays of light.

Your shadow against the wall

at the top of the stairwell

has caught my attention.

I stop and sit with you a while,

another woman who worries

and loves her son as I do.

Both of us illuminated

in front of the window, I offer

my shirttail to wipe both our faces.

You Don’t Belong Here

Lauren Frances Guerra

In typical Catholic fashion, my family’s church attendance has waxed and waned over the years. Our local Catholic parish, located in a diverse neighborhood in Los Angeles, California, served as a space for celebrating holy days of obligation in community. I was raised as a Roman Catholic and yet my faith journey has not been without its struggle. For a long time, I was uncertain if the religious tradition that I was raised in was what I truly believed and wanted to continue to be a part of. Another important factor in my faith journey is that I didn’t realize that the religious practices that my family engages in are what U.S. Latinx theologians describe as Popular Catholicism. Indeed, Latinx religious expression is incredibly complicated and multifaceted, and many of us continue to navigate a space between multiple spiritual traditions.

For many Latinx Roman Catholics, there is often no conflict in attending church on Sunday and participating in another spiritual tradition simultaneously. Allow me to explain how this might function concretely. My maternal grandmother has a small altar in her home. Her altar consists of a few candles, rosary, two large santos or statuettes of Mary and Joseph, and a ceramic hand-crafted Niño Jesus. I did not know until quite recently that my grandmother brought all three with her on the long journey when she immigrated from Guatemala City to Los Angeles. The holy family was and continues to be a consistent presence in her home. But in addition to Roman Catholicism, my family also practices elements of Curanderismo. This involves spiritual practices such as limpias to combat mal de ojo, going to botanicas on occasion, and consulting curandero/as. Both my maternal and paternal grandmothers hold a very special place in their heart for the astrology of Walter Mercado. Yes, Walter Mercado, in his dazzling, sequin glory is a significant spiritual leader for many Latinx people. His astrological segment, which, when I was growing up, would come on during the Spanish broadcast of the evening news, was vital. His predictions and forecast of what was to come served as an important source of knowledge. I distinctly remember that once Walter appeared on screen, the living room was completely captivated by the wisdom he had to offer. And while one might get the impression that looking to astrology or alternative healing practices is something that only the elders of a community engage in, this is not the case. I would like to note that several of my Latinx students (who are part of the millennial generation such as myself) are also devotees of Walter Mercado. They too participate in various Indigenous spiritual practices such as healing circles and sweat lodge ceremonies, to name a few. While more folks seem to be self-identifying as “spiritual not religious,” I wonder how many of those folks are actually returning to a more ancient Indigenous or African-based spiritual practice as a way of decolonizing. The syncretic nature of Latinx belief cannot be understated, and I would be remiss not to mention it as part of my own self-reflection in conversation with Roman Catholicism.

Childhood is a formative time for everyone, and our experiences with the church in particular shape us. A few blocks walking distance from my parents’ home was a local Catholic parish. It was in a convenient location and thus functioned as our go-to neighborhood church. On one occasion, during a particularly difficult time in our family life, my mother sought the pastoral council of our parish priest. I was about seven years old, and I remember this moment as if it were yesterday. One Sunday, after Mass was finished, my mother and I walked up to the presider so that she could speak with him. He indicated that she should wait for him outside of the sacristy and that he would meet her there shortly. We followed his instructions and waited for him by the sacristy. A few moments later, he appeared and opened the door to the sacristy. He asked my mom to step inside, but I was not received with the same welcome. Instead, he pushed me away and scolded me, saying, “You don’t belong here.” Before I knew what had happened, the sacristy door was slammed right in my face. In shock, I sat down on the steps of the sacristy in tears to wait for my mom. While my mom was inside speaking with the priest for what may have been only two or three minutes, it felt like an eternity to a young child. While this moment may seem inconsequential to some, it was formative for me.

I asked myself: Why didn’t I belong? I thought God loved everyone and that the church itself was supposed to reflect that love. Why wasn’t I welcome there? Why didn’t I belong? Was it because I was a child? Was it because I was a girl? Was it because I was Latina? That moment marked my relationship with the Roman Catholic Church for a long time. As a child, I also never understood why my church did not have female priests or why women were treated as second-class citizens in general. As I got older, I began to see issues of racism and sexism in the church more clearly.

Unfortunately, women in the Catholic Church are complicit in this type of discrimination as well. Several years later, after the incident previously mentioned, I returned to the same parish to register for confirmation classes. This ended up being a huge mistake as another unfortunate incident occurred. You may be thinking to yourself, Why on earth would you go back to that parish? I attended this parish for my first communion classes and actually had a wonderful experience. My teacher, a very kind Korean American nun, made the first communion classes a lot of fun. I had sincerely hoped that the same would be true for my confirmation classes, but that was not to be the case.

One sunny Saturday morning while in the midst of running various errands, my mother and I stopped by our local parish. The church was conducting sign-ups for the upcoming round of first communion and confirmation classes. A sign-up table was set up in the church parking lot between the church and the parish elementary school. My mom parked in the parking lot, and I hopped out of the car to go sign up at the registration table for Confirmation I. It was meant to be a quick stop at the church: Go, sign up, and continue about the rest of our day.

A female parent volunteer was running the “Confirmation I” registration table and I walked up to her. I indicated that I would like to register for the upcoming confirmation classes. She began with a series of basic questions such as name, address, phone number, et cetera, which went smoothly. Then she asked me if I owned a Bible because I would need one for the confirmation classes. I said that I wasn’t sure if my family had one or not. I admitted that we didn’t really read the Bible at home. She looked quite disturbed at my response, as if I had committed a mortal sin. Then, she proceeded to yell at me. She screamed: “What do you mean you don’t know if you own a Bible?!? You should be reading it every day. Why haven’t they shown you the Bible; it is the Word of God. Your family is going straight to hell.” In utter shock, I looked at her in disbelief and walked away. I immediately began crying on my walk back to my mother’s car in the parking lot. Running through my head were questions like: What did she mean my family was going to hell? Why did she yell at me for not having a Bible? I arrived back at the car. Seeing that I was visibly upset, my mom asked: “What happened??” and I explained to her what had happened when I tried to sign up for classes. My mom’s response was, “Are you serious? I can’t believe she said that to you. Forget it, you’re not doing confirmation then.” And that was the end of that.

I did not take confirmation classes until many, many years later when I was a first-year in college. It was at that point that I had enough insight to understand that while my experiences as a child were violent and cruel, they did not represent the whole of Roman Catholicism. My culture makes it difficult for me to completely disconnect from the faith as the two are so deeply enmeshed. It is all far more complicated than it appears on the surface. To leave the Roman Catholic Church would mean losing a significant piece of my identity and heritage.

More importantly, leaving the Roman Catholic Church would mean they’ve won. It would mean patriarchy, hierarchy, and misogyny had won. I’ve decided to stay and fight in the hopes for change. I am forever grateful for the Catholic feminist scholars I have encountered who share in this sentiment. In the end, I was able to receive the sacrament of confirmation in the Roman Catholic Church because my university’s campus ministry office offered these classes for students. Looking back, this process was incredibly eye-opening for me. I was finally able to choose Catholicism for myself and reconcile my relationship with the church. It was no longer the faith of my parents. As a college student, I was able to exert my own sense of moral agency. In addition, I decided to further explore the tradition even more deeply and become a Theological Studies major. My professors at the time, thankfully, fully supported my inquisitive nature—so much so that it was through their mentoring and support that I decided to pursue a doctorate in Systematic Theology. My female professors (and my female professors of color especially) helped me understand the joy and the struggle of being Roman Catholic.

After years of theological education, I have come to understand how patriarchy and hierarchy function in the church. I am grateful to the fierce feminist theologians who taught me explicitly about feminist discourse. I am grateful to the women (and men) who have taken the Gospel message of infinite love for all people to heart. Most importantly, I have come to realize that the Catholic Church is exactly where I belong. This is the incredible power of education and the importance of seeing oneself reflected.

Were it not for being exposed to feminist and U.S. Latinx theologians, I don’t know what my relationship with the church would be today. Arguably the most impactful voices have been the voices from within the church. It is far easier to critique from the outside looking in than from the belly of the beast. Collections such as A Reader in Latina Feminist Theology: Religion and Justice and From the Heart of Our People: Latino/a Explorations in Catholic Systematic Theology have been transformative for me. These books affirmed my own suspicions that being a woman of color in the Roman Catholic Church is very complicated. There are layers and layers of history that need to be unpacked. I firmly believe that it is out of a deep love for the tradition and communities that make up the mosaic of the church that so many of us remain committed to the struggle in the hopes of transformation.

As an educator now myself, I am absolutely committed to breaking down oppressive systems so that no one—regardless of their gender, sexual orientation, or race—will ever be told that they don’t belong to the church. I also believe the church does a disservice to those who are struggling with their faith or looking for answers and, instead of being met with welcome, are rebuked. I am committed to create a space for conversation especially for those who self-identify as “nones” or “spiritual not religious” or “agnostic.” I refuse to perpetuate a cycle of violence. Simply put, I continue to believe fiercely in a God who is one of radical love and justice. I belong and you belong. We all belong because, at the end of the day, there is infinite space in God’s heart for us all.

Salt

Dawn Morais

Hurricanes and earthquakes,

Floods and missiles. Bombs

That shake the bowels

Of the earth. Black lives

Extinguished. White cops

Walk free. We topple

Monuments. We revisit history.

The air is thick with disasters

For post-modern times.

A pitiless torrent

Of pride and punishment.

The kind that turned a woman

Fleeing, into a pillar of salt.

Wome...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Acknowledgments and Permissions
• Introduction: Living with the Past, Envisioning the Future
• Part One Domestic and Global Social Justice
• Part Two Sexuality and Motherhood
• Part Three Spiritual Activism and Utopian Vision
• Notes on Contributors
• Back Cover