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Catholic Feminists and Traditions:
Renewal, Reinvention, Replacement
Lisa Sowle Cahill
The dominant figure in Western Roman Catholic ethics is Thomas Aquinas, and
Catholic tradition references a centralized magisterium. Nevertheless, Catholicism is internally pluralistic. After Vatican II, three models of theology and tradition emerged, all addressing gender equality: the Augustinian, neo-Thomistic,
and neo-Franciscan. Latina, womanist, African, and Asian ethics of gender pre­
sent more radical approaches to tradition—suggesting a Junian stream (Rom
16:7). Catholic ethical-political tradition is not defined by a specific cultural
mediation, figure, or model but by a constellation of commitments shared by
Catholic feminists: difference in unity, moral realism, social meliorism, human
equality, preferential option for the poor, and interreligious dialogue.
In his gracious invitation to deliver a plenary a
­ ddress,
SCE President Allen Verhey encouraged me to consider the Catholic theological
heritage of Aquinas and of modern Roman Catholic social thought. He suggested
I might use the example of Catholic feminism to illustrate that while traditions
can and should be celebrated, they can also “serve as a mask for mastery,” as his
letter so eloquently put it. The thought of Thomas Aquinas has indeed proven
a fertile ground for the germination of feminist branches of Catholic ethics and
politics. But only a bit of reflection on my assignment made me acutely aware of
the pluralism within Catholic ethics, Catholic feminism, and Catholic tradition
as an evolving whole.
In this essay I work with a very broad and flexible definition of “feminism.”1
I hope to be in conversation with advocates in different social and historical
locations who define themselves over against white, middle-class, academic
feminism as, for instance, womanist, Latina, mujerista, Asian, African, dalit,
lesbian, or queer. Debates and conflicts among these approaches are real. Yet
I am encouraged by the words of Ghanaian theologian Mercy Amba ­Oduyoye:
“Feminism was named an American white middle class phenomenon but
Lisa Sowle Cahill, PhD, is the J. Donald Monan Professor in the Theology Department at
Boston College, Chestnut Hill, MA 02467; [email protected].
Journal of the Society of Christian Ethics, 34, 2 (2014): 27–51
28 • Catholic Feminists and Traditions
has showed itself as broader than that and feminists are described as all who
honour the humanity of women and include women’s agency in human endeavours.”2 The circle of theologians whom I will primarily engage is within
the Catholic Church, reclaiming, renewing, or replacing Catholic traditions.
Not all self-identify as “feminists,” but all in different ways are proponents of
gender equality.
The Ecclesial Setting of Catholic Feminist Ethics
Since traditions are in essence ideas, customs, relationships, and ways of life
that are “handed on” (traditio) to new generations, traditions must continually change shape within historical communities. According to a Cameroonian
postcolonial Catholic theologian, traditions are always undergoing “adaptation, indigenization, inculturation, liberation, reconstruction,” and sometimes
distortion or perversion in the name of “mastery” or of fear.3 Therefore traditions should always be discerned with a threefold hermeneutics of appreciation, suspicion, and praxis: How does wisdom from the past give life today?
(appreciation); how do traditions mediate dominant ideologies that continue
to oppress some community members? (suspicion); and how can our traditions
be embodied in just relationships now? (praxis). Feminist theology asks these
questions in light of the experience of the risen Christ and the Spirit within the
church, and in light of the church’s complicity in the oppression of women.
A distinctive mark of Catholic tradition, theology, and ethics is that it is
intentionally ecclesial in character. Catholics see both scripture and the community that hands on the Scriptures as authoritative. Put another way, the
tradition as well as scripture is a continuing site of God’s self-disclosure, for
the risen Christ and Spirit are present in the historical church, bringing forth
new experiences of God. The Vatican II statement Dei verbum affirms the close
connection of scripture, tradition, and the Church’s magisterium in together
constituting the ongoing process of revelation.4 Yet tradition is “the historicaldynamic learning process of the whole church” and “can no longer be limited
to the transmission of static doctrinal contents or limited to the actions of the
church’s magisterium.”5 Catholic tradition is internally diverse and constituted
by plural traditions. According to Dei verbum, it is the role of the Catholic
Church’s hierarchical teaching authority or magisterium to ensure that traditions reshaped by new experiences continue to reflect the gospel.6 Yet it is
precisely the role of diverse local churches and of the laity to challenge distortions in past teachings and to embody the gospel more effectively in new
contexts.7 Catholic feminist ethics exemplifies this prophetic role, which also
places feminist ethics in tension and sometimes conflict with traditions that
have been received.
Lisa Sowle Cahill • 29
This dynamic of universal and local churches “depends on plural and complementary insights to discern, explore, and protect adherence to faith in the
one true God.” Catholic theological tradition is a “symphonic vision of truth,”
that is also a symphony of humanity.8 Feminism and its new varieties are musical adaptations, creative new arrangements composed with appreciation, a
healthy dose of skepticism, and commitment to embody the faith in the ways
of gender justice.
Post–Vatican II Models of Catholic Theology
The varieties of Catholic feminism can be understood better if we locate them
on a map of four different conceptions of Catholic theology that have emerged
since Vatican II. Each of the four has its own way of incorporating tradition,
of developing an ethics, and of placing the ideal of gender equality within an
ethics of sex and gender. The first two, the Augustinian and neo-Thomistic,
were in evidence even before the Council concluded. A third model, the neoFranciscan, has arisen among theologians of the post-Vatican II generations.
Latina, womanist, African, and Asian theologies present even more radical approaches to Catholic tradition, coming together in a possible fourth stream of
thought, provisionally named the Junian, after the woman Paul calls “outstanding among the apostles” in Romans 16:7. The four models are not exhaustive
or mutually exclusive and do not occur in strict historical sequence. Individual
theologians may share aspects of more than one model and may also transition
from one to another over time.
Few women theologians entered into these debates in the years immediately
following the Council, if only because fewer women were educated to do so,
and fewer had academic positions to afford them the opportunity. However,
one notable woman, Mary Daly, sent a meteor over the heads of the Council
fathers, blazing a path for Catholic feminist ethics that few others would follow
for decades. I will return to her later.
Several authors—notably Massimo Faggioli, Joseph Komonchak, and Ormond Rush—have described these first two models as the “Augustinian” and
the “neo-Thomist.” Each has a distinctive way of seeing the Church in the
world, revisioning tradition, and construing gender equality as part of the
Church’s social agenda.9
Keeping a distance from the world-engaging aggiornamento of Vatican II,
Augustinians see the Church as a haven of grace in a sinful world. Bringing
forward the riches of an ancient tradition, Catholics, in this view, embody the
experience of a real but transcendent God in an increasingly secular world.
Faithful to the distinctive moral and religious practices that set them apart,
they can evangelize modern culture and attract more people to the faith. For
30 • Catholic Feminists and Traditions
Augustinian Catholics, the Church is faith-community oriented more than
public-engagement oriented, even though Catholic social teaching is certainly
not rejected. Social service is a work of the Church, especially of laypeople, but
broad social transformation is not as high a priority as ecclesial holiness. At
the time of the Council and after, key theologians driving this train of thought
included Hans Urs von Balthasar, Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger (to become Pope
Benedict XVI), and Cardinal Henri de Lubac, SJ.
Augustinian Feminist Ethics
Long-standing Catholic teachings on sex and gender became a way to ­symbolize
and reinforce the countercultural identity embodied in the Augustinian model,
with the defense of Humanae vitae (Paul VI’s anticontraception encyclical) being a flagship cause. Contrary to what feminists in the neo-Thomistic model
would argue, however, the renunciation of artificial birth control in favor of
natural family planning (NFP) was defended as consistent with gender equality and women’s well-being. Ormond Rush makes an observation about the
Augustinian school that is especially important in the field of Catholic ethics.
Although Augustinian in political and ecclesial outlook, members of this school
sometimes reappropriate the categories and method of Aquinas in service of
a cautious view of the Church’s relation to the world.10 This is seen clearly in
the “personalist” natural law interpretations of sex, marriage, and procreation
in Humanae vitae and later in John Paul II’s “theology of the body.”11
One woman who has consistently defended Humanae vitae is Janet Smith.
According to Smith, “the Catholic Church condemns contraception because it
is against nature, human nature, . . . is an impediment to love relationships,” and
is an obstacle to a loving relationship with God.12 Following Church teaching
brings advantages to women since “women using NFP generally feel revered
by their husbands since their husbands do not make them use unhealthy and
unpleasant contraceptives.”13
In the 1980s John Paul II delivered a series of Wednesday audience talks
at the Vatican in which he united these natural law themes, personalistically
reinterpreted, with new appeals to the Bible.14 The pope’s theology of the
body lent energy to the claim that official Church sexual teaching is consistent
with and indeed furthers gender equality and full respect for women while also
bringing that teaching under the aegis of a biblically inspired call to spiritual
dedication within a community united by the same ideals and practices. This
theology of sex and gender brings forward Aquinas’s ethics of procreative sex
within heterosexual marriage but reconstructs his framework to include love as
also an indispensable purpose, paving the way to a greater stress on the mutual
relationship of the heterosexual couple. Humanae vitae and the theology of the
Lisa Sowle Cahill • 31
body reject Aquinas’s premise of gender inequality yet argue that only loving
procreative sex within marriage serves the love union and “mutual self-gift” of
two equal spouses, male and female.
Some Catholic women claiming to espouse gender equality embrace gender
complementarity and the theology of the body, distancing themselves from
so-called radical feminism. Catholic law professor and papal advisor Mary Ann
Glendon thinks “the old feminism of the 1970s” is passing away, partly because
many of its goals have been accomplished and partly because it made the mistake of denigrating marriage and motherhood as obstacles to career advancement for women. She suggests that women do “have special gifts, a ‘feminine
genius,’ that the broken world needs now more than ever.”15
The theology of the body provides a basis on which thinkers in the neoFranciscan school would later debate NFP as part of a commitment to a Christian lifestyle.16 Yet the complementarity model of gender and “special genius of
women,” along with motherhood as women’s most important vocation—which
is not asserted of fatherhood for men—are still provoking critical responses
from feminists working in the progressive neo-Thomist, neo-Franciscan, and
Junian appropriations of Catholic tradition.17 Susan Ross notes that, although
Vatican II ushered in a new openness to the laity, and “there has been much
progress for women in the Catholic Church . . . , the official Roman Catholic
theology of womanhood has remained remarkably unchanged.” It has taken
little account of women’s own experiences, and “still sees women primarily
as mothers and as partners who respond to the leadership and initiative of
God and of men.”18 As a Catholic feminist, I concur with the view that if a
“theology of the body” is focused on the body’s reproductive capacities, and
if those capacities are seen to involve an unnecessary and unequal division of
male and female personalities and roles, with women more than men assigned
to the home and parenthood, then such a theology cannot truly advance the full
dignity and equality of women—or of men.19 Gendered characteristics can be
pliable, fluid, or ambiguous. Being male, female, or transgendered is compatible
with filling most domestic and social roles.20
This does not rule out, however, the possibility that men’s and women’s
different embodiment (or that of transgendered people) can result in different
experiences of the world, with possible results for psychosocial traits or inclinations. Cathleen Kaveny believes that “our different embodiment as either [in
most cases] male or female is a divinely ordained aspect of the created order,
which needs to be respected if humanity is to flourish.”21 Janet Martin Soskice
relates an interesting idea:
Although the differences between the way men and women look at things
are, for the most part, not based in biology, I can think of a few that might
be. One of my male professorial colleagues, searching for a “universal human
32 • Catholic Feminists and Traditions
experience,” hit upon this: “For all of us, our skin is the outside of our body.”
“Not,” I thought, “when you are pregnant.” At that time, the inside of your
body is the outside of someone else’s. And why shouldn’t the fact that human
beings all begin inside the body of another—so that one person’s insides are,
for the period of gestation, another’s outsides—be of philosophical moment
and even affect Christian anthropology?22
The specific substantive content regarding sex and gender that can or should
be retrieved from the Catholic teaching tradition is contested. In the premodern era, women were defined as unequal to men, and women’s moral agency,
vice, and virtue were identified primarily in reproductive terms. A Catholic
theological defense of gender equality cannot carry forward the natural inequality of women; nor can it carry forward an unbalanced focus on sex and gender
as paramount areas of moral concern, especially for women. Catholic feminist
ethics, or ethics of gender equality, however, might reclaim from the teaching
tradition the basic human dignity of women (whose spiritual equality has been
recognized at least since Aquinas); the goodness of human nature, male and
female; of the body and its capacities; and of marriage, parenthood, and family;
as well as the goodness and promise of both domestic and public life.
Neo-Thomist Feminist Ethics
These latter themes sound clearly in the second stream, progressive neoThomism, that has to date been home to the greatest number of feminist
reconstructions of Catholic ethical tradition. Near the time of the Council,
the theological masterminds of this orientation were Karl Rahner, SJ; Marie-Dominque Chenu, OP; Cardinal Yves Congar, OP; and John Courtney
Murray, SJ. They stressed the created goodness of the world, history, politics,
and the sciences and affirmed that grace is already present in these spheres.
Neo-Thomists also recognize historical consciousness, holding that human
knowledge of truth is “constantly emerging,” not a finished product that has
already been revealed, known, and taught. “Truth has its objectivity, but it is
only gradually being grasped by us in our judgment over time, through experience, and with maturity.”23 This also applies to Catholic moral teaching, which
requires “the human processes necessary for authentic learning and teaching
. . . divine assistance must be conceived of as working through these human
processes.”24 Human means of acquiring and improving knowledge are not
suddenly or uniquely replaced by a divine power when the magisterium speaks.
Julie Clague notes that this new epistemology has serious implications in the
area of gender analysis, which is particularly “intolerant of scientifically untenable, essentialist theories of natural law that tie eternal truths to the supposedly
Lisa Sowle Cahill • 33
fixed bedrock of human nature.”25 As Barbara Andolsen insists, “women must
become active participants in the formation of the tradition for their own
sake as members of the religious community and for the good of the community as a whole,” renewing ethics on the basis of their own experiences but
also in a way that “can speak meaningfully to Catholic women in very diverse
circumstances.”26
Neo-Thomists value engagement and learning—perhaps most visibly from
the natural and social sciences—in areas such as sex and gender, economics,
evolution, and the environment. Catholic social teaching is reclaimed and promoted, and the preferential option for the poor furnishes the agenda for political action and structural change. In the realm of sex and gender, progressive
neo-Thomists went back to the categories and methods of Aquinas, but they
used biblical teaching, the sciences, new philosophies of sex and gender, contemporary experience and expectations of gender parity, and parts of Aquinas’s
theology itself to remove or correct some of his conclusions about gender. For
example, although Aquinas sees women as less rational than men, and of use
mainly in the task of procreation, he delineates the moral outlines and requirements of a common human nature, he grants that women are spiritually equal
to men, and he has at least a glimmer of the idea that sex in marriage does not
have to be procreative to be good, for one of its purposes is to unite the couple
in the “most intense” kind of friendship possible.27
Almost immediately after the publication of Humanae vitae (1968), Catholic
feminists responded from a broadly Thomistic concern with human nature,
human experience, and discernment of the true human good to address the
specific morality of artificial birth control, branching out from there into other
dimensions and meanings of sex, sexual pleasure, sexual intimacy, and the relation of sex to pregnancy and parenthood. Rosemary Ruether brought some
common sense to the table by observing that sex’s procreational purpose is best
served when two co-parents love and support one another, and that this type
of union demands “a far more frequent use of the sexual act for its relational
potential than could ever be brought into harmony with procreation itself.”28
Cristina Traina expands on and nuances similar concerns in “Papal Ideals, Marital Realities: One View from the Ground.”29 Lisa Fullam develops
Thomistic themes into a theology of marriage as virtuous friendship that presumes equality and goes beyond the purpose of procreation.30 Christine Gudorf
has long insisted on the importance of sexual pleasure in the fulfillment of
sexual partners, and for the strength and flourishing of their union, including
any parental dimension, while Barbara Andolsen puts forward the undeniable
truth that the basic evil in sexual behavior is not nonprocreative sex but violence, an evil exacerbated by gender inequality.31 Pro-life feminist as well as
progressive neo-Thomist Sidney Callahan maintains that women’s agency and
liberation depend on full social equality and the ability to make meaningful
34 • Catholic Feminists and Traditions
choices.32 Christine Hinze backs this latter point by showing how, despite its
vaunted priority of the common good, Catholic social teaching unfortunately
has subsumed women’s economic rights under those of a male head of household entitled to a “family living wage.”33 She applauds John Paul II’s advocacy
of financial support for women’s family labor but takes exception to the fact
that domestic care work is still seen as gendered labor.34
Many Catholic feminists go beyond sex and gender ethics to reinvent Aquinas’s basic natural law approach as an ally for gender justice. Cristina Traina’s
Feminist Ethics and Natural Law: The End of the Anathemas stands out. For
Traina, the natural law includes women’s flourishing as related to humanity’s
ultimate end in God and to the historical common good. The importance of
inductive practical reasoning—also found in Thomas—allows for variety in
specific depictions and realizations of the good and anchors them in an ongoing tradition of critical social analysis while still permitting what Traina calls
“revisable universals.”35 Unlike Aquinas and most of the Catholic tradition,
contemporary feminist theological ethics must pay more attention to women’s
concrete experiences of embodiment, to the interdependence of relationships
and moral knowledge, and to the perspective of the excluded in deciding what
constitutes the common good. Nichole Flores illustrates these commitments
when she retrieves Aquinas’s theory of justice for Latina feminist ethics. Flores
incorporates more strongly the importance of relationships in constituting
human identity and insists that daily practices, experiences, and interpersonal
relationships are not merely “private,” for they condition the development of
“general” or “legal” justice and the common good—and vice versa.36
Susanne DeCrane argues that a feminist retrieval of Aquinas’s principle of
the common good will privilege the situations and experiences of women while
not giving up on a broad conception of what human flourishing requires. Her
case illustration is the marginalization of black women in access to the social
and medical goods and services required to prevent and treat breast cancer.37
Building on earlier work, Patricia Beattie Jung and Aana Marie Vigen have assembled a collection reflecting Aquinas’s realization that scientific knowledge
supports moral realism about human nature, including the human realities of
sex, gender, and sexual orientation. Yet they replace his gender unbalanced
Aristotelian biology with excursions into twenty-first century natural and social
sciences.38 An impressive array of authors has argued that justice, the common
good, sexual love and commitment, personal flourishing, relationship to God
and neighbor, and the common good can be served by same-gender relationships, marriages, and parenting.39
In the progressive neo-Thomist paradigm, the most influential feminist
ethicist is Margaret Farley. Aquinas is a resource in some of her writings, but
more importantly, her general approach aims to portray the “concrete reality”
of moral persons and relationships in a reformationist, world-embracing mode.
Lisa Sowle Cahill • 35
Just Love, a work on sexual ethics and gender justice, offers seven sexual norms
reflecting the natural law tradition’s commitment to inductively understanding
human reality and experience. They are no unjust harm, free consent, mutuality, equality, commitment, fruitfulness, and social justice, and they should be
applied equally to male-female and same-sex relationships.40 This book reflects
too the growing global edge of Catholic feminist ethics—to be treated below
in the Junian paradigm—for it attends not only to personal relationships in the
“first world” context but also to the structural conditions of gender injustice
around the world.
Many younger theologians would fit into the progressive neo-Thomist
model when they address the “hookup culture.” They ask what is the concrete
reality of sex and sexual relationships, then evaluate what kinds of sexual interactions do or do not lead to respect for self and others, human flourishing, and
gender justice.41 Mary Hunt’s Catholic lesbian feminist theology incorporates
many of the themes of progressive neo-Thomism while not alluding specifically to Aquinas. Chief among these is friendship, which is how Aquinas characterizes ultimate union with God.42 To arrive at a sex and gender ethics that
is grounded in moral reality, Hunt commends listening to the experience of
lesbian women; consultation with the social sciences; and appreciation of how
lesbian friendships, unions, and families contribute to the common good. Like
Farley, Hunt expands the Vatican II–era paradigm in recent writing, borrowing insights from mujerista theology and what has become the neo-Franciscan
“call to holiness.”43
Neo-Franciscan Feminist Theology
The Augustinian and the progressive neo-Thomist models of church, theology,
and tradition took shape at a certain time and place, and in a certain ecclesial
milieu, namely the Vatican II generation centered in North America and Western Europe. These Catholics grew up in a strong spiritual and liturgical environment, filled with masses, sacraments, saints, rituals, devotions, rosaries, and
family prayer. These practices reinscribed the special feminine (and subordinate) roles of women at almost every turn. For example, women were to model
the obedience of Mary, the virgin mother; pray to female saints who preferred
death to rape; wash and iron the altar linens; and revere male authorities filling
roles from which women were themselves excluded. Nevertheless, most Vatican
II–era, progressive neo-Thomistic Catholic feminist ethicists have little doubt
about the importance and meaning of divine transcendence, liturgy, community, and spirituality. Instead of reiterating these common points of belief, Vatican II feminists passionately target the gender-unequal aspects of Catholicism,
often turning to Catholic social teaching to make their case.
36 • Catholic Feminists and Traditions
When we turn to Generations X and Y, the shared Catholic past of Vatican II–generation feminists does not exist in the same form, nor does the
egregiously gender-unequal social environment that reinforced the Church’s
sexism. Many younger Catholics are more interested in heightening their distinctive Catholic identity than in mounting critiques of Catholic patriarchy.
While some in this generation still ardently and proudly identify with the feminist cause, many others avoid or even reject the label “feminist.” Virtually all
do support gender equality and know that it needs to be improved in Catholic
theology, ethics, and ministries. But this is less likely than for the progressive
neo-Thomists to be their main focus. This leads to a third model of Catholic
theology and ethics, the neo-Franciscan.
The neo-Franciscan model has been in development since the pontificate
of John Paul II. Like St. Francis, it prioritizes small faith community, personal
holiness, and service. A theologian from the Vatican II era who signals some of
these themes—scripture, the Holy Spirit, and a life of Christian virtue centered
on Christ—is the Belgian Dominican Servais Pinckaers.44 Another theological
figure who has shaped the thinking of some in this model is the Protestant theologian Stanley Hauerwas, who calls Christians to a countercultural witness to
the cross of Christ.45 Yet neo-Franciscan Catholics are also inspired by figures
such as Dorothy Day and Oscar Romero and expect Francis’s brothers to work
closely with the sisters of Clare.
A neo-Franciscan public agenda for the Church would take shape in care
for the poor, nonviolence, environmental concern, and dialogue with other
religions. St. Francis made it his special mission to care for lepers, embraced a
life of voluntary poverty, composed a poem in praise of “Brother Sun and Sister
Moon,” and crossed crusaders’ lines to converse with the Sultan of Egypt.46
A contemporary neo-Franciscan approach would stress a countercultural,
evangelical identity in the world. It would be strong on Christian spirituality,
prayer, and ritual, but—consistent with Catholic tradition and with the new
Pope Francis—it would not represent a sect-type church. When Pope Francis
hosted a meal for the poor in Assisi a few months after his election, he called
for a “Church of the poor,” naming structural injustices such as unemployment,
world hunger, and the plight of migrants and refugees.47 Francis has called
for a new “theology of women”—obviously aware that the gender theology
of Catholicism has not made and is not making a credible case for equality.48
He has yet to identify himself as a feminist, however, and the jury is still out
on just how radical might be the gender equality he envisions for the Catholic
Church of the future.
Neo-Franciscan feminist theologians assume or advocate gender equality
but may not specify gender-equal practices in precisely the same way as the Vatican II generation. They may embrace NFP; nonviolence; popular pre–Vatican
II religious practices such as adoration of the Blessed Sacrament; or community
Lisa Sowle Cahill • 37
life organized around prayer and service in Catholic Worker houses, the Jesuit
Volunteer Corps, or Cristo Rey school faculties. Neo-Franciscan theologians
are interested in the relation of theological ethics to liturgy, scripture, and personal holiness. They embrace the “preferential option for the poor” but may
not be as active as an earlier generation in showing how Catholic social teaching
sources and motivates structural changes in economics, law, and policy. Nor
may they reveal as clearly as the “Junian” theologians how the preferential option for the poor has to follow the lead of the poor, who now are theologians in
their own right and are taking Catholic tradition in some surprising new directions. (The Augustinian and progressive neo-Thomist theologians of course
did not do this either.)
Yet a strength of neo-Franciscan ethics for gender equality is its attention
to the way communities of faith, solidarity, and practice can shape relationships in different ways from the ground up and locally, lending conviction and
momentum to what may become larger trends of reform. The “traditions” they
recover or renew are both theological and practical or liturgical. Julie Hanlon
Rubio, who asks, “What does sex have to do with the life of discipleship?,” has
written extensively about gender equality largely within the neo-Franciscan
paradigm.49 A recent book by Rubio, Family Ethics: Practices for Christians, portrays families as agents for the common good through their daily practices,
nourished by the Eucharist, and including sexual fidelity, hospitality, sustainable food choices, tithing, and service to the poor.50 Rubio’s work is a good
illustration of the neo-Franciscan interest in grounding justice commitments,
including gender equality, in local Christian community, liturgy, prayer, and
personal moral virtues formed in close relationships. Mary Doyle Roche forcefully bonds family relations to the justice agenda of Catholic social teaching by
examining practices through which children and families are either co-opted
by a consumerist society or learn the virtues to subvert it in the name of the
common good.51
Another example is Kelly Johnson’s argument that marriage, family, and
even weddings are integrally tied to Catholic social teaching and the social
witness of the Church, which is sacramental in character.52 Maria Morrow ties
patterns of sexual sin into the same communal holiness framework, calling on
the sacrament of penance and reconciliation to address pornography’s objectification of women.53 One online community of young women, predominantly
Catholic, produces a lively and provocative blog called Women in Theology. Not
all identify as feminists, but all are committed to “the full social, political, economic, domestic, and ecclesiastical equality of women.”54 Others contribute
to another blog, Catholic Moral Theology. Meghan Clark has authored multiple posts identifying a “rape culture” that normalizes sexual violence against
young women and girls, and that tacitly encourages young men and boys as
perpetrators.55
38 • Catholic Feminists and Traditions
Katie Grimes reflects a more critical but still neo-Franciscan concern with
the ecclesial and sacramental basis of social ethics, pointing out that at the
practical level, Christian liturgies, reflecting cultural norms, can deform as well
as reform participants as far as respect for women is concerned.56 Jana Bennett
fights back against some of this co-optation by identifying Catholic marriage
theology’s collusion with cultural norms that see single people, especially single
women, as outliers to cultural and ecclesial expectations.57 Some authors of
“queer theology” also have affinities with the neo-Franciscan school. They may
not identify as “feminist,” but they seek respect for both or all genders and
are very concerned with how Catholic tradition and community can provide a
spiritual home.58 By challenging stereotypes of the feminine, womanhood, the
theological meaning of the body, and complementarity, they lay groundwork
for feminist theology.
Junian Feminist Theology
A fourth Catholic theological-ecclesial model has been created by the increasing movement of formerly so-called minority voices from the periphery to
the center of theological ethics. As Linda Hogan notes, “whereas initially the
racial, ethnic, economic, and geographical differences between women were
neglected, in the last three decades this precise issue has become a dominant theme in feminist theological discourse.”59 In reality, the fourth model
comprises many significantly different locations and styles of theology, and
to do them justice would require an extreme expansion of categories. Some
of these theologies have arisen within the same Western cultures that have
been the primary sites of thinking in the first three models, and are responses
specifically to the limits of white feminist academic theology and activism.
Others are expressions of global Catholicism and respond to the limits of
North Atlantic theology in general, as well as to their unique experiences of
faith and church.
These Catholic feminist ethicists differ in what they regard as useable “tradition.” As North American theologies, Catholic womanist, Latina, mujerista, or
Asian American theologies of gender equality may adopt traditions like patristic
and medieval theologies and spiritual writings, but equally or more often they
reclaim and renew sources and saints beyond the “mainstream.” Womanist
theological ethicists might recover slave spirituals and memoirs, African American women’s customs and traditions, and African American Catholic leaders
such as Henriette DeLille, who founded the Sisters of the Holy Family in New
Orleans.60 Latina and mujerista authors might turn to Our Lady of Guadalupe,
Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz, or again, the traditional importance of families,
mothers, and grandmothers in Latina cultures.
Lisa Sowle Cahill • 39
Authors from non-Western contexts are much more likely to seek out
their own indigenous traditions, such as African traditional religion, Tantric
philosophy, Korean spirituality, or Hindu goddesses. They are often open to
recognizing and celebrating women’s bodily differences from men but insist
that they “must be redefined in a way that does not romanticize nor constrict
women’s options.”61 A central concern of authors from non-Western contexts
is gender-based economic disadvantage, and they take on global social evils,
such as slavery, trafficking, civil conflict, and environmental exploitation, tracing the impact of all of these on the poor and on women. They are less likely
to turn to the originally Western tradition of Catholic social teaching than to
biblical narratives and images concerning women. One thing that does unite
them as Catholics is sacramental and liturgical participation, often with some
“nontraditional” twists. The cultural practices that subordinate women are too
often reflected in rather than challenged by Catholic ecclesial structures and
practices, including an all-male priesthood.62 More positively, global Catholic
analogues to feminist theological ethics are reinventing Catholicism’s practical political infrastructure and outreach. Carolyn Woo, the Hong Kong–born
director of Catholic Relief Services, describes international programs that help
uneducated poor women save money and lend it to one another at affordable
rates, train traditional birth attendants, provide nutrition for new mothers and
babies, educate girls, and heal victims of sex trafficking.63
I have called the fourth model of Catholic theology and feminist ethics
after the “outstanding” apostle Junia of Romans 16 for several reasons. All
Christians share the Bible, but Junia alerts us to special aspects of Catholic
feminist theology. Like Junia, Catholic feminists have to hand on traditions
about Christ, like those named in 1 Corinthians 15, within a church that
already incorporates well-established norms of gender subordination. In the
church in Rome and in her relation to her husband, Andronicus, Junia may
have been subject to the same strictures: observe proper modesty in church,
do not take too bold a leadership role, and obey your husband when you
get home (1 Cor 11 and 14, Col 3, and Eph 5). Yet Junia exercised existential apostleship in a gender-unequal church, and was so recognized by
Paul. And Junia was not alone; her sisters in geographically and culturally
different churches include Chloe, Prisca, and Phoebe. Junia belongs to the
local church in Rome, but she is united to Christian communities around
the Mediterranean by a common baptism, Eucharist, and what Paul calls
“the good news that I proclaimed to you” and “handed on” (1 Cor 15), that
is, the gospel of Christ’s death and resurrection. Today Catholic women
are united internationally in action that hands on this message in practical
ways, through Catholic infrastructures such as women’s religious congregations, Catholic universities, associations of scholars, networks of activists,
and Catholic nongovernmental organizations.
40 • Catholic Feminists and Traditions
Junian feminist ethicists reflect theoretically and normatively on these efforts
and realities. Of the hundreds who could be mentioned, I will share the work
of two: Ada María Isasi-Díaz, a Cuban American who passed away in 2012,
and Agnes Brazal of the Philippines. Isasi-Díaz is celebrated as the mother of
“mujerista” theology. As one woman in Catholic ministry warns, “One of the
difficulties many Hispanic women face is that for years they have been obedient
or diminished by men, by people in power. So when a Hispanic woman wants
to be up front, people don’t know how to deal with it. It can be men; it can be
Anglos; it can be Latinos; many times it’s the priest.”64 Isasi-Díaz’s signature
themes of la lucha, lo cotidiano, and la familia and her attention to popular religion illustrate the importance of contextualizing moral experience and building
moral knowledge, especially an understanding of justice, from the ground up.
As different worldviews engage one another, they learn from new perspectives,
building a worldwide community of reconciliation on “the common interests
that bind us,” and “the wellbeing of all peoples.”65
Agnes Brazal has been coordinator of the Ecclesia of Women in Asia, president of the Catholic Theological Association of the Philippines, and a member
of the Steering Committee of Catholic Theological Ethics in the World Church.
She has written on prostitution, trafficking, migration, feminist ideology, and
the postcolonial method, among other things. Her edited collection Body and
Sexuality: Theological-Pastoral Perspectives of Women in Asia illustrates the ferment
in global Catholic feminist theology and ethics.66 It especially brings home the
point that even authors who value “traditions” do not always reclaim traditional
theologies and theological figures who have been important in the West. But
they are united to Catholic tradition by attention to scripture and Catholic moral
teaching, and as participants in Catholic liturgies and institutions. Four of the
sixteen chapters of her book focus on scripture, and three deal with sacraments
or Church leadership. Several chapters reinterpret body, sexual identity, and
gender. One challenges the Catholic idealization of motherhood and of the Virgin Mary with a queer revision of sexual ethics. Several take up specific problems
like migrant domestic workers, sex workers, disability, aging, clergy sexual abuse,
and the environment. Four introduce religious experiences and sources from
outside Christianity, including the bodily representation of Hindu goddesses.
And one author, Christine Gudorf, is an American while another is an Eastern
European, furnishing good prospects for intercultural dialogue.
In one recent essay, Brazal reenvisions Catholic social teaching by bringing it
into dialogue with East Asian discourses on harmony. Among the insights of the
latter are that the cosmos is an organic whole with interdependent parts, reality
is constantly in flux, and one large barrier to harmony is fixation on human constructs and concepts that prevent adaptation and inclusion. She proposes that the
Church can serve as a sacrament of harmony, and that post–Vatican II Catholic
social teaching principles of justice and solidarity can help correct some Asian
Lisa Sowle Cahill • 41
tendencies to interpret harmony in a hierarchical way. But on the topic of gender, Asian traditions bring a dynamic fluidity of identity that can help overcome
the gender dualities of official Catholic teaching. Christianity in turn brings the
prophetic dimension of the option for the poor, and awareness that harmony
must sometimes be preceded by conflict while unjust situations are rectified.67
The Catholic tradition is defined and engaged differently in the four
­ecclesial-theological models. For Vatican II–era “moral theologians,” whether
Augustinian or Thomistic, “tradition” means the current, historically rooted
iteration of Catholic teaching on gender and includes intellectual figures, systems, or texts (such as Aquinas’s Summa) that are elaborated in their defense or
reinterpretation. For feminist theological ethics, Catholic social thought came
to play an increasingly large role in constituting the official teaching tradition.
In contrast, neo-Franciscan feminist ethicists give more attention to Catholic
traditions of religious community, sacraments, and liturgy, appropriating figures like Aquinas in service of these goals. Junian feminist theologians bring
forward sacramental participation and Catholic social teaching, but their most
interesting move is to turn from figures like Augustine and Aquinas to nonelite Western traditions and non-Western traditions, especially traditions from
cultures in the Global South.
Six Defining Commitments of Catholic Ethics and Catholic
Feminist Ethics
The result is that Catholic mediation of tradition for ethics and feminist ethics
is not best defined in terms of specific cultural formations or figures, nor by
specific revisions of magisterial teaching about gender, nor by a specific model
of Church and theology. Instead, Catholic feminist ethics is defined as Catholic by a distinctive constellation of moral-political commitments shared with
Catholic ethics in general, and in light of these it reworks or reinvents tradition.
These six commitments are difference in unity, moral realism, social meliorism,
human equality, preferential option for the poor, and interreligious dialogue.
While these commitments are not exclusively Catholic, they constitute the
normative parameters or continuous shape of Catholic ethical tradition and
apply across the four models.
Six Comprehensive Commitments of Catholic Theological Ethics
Three of these commitments are long-standing, and three have emerged since
the Second Vatican Council. The latter represent innovations in tradition that
still maintains continuity with the past. They illustrate how and why “tradition”
42 • Catholic Feminists and Traditions
is a continuing source of revelation for Catholics, a vehicle of the creative Spirit
transforming historical communities and converting both their memories and
their imagination of a different future.
The first commitment is difference in unity. The unity of Catholic theological ethics goes beyond the teaching magisterium and its various local receptions.
Catholics and Catholic theology are also held together by a sacramental system
and its liturgies, and by a global institutional infrastructure. Just as feminist
theologies revise official Catholic teaching on gender, they also seek to change
the role of women in Catholicism’s rites and ecclesial norms. Anne Patrick
comments, “Where sacramental sexism is concerned . . . we seemed to have
reached an impasse, and this presents a great spiritual challenge to those who
advocate change.”68 Her observation applies equally well to the “sacramental
racism” that doubly excludes nonwhite women, especially African Americans.
The globally connective structures of world Catholicism, however, are not
limited to the papacy, episcopacy, and local dioceses and parishes. Of equal
significance for theological ethics, they range from Caritas Internationalis to
Catholic Worker houses to Opus Dei to Focolare to Jesuit Refugee Services
to the US bishops’ “religious liberty” campaign and “The Nuns on the Bus.”
This infrastructure also includes Catholic education, Catholic health care, and
Catholic social ministries.
In terms of feminism and gender issues, we might think of a project spearheaded by Margaret Farley and the Sisters of Mercy called “All Africa Conference: Sister to Sister,” which brings together women religious to address
local women’s problems; the controversial Vatican delegation to the 1995 UN
Conference on women in Beijing; efforts of Catholic Relief Services to improve
maternal and child health in places such as Honduras, Ghana, and Burundi; the
Ecclesia of Women in Asia, an academic forum whose conferences are open to
non-Asian international participation via webcam; or Mary Jo Iozzio’s Calling
for Justice throughout the World: Catholic Women Theologians on the HIV/AIDS
Pandemic, a book that is at once an intellectual alliance and a project of global
social reform.69
A second and related normative commitment of Catholic theological ethics
is moral realism, a conviction that there are shared and “objective” moral and
political values that are visible cross-culturally, if rather differently. Examples
are freedom from violence, adequate food and shelter, and political participation. There are also objective violations of the human good, evils, or sins. A
virtue of the Catholic tradition is that it takes personal moral sins very seriously.
But before Vatican II, the Catholic idea of moral evil or sin focused unduly on
personal sins, defining them above all in terms of sex and reproduction, and
through a patriarchal lens. Since the Council, liberationist and political theologies—and now official Catholic social teaching—have stressed social and
structural sin, echoing the feminist motto “the personal is political.”
Lisa Sowle Cahill • 43
The ideas of “moral realism,” objective goods, and objective evils will require qualification and may be open to dispute. In general, though, Catholics
tend to fight for justice and justice for women on the basis of authentic humanity, human dignity, human flourishing, the common good, and human rights,
which are typically grounded in what Aquinas calls “the natural law” and developed in modern Catholic social teaching. According to Cristina Traina,
“feminist natural law” is about “the full, holistic flourishing of all human beings, individually and in community.”70 Today the Catholic commitment to
moral realism and moral-political common ground is qualified in the direction
of a more inductive method, more sensitivity to concrete experience, more
tentative and revisable conclusions, and more awareness of the genuine differences among cultures.
In fact, global Catholicism, especially in its feminist varieties, and especially
in Asia, increasingly adopts the methods of postmodernism, post-structuralism,
and postcolonialism. The Indian theologian Kochurani Abraham explains, referencing Foucault, that a destabilizing critical feminist consciousness is essential to enable active resistance because women have so interiorized patriarchal
norms that “they police their own behavior.” The “feminist gaze” is “a gesture of
subversion toward power; it disorders and disorganizes the settled field, resists
homogenization, and opens up multiple possibilities rather than closing them
off.”71 But I take the risk of suggesting that, in the hands of Catholic feminists,
such methods are still used to dismantle cultural mindsets in order to reveal the
common humanity and human rights of oppressed groups or minorities, albeit
without occluding genuine and valuable differences. Filipina Catholic ethicist
Christina Astorga confirms that what we need is a “culturally-inclusive universalism” that requires “a continuing cross-cultural conversation and education
at the level of both theory and practice,” while Maureen O’Connell shows that
a truly compassionate global politics must rely for knowledge not only on reason but on imagination, emotion, memory, and aesthetic perception.72 Today,
there may be a better term than “natural law” to characterize the moral realism
of Catholic ethics, such as Ada María Isasi-Díaz’s “situated universal,” David
Hollenbach’s “dialogic universalism,” Hilary Charlesworth’s “transversalism,”
Martha Nussbaum’s “human capabilities,” or Rosemary Radford Ruether’s “full
humanity of women.”73
In a third commitment, Catholic theological ethics is meliorist or reformationist with regard to social and political conditions, relationships, and structures. In other words, despite the persistent reality of sin, Catholic tradition
sees justice as an applicable and achievable social norm—if not comprehensively and globally, then at least in terms of more just institutions in given
local contexts, and in terms of global progress along some indicators, such as
women’s rights, human rights, and the environment. Catholics work for social
change in the hope and, indeed, the expectation that change can, must, and will
44 • Catholic Feminists and Traditions
happen. Writing about environmental racism and its impact on young African
American girls, for instance, Shawnee Daniels-Sykes—one of a few Catholic
womanist ethicists—invokes Catholic social teaching and calls on Catholics
to be active agents of change in “lifestyles, policies, social institutions, and
manufacturing companies in terms of their impact on the poor, vulnerable,
and marginalized.”74 As a womanist theologian, she begins from the situation
of black women and prioritizes the cause of poor or especially vulnerable black
women and girls.
Since Vatican II, three additional commitments have emerged that define
Catholic ethics not historically but now—and globally. The fourth of the six
commitments is to the reality, value, and normativity of human equality,
including gender equality. Premodern Catholic ethical tradition was realist,
universalist, and meliorist, but it also took for granted basic differences in
dignity and worth among human beings, including men and women. Today
the equal dignity of all persons is proclaimed in theory, if not always observed in fact. The commitment to equality is one important factor behind
the post–Vatican II stress on conscience as the ultimate determinant of moral
character.
A related fifth commitment of Catholic theological ethics is the “preferential
option for the poor.”75 Contemporary interpretations of moral reality tell us
that human equality is a good to be realized, but liberation theology and now
Catholic social teaching emphasize, with the gospels, that the greatest priority
is those who most suffer inequality. The preferential option addresses sin as
social and structural and calls for individual accountability. Pilar Aquino offers
three reasons to specify what is feminist about the option for the poor. First
the majority of the poor and exploited are women. Second, globalization is proceeding along a “kyriarchal” trajectory that ensures that women everywhere will
continue to be exploited. And third, feminist theology explicitly names violence
against women, a voice that needs to be heard if theological ethics is to fulfill
its function of social transformation.76
Since Catholic theological ethics is active across cultures, a sixth commitment is now called for: interreligious dialogue and cooperation. Since Vatican
II, the common good has increasingly been referred to as the “universal common good” in official Catholic social teaching. There are few if any human social problems that can be resolved by one culture or religion alone. The Council
document Nostra Aetate (which recalls the everlasting covenant between God
and the Jews); the 2000 Vatican declaration Dominus Iesus (which speaks of the
presence of God to people of all religions); and the practical work of multiple
Catholic relief, development, and peacebuilding agencies attest that Christian
justice efforts can be joined by and learn from the hunger of all people for a decent human life and the witness of the spiritual values that inspire them. Practical examples reflecting feminist priorities are the work of women peacebuilders
Lisa Sowle Cahill • 45
across religious traditions to reconcile societies in conflict;77 Catholic ecofeminist theologies of environmental justice;78 and the work of Catholic women in
interreligious dialogue to include those living at the margins of society.79
In the four different ecclesial models, then, what Catholic tradition is understood to include is likewise different. Catholic tradition can comprise official
Catholic teaching, major theological thinkers, sacramental and liturgical traditions, global social and ecclesial infrastructures, local narratives and practices,
or indigenous traditions from the Global South. Each model renews, reinvents,
or replaces tradition in a distinctive way, and this is true of the correlative versions of feminist theological ethics. Yet every variation still attests to diversity
in unity, moral realism, social transformationism, egalitarianism, preferential
treatment of the poor, and interreligious dialogue.
Conclusion
In conclusion, it is well to return to Mary Daly as a reminder that feminist
theology and ethics may rework traditions in ways that are unexpected yet
provide greater insight into the reality of God and the union of God with
human beings. Daly does not really fit into any of the categories that I have
described, and it is arguable—she herself would argue—that her developed
feminist theology was no longer “Catholic.” As far as I know, she did depart from Catholic sacramental life. At the same time, she carried on with a
teaching career at a Jesuit institution, Boston College, albeit in a tumultuous
relationship. She also referenced Catholic teachings; she was a moral realist, a social meliorist, a defender of human equality, an opter for the poor,
and an engager in interreligious dialogue, if that can include cults dedicated
to boundary-breaking forms of women’s faith, hope, and charity. Her 1973
manifesto, Beyond God the Father, seems to hurl religious feminism far beyond traditional Christianity. But listen to how the book’s last paragraph
riffs on Aquinas’s doctrine of God and Acts 17:27–28—Paul’s speech on
the ­Areopagus—as well as process theology. “The power of sisterhood is
not war-power . . . the Final Cause causes not by conflict but by attraction
. . . by the creative drawing power of the Good Who is self-communicating
Be-ing, Who is the Verb from whom, in whom, and with whom all true
movements move.”80 This does not sound like Nicea, Chalcedon, Trent, or
even Gaudium et spes. Yet, as St. Paul warned—and as Vatican II progressive
theologians are fond of saying—“Do not extinguish the Spirit! Do not treat
the gift of prophecy with contempt!” (1 Thes 5:19). As the Second Vatican
Council promises, we will be “led by the Holy Spirit” from our “joys and
hopes,” our “griefs and anxieties,” to the fullness of the reign of God.81 For
Catholics, the leading of the Spirit occurs within the Church and in the
46 • Catholic Feminists and Traditions
creative handing on of traditions. The Spirit breathes new life into our traditions by raising up saints and prophets. Among their number are Catholic
feminist theologians.
Notes
1.Supporters of gender equality include both men and women. Many Catholic male theologians are feminists and feminist ethicists. For examples, see Linda Hogan and A. E. Orobator, eds., Feminist Catholic Theological Ethics: Conversations in the World Church (Maryknoll,
NY: Orbis, 2014). Simply due to space constraints, I will here concentrate primarily on
Catholic women.
2. Mercy Amba Oduyoye, “Gender and Theology in Africa Today,” Circle of Concerned
African Women, 2003, www.thecirclecawt.org/focus_areasc6fe.html?mode=content&id=
17292&refto=2629.
3.Eloi Messi Metogo, “Postcolonial Theology in an African Context,” in Postcolonial Theology, ed. Hille Haker, Luis Carlos Susin, and Eloi Messi Metogo (London: SCM Press,
2013), 94; cf. 102.
4. Dei verbum (Dogmatic Constitution on Divine Revelation), nos. 8–10.
5.Lieven Boeve, “Revelation, Scripture and Tradition: Lessons from Vatican II’s Constitution Dei verbum for Contemporary Theology,” International Journal of Systematic Theology
13, no. 4 (2011): 422.
6. Dei verbum, no. 10.
7.See John Paul II, Christifideles laici (On the Lay Faithful in the Church and the World, 1988),
no. 2, Vatican website, www.vatican.va/holy_father/john_paul_ii/apost_­exhortations/­
documents/​hf_jp-ii_exh_30121988_christifideles-laici_en.html.
8. Kevin L. Hughes, “Bonaventure Contra Mundum? The Catholic Theological Tradition
Revisited,” Theological Studies 74, no. 2 (June 2013): 397–98.
9.See Massimo Faggioli, Vatican II: The Battle for Meaning (New York: Paulist Press, 2012),
chap. 4; Joseph A. Komonchak, “The Church in Crisis: Pope Benedict’s Theological Vision,” Commonweal 132 (June 3, 2005): 11–14; and Ormond Rush, Still Interpreting Vatican
II: Some Hermeneutical Principles (New York: Paulist Press, 2004), 15.
10.Rush, Still Interpreting Vatican II, 16.
11.For a critical review of the historical development of this ideal, see Barbara H. Andolsen,
“Whose Sexuality? Whose Tradition? Women, Experience, and Roman Catholic Sexual
Ethics,” in Feminist Ethics and the Catholic Moral Tradition, ed. Charles E. Curran, Margaret
A. Farley, and Richard A. McCormick, SJ (New York/Mahwah NJ: Paulist Press, 1996).
12.Janet Smith, “Contraception: Why Not?,” revised transcription of a talk given at Olympia, WA, August 2005, Catholic Education Resource Center, www.catholiceducation.org/
articles/sexuality/se0002.html.
13.Janet Smith, Humanae Vitae: A Generation Later, Goodmorals.org, 2013, www.goodmorals​
.org/smith6.htm.
14.John Paul II, Human Love in the Divine Plan (Boston: Pauline Books and Media, 1997).
15.Mary Ann Glendon, “A Gimpse of the New Feminism,” America, July 6, 1996, http://
americamagazine.org/print/149029. See also Helen Alvare’s new feminist call for renewed
appreciation of motherhood, in “Domestic Policy,” America (October 28, 2013), http://
americamagazine.org/issue/domestic-policy.
Lisa Sowle Cahill • 47
16.Regina Bambrick-Rust, “Love, Naturally,” America (October 28, 2013), http://americamagazine.org/issue/love-naturally. For the other side, see Florence Caffrey Bourg, “MultiDimensional Marriage Vocations and Responsible Parenthood,” in Leaving and Coming
Home: New Wineskins for Catholic Sexual Ethics, ed. David Cloutier, 147–72 (Eugene OR:
Wipf & Stock, 2010).
17.On these issues, see John Paul II, Familiaris Consortio (On the Family, 1981); and Mulieris
Dignitatem (On the Dignity and Vocation of Women, 1988).
18.Susan A. Ross, “Joys and Hopes, Griefs and Anxieties: Catholic Women since Vatican II,”
New Theology Review 25, no. 2 (March 2013): 30.
19.See John Paul II, Mulieris Dignitatem, nos. 17–18; and Christine E. Gudorf, “Encountering
the Other: The Modern Papacy on Women,” in Change in Official Catholic Moral Teaching,
ed. Charles E. Curran, 271–77 (Mahwah, NJ: Paulist Press, 2003).
20.See Christine E. Gudorf, “The Erosion of Sexual Dimorphism: Challenges to Religion and
Religious Ethics,” Journal of the American Academy of Religion 69, no. 4 (December 2001):
863–91.
21.M. Cathleen Kaveny, “Defining Feminism: Can the Church and the World Agree on the
Role of Women?” America (February 28, 2011), http://americamagazine.org/issue/766/
article/defining-feminism.
22.Janet Martin Soskice, “Listen to Half the World,” The Tablet, November 14, 2013, www​
.thetablet.co.uk/features/2/830/listen-to-half-the-world.
23.James F. Keenan, SJ, A History of Catholic Moral Theology in the Twentieth Century: From
Confessing Sins to Liberating Consciences (London: Continuum, 2010), 113. The emergence of
“historical consciousness” in Catholic moral theology since Vatican II is often traced to the
influence of Bernard Lonergan. See also Charles E. Curran, Catholic Moral Theology in the
United States: A Brief History (Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press, 2008), 103–4.
24.Richard R. Gaillardetz, “The Groupe des Dombes Document ‘One Teacher’ (2005): Toward a Postconciliar Catholic Reception,” Theological Studies 74, no. 1 (March, 2013): 45.
25.Julie Clague, “Gender and Moral Theology: A Shared Project,” in Catholic Theological Ethics:
Past Present, and Future, ed. James F. Keenan (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 2011), 288.
26.Andolsen, “Whose Sexuality?,” 208.
27.On the creation of women as less rational, for procreation, and requiring male supervision,
see Summa theologiae I.90, “On the Production of the Woman.” On marital love as being
most intense due to the spouses’ union as “one flesh,” see ST II-II.26.11.
28.Rosemary Radford Ruether, “Birth Control and the Ideals of Marital Sexuality” (originally
published 1964), in Dialogue about Catholic Sexual Teaching, ed. Charles E. Curran and
Richard A. McCormick, SJ (New York: Paulist Press, 1993), 143.
29.Cristina L. H. Traina, “Papal Ideals, Marital Realities: One View from the Ground,” in
Sexual Diversity and Catholicism: Toward the Development of Moral Theology, ed. Patricia
Beattie Jung with Joseph Andrew Coray, 269–88 (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press).
30.Lisa Fullam, “Toward a Virtue Ethics of Marriage: Augustine and Aquinas on Friendship
in Marriage,” Theological Studies 73, no. 3 (September 2012): 663–92.
31.Christine Gudorf, Body, Sex, and Pleasure: Reconstructing Christian Sexual Ethics (Cleveland,
OH: Pilgrim Press, 1995); and Andolsen, “Whose Sexuality?,” 225.
32.Sidney Callahan, “Abortion and the Pro-Life Agenda: A Case for Pro-Life Feminism,” in
Feminist Ethics and the Catholic Moral Tradition, ed. Charles E. Curran, Margaret A. Farley,
and Richard A. McCormick, SJ, 422–39 (New York: Paulist Press, 1996). Many other
Catholic feminists do argue for a legal and moral right to abortion, though they tend to
48 • Catholic Feminists and Traditions
envision relatively serious justifying reasons. See Thomas A. Shannon and Patricia Beattie
Jung, eds., Abortion and Catholicism: The American Debate (New York: Crossroad, 1988).
33.Christine Firer Hinze, “Bridge Discourse on Wage Justice: Roman Catholic and Feminist
Perspectives on the Family Living Wage,” in Feminist Ethics and the Catholic Moral Tradition, ed. Charles E. Curran, Margaret A. Farley, and Richard A. McCormick, SJ, 511–40
(New York: Paulist Press, 1996).
34.Christine Firer Hinze, “Women, Families, and the Legacy of Laborem Exercens: An Unfinished Agenda,” in Journal of Catholic Social Thought 6, no. 1 (2009): 63–92.
35.Cristina L. H. Traina, Feminist Ethics and Natural Law: The End of the Anathemas (Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press, 1999), 320.
36.Nichole Flores, “Toward a Vision of Justice in Latina Theology,” in Feminist Catholic
Theological Ethics: Conversations in the World Church, ed. Linda Hogan and A. E. Orobator
(Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 2014), 239.
37.Susanne M. DeCrane, Aquinas, Feminism and the Common Good (Washington DC: Georgetown University Press, 2004).
38.Patricia Beattie Jung and Aana Marie Vigen, God, Science, Sex, Gender: An Interdisciplinary
Approach to Christian Ethics (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2010).
39.A sampling may be found in Christine Firer Hinze and J. Patrick Hornbeck II, eds., More
than a Monologue: Sexual Diversity and the Catholic Church, Vol. 1, Voices of Our Times (New
York: Fordham University Press, 2014); and J. Patrick Hornbeck II and Michael Norko,
eds., More than a Monologue: Sexual Diversity and the Catholic Church, Vol. 2, Inquiry,
Thought and Expression (New York: Fordham University Press, 2014).
40.Margaret A. Farley, Just Love: A Framework for Christian Sexual Ethics (New York: Continuum, 2006), 215–32.
41.See Kari-Shane Davis Zimmerman, “In Control? The Hookup Culture and the Practice of
Relationships,” in Leaving and Coming Home: New Wineskins for Catholic Sexual Ethics, ed.
David Cloutier, 47–61 (Eugene, OR: Wipf and Stock, 2010); and Conor Kelly, “Sexism
in Practice: Evaluating the Hookup Culture,” Journal of Feminist Studies in Religion 28, no.
2 (2012): 27–48.
42.Mary E. Hunt, Fierce Tenderness: A Feminist Theology of Friendship (New York: Crossroad,
1991).
43.Mary E. Hunt, “Catholic Lesbian Feminist Theology,” in Sexual Diversity and Catholicism:
Toward the Development of Moral Theology, ed. Patricia Beattie Jung with Joseph Andrew
Coray, 289–304 (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press).
44.Servais Pinckaers, OP, The Sources of Christian Ethics, trans. Sr. Mary Thomas Noble, OP.
(Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 1995). See also Craig Steven
Titus, “Servais Pinckaers and the Renewal of Catholic Moral Theology,” in Journal of
Moral Theology 1 (2012): 43–68.
45.See, for example, Stanley Hauerwas, A Community of Character: Toward a Constructive Christian Social Ethic (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1991).
46.St. Francis of Assisi, “Canticle of Brother Sun and Sister Moon,” Catholic Online website,
accessed October 16, 2013, www.catholic.org/prayers/prayer.php?p=183. See also Jon M.
Sweeney, Francis of Assisi in His Own Words: The Essential Writings (Orleans, MA: Paraclete
Press, 2013). For historical background, see Ignatius Charles Brady, OFM, and Lawrence
Cunningham, “St. Francis of Assisi,” Encyclopedia Britannica: Academic Edition, http://
www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/216793/Saint-Francis-of-Assisi.
47.“Pope Francis Urges Church to Focus on Helping Poor,” BBC website, October 4, 2013,
www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-24391800.
Lisa Sowle Cahill • 49
48.See Antonio Spadaro, SJ, “The Big Heart Open to God: The Exclusive Interview with
Pope Francis,” America, September 30, 2013, www.americamagazine.org/pope-interview.
49.Julie Hanlon Rubio, “The Practice of Sex in Christian Marriage,” in Leaving and Coming
Home: New Wineskins for Catholic Sexual Ethics, ed. David Cloutier (Eugene, OR: Wipf and
Stock, 2010), 229. See also Julie Hanlon Rubio, A Christian Theology of Marriage and Family
(New York: Paulist Press, 2003).
50.Julie Hanlon Rubio, Family Ethics: Practices for Christians (Washington, DC: Georgetown
University Press, 2010).
51.Mary M. Doyle Roche, Children, Consumerism, and the Common Good (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2009).
52.Kelly S. Johnson, “Catholic Social Teaching,” in Gathered for the Journey: Moral Theology
in Catholic Perspective, eds. David Matzko McCarthy and M. Therese Lysaught, 225–40
(Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2007).
53.Maria C. Morrow, “Pornography and Penance,” in Leaving and Coming Home: New Wineskins
for Catholic Sexual Ethics, ed. David Cloutier, 62–84 (Eugene, OR: Wipf and Stock, 2010).
54.“About,” Women in Theology blog, http://womenintheology.org/about/.
55.See, for example, Meghan Clark, “F*&k Patriarchy: What about the “Promising Future”
of Rape Victims?,” Catholic Moral Theology blog, March 18, 2013, http://catholicmoraltheology.com/fk-patriarchy-what-about-the-promising-future-of-rape-victims/; and “Boys
Will Be Boys & Girls Will Be Victims?,” Catholic Moral Theology blog, March 20, 2013,
http://catholicmoraltheology.com/boys-will-be-boys-girls-will-be-victims/.
56.Katie Grimes, “Can Paul Be Wrong? Wrestling with the Feast of the Holy Family,”
Women in Theology blog, December 30, 2013, http://womenintheology.org/2013/12/30/
can-paul-be-wrong-wrestling-with-the-feast-of-the-holy-family/; and Janice Rees, “Resisting the Kingdom: Women in the Gym, Theological Optimism, and the Liturgical Deformation of Inclusion,” Women in Theology, October 23, 2013, http://­womenintheology​
.org/2013/10/23/resisting-the-kingdom-women-in-the-gym-theological-optimism-andthe-liturgical-deformation-of-inclusion/#more-8636.
57.Jana Marguerite Bennett, “Singular Christianity: Marriage and Singleness as Discipleship,”
in Leaving and Coming Home: New Wineskins for Catholic Sexual Ethics, ed. David Cloutier,
85–101 (Eugene, OR: Wipf and Stock, 2010).
58.See Melinda Selmys, Sexual Authenticity: An Intimate Reflection on Homosexuality and Catholicism? (Saint Louis MO: Our Sunday Visitor, 2009); and see Melinda Selmys’s blog, Sexual
Authenticity, http://sexualauthenticity.blogspot.com/.
59.Linda Hogan, “Looking Back, Looking Forward,” in Feminist Catholic Theological Ethics:
Conversations in the World Church, eds. Linda Hogan and A. E. Orobator (Maryknoll, NY:
Orbis, 2014), 280.
60.M. Shawn Copeland, The Subversive Power of Love: The Vision of Henriette Delille (New York:
Paulist Press, 2008).
61.Agnes Brazal and Andrea Lizares Si, Introduction to Body and Sexuality: Theological-Pastoral
Perspectives of Women in Asia, ed. Agnes Brazal and Andrea Lizares Si (Manila: Ateneo de
Manila Press, 2007), xiii.
62.Critiques from many cultures could be offered, but a particularly acute example is given by
Nigerian Anne Arabome, SSS, “Gender and Ecclesiology: Authorities, Structures, Ministries,” in Gender in Theology, Spirituality, and Practice, eds. Regina Ammicht-Quinn, Lisa
Sowle Cahill, and Diego Irrarazaval, 110–17 (London: SCM Press, 2012).
63.Carolyn Y. Woo, “Growth Opportunity,” America (October 28, 2013), http://­america​
magazine.org/issue/growth-opportunity.
50 • Catholic Feminists and Traditions
64.Kerry Weber, “Leading by Example: An Interview on Ministry, Machismo and Meaningful Leadership,” America (October 28, 2013), http://americamagazine.org/issue/
leading-example.
65.Ada María Isasi-Díaz, En la Lucha: A Hispanic Woman’s Liberation Theology (Minneapolis:
Fortress Press, 1993), 236.
66.Agnes Brazal and Andrea Lizares, eds. Body and Sexuality: Theological-Pastoral Perspectives
of Women in Asia (Manila: Ateneo de Manila Press, 2007).
67.Agnes M. Brazal, “East Asian Discourses on Harmony: A Mediation for Catholic Social
Teaching,” in Catholic Social Teaching in Global Perspective, ed. Dan McDonald, 118–46
(Maryknoll: Orbis, 2010).
68.Anne E. Patrick, Conscience and Calling: Ethical Reflections on Catholic Women’s Church Vocations (London: Bloomsbury Academic, 2013). On racism in the Catholic Church, see Bryan
N. Massingale, Racial Justice and the Catholic Church (Maryknoll NY: Orbis, 2010); and
M. Shawn Copeland, ed., Uncommon Faithfulness: The Black Catholic Experience (Maryknoll
NY: Orbis, 2009).
69.See the website All Africa Conference: Sister to Sister, accessed April 25, 2014, http://
www.allafrica-sistertosister.org/; and Mary Jo Iozzio, ed., with Mary M. Doyle Roche and
Elsie Miranda, Calling for Justice throughout the World: Catholic Women Theologians on the
HIV/AIDS Pandemic (New York: Continuum, 2008).
70.Christina L. H. Traina, “Feminist Natural Law,” in Human Nature and Natural Law, ed.
Lisa Sowle Cahill, Hille Haker, and Eloi Messi Metogo (London: SCM Press, 2010), 81.
71.Kochurani Abraham, “Resistance: A Liberative Key in Feminist Ethics,” in Feminist Catholic Theological Ethics: Conversations in the World Church, ed. Linda Hogan and A. E. Orobator
(Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 2014), 105–6.
72.Maria Christina Astorga, “Human Rights from an Asian Perspective: The Challenge of
Diversity and the Limits to Universality,” in Human Nature and Natural Law, eds. Lisa
Sowle Cahill, Hille Haker, and Eloi Messi Metogo (London: SCM Press, 2010), 95; and
Maureen H. O’Connell, Compassion: Loving Our Neighbor in an Age of Globalization (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 2009), 183–207.
73.See Isasi-Díaz, La Lucha Continues: Mujerista Theology (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 2004),
177; David Hollenbach, SJ, The Common Good and Christian Ethics (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 2002), 152–59; Hilary Charlesworth and Christine Chinkin, The Boundaries of International Law: A Feminist Analysis (Manchester UK: Manchester University
Press, 2000), 51; Martha C. Nussbaum, Women and Human Development: The Capabilities
Approach (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2000), 78–80; and Rosemary Radford
Ruether, Sexism and God-Talk: Toward a Feminist Theology, 10th ann. ed. with a new intro.
(Boston: Beacon Press, 1993), 18–19. Mercy Amba Oduyoye also uses this phrase, for
example, in Daughters of Anowa: African Women and Patriarchy (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis,
1995), 181, 204.
74.Shawnee M. Daniels-Sykes, SSND, “A Case of Environmental Ethics: Personal Care
Products and Precocious Puberty in Black Girls,” New Theology Review 23, no. 1 (February 2010): 43.
75.See Daniel G. Groody, ed., The Option for the Poor in Christian Theology (Notre Dame, IN:
Notre Dame Press, 2007).
76.Maria Pilar Aquino, “The Feminist Option for the Poor and Oppressed,” in Option for the
Poor in Christian Theology, edited by Daniel G. Groody, 199–209 (Notre Dame, IN: Notre
Dame Press, 2007).
77.See the website of the Women PeaceMakers Program, Joan B. Kroc School of Peace Studies, University of San Diego, accessed April 25, 2014, www.sandiego.edu/peacestudies/
institutes/ipj/programs/women-peacemakers/index.php.
Lisa Sowle Cahill • 51
78.An example is Rosemary Radford Ruether, New Woman, New Earth: Sexist Ideologies and
Human Liberation (Boston: Beacon Press, 1995).
79.Catherine Cornille and Jillian Maxey, eds., Women and Interreligious Dialogue (Portland
OR: Wipf & Stock, 2013).
80.Mary Daly, Beyond God the Father: Towards a Philosophy of Women’s Liberation (Boston:
Beacon Press, 1973), 198.
81.Second Vatican Council, Gaudium et spes (Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the
Modern World), no. 1.