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Catherine Bittner, Alex Bosch, Jen Andrysczyk, Emily Meuer and Lauren DeZelar gather for prayer before dinner at Bethany House in northeast Minneapolis. The house for women discerning consecrated religious life is a new initiative of the Office of Vocations of the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis in partnership with the Handmaids of the Heart of Jesus. (CNS photo/Dave Hrbacek, The Catholic Spirit)

Women & the Church

Writing from the Commonweal archives that investigates women’s relationship to the church through the centuries
The Editors
November 27, 2017
Women in the Church

Please email comments to [email protected].

Article

Will the Church Get Women Deacons?

Clergy who obsess about the dangers of clericalism in women are projecting their own sins and selling short women’s capacity for virtue.
By Rita Ferrone
June 27, 2016
Women in the Church
U.S. Catholicism
Pope Francis
Religious Life
Theology
Article

After the Death of God the Father

Mary Daly's groundbreaking work in the 1970s on patriarchal theology
By Mary Daly
March 12, 1971
Women in the Church
Article

Francis’s Words About Women

Behind Francis’s clumsy metaphors about women is an intuition that the role of women in the church needs to be take more seriously
By Rita Ferrone
April 5, 2017
Women in the Church
Pope Francis
Theology
Social Justice
Article

Not a Novelty

The Eastern Orthodox case for deaconesses
By Carrie Frederick Frost
May 18, 2017
Women in the Church
Theology
Article

Life Amid Loss

I've been visiting sisters’ homes across Britain and Ireland, seeking to collaborate with them in reflecting on suffering and its relationship to love.
By Karen Kilby
February 13, 2017
Women in the Church
Death and Dying
Religious Life
Spirituality
Article
The evidence for women deacons is on the literal rocks themselves

Women Deacons, Set in Stone

By MICHAEL PEPPARD
September 8, 2016
Women in the Church
Liturgy
Pope Francis
Religious Life
Theology
Article

At the Foot of the Cross

How did a shy young woman from the suburban Midwest turn into someone brave enough to travel by foot from village to village in the midst of a civil war?
By Kathleen DeSutter Jordan
August 30, 2016
Women in the Church
U.S. Catholicism
Death and Dying
Latin America
Profiles
Religious Life
Article

Backhanded Complementarity

In this collection of essays, authors draw on “Theology of the Body" to present the Church as a place where women’s leadership can flourish. The results are mixed.
By Nancy A. Dallavalle
September 24, 2015
Bishops
Book Essay
Books
Ethics
Laity
Liturgy
Priesthood
Religious Life
Sexuality
Social Justice
Theology
Women in the Church
Article

A Place at the Table

The initial euphoria of Pope Francis's election was being replaced by the realization that we women would continue to be joked about, romanticized, and patronized.
By Tina Beattie
March 29, 2016
U.S. Catholicism
Pope Francis
Religious Life
Synod on the Family
Theology
Women in the Church
Article
Let’s continue this conversation toward women’s ordination, not because there are power-hungry clerics-in-waiting who want control of the church but because the needs of so many women are misunderstood by church leaders and ministers

Mother Church & Her Battered Daughters

By Kaitlin Campbell
January 27, 2016
Pope Francis
Bishops
Laity
Pope Benedict XVI
Pope John Paul II
Priesthood
Sexuality
Social Justice
Women in the Church
Article

‘The Gospel Is Hard’

By Patrick Jordan
January 14, 2013
Laity
Religious Life
Spirituality
Women in the Church
Laity
Poverty
Profiles
Religious Life
Social Justice
Spirituality
U.S. Catholicism
Women in the Church
Article

The Wisdom of the Beguines

Laura Swan does a good job of explaining both the beguines’ spiritual practices in the context of their own times and how their continuing legacy affects us today.
By Jean Hughes Raber
July 29, 2015
Books
Bishops
Book Essay
Religious Life
Sexuality
Social Justice
Spirituality
Theology
Women in the Church
Article

An Interview with Elizabeth McAlister (1971)

An interview with Sr. Elizabeth McAlister from 1971, co-founder of Jonah House in Baltimore and member of the "Harrisburg Seven" group of anti-war activists
By The Editors
May 2, 2016
U.S. Catholicism
Domestic Affairs
Ecumenism
Ethics
From the Archives
Religious Life
War and Peace
Women in the Church
Article

‘I Want to Be a Sister’

Where do the desires that direct your life find their source? And how and when do they assert themselves through all unlikelihood and doubt?
By Helen Maher Garvey
November 20, 2014
U.S. Catholicism
Religious Life
Social Justice
Spirituality
Theology
Vatican II
Women in the Church
Article

The U.S. Sisters & the Holy See

The awkward conversation between the LCWR and the CDF may turn out to be just the kind of encounter the church needs.
By Mollie Wilson O’Reilly
May 29, 2014
U.S. Catholicism
Pope Francis
Columnists
Women in the Church
Article

The Big Chill

Are we likely to hear from Catholic women who believe responsible use of birth control is compatible with their faith and their vocations as wives any time soon?
By Cathleen Kaveny
October 10, 2013
Laity
Sexuality
Theology
Vatican II
Women in the Church
Article

What Women Want

‘Buffy the Vampire Slayer’ can still tell us a lot about Catholicism & feminism
By Cathleen Kaveny
March 14, 2017
Pope John Paul II
Media
Television
Sexuality
Article
The prophetic teaching of the church on sexuality is prophecy compromised.

Sex, Women & The Church

By Luke Timothy Johnson
June 25, 2004
Sexuality

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