Overview

This volume brings together the poignant stories of over fifty women who left the Catholic Church to find more fulfilling ways of expressing their spirituality. Author Joanne H. Meehl addresses a wide variety of topics including the reasons why women begin to question their faith, the heavy burden of religious guilt, the attitudes of the Catholic hierarchy toward women, and the escalating amount of sexual abuse cases involving priests. Meehl also discusses the Church's obsession with sex and the discrimination women feel because they are not included as full members of the faith. She includes some practical advice on breaking away from the Church including how to confront your family with the news that you are no longer a Catholic as well as information on choosing new spiritual outlets.Unlike other books on the Catholic Church, this is the first to focus on the individual journeys of women, who faced not only what they thought to be discriminatory practices and oppressive dogma, but the ire of family and society in their search for a spiritual happy ending. The book illustrates how these women successfully left the Church and found new avenues for their faith.

Full Product Details

9780879759278

Table of Contents

Reviews

An interesting and largely rewarding volume that discusses the relationship between women and the Roman Catholic Church. Meehl, who left the Catholic Church, calls herself a recovering Catholic. For years she struggled with the church in which she was raised, often bored in the highly liturgical mass and alienated by the church's attitude toward women. But she remained faithful until an epiphany in the Grand Canyon told her that there could be more to religious experience. Finally, she joined a Unitarian congregation and became interested in the experiences of other women who had chosen to leave Catholicism. This volume presents the fruit of some 80 responses to a questionnaire she developed on the topic, supplemented by interviews. She lets the women (whose anonymity she protects but who come from a broad cross section of society) speak largely in their own words. She finds a remarkable constancy in their stories - in the way they reacted to a church that elevates Mary to the status of Holy Mother but refuses to ordain women. These are accounts of shame and guilt, mixed with much anger, at a denomination that claims to want them but, they feel, makes very little place for them ( If you think women in the church have it bad, remember, there is one group lower: nonpersons often referred to as 'the good sisters,' says one angry bride of Christ). The church's stance on birth control and abortion plays an important part in the study - both as a reason for dissent and as an indication of the denomination's views of women. Mistreatment by nuns and clerics in both church and school is also a recurring theme. A sense of trauma and betrayal sounds on almost every page. All of this is powerful but somewhat undercut by the lack of voices and attitudes of women who choose to remain Catholic. Meant as a support mechanism for women who leave the church, the volume also provides an intriguing glimpse into their thoughts. (Kirkus Reviews)

Author Information

Tab Content 6

Countries Available