Horizons: The Journal of the College Theology Society, 1993
This article describes a process of research and critical analysis of Catholic church pronounceme... more This article describes a process of research and critical analysis of Catholic church pronouncements which I have used with both undergraduate and graduate students over the past ten years. Students are taught a method of “close reading” of Roman Catholic church pronouncements which involves their analysis of such issues as the statement's canonical significance, authorship, audience, historical context, content, and underlying ecclesiology. Through this method, students acquire a working knowledge of theological research methods and tools and learn how to practice a hermeneutics of suspicion and retrieval. They also learn how to recognize the various models of church which underlie particular formulations, the compromise nature of conciliar statements, and become acquainted with recent discussion concerning “reception” and the “hierarchy of truths.” Student awareness of the historically conditioned nature of dogmatic statements and of the need for reforming the way in which universal church teaching is formulated is also heightened.
While the Second Vatican Council may have never used the word feminism in its documents, the deci... more While the Second Vatican Council may have never used the word feminism in its documents, the decision to invite twenty-three women auditors to its third and fourth sessions began a trajectory of women's participation in theology and official church life that cannot be underestimated. The work of M. Carmel McEnroy and Catherine Clifford, as well as recent archival research, has recovered the informal but influential role these women played during the council. Yet possibly the most significant achievement of Vatican ii for women was that it afforded them the chance to become theologians and participate in the development of “feminist theologies.” The article traces the historical evolution of feminist theologies as “contextual” theologies, narrating how its projects embrace both “modern” and “postmodern” sensibilities. Given the recent call of Pope Francis for a “more incisive female presence in the church,” new hopes have arisen for what many in the church have considered a stalled trajectory of women's inclusion and participation in decision-making. The “pattern dynamics” of the next fifty years will tell whether or not Catholic women will finally cross the threshold to authentic baptismal equality in the church.
Proceedings of the Catholic Theological Society of America, May 22, 2013
In preparing for this address, I reviewed CTSA presidential plenary addresses of the past twenty ... more In preparing for this address, I reviewed CTSA presidential plenary addresses of the past twenty years and noticed that a frequently used genre has been that of “exhortation.” Often in a given year, a CTSA president has shared the fruits of his or her own theological scholarship, but in doing so used the opportunity to exhort the wider theological community to undertake work in a new area, or to recover some lost emphases that might help address contemporary concerns. While it is always tempting to address particular struggles or tensions we theologians are encountering at the present moment in the church, I want to suggest an area which I believe deserves more attention in our theological work, an area that may require a great deal of energy, commitment and long-term planning. Thus, the “exhortative” aspect of my presentation is a plea for greater collaboration among theologians and biblical scholars, particularly in terms of the scholarly work needed to promote the fl ourishing of the leadership of women and other subaltern groups in the church. What I can offer in the brief space allotted to me here is merely a sketch of some fruitful pathways such collaboration might take. I want to focus on one particular area of current biblical research which I believe has important implications for ecclesiology, particularly an ecclesiology that is attentive to the living witness of the whole People of God and the role of theologians in serving the communion of the whole church. 1 In keeping with our convention theme of “All the Saints,”
In 2004, I was invited to give the twentieth Madeleva Lecture at Saint Mary’s College. I chose to... more In 2004, I was invited to give the twentieth Madeleva Lecture at Saint Mary’s College. I chose to speak on “Women Shaping Theology” because, after teaching undergraduates and graduates for almost twenty years (I finished my doctorate in 1984), I began to realize that the students I was then teaching had no idea there was once a time when Catholic women neither taught nor wrote about theology.1 So, I decided I’d like to “tell the story” of how Catholic women became theologians.2 As I mulled it over, I realized that in many ways, the story of how and when Catholic women entered the academic theological world paralleled my own story, so I made it personal and told my own story as well. My high-school years paralleled the Second Vatican Council (1962–65). I graduated in 1965 from a very theologically progressive Catholic girls’ high school in suburban Chicago staffed by the best and brightest members of the religious order I eventually joined.3 Just to give you an idea: my freshman religion teacher had just received her MA in theology from Marquette University, where she worked with Bernard Cooke, a Jesuit who began the PhD program there that admitted laypersons; during my sophomore year, a Sister John Gregory had just finished her MA in philosophy from Saint Louis University and joined the faculty (after Vatican II she would return to her baptismal name, Sandra Schneiders); in my junior year “Schema 13,” the draft of what would become Gaudium et spes (“The Pastoral Constitution on the
Horizons: The Journal of the College Theology Society, 1993
This article describes a process of research and critical analysis of Catholic church pronounceme... more This article describes a process of research and critical analysis of Catholic church pronouncements which I have used with both undergraduate and graduate students over the past ten years. Students are taught a method of “close reading” of Roman Catholic church pronouncements which involves their analysis of such issues as the statement's canonical significance, authorship, audience, historical context, content, and underlying ecclesiology. Through this method, students acquire a working knowledge of theological research methods and tools and learn how to practice a hermeneutics of suspicion and retrieval. They also learn how to recognize the various models of church which underlie particular formulations, the compromise nature of conciliar statements, and become acquainted with recent discussion concerning “reception” and the “hierarchy of truths.” Student awareness of the historically conditioned nature of dogmatic statements and of the need for reforming the way in which universal church teaching is formulated is also heightened.
While the Second Vatican Council may have never used the word feminism in its documents, the deci... more While the Second Vatican Council may have never used the word feminism in its documents, the decision to invite twenty-three women auditors to its third and fourth sessions began a trajectory of women's participation in theology and official church life that cannot be underestimated. The work of M. Carmel McEnroy and Catherine Clifford, as well as recent archival research, has recovered the informal but influential role these women played during the council. Yet possibly the most significant achievement of Vatican ii for women was that it afforded them the chance to become theologians and participate in the development of “feminist theologies.” The article traces the historical evolution of feminist theologies as “contextual” theologies, narrating how its projects embrace both “modern” and “postmodern” sensibilities. Given the recent call of Pope Francis for a “more incisive female presence in the church,” new hopes have arisen for what many in the church have considered a stalled trajectory of women's inclusion and participation in decision-making. The “pattern dynamics” of the next fifty years will tell whether or not Catholic women will finally cross the threshold to authentic baptismal equality in the church.
Proceedings of the Catholic Theological Society of America, May 22, 2013
In preparing for this address, I reviewed CTSA presidential plenary addresses of the past twenty ... more In preparing for this address, I reviewed CTSA presidential plenary addresses of the past twenty years and noticed that a frequently used genre has been that of “exhortation.” Often in a given year, a CTSA president has shared the fruits of his or her own theological scholarship, but in doing so used the opportunity to exhort the wider theological community to undertake work in a new area, or to recover some lost emphases that might help address contemporary concerns. While it is always tempting to address particular struggles or tensions we theologians are encountering at the present moment in the church, I want to suggest an area which I believe deserves more attention in our theological work, an area that may require a great deal of energy, commitment and long-term planning. Thus, the “exhortative” aspect of my presentation is a plea for greater collaboration among theologians and biblical scholars, particularly in terms of the scholarly work needed to promote the fl ourishing of the leadership of women and other subaltern groups in the church. What I can offer in the brief space allotted to me here is merely a sketch of some fruitful pathways such collaboration might take. I want to focus on one particular area of current biblical research which I believe has important implications for ecclesiology, particularly an ecclesiology that is attentive to the living witness of the whole People of God and the role of theologians in serving the communion of the whole church. 1 In keeping with our convention theme of “All the Saints,”
In 2004, I was invited to give the twentieth Madeleva Lecture at Saint Mary’s College. I chose to... more In 2004, I was invited to give the twentieth Madeleva Lecture at Saint Mary’s College. I chose to speak on “Women Shaping Theology” because, after teaching undergraduates and graduates for almost twenty years (I finished my doctorate in 1984), I began to realize that the students I was then teaching had no idea there was once a time when Catholic women neither taught nor wrote about theology.1 So, I decided I’d like to “tell the story” of how Catholic women became theologians.2 As I mulled it over, I realized that in many ways, the story of how and when Catholic women entered the academic theological world paralleled my own story, so I made it personal and told my own story as well. My high-school years paralleled the Second Vatican Council (1962–65). I graduated in 1965 from a very theologically progressive Catholic girls’ high school in suburban Chicago staffed by the best and brightest members of the religious order I eventually joined.3 Just to give you an idea: my freshman religion teacher had just received her MA in theology from Marquette University, where she worked with Bernard Cooke, a Jesuit who began the PhD program there that admitted laypersons; during my sophomore year, a Sister John Gregory had just finished her MA in philosophy from Saint Louis University and joined the faculty (after Vatican II she would return to her baptismal name, Sandra Schneiders); in my junior year “Schema 13,” the draft of what would become Gaudium et spes (“The Pastoral Constitution on the
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