Encyclopedia of Women and Religion in North America, Set

CATHOLIC WOMEN’S COLLEGES IN THE UNITED STATES

CATHOLIC WOMEN’S COLLEGES IN THE UNITED STATES l 881 part of the dynamic of sharing the faith, and an awareness of the many cultures served was to be fostered. Today one can count among many contemporary leaders in religious education such women as Maria Harris, teacher, writer, lecturer, artist, and poet; Mary Charles Bryce (1916–2002), former Catholic University professor who influenced and mentored many who passed through the portals of that institution; the deceased Mary Perkins Ryan (1912–1993), author, lecturer , editor, promoter of adult catechesis and continuing education in the faith; and Janaan Maternach, author, lecturer, and one of five teachers chosen by the National Office of the Confraternity of Christian Doctrine in 1962 to do research on graded catechetical manuals of study. It was through her efforts that Life, Love and Joy replaced the former CCD manuals. Eva Marie Lumas, consultant and instructor in catechetics, is well known for her work with the African American community . Her sensitivity to culture and ritual in the black community has given deeper meaning to the catechetical mandate to incarnate the Word of God in every culture. History will have no difficulty describing the catechetical achievements of such persons as Kate Dooley and Ann Marie Mongoven, both authors and professors of catechetics; Maureen Shaughnessy, of the U.S. Catholic Conference of Bishops’ Education Department; and many others nationally known for their work in catechesis . However, in many ways “anonymous was a woman” still describes well the thousands of unnamed, perhaps unknown women who have tilled the soil of faith in the United States as directors of religious education , catechists, teachers, and writers. SOURCES: Most source material of the nineteenth and first half of the twentieth centuries tends to overlook the contributions of women. While diocesan and parish archives do offer some information, the more valuable are the archives of women’s religious congregations. Mary Charles Bryce offers limited information about women’s contributions to religious education and encourages readers to pursue further research in “Pioneer Women in Catechetics,” Living Light 22.4 (Summer 1986): 313–324. For general historical information about the Catholic Church in America, Jay Dolan’s The American Catholic Experience (1985) is helpful. More precise is James Kenneally ’s History of American Catholic Women (1995). The history of religious education can be found in Joseph Collins’s “Religious Education and CCD in the Early Years 1902–1935,” American Ecclesiastical Review 169 (1975): 48–67. Johannes Hofinger’s Shaping the Christian Message (1958) explicates the “kerygmatic approach.” For information on the use of catechisms , consult Bernard Marthaler’s The Catechism Yesterday and Today (1995). See also the brochure by Sisters of the Holy Family (Mission San Jose, California), The Foundation Story (n.d.); Frances J. Weber, The Pilgrim Church in California (1973); and Paul Marx, Virgil Michel and the Liturgical Movement (1957). William Reedy writes from personal experience in “Maria de la Cruz Aymes,” Living Light 12.2 (Summer 1975): 293–297. Living Light is the official catechetical journal of the U.S. Catholic Conference of Bishops and is helpful for understanding the various issues of religious education. The Proceedings of the Annual Congresses of Christian Doctrine provide insight into the various aspects of religious education in a given year. One example is Verona Spellmire, “Helping to Safeguard Their Heritage—the Laity’s Part,” in Proceedings of the 1940 Congress of the Confraternity of Christian Doctrine (1941). Madeleva Wolff, My First Seventy Years (1959), describes the struggle to provide theological studies for women. An early biography is Walter Romig, Josephine Dyke Brownson (1955). Individuals’ dissertations and theses offer valuable information and further references. Examples are Charles Carmody , “Roman Catholic Catechesis in the United States 1784– 1930” (Loyola University of Chicago, 1975); and Marie Spellacy , “The Evolution of Catechetical Ministry among the Mission Helpers of the Sacred Heart” (Loyola University of Chicago , 1986). Spellacy also writes of a particular Mission Helper in “In Memoriam: Rosalia Walsh, MHSH,” Living Light 19.2 (January 1981): 151–157. CATHOLIC WOMEN’S COLLEGES IN THE UNITED STATES Tracy Schier THE DEVELOPMENT OF Catholic women’s colleges at the end of the nineteenth and beginning of the twentieth centuries must be understood in light of the development and growth of the movement within America to provide educational opportunities for girls and women. To be both female and Catholic in the mid-nineteenth century in America was to be doubly handicapped as far as education was concerned. A widespread view...