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200 l CATHOLICISM M. Brown and Elizabeth McKeown, The Poor Belong to Us: Catholic Charities and American Welfare (1997); Mel Piehl, Breaking Bread: The Catholic Worker and the Origin of Catholic Radicalism in America (1982); Helen Caldwell Day, Color, Ebony (1951); Rosemary Lauer, “Women in the Church,” Commonweal 79 (December 20, 1963): 367; and Mary Daly, “Letter to the Editors,” Commonweal 79 (February 14, 1964): 603. Important secondary treatments of American Catholic women’s experience from 1900 to 1965 include James K. Keneally, The History of American Catholic Women (1990); Karen Kennelly, C.S.J., ed., American Catholic Women: A Historical Exploration (1989); and Mary Jo Weaver, New Catholic Women: A Contemporary Challenge to Traditional Religious Authority (1995). For the history of American sisters, see Patricia Byrne, “In the Parish But Not of It,” in Transforming Parish Ministry (1989), by Jay P. Dolan, R. Scott Appleby, Patricia Byrne, and Debra Campbell; and Carol K. Coburn and Martha Smith, Spirited Lives: How Nuns Shaped Catholic Culture and American Life, 1836–1920 (1999). Notable among the many important specialized studies are Paula Kane, Separatism and Subculture: Boston Catholicism 1900–1920 (1994); Mary J. Oates: The Catholic Philanthropic Tradition in America (1995); and Mary J. Oates, ed., Higher Education for Catholic Women: An Historical Anthology (1987). AMERICAN CATHOLIC WOMEN SINCE VATICAN COUNCIL II Mary Jo Weaver CATHOLIC WOMEN HAVE been major players in the historical development of their Church throughout the centuries, reflecting the central preoccupations of the hierarchy even as they created new possibilities for themselves on the margins of the institution. As the essays in the section show, women in a variety of colonial situations —Spanish, French, and English—not only did what was expected of them, by populating and founding religious orders, but they also invented new modes of religious expression and overcame overwhelming odds to become effective contributors to a developing religious community in a new and often hostile environment . Catholic women in black and Hispanic communities , who had to find space for themselves in an uncongenial Church, were pioneers whose heroism has only recently been rediscovered and is now being replicated by Asian Pacific women in the American Catholic Church. European immigrant women in the nineteenth century were part of an expanding Church that had to overcome anti-Catholic bigotry and join the great task of preserving and passing on the faith to new generations troubled by conflicts over how much they could assimilate into a new country while maintaining a Catholic identity. The women’s movement of the nineteenth century and the great crisis points of the early twentieth century—two world wars and the Great Depression— gave Catholic women opportunities to expand their identities. As policies of backlash and constraint followed those years of national crises, Catholic women searched for new ways to express themselves within an increasingly conservative Church. When Vatican Council II (1962–1965) coincided with the new wave of the women’s movement, the two events conspired to raise a contemporary challenge to traditional religious authority . Catholic women since the Council have been remarkably active on a number of fronts, including women’s ordination, the women-church movement, and reproductive rights. In general, however, it is fair to say that Catholic women in the last half of the twentieth century have revisited an old conflict about the teaching role of the Church, a battle between those who seek change and those who defend tradition. Meriol Trevor, a historian of the modernist controversy, called these two groups “the prophets and the guardians.” Rosemary Haughton, communitarian and essayist, in a more metaphorical approach, speaks of Mother Church (the fierce, protective lawgiver) and her wild sister Sophia (the unruly , daring mystic). In nineteenth-century American Catholicism, this dialectic was between those who urged immigrants to become more American and their opponents , who believed that ethnic particularity was crucial to keeping the faith. Among women in the postconciliar Church, the battle lines were drawn between accommodation and resistance to feminism. The teachings of Vatican II and the imperatives of the women’s movement have inspired those Catholic women who urge accommodation. They work toward greater inclusiveness in the Church, an amelioration of liturgical language, and the rights associated with American values, that is, freedom of expression, selfdetermination , and equal opportunity. Those who resist such accommodation have taken their cues from Vatican officials who hope to replace the aggiornamento (updated ) Catholicism of Pope John XXIII (1958–1963) with the restoration Catholicism of Pope...

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