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11 Feminist The*logy and The*logical Education Helen Wright, S.N.D., In Memoriam Sister Helen Wright, whose work I want to remember here, gathered a group of Catholic feminist the*logians from 1978 to 1980 to discuss feminist the*logical education.1 As far as I remember, we worked out several different models of the*logical education, but I can only recall two of them. (When I tried to check with Helen, I learned that she had died on April 24th, 2012 after a rich life of ninety-four years. I am very sorry that I did not contact her earlier and I fear a very important part of our history might be lost!) One model that we considered was the central “school” model of the*logical education, which requires students to move to a site. This model was adopted by the group and was later institutionalized in the ecumenical Women’s Theological Center, which was located at the Episcopal Divinity School in Cambridge, Massachusetts. The other proposed model that I advocated together with others was a “satellite” model of the*logical education often used in D. Min. programs. This model envisioned students staying in their “home space,” forming local reading groups of wo/men as part of the program, and meeting several times a year regionally with a facilitating (faculty) team of feminist the*logians. We argued that this model would not require wo/men to move to a the*logical school, and would enable especially married and financially limited wo/men to engage in feminist the*logical studies. At the same time, this model of the*logical education would build up local feminist movement groups in parishes and put them in communication with each other about their faith. Thus, this model 1. Prepared for the Catholic Feminist Movement Building Conference, Baltimore, July 2012. 187 would develop feminist the*logical leadership and wo/men’s groups at one and the same time. However, this educational model was not pursued by the group and therefore has not been fully developed and realized in a Roman Catholic context. Subsequently, I articulated and developed the the*logical notion of the ekklēsia of wo/men, a theoretical frame that could have engendered further discussion of the group model of the*logical education. However, translated into English the intended radical democratic aspect of ekklēsia was lost. Ekklēsia of wo/men was generally understood as wo/men-church and was associated with church as “base community,” as a space of liturgy and ritual rather than as a gathering of “wo/men citizens” debating their own and their children’s welfare. The meaning of “wo/men church” as “church” but not as “congress” was taken up by the wo/men-church movement and developed primarily as a liturgical, base community model or as a feminist organizational model (Women Church Convergence) but not realized as a the*logical discussion model, which would have not only engendered many reading/discussion groups across the country but also would have rooted the “doing of feminist the*logy” within such movement groups and not just in the academy. While developing these models of the*logical education, some of us sought to persuade the leaders of wo/men’s congregations to pool their institutional resources for forming a feminist the*logical consortium, just as the male orders did at the time. Such a center/school, we argued, needed to be incorporated legally so that it could not be controlled by the bishops or the Vatican. However, since so-called nun-wo/men had just left “school teaching” and had opted for social justice work, this argument did not capture their imaginations. Moreover, in order to be successful, this proposal would have required that the nun-wo/men–lay wo/men the*logical split2 be addressed, which was already brewing at the first Ordination Conference. The “building up” of such a feminist the*logical institution would have required equal ownership and leadership as well as creative collaboration between both so-called lay-wo/men and nun-wo/men, although the financial and organizational support needed to come primarily from the sisters. Feminist the*logy, therefore, has been for the most part developed by the second and third generation of feminist the*logians in an academic context. As the first-rate book Frontiers in Catholic Feminist Theology: Shoulder to Shoulder,3 edited by Susan Abraham and Elena Procario-Foley states, “This book has 2. According to the progressive the...

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