Conscience and Calling: Ethical Reflections on Catholic Women’s Church Vocations by Anne E. Patrick (review)

Anne Patrick’s text explores the complexity of women’s ecclesial vocations through the lens of moral theology using case studies, typological analysis, copious research, as well as reflection on decades of her own vocation in religious life. This wonderful book synthesizes a great deal of contemporary work on Catholic women’s experience and women’s holiness, while simultaneously putting forth a robust analysis of female notions of vocation in the church. The Vatican’s investigation of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious (LCWR) brackets the book, serving as the backdrop for Patrick’s central contribution: the renegotiation of frameworks for women’s ministerial and governing roles in the church in light of how women’s status has changed in the past one hundred years.

To achieve this, chapter one presents two case studies of women religious coming into conflict with clergymen. The cases, taken from different historical and geographic circumstances, serve to highlight how the shift in women’s roles outside the church resulted in a shift in how religious sisters viewed and practiced virtue in difficult circumstances. In these examples, taken from 1930s Brooklyn and 1980s Key West, Patrick concludes that the institutional shifts begun at the Second Vatican Council along with the growing sense of women’s equality outside the church resulted in a change from virtue-as-obedience to virtue-as-justice. Chapter two offers a typological map of the complex landscape of women’s stances toward the Catholic Church, which Patrick plainly acknowledges is patriarchal and tinged with the sin of sexism. Using the models of “Christ and Culture” put forth by H. Richard Niebuhr, Patrick suggests that women fall into one of five categories vis-à-vis the situation of Catholic institutional injustice, ranging from contentment to total opposition. Chapter three provides another case study, a cautionary tale about the perils of idealism exemplified in the story of the NARW/NAWR, a small, short-lived group of women religious that attempted to embody the ideals of justice, diversity, and inclusivity. Chapter four elaborates a theological analysis of vocation, and the book concludes, in chapter five, with Patrick’s vision for renewed social and ecclesial paradigms for women who feel called to serve the church in ministry.

This book is both deeply informative and a joy to read. Most useful is Patrick’s reinterpretation of Niebuhr’s typology to help sort out the complex landscape of Catholic women. Her inclusive vision seeks to account for the rich diversity of women’s experiences with, and reactions toward, a church plagued with sacramental sexism, without losing sight of either the great strides women have made in and out of the church, or the long road that lies ahead for women’s full baptismal dignity to be recognized. That Patrick enlivens discussion about the sins of institutional sexism while keeping these sins in perspective and remaining mindful of the privilege of white, middle-class feminists exemplifies the virtues of justice, inclusivity, and holiness that are the subject of this book.