Womanpriest: Tradition and Transgression in the Contemporary Roman Catholic Church

Catholic Practice in North America

by Jill Peterfeso

While some Catholics and even non-Catholics today are asking if priests are necessary, especially given the ongoing sex-abuse scandal, The Roman Catholic Womanpriests (RCWP) looks to reframe and reform Roman Catholic priesthood, starting with ordained women. Womanpriest is the first academic study of the RCWP movement. As an ethnography, Womanpriest analyzes the womenpriests’ actions and lived theologies in order to explore ongoing tensions in Roman Catholicism around gender and sexuality, priestly authority, and religious change.

In order to understand how womenpriests navigate tradition and transgression, this study situates RCWP within post–Vatican II Catholicism, apostolic succession, sacraments, ministerial action, and questions of embodiment. Womanpriest reveals RCWP to be a discrete religious movement in a distinct religious moment, with a small group of tenacious women defying the Catholic patriarchy, taking on the priestly role, and demanding reconsideration of Roman Catholic tradition. Doing so, the women inhabit and re-create the central tensions in Catholicism today.

Genres: Religion, Catholic, Feminism

448 pages, Kindle Edition

First published June 16, 2020

Reviews

[Andy Febrico Bintoro · Rating 4 out of 5]

RCWP

Studies on RCWP, it's history and current priests. It's not ordained by Roman catholic, but trying to reformed from within.

[Cora · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting