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What's Left: Liberal American Catholics
"What's Left? employs a thoroughly in-house approach in which self-identified liberal Catholics examine various facets of liberal Catholicism.... this book explores some of the most prominent threads of leftist Catholic aspiration and dissent." ―Choice What’s Left? is the most comprehensive study to date of liberal American Catholics in the generation following the second Vatican council (1962-65). The main features of liberal American Catholicism―feminist theology and practice, contested issues of sexual conduct, new social locations of academic theology, liturgy, spirituality, ministry, race and ethnicity, and public Catholicism―are presented here in their historical and social contexts.
- GenresNonfiction
294 pages, Paperback
First published November 1, 1999
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September 23, 2024
A COLLECTION OF ESSAYS FROM CATHOLIC PROGRESSIVES ON A VARIETY OF ISSUES
Mary Jo Weaver is Professor of Religious Studies at Indiana University; she has also written/edited 'New Catholic Women: A Contemporary Challenge to Traditional Religious Authority,' 'Being Right: Conservative Catholics in America,' 'Cloister and Community: Life within a Carmelite Monastery,' etc.
She notes in the Preface to this 1999 book, "Like 'Being Right,' 'What's Left?' ... also engaged a group of scholars and activists in a two-year process of conversation and learning... there have been some significant differences in the way the present volume was organized... 'What's Left?' ... was written entirely by scholars who, in some way, identified themselves as 'insiders' within the left wing of the American Catholic Church, and insiders within academia, participants who had constant stimulation from outside consultants... My decision to punctuate 'what's left' as a question... is meant ... to show that half the fun of liberal Catholicism is in raising questions." (Pg. ix-xi)
Scholars such as Rosemary Radford Ruether, Diana L. Hayes, Bernard J. Cooke, and Anne E. Patrick are included, writing essays such as “Catholic Women Theologians of the Left”; “Women-Church: An American Catholic Feminist Movement”; “Resisting Traditional Catholic Sexual Teaching: Pro-Choice Advocacy and Homosexual Support Groups”; “Strategies on the Left: Catholics and Race”; “The Black Catholic Congress Movement,” etc.
One essayist says, "Why don't they [dissenters] just leave the Church? ... the bottom line is usually an ability on the part of protesters to see a larger picture and to find life within it. They do not abandon the Church because they believe it to be more than its sexual teachings and hope to find within the tradition itself the grounds for their challenge. They believe that the moral life ought to make sense and that it can do so within the Catholic tradition." (Pg. 91)
This collection will be of great interest and value to any liberal/progressive Catholics (or anyone studying such views).
Mary Jo Weaver is Professor of Religious Studies at Indiana University; she has also written/edited 'New Catholic Women: A Contemporary Challenge to Traditional Religious Authority,' 'Being Right: Conservative Catholics in America,' 'Cloister and Community: Life within a Carmelite Monastery,' etc.
She notes in the Preface to this 1999 book, "Like 'Being Right,' 'What's Left?' ... also engaged a group of scholars and activists in a two-year process of conversation and learning... there have been some significant differences in the way the present volume was organized... 'What's Left?' ... was written entirely by scholars who, in some way, identified themselves as 'insiders' within the left wing of the American Catholic Church, and insiders within academia, participants who had constant stimulation from outside consultants... My decision to punctuate 'what's left' as a question... is meant ... to show that half the fun of liberal Catholicism is in raising questions." (Pg. ix-xi)
Scholars such as Rosemary Radford Ruether, Diana L. Hayes, Bernard J. Cooke, and Anne E. Patrick are included, writing essays such as “Catholic Women Theologians of the Left”; “Women-Church: An American Catholic Feminist Movement”; “Resisting Traditional Catholic Sexual Teaching: Pro-Choice Advocacy and Homosexual Support Groups”; “Strategies on the Left: Catholics and Race”; “The Black Catholic Congress Movement,” etc.
One essayist says, "Why don't they [dissenters] just leave the Church? ... the bottom line is usually an ability on the part of protesters to see a larger picture and to find life within it. They do not abandon the Church because they believe it to be more than its sexual teachings and hope to find within the tradition itself the grounds for their challenge. They believe that the moral life ought to make sense and that it can do so within the Catholic tradition." (Pg. 91)
This collection will be of great interest and value to any liberal/progressive Catholics (or anyone studying such views).
Displaying 1 of 1 review