Women in the Church

In the book Two Centuries of Faith Carol Hurd Green traces the careers of the leaders of various women’s religious orders who became principals, directors of orphanages, and administrators of hospitals throughout the archdiocese.  By the 20th century, Catholic women both sisters and members of the laity, had become successful literary figures, recognized scholars and theologians, founders of colleges for women, community leaders, parish organizers, and successful fundraisers for charitable programs.

"Imagine a collage of photographs and line drawings: a young Irish woman, traveling alone, tired and cold, disembarking in the port of Boston; four sisters called to New England to teach, facing the hostility of anti-Catholic crowds; rows of women in starched cornettes arrayed in Cathedral pews under the eye of the cardinal on his throne; girls in white dresses as far as the photographer’s eye can see along an East Boston street on a May morning; young women of the Young Ladies Charitable Association visiting the aged sick poor… These are a very small fragment of the images that tumble from the stories of two hundred years of Catholic women’s lives in the Diocese of Boston."

In the years following Vatican II, laywomen have also been given greater responsibilities within the church itself.  Along with these women are hundreds more, unnamed, who have tried to keep the faith for over two hundred years.

"The phrase 'Catholic laywoman' is imprecise, suggesting more what she was not (a vowed woman) than the many things she is. But it provides an umbrella under which to gather the many roles of women who were baptized into and lived the Catholic faith outside of a religious order. The documents of Vatican II defined women religious as members of the laity, a change important in the consciousness of religious women. Until the post Vatican II years, however, the lives of religious and laywomen ran typically on separate lines, and class issues sometimes led to differing interpretations of poverty and responsibility. The transformative incidents of the 1960s and the 1970s brought laywomen and religious women in closer contact, as they worked together for peace and justice. The conventional division of religious and lay remains useful for historical understanding, however."

Read more in the book preview.

RESOURCES ABOUT WOMEN IN THE CHURCH

• Women and Spirit: Catholic Sisters in America: “’Women & Spirit’ offers history museums across the country an opportunity to display artifacts and images that have rarely been seen by the general public. With a balanced approach that draws upon first-hand narratives, visitors will discover an untold story in American history.”
• “The story of the founding of Catholic charitable institutions from the mid-nineteenth to the mid-twentieth century should be told not only as the story of the women religious, but also of mothers and of their children.” Read more about the history of Catholic Charities in Boston.
• The Council for Women of Boston College: founded in 2002 with the mission to increase the involvement and influence of alumnae in all aspects of life at Boston College.
• Catholic Schools, Archdiocese of Boston
• Catholic Religious Orders for Women
• Center for Catholic  Education
• National Association of Church Personnel Administrators
• Prophetic Witness: This publication of the C21 Book series is a collection of essays, which examines a wide range of issues facing the Catholic Church in the 21st century as viewed by 23 of the country’s leading female Catholic theologians.

*From the film Making our Place: A History of Women at Boston College, which chronicles the history of women at the University, from the first women students who served as pioneers to women who have gone on to serve as leaders on campus and alumnae who have made an impact in the community at large.