Springs of Water in a Dry Land
Redmont, Jane
THIRSTY PEOPLE ...
...If the Roman Catholic women's religious autobiographies and the Church-stay on their own terms, claiming church will not `grant' ordination to impossibility of speaking of "a spiritualthe center rather than assenting to a defi- women, then perhaps they have to find their ity of Catholic women...
...is Weaver's strongest chap- her intellectual honesty add warmth and (Morrow, 1992...
...We suffer," she WHO'S WHO OF problem the author has writes, "because we try to fit our spirituWORLD RELIGIONS wrestled with for years: al aspirations into a space that is more restrictive and less magnificent than we Editor: John R. Hinnells "how to respond constructively to the an656 pages guish of Catholic women who can no know to be true...
...States and of the neopagan ARCHAEOLOGICAL lished in 1985, analyzed the contemporary U.S...
...ter...
...Like other the- ments based on nonliterate sources and ologians identified with Women-Church, utopian visions, on the nature and use of Weaver encourages women to "minister the male God symbol, and on the role of on their own terms" and to celebrate the personal autobiography in one's choices Eucharist openly "as part of their heritage about religious authority...
...to women who experience a call to the or- Springs of Water has serious structural dained ministry, but to the many more for problems...
...Augustine, Dante, and Teresa of Avila...
...as New Catholic Women...
...Weaver's historical and theological asREVIEWERS Weaver also urges women called to or- sessment...
...Christopher J. Kauffman The images and metaphors she finds in the tradition and uses in her theological and 526 pages any Jo Weaver's ISBN: 0-13-300989-0 • $35 Springs of Water in a spiritual work are spatial-homelessness, Dry Land addresses a journey, desert, quest...
...two decades, Weaver asks a series of It is time to quit being `Father's helper' questions about the relationship between in a church that considers women unfit to text-based, historical traditions and movecelebrate the Eucharist...
...The essays include analyses ENCYCLOPEDIA OF Weaver's New Catholic Women, pub- of the Grail movement in its fiftieth year in the United...
...not prepared to take fem- and a version of a speech Weaver gave in Hebrew University of Jerusalem inists seriously" and "feminists...
...Many Catholic women today-es- made available to us from the tradition," page to point out the diversity of Catholic pecially those identified with Women- Weaver writes...
...The "act of faith" nition of their position as "marginal...
...We must Call us at (212) 373-7353 "Whenever I search for God in the mod- let the old system die....It is time to quit Commonweal 12 March 1993: 2 fooling ourselves about our `ministry' rizing the history of the Goddess movewhen it means we are permitted to do the ment and Goddess scholarship of the past work but have no power to change things...
...The Catholic church, including those the sense that Weaver was not well served Weaver refuses to accept the popular who seek ordination, must refuse to abide by her editors...
...Is there for "new This chapter, though it offers no new 4 volumes • c. 1600 pages Catholic women" unwilling to bear the information to readers familiar with the ISBN: 0-13-276288-9 constraints of a patriarchal church a source women's ordination and Women-Church $355...
...to shore up the patriarchal church...
...the field...
...vant or pernicious...
...Women, Weaver writes, have A DICTIONARY OF on their own terms or stay in on others' no hope of being ordained "in the Catholic RELIGIOUS & terms...
...conference on years ago, this is the revised and updated edition of a classic in tice not related to the Goddess as irrele- the ordination of women...
...After summa- the book...
...THIRSTY PEOPLE COLUMBIANISM AND THE KNIGHTS OF COLUMBUS A Quincentenary History Christopher J. Kauffman SPRINGS OF WATER IN A DRY LAND ern world," she confesses, "I end up in the 204 pages medieval world...
...tionship between Catholic women and own identity, part intellectual analysis, part THE REV...
...Her essay, based within Catholicism...
...The image of spiritual homeRevised Edition lessness pervades Weaver's first chapter...
...Many of the points Weaver dichotomy between leaving the church on by the current limitations of that church makes late in the book would be more helpone's own terms or staying on others' while actively celebrating the mysteries ful early on...
...The reader emerges full of Religious Studies Program at New York spective...
...Stubbornly the women nor for the People of God, who SCHUSTER rooted in history, historical evidence, and need to work for a much deeper transforAcademic Reference Division historical consciousness, Weaver always mation of institution...
...ject patriarchy yet are committed to liv- as a window into one theologian's heart THE REV...
...olicism is published by Twenty-Third Publi- life...
...foster quiet communion with the divine The History of the Knights of Columbus MJane Redmont Presence...
...stronger impact if placed frankly at the bethe distinction between abandoning pa- Underlying Weaver's call to "courageous ginning of the book with other reflections triarchy and leaving the church...
...0 26: 12 March 1993 Commonweal...
...ROBERT P. IMBELLI is director the men who are their allies and peers, nor loosely connected personal reflections, of the Institute of Religious Education and what the options are for women who re- not quite a spiritual handbook...
...229 pages Weaver's own spiritual life, as she de- Nor does Weaver believe women ought ISBN: 0-13-210121-1 • $40 scribes it, is "full of apparent contradic- to be ordained into the priesthood as it curtions, nourished both by feminist criticism rently exists in the Roman Catholic church...
...PAUL E. DINTER is associate ing and worshiping with communities of and mind, but not as the comprehensive professor of New Testament at the Marvknoll both women and men...
...Should the question be framed as church as we know it today...
...Weaver's School of Theology, Maryknoll, N.Y...
...Catholic women's movement with in- Goddess movement, two chapters on spir- EXCAVATIONS IN sight and skill...
...she waits till the third to last terms...
...It is time," SPIRITUAL this either/or dilemma, or is there anoth- she adds "to stop dreaming that `they' will QUOTATIONS er way of defining the experience and the do something for us or that the priest Geoffrey Parrinder religious decisions of Catholic feminists...
...Must they either leave the church provocative...
...Special price: $295 of nourishment in the tradition of this movements, is the most institutionally church...
...all too 1985 on the occasion of the tenth an- First published more than twenty eager to dismiss religious belief and prac- niversary of the first U.S...
...of Catholic Christian tradition and by the this would, she argues, be good neither for SIMON & tradition's spiritual classics...
...and helpful in much the same way respect for the author, but disappointed in University...
...Who is the Goddess and Where Does yearning, her struggle toward hope, and JANE REDMONT is the author of Generous Lives: American Catholic Women Today...
...own ways to respond to God's invitation of Weaver's final essay could have had a They-and Weaver-are quick to stress by courageous acts and daring refusals...
...There is overlap and repetition whom church has become an experience among the essays, and even within the esof cognitive dissonance, who have come says themselves, giving the reader the im-' to a point "where the old system does not pression of a hastily constructed book and make sense any more...
...In it Weaver responded to ituality, an examination of feminist spir- THE HOLY LAND the tension between "religious studies ituality's relationship to process theology, Editor: Ephraim Stern, professionals...
...ISBN: 0-13-952946-2 • $75 longer define themselves in traditional Springs is a loosely knit collection of terms but who cannot bring themselves to six essays written over a period of half a THE NEW leave their church behind...
...Weaver does not address the rela- Springs is a hybrid book unsure of its cations...
...15 Columbus Circle, 26th floor returns to her love of the Western classi- Weaver does not mince her words...
...Neopaganism and Utopian Poetics" depth to her academic analysis and proEDWARD T. OAKES, S.L, teaches in the is the most valuable from a scholarly per- saic language...
...It serves Pastoral Ministry at Boston College...
...Quoting Rosemary on a decision to treat neopaganism "with Ruether's words at the ordination confer- the same kind of reverent attention I ence, Weaver calls Catholics, and espe- brought to any other spiritual reality," is cially Catholic women, to, "demystify the a helpful corrective for those who either power of the priesthood," locating sacra- dismiss or hastily condemn the Goddess mental power in the believing communi- movement and the current, even broader ty...
...ISBN: 0-13-145806-X • $75 Spiritual Survival for Catholic Women Today The problem, for Weaver and for the women for whom and to whom she speaks, FAITH & Mary Jo Weaver is that the Catholic church has ceased to FRATERNALISM Beacon Press, $22, 133 pp...
...Weaver addresses her remarks not only neopagan revival...
...resource suggested by its title...
...acts and daring refusals" is her belief in locating Weaver's spiritual and ecclesial "a divine being whose modus operandi is experience, followed by an assessment of disturbing the peace and calling us to new Catholic women's experiences and by life...
...shortage will work on women's behalf...
...Or Weaver might have begun PETER STEINFELS is senior religion corre- dination to place their gifts at the service the book with an image she uses in the epispondent for the New York Times...
...of the growing number of Catholic women logue, the story of the small nuns' chapel DENNIS M. DOYLE teaches in the religious studies department at the University of Dayton.who no longer find spiritual sustenance in tucked away in a corner of a large semiHis The Church Emerging from Vatican II: A their parishes but identify themselves as nary, and moved from there into using Popular Approach to Contemporary Cath- Catholics and hunger for the sacramental many of the spatial metaphors she favors...
...New York, New York 10023 cal Christian tradition, particularly "First of all," she warns, "we must refuse Questions...
...She Get Us...
...dozen years...
Vol. 120 • March 1993 • No. 5
