Navigating the Catholic Church in Belgium: Catholic women on female authority, reforms, and sexual difference

Abstract

Despite being denied access to ordained positions of power, and limited to occupying lay positions, women numerically outnumber men in the Catholic Church in Belgium. Furthermore, their involvement in the Church mostly takes place in what can be considered gender stereotypical domains, such as education and care-providing services. This article explores how Catholic lay women navigate the Belgian Catholic Church and how they reconcile their religion-based aspirations to be involved in the Church, on one hand, and their lack of ordained authority, on the other. Based on empirical research (including in-depth interviews, (online) observations, and informal conversations), this article foregrounds and analyses the narratives of Catholic lay women who are active in the Church. Drawing on difference feminism scholarship and on Braidotti’s postsecular analysis, the article argues that the narratives under consideration should not be read through a secular-liberal conceptualisation of gender equality, but rather through a lens that allows the subjectivities and everyday realities of religious women to be made visible and to be acknowledged.