Sacraments as Weapons: Patriarchal Coercion and Engendered Power in the Nineteenth-Century Convent

Abstract

This essay analyzes the ways in which sacraments were used as weapons of control in nineteenth-century women's religious life. While most instances involve clerics as the wielders of such weapons, some instances of sisters themselves, and even laymen, doing so are also included. Focus is primarily on sisters being denied Communion, restrictions on the reservation of the Blessed Sacrament, and regimentation of confession. Particular but not exclusive targets of such ecclesial violence were women who were considered to be deviant or insufficiently submissive, many of them "dangerous" women in leadership. The author places this analysis in the theoretical context of kyriarchy and concludes with feminist analysis of the implications of Pope Pius X's edicts on frequent and early Communion as mechanisms for clericalizing Catholic praxis and piety. The inquiry makes extensive use of archival sources from numerous congregations as well as obscure published histories and memoirs.