Catholic Women Research Articles

The Laywoman Project: Remaking Catholic Womanhood in the Vatican II Era by Mary J. Henold

Reviewed by: The Laywoman Project: Remaking Catholic Womanhood in the Vatican II Era by Mary J. Henold Sandra Yocum The Laywoman Project: Remaking Catholic Womanhood in the Vatican II Era. By Mary J. Henold. Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 2020. 233 pp. $29.95. Mary J. Henold, John R. Turbyfill Professor of History at Roanoke College, provides another major contribution to the history of U.S. Catholic women in The Laywoman Project: Remaking Catholic Womanhood in the Vatican II Era. As in her previous monograph, Catholic and Feminist: The Surprising History of the American Catholic Feminist Movement, Henold acts as a sure guide in exploring how, in this case, U.S. Catholic lay women made their way through the sometimes chaotic and often exhilarating intersection of Vatican II and the feminist movement that ran directly through their lives. Though usually eschewing the label "feminist," these women nevertheless challenged Catholicism's essentialist gender ideology of complementarity in their efforts "to remake American Catholic womanhood" (4). Henold names these efforts as "the laywoman project" with lay women acting as the principal agents (4). Henold, after introducing the monograph's organization and methods, includes a Prologue to delineate the stereotype that shaped Catholic lay women's preconciliar self-understanding. Lay women had a two-fold God-given purpose: self-sacrificing mothers who raised children for the priesthood and sisterhood. Women who pursued interests beyond motherhood or hesitated to promote religious vocations were castigated for selfishness and materialism. Henold then examines how a variety of Catholic lay women challenged this stereotype in the 1960s through the mid-1970s. Three of the four chapters examine archival materials of three Catholic laywomen's organizations: Theresians, National Council of Catholic Women (NCCW), and the Catholic Daughters of America/ Daughters of Isabella (Daughters). The remaining chapter, the book's third, features lay women's voices from Marriage magazine, published by Abbey Press, St. Meinrad's in Indiana. [End Page 106] What emerges is a complex narrative of U.S. Catholic women's reception of both Vatican II and feminism. Combing through the Theresian records, for example, Henold traces the influences of Vatican II and feminism in transforming Theresians' purpose from vocations to religious sisterhood to assisting every woman in discerning her God-given vocation, a calling no longer confined to the essentialist options: religious or married life. Unlike the Theresians and Daughters, who had prominent clerical leadership, the NCCW is a women-led organization. As her chapter's title, "Catholic (Non) Feminism" suggests, Henold challenges previous simplistic characterizations of the NCCW as antifeminist and offers evidence of its leadership's pragmatic moderate feminism. The NCCW's involvement in the World Union of Catholic Women's Organizations highlights transnational dimensions of the Catholic laywoman project. With an interesting methodological twist, Henold turns her attention to lay women's voices in Marriage magazine to explore Catholic lay women's responses to changes around marriage, housewifery, sexuality, and work outside the home in the Vatican II era—topics, as she notes, rarely addressed in the records of the lay women's organizations. Marriage magazine proves to be a treasure trove of Catholic lay women's perspectives particularly in the magazine's "Speak Up" section. In the final chapter, Henold analyzes the Daughters' brief but genuine attempts to respond to Vatican II's call for engagement, in part, out of obedience to the organization's clerical leadership. As clerical reaction against Vatican II excesses emerged, the Daughters found allies in their resistance not only to feminism but also to the changing church. The Laywoman Project offers a much-needed correction to the simplistic post-conciliar feminist/anti-feminist narrative. Henold's careful analysis of wide-ranging sources reveals the complexity of Catholic lay women's responses to Vatican II and feminism. It simultaneously illustrates the tenacity of those who promoted essentialist complementarity ideology and the tenacity of Catholic women who questioned, modified, and even subverted that ideology, even when identifying as "(non) feminists." This narrative recognizes the varied interests of Catholic lay women, even in a common project, remaking "American Catholic womanhood." They acted upon their desires in areas related to vocation, spirituality, marriage and work life, sexual fulfillment...

Katolicka, katolicko-narodowa i narodowa prasa dla kobiet w Polsce międzywojennej: cechy czasopiśmiennictwa światopoglądowego

The aim of the article was to reconstruct the means of communication in Interwar Poland’s worldview press for women. The origins and development of such periodicals was determined by the decisions made by the Catholic Church, which wanted to gain more influence on Polish women. Catholic, National Catholic and National press declared their affiliation with the Catholic faith, informed about the state of the Church, presented the doctrine and deepen the National identity and unity. These periodicals were created by the Catholic women’s associations, including those with political aspirations. To achieve their goals, they were using archetypes of Polish Mother and Polish women as Catholics.

Obraz społecznych ruchów kobiet na łamach prasy dla katoliczek w Polsce międzywojennej

The purpose of the article was to show some aspects of women’s social movements and related press for Catholic women in the interwar Poland. Back then the religious press was an important part of publishing. Some of the papers were published directly for women. These periodicals were supporting national and religious values, were propagating the need to defend Poland and the Catholic faith against the immorality and cosmopolitism. The social movements of Polish Catholic women were strong, integrated and influenced among their members. They were showing the ideal of women in the country – both Polish-Catholic and the “Polish-Mother” – who is considered a secular apostole.

Vatican Radio and Modern Society. Catholic Women in the Broadcasts of the 1950s

In the light of the important means of apostolate, propaganda and diplomacy that Vatican Radio had played during the Second World War, the Holy See, at the suggestion of the General of the Society of Jesus Jean-Baptiste Janssens, in the ’50s, provided a technical strengthening and a reorganization of the station to keep up with the rapid social and cultural changes that followed rather quickly after the conflict. Thanks to the new documents relating to the pontificate of Pius XII, made available for consultation in March 2020, it was possible to reconstruct the stages that led to a complete renewal of Vatican Radio. In addition, it was possible to focus on the analysis of two broadcasts for the Italian program directed by women and addressed to women, Mondo femminile and Invito alla gioia, aired from 1956 to 1958. They constitute a case study useful for understanding the dynamics of radio propaganda on key aspects for the Catholic Church, such as the role of women in the family and work, and in general in sexual morality. Vatican Radio at the end of the ’50s was full-fledged an interpreter of the Holy See’s point of view on the modern world.

White and Black Women under the Same Roof? The Early History of Montebello’s Black Sisterhood (1922–1939)

In 1922 four young Zulu women expressed the desire to join the Oakford Dominican Sisters, a congregation of mostly German Catholic religious women based in Natal. They were accepted to the novitiate in 1926 and subsequently took vows. This raised the issue of whether they should be fully part of the Oakford congregation or form a separate congregation for black sisters only under the guidance, at least for a while, of white sisters. In other words, should the Oakford congregation follow the segregation model in use in other Catholic religious congregations and most Protestant churches in southern Africa? The paper describes the battle that opposed, on this issue, the black sisters and their novice mistress, Sr Euphemia Ruf, on one side, and Archbishop Jordan Gijlswijk, the envoy from Rome, who wanted to maintain the unity of the congregation, on the other side. In the end, the argument that Zulu people were ‘too different’ from white people to live with them prevailed and a separate congregation of diocesan right, based in Montebello, where the black novitiate for black sisters had been established, was created in 1939.

To Speak the Truth in Love: A Biography of Theresa Kane, RSM by Christine Schenk

Reviewed by: To Speak the Truth in Love: A Biography of Theresa Kane, RSM by Christine Schenk Florence Deacon OSF To Speak the Truth in Love: A Biography of Theresa Kane, RSM. By Christine Schenk, CSJ. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 2019. 336 pp. $25.00. Author Christine Schenk begins her insightful and inspiring biography of Sister of Mercy Theresa Kane’s with the welcome Kane, as president of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious (LCWR), gave to Pope John Paul II during his 1979 visit to the United States. She spoke of the pain many Catholic women felt about their position in the church and respectfully told him that to be faithful to its call for reverence and charity for all persons, the church “must respond by providing the possibility of women as persons being included in all the ministries of our Church” (9–10). Catholic and secular media clamored unsuccessfully for interviews as they analyzed Kane’s greeting. While some judged it to be defiant, for many sisters it was a logical outgrowth of their years of study of the documents of the Second Vatican Council and of the people of God’s share in Christ’s prophetic ministry. With this dramatic beginning Schenk skillfully parallels her biography of Kane with a brief institutional history of the New York province of the Sisters of Mercy of the Union as they responded to the Council’s call for renewal of the church and of the role of women religious within it. The daughter of Irish immigrants, Kane was raised in a hospitable, spiritual home filled with books, and as a child she wished she were a boy so she could be a priest. In 1955 she entered the Sisters of Mercy in Tarrytown, New York where her administrative skills were quickly recognized and fostered. In 1965 Kane was a delegate to the General Chapter of the Sisters of Mercy which began a long period of sisters reflecting together on how to live out the gospel, the documents of the Second Vatican Council, and their Mercy charism in church and society. Recognizing that all the people of God have a role in discerning the signs of the times and God’s purpose, the delegates of the 1977 chapter [End Page 96] affirmed their role in supporting the church in the development of new teaching or a new emphasis of traditional teaching, when to work for a change or when responsible dissent might be necessary. Even though it was directly at odds with findings of the Vatican’s own biblical scholars, the Vatican had recently affirmed that women could not be part of the ministerial priesthood. The chapter issued a Statement of Concern regarding this to be shared with the media and the National Conference of Catholic Bishops. Elected as their Administer General, it was Kane’s responsibility to implement these decisions of the chapter delegates. The Mercy sisters’ attempts to engage with the church hierarchy in the spirit of the Council resulted in years of tension over medical ethics, sisters’ involvement in political ministry, and equality of women in the church. The executive secretary of the National Conference of Catholic Bishops actually approached a provincial administrator about accepting an appointment as president if Kane were removed. The sister adamantly refused, and Kane continued to speak the truth in love to church and society, as she carried out the chapter directives and advocated for women’s equality in all her future ministries. The resulting media scrutiny, public controversy, and tense relations with some of the church hierarchy that Kane experienced was disconcertingly similar to mine decades later as I served in the LCWR presidency (2011–2014) when the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF) publicly released its doctrinal assessment of the LCWR and appointed an apostolic delegate “for review, guidance, and approval, where necessary of the work of the LCWR.” In the epilogue Schenk describes how the actions of the CDF and a concurrent Vatican investigation of all the congregations of active women religious in the United States by the Congregation for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life were a manifestation of the continued tension over the...

Manly Sacraments and Masculine Devotions: Catholic Manhood in the Civil War

Manly Sacraments and Masculine Devotions:Catholic Manhood in the Civil War William S. Cossen55 Religion continues to be a subject of growing interest among historians of the Civil War era. Chandra Manning notes that it is in the midst of "a comeback, after decades of more or less benign neglect."56 The war has often been presented by scholars of U.S. Catholicism as a venue in which Catholics claimed for themselves and for their church a firmer inclusion in the American nation. Catholics' wartime loyalty, whether to the Confederate or Union causes, provided them with convincing proof of their patriotic virtue and functioned as a pointed rejoinder to claims of Catholic outsider status. Whether it was through the dedicated service of the Irish Brigade, Father William Corby's much-heralded, mass absolution of Catholic and non-Catholic soldiers at Gettysburg, or the distinguished record of wartime chaplains, Catholics could rightly point to the Civil War era as one that offered great potential for American Catholicism to claim its place as a leader in the wider national community. While the ethnic and nationalist dimensions of Civil War Catholicism have been the subjects of much research in Catholic studies, the topic of Catholic gender has not.57 To be sure, there has been ample scholarship on the work of women religious as nurses and on the dozens of priests who served as chaplains on battlefields and in camps, but what has been lacking in these studies is an exploration of how the war shaped Catholic soldiers as men.58 Additionally, because [End Page 29] research on the everyday, lived religion of Catholic soldiers has also been lacking in the ever-growing body of scholarship on the history of the war—for example, soldiers' reception of sacraments, their use of sacramentals, their prayer practices, and their conceptions of spiritual matters—we should spend some time considering how these wartime activities formed Catholic soldiers as Catholic men. Catholic newspapers, chaplains' diaries, soldiers' correspondence, and reminiscences of women religious who served as nurses in Civil War hospitals provide glimpses of a world in which Catholic women played formative roles in forming Catholic men's religious lives and in shaping a distinctly Catholic manhood. This is not altogether surprising given the conclusion of scholars that so many devotional practices in American Catholic history were frequently understood, whether explicitly or implicitly, as feminine, and that it is common to follow Ann Braude's lead in starting with the assumption that "women's history is American religious history."59 However, one of the dangers in not further interrogating these ideas is that it becomes easy to conclude that men, many of whom devoted themselves in the Civil War era to the cultivation of what historian Amy S. Greenberg terms "martial manhood," were only peripherally connected to these supposedly feminine practices.60 Assuming an innate femininity for the devotional practices of the past also risks reinforcing nineteenth-century anti-Catholic portrayals of an effeminate Catholicism opposed to a masculine Protestantism.61 As Colleen McDannell has explained, Catholic men were active and enthusiastic participants in nineteenth-century [End Page 30] devotional life, and "we do not know how 'feminized' Catholicism was in the late nineteenth century."62 Male Catholic soldiers indeed turned frequently to praying the rosary, wearing Miraculous Medals and donning scapulars, and they saw such items as not just spiritually nourishing but as physically protective as they enacted their martial manhood on the battlefield. Reverend J. Francis Burlando, the provincial director of the Daughters of Charity in the United States, remembered "poor invalid Catholics and Protestants all going to the chapel of the Sisters to assist at the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, at the Way of the Cross, and other practices of piety! . . . And, what eagerness to obtain a Medal of our Immaculate Mother, a chaplet, an Agnus Dei." Burlando noted that "only when furnished with a medal" would "they return to their regiments."63 Another Catholic writer noted of soldiers receiving both communion and scapulars at a Mass in New Orleans during the first summer of the war, "Ah! would to God every Catholic young man who engages in the conflict may so fortify...

Thomas Brodie. German Catholicism at War, 1939–1945; Jeffrey T. Zalar. Reading and Rebellion in Catholic Germany, 1770–1914; Michael E. O’Sullivan. Disruptive Power: Catholic Women, Miracles, and Politics in Modern Germany, 1918–1965.

T<scp>homas</scp> B<scp>rodie</scp>. <i>German Catholicism at War, 1939–1945</i>; J<scp>effrey</scp> T. Z<scp>alar</scp>. <i>Reading and Rebellion in Catholic Germany, 1770–1914</i>; M<scp>ichael</scp> E. O’S<scp>ullivan</scp>. <i>Disruptive Power: Catholic Women, Miracles, and Politics in Modern Germany, 1918–1965</i>.

Disruptive Power: Catholic Women, Miracles, and Politics in Modern Germany, by Michael E. O’Sullivan

Disruptive Power: Catholic Women, Miracles, and Politics in Modern Germany, by Michael E. O’Sullivan

The Tactics of the Women‘s Movement in the 4th Parliament Election

1927 was significant for the women’s movement because it was necessary to review the goals and their implementation methods in the women’s movement while adapting to altered political conditions. On 6 December 1928, the government issued an order that made it necessary to reregister organisations and pointed out that members of an association could be persons who were 21 or older. In this political environment, the activities of the Lithuanian catholic women’s organisation became more passive and shifted towards the areas of culture and education. It passed on taking care of women’s affairs to other women’s organisations. During the 30s, it underwent a crisis, and the Lithuanian Women’s Council was positioned not as a political or charity organisation but as an ideological organisation that had a goal of educating and encouraging women to be interested in culture, develop their sense of responsibility (for the society, family and country) and protect women’s affairs. Financial support from the government allowed the Council to develop relations and represent the Lithuanian women’s movement on the international scale. This was an important factor of the development and unification of the women’s movement but not its trengthening. The active Lithuanian Women’s Union was forced to limit its activities after the upheaval. During the 30s of the 20th century, Lithuanian women’s movement displayed consolidation of all three areas (catholic, democratic and social-democratic) when attempting to solve issues related to women’s representation in the 4th Seimas, prostitution, position of women and children in families, piece and other issues. Lithuanian history does not include very many analyses of elections to the 4th Seimas and the tactics applied by the Lithuanian Nationalist Union that limited all possibilities for female representatives to become members of the parliament. This shows that this political power created a mirage that was dispersed on the day of the election to the 4th Seimas, even though it allegedly satisfied the requirements of the women’s movement and showing the society it was represented. The article analyses the inability of women’s organisations to agree and suggest a representative to the Council of Lithuania as well as its weak representation of women in self-management. The article also discusses its causes and consequences.Aim of the article – having revealed the limitations of women’s activities in the national life during the 30s of the 20th century, to analyse the reasons of the defeat of the women’s movement in the 4th Seimas

Catholic Women Redesign Catholicism: an essay in honor of Maria José Rosado Nunes

This essay explores how Catholic women have changed Catholicism as a culture, if not so much the institutional church, in the years between 1970 and 2020. Catholic women have not endeared ourselves to Catholic hierarchs; in fact many dislike and fear us. But we have saved lives, spiritual as well as physical, by providing solid opposition and creative alternatives to the institutional church. A redesign of Catholicsm begins with the culture and ethos. Catholic women envision it as a global movement rooted in particular cultures, united by values of love and justice, open to the wisdom of many religious traditions, and structured to provide ministry and meaning through cooperative, horizontally organized communities. While there has been progress, more work remains to be done.

&lt;em&gt;Sine labe concepta&lt;/em&gt;. La proyección de un modelo de feminidad católica a través de la Inmaculada Concepción en la España del siglo XIX

Este artículo analiza la función simbólica de la Inmaculada Concepcion en la construcción de un modelo de feminidad católica en la España del siglo xix. La creencia inmaculista fue elevada a dogma por Pío IX en 1854, lo que implicaba una exaltación de la figura de la Virgen María en el catolicismo. Esto sirvió a los sectores sociales conservadores para proyectar un modelo de mujer católica a través de este símbolo y así recobrar parte de la influencia social que la Iglesia había perdido tras la caída del Antiguo Régimen. El uso de la Inmaculada para este propósito es considerado en tres aspectos: el cambio del discurso católico sobre las mujeres, la educación femenina y los contenidos de género de la devoción a Nuestra Señora de Lourdes.

Disruptive Power: Catholic Women, Miracles, and Politics in Modern Germany, 1918–1965. By Michael E. O’Sullivan. German and European Studies, volume 31. Edited by Jennifer J. Jenkins. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2018. Pp. xiv+322. $80.00 (cloth); $80.00 (e-book).

<i>Disruptive Power: Catholic Women, Miracles, and Politics in Modern Germany, 1918–1965</i>. By Michael E. O’Sullivan. German and European Studies, volume 31. Edited by Jennifer J. Jenkins. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2018. Pp. xiv+322. $80.00 (cloth); $80.00 (e-book).

Women and political violence in Northern Ireland: newspaper imagery during the troubles

ABSTRACT This article focuses on the ways in which women engaged in acts of political violence in Northern Ireland during the Troubles were depicted by the print media. Media is often used to reinforce a particular point of view, especially during conflict, when each side wants to portray its own perspective favorably and depict the adversary as negatively as possible. This article begins with background about the Troubles and reviews some of the ways that Republican (generally Catholic) women became more involved in the struggle indirectly for example, by using gendered approaches to ‘lure’ soldiers, or directly, by engaging in acts of political violence. What is especially important are the ways in which the press depicted these women using gender stereotypes to convey a particular political point of view. The focus on the ways in which violent women were portrayed during the Troubles allows us to move beyond the notion of ‘women's invisibility’ by reminding us that women and their actions were very visible to the general public through the press, albeit in a gendered way. This analysis provides a more complete understanding of women's roles during the Troubles.

Denominational and Gender Differences in Hypertension Among African American Christian Young Adults.

Hypertension, a major cardiovascular disease risk factor, is disproportionately prevalent among African American young adults. Religion and spirituality (R/S) have been studied for their potential effect on blood pressure (BP) outcomes. Despite their disproportionate hypertension risk and high levels of R/S engagement, limited research explores BP differences among religious African Americans. This study investigates whether denominational affiliation predicts within-group differences in odds of having hypertension among African American Christian young adults. Data from Wave IV of the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health (Add Health) were used to examine hypertension differences between 1932 African American young adults based on self-reported religious denomination. Gender-separated logistic regressions included religious service attendance and coping measures, as well as personal characteristics and health behaviors to adjust for potential effects on BP. The odds of having hypertension were higher for Pentecostal women compared to Baptist and Catholic women. Hypertension odds for women who reported attending services more than once weekly were lower than those who never attended church. For women, frequent use of religious coping predicted higher odds of having hypertension than seldom or never using religious coping. R/S variables did not predict significant differences among men. The health benefits of R/S do not appear to be consistent within African American Christian young adults. Religion may be viewed as a source of BP risk and resilience, especially among African American young women.

The Vatican’s Role in the Finaly Children’s Kidnapping Case

No case more fully embodies the tensions between the Roman Catholic Church and Europe’s traumatized Jews in the wake of the Shoah than the battle over the return of the two French Jewish orphans of the Holocaust, Robert and Gérald Finaly. The French Catholic woman who took the boys in when, in 1944, their parents were deported to their death at Auschwitz, refused to honor the parents’ wishes and allow the boys’ aunt to reclaim them when requested in 1945. Spurning a series of subsequent French judicial orders to give the boys back to their family, an underground network of nuns and monks hid them, ultimately, in early 1953, concealing the children under false names in a monastery in Spain. The opening of the Vatican archives for the papacy of Pius XII in 2020 now permits, for the first time, a clear view of the intense involvement of the pope, the Vatican Secretariat of State, and the Holy Office in directing the French and Spanish Church response to the demand that the boys be given up to their Jewish family. The findings demonstrate the Holy See’s continued commitment under Pius XII to uphold longtime Church doctrine on the impermissibility of allowing baptized Jewish children, even if baptized against their family’s wishes, to be returned to their Jewish families.

Women and Gender in Contemporary European Catholic Discourse: Voices of Faith

Catholic women’s movements, networks and initiatives have a long history of advocating for an equal role in the Church—especially in the North American world. In recent years, their presence and visibility has been increasing in Europe too, also in relation to a series of initiatives and events, such as the Mary 2.0 campaign in Germany, which led to the launch of the Catholic Women’s Council (CWC) in 2019. This article focuses on the emerging discourse on women and gender promoted by the developing network of initiatives related to the role of women in the Catholic Church in different European countries. After reconstructing the map and history of this network, the contribution explores its emerging discourse, drawing on a triangulation of data: key-witnesses’ interviews; the magazine Voices; social network pages and profiles.

‘The Detours Required’: Sarah Kofman and the ‘Black Milk’ of Hidden Children

Sarah Kofman’s belated memoir, Rue Order, Rue Labat, narrates the experiences of a hidden Jewish child in Paris, living out the war in a vexed relationship with two mothers – her biological mother, a Polish immigrant and wife of an Orthodox rabbi, on the one hand; and a Catholic French woman who saves them, on the other. Reading the memoir alongside literary reflections by other child survivors, such as Aharon Appelfeld and Louis Begley, the article focuses on the snippets of literary, cinematic, and artistic analysis published elsewhere that Kofman has interpellated into the autobiographical details. Taken together, these critical readings and the personal narratives gesture towards the internalization and aftereffects of the Shoah for hidden children.

"Eminentísimo Señor", "Querida amiga y hermana": La estrategia de protección de Acción Católica femenina a través de su correspondencia en la Guerra Civil y la posguerra.

Este trabajo hace una aproximación a las ramas femeninas de Acción Católica española a través de su correspondencia oficial durante la Guerra Civil y la posguerra. Mediante el análisis de sus cartas, se demuestra que las seglares se organizaron para para proteger la asociación ante las nuevas circunstancias bélicas y de posguerra. Las socias de Acción Católica aprovecharon estos intercambios epistolares para crear una plataforma de difusión de los principios de autonomía y apoliticismo que debían regir el funcionamiento de su institución. El objetivo final era preservar Acción Católica femenina como un espacio privilegiado y autónomo para las católicas, y protegerlo contra el intrusismo de autoridad del nuevo régimen franquista y la politización de Falange.

‘Skirting heaven, skirting hell’: the maternal perspective of Catholic women on abortion and the recent restrictions in abortion law in Poland

ABSTRACT In this paper we explore how young Polish Catholic mothers navigate the dominant discourses on abortion in light of the recent tightening of legislation in Poland. We draw on theoretical considerations about the relationships between norms, subjectivity, agency and resistance and propose ‘maternal knowledge’ as a central concept for our analysis. Our data consists of twenty-eight in-depth interviews conducted with mothers who self-identify as Catholics. We demonstrate how individual women engage with the three authoritative knowledges on abortion, namely the legal framework, the teaching of the Catholic Church and the medical knowledge, and accept, reject or revise their main premises by mobilising the lived maternal knowledge. The results of our analysis challenge the widely shared identification of the Catholic faith with the ‘pro-life’ orientation and reveal the complexities and contradictions of individual stances, which are often inconsistent with the official teaching of the Church.