Women of Faith is a 2009 documentary by Rebecca M. Alvin, which examines women's decisions to lead religious lives in the Roman Catholic tradition in the post-feminist era. It asks the question, "why would a woman choose a nun’s life today?"
Individual interviews with seven women provide answers—and explore how rebellion can happen within and outside the Church, how women in the Church reconcile conflicting, religious, personal, and political beliefs, and how they view official Church positions on contraception, homosexuality, and women's ordination as priests. The diverse group includes Poor Clares, contemplative nuns who spend most of their days in prayer, Maryknolls who have served in Central America, a lesbian former nun, and a Roman Catholic Womanpriest.
The film is distributed by Women Make Movies. It has a running time of 60 minutes.
Chastity is a virtue related to temperance, one of the seven Christian virtues and it is defined as refraining from any sexual conduct or romantic relationships. Chastity is usually defined within the moral standards and guidelines of a culture, civilization or religion. The term is closely associated with sexual abstinence, especially in the context of premarital and extramarital sex.
A nun is a member of a religious community of women, typically living under vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience in the enclosure of a monastery. Communities of nuns exist in numerous religious traditions, including Buddhism, Christianity, Jainism, and Taoism.
The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith is the oldest among the nine congregations of the Roman Curia, seated at the Palace of the Holy Office in Rome. It was founded to defend the church from heresy; today, it is the body responsible for promulgating and defending Catholic doctrine. Formerly known as the Supreme Sacred Congregation of the Roman and Universal Inquisition, it is informally known in many Catholic countries as the Holy Office, and between 1908 and 1965 was officially known as the Supreme Sacred Congregation of the Holy Office.
Ordination is the process by which individuals are consecrated, that is, set apart and elevated from the laity class to the clergy, who are thus then authorized to perform various religious rites and ceremonies. The process and ceremonies of ordination vary by religion and denomination. One who is in preparation for, or who is undergoing the process of ordination is sometimes called an ordinand. The liturgy used at an ordination is sometimes referred to as an ordination.
The Grey Nuns is the name commonly given to 6 distinct Roman Catholic religious communities of women, which trace their origins to the original foundation, of the Sisters of Charity of the Hôpital Général, in Montréal. The Sisters of Charity of Montreal, formerly called The Sisters of Charity of the Hôpital Général of Montreal and more commonly known as the Grey Nuns of Montreal, is a Canadian religious institute of Roman Catholic religious sisters, founded in 1737 by Saint Marguerite d'Youville, a young widow.
Women as theological figures have played a significant role in the development of various religions and religious hierarchies. The study of women and religion typically examines the role of women within particular religious faiths, and religious doctrines relating to gender, gender roles, and particular women in religious history. It is worth noting from a gender scientific approach, women occupy the second room in all of the following religions in the examples below, with the exception of Nakayama Miki, the founder of Tenrikyo.
Enclosed religious orders of the Christian churches have solemn vows with a strict separation from the affairs of the external world. The term cloistered is synonymous with enclosed. In the Catholic Church enclosure is regulated by the code of canon law, either the Latin code or the Oriental code, and also by subsidiary legislation. It is practised with a variety of customs according to the nature and charism of the community in question.
Jeannine Gramick is an American Roman Catholic sister and advocate for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender rights as a co-founder of New Ways Ministry.
Network, A national Catholic social justice lobby, is headquartered in Washington, D.C. The organization focuses its lobbying efforts in the areas of economic justice, immigration reform, healthcare, peace making and ecology. Sister Simone Campbell is the executive director of NETWORK.
Vocational discernment is the process in which men or women in the Catholic Church discern, or recognize, their vocation in the church. The vocations are the life as layman in the world, either married or single, the ordained life and the consecrated life.
Religion in Nicaragua is predominantly Christian and forms a significant part of the culture of the country as well as its constitution. Religious freedom and religious tolerance is promoted by both the Nicaraguan government and the constitution.
SisterMaureen Fiedler, Ph.D., is an American activist and radio host and a member of the Sisters of Loretto. She is a progressive, controversial activist within the Roman Catholic Church. She has a long history working with interfaith coalitions on a variety of issues including: social justice, peace, anti-racism work, gender equality, human rights and female ordination in the Catholic Church. She holds a doctorate in Government from Georgetown University. She is the executive producer and host of the radio show Interfaith Voices, which she originated.
The Leadership Conference of Women Religious (LCWR) is one of two associations of the leaders of congregations of Catholic women religious in the United States. LCWR includes over 1300 members, who are members of 302 religious congregations that include 33,431 women religious in the United States as of 2018. Founded in 1956, the conference describes its charter as assisting its members to "collaboratively carry out their service of leadership to further the mission of the Gospel in today's world." The canonically-approved organization collaborates in the Catholic church and in society to "influence systemic change, studying significant trends and issues within the church and society, utilizing our corporate voice in solidarity with people who experience any form of violence or oppression, and creating and offering resource materials on religious leadership skills." The conference serves as a resource both to its members and to the public who are seeking resources on leadership for religious life.
In the liturgical traditions the Catholic Church the term ordination refers to the means by which a person is included in one of the orders of bishops, priests or deacons. The teaching of the Catholic Church on ordination, as expressed in the Code of Canon Law, the Catechism of the Catholic Church, and the apostolic letter Ordinatio sacerdotalis, is that only a Catholic male validly receives ordination, and "that the Church has no authority whatsoever to confer priestly ordination on women and that this judgment is to be definitively held by all the Church's faithful." In other words, the male priesthood is not a policy of the Church but an unalterable requirement of God. As with priests and bishops, the church ordains only men as deacons. The church cannot ordain anyone who has undergone sex reassignment surgery, and may sanction or require therapy for priests who are transsexual, regarding these to be an indicator of mental instability.
In the history of the Catholic Church, women have played a variety of roles and the church has affected societal attitudes to women worldwide in significant ways. Women constitute the majority of members of consecrated life in the Catholic Church: in 2010, there were around 721,935 professed women religious.
This is a glossary of terms used within the Catholic Church.
Christianity in Kosovo has a long-standing tradition dating to the Roman Empire. Before the Battle of Kosovo in 1389, the entire Balkan region had been Christianized by both the Roman and Byzantine Empires. From 1389 until 1912, Kosovo was part of the Muslim Ottoman Empire, and a high level of Islamization occurred. During the time period after World War II, Kosovo was ruled by secular socialist authorities in the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (SFRY). During that period, Kosovars became increasingly secularized. Today, 90% of Kosovo's population are from Muslim family backgrounds, most of whom are ethnic Albanians., but also including Slavic speakers and Turks.
A Catholic Statement on Pluralism and Abortion, alternatively referred to by its pull quote "A Diversity of Opinions Regarding Abortion Exists Among Committed Catholics" or simply "The New York Times ad", was a full-page advertisement placed on October 7, 1984, in The New York Times by Catholics for a Free Choice (CFFC). Its publication brought to a head the conflict between the Vatican and those American Catholics who were pro-choice. The publicity and controversy which followed its publication helped to make the CFFC an important element of the pro-choice movement.
Agnes Mary Mansour was an American Roman Catholic nun who was given a choice from the Vatican in 1983 to end her religious vows or to resign from her position as the director of the Michigan Department of Social Services which required her to support and allocate public funding for abortions. The controversy involved her belief that abortion was tragic but should be legal, despite her vows as a religious and the teachings of the Catholic Church.
Simone Campbell, SSS, is an American Roman Catholic Religious Sister, lawyer, lobbyist and executive director of NETWORK. She belongs to the Sisters of Social Service. She is known as an outspoken advocate for social justice.
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