Customer Reviews

Ungodly Rage: The Hidden Face of Catholic Feminism

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What happens when women fighting for a voice in the Church turn away from the very things every Catholic holds to be true? Find out in this book! It may scandalize some people, but I'm afraid it's the truth. Donna Steichen has even said that radical feminists have tried to stop the circulation of this book but simply cannot because it's all documented! Steichen shows where radical feminism in the Church has taken us and it's not a pretty place. It truly is a collection of horror stories showing how things went awry. Recommended for anyone who wants to understand how things got to be so bad in women's religious communities and how true feminism in the Church was perverted.

As a Catholic in Nigeria, I have been baffled at how all my cousins who travelled to Europe and the United States to study first in "Catholic" high schools and then in "Catholic" Universities under the "watchful" gaze of hosts of religious have lost their faith. Talking to them about it even puzzled me more, because all of them without exception had had close dealings with priests and religious in their respective schools, people they had a lot of respect for. I found their ideas about the Church's teaching on faith and morals amazing for people who still claim to be Catholic (of course, Sunday Mass is a thing of the past). Amazing, because worse ideas couldn't have come from Jack Chick.

Donna Steichen has solved the puzzle for me in a way no-one else could. I understand only too well now what happened to all my cousins.

You need a tough stomach to finish the book, but when it comes to these issues, ignorance is not bliss. Ignorance could mean the death of a soul.

Thanks Donna!

Unlike the first reviewer, I found this book to be an excellent resource for discussing the role of women in the Church today and how people of faith should respond to modern feminism. The Catholic church has, since it's inception, been an advocate for women and their rights. Donna Steichen shows how that history has been hijacked and maligned in recent history. John Paul II calls us all to a "new feminism" not based in the pursuit of power but the pursuit of holiness; this book is a good resource in that pursuit.

When I first read this book, I was fascinated and horrified, but in the intervening years much has happened in the Catholic Church, and the generation of feminists about whom Ms Steichen writes is aging and dying. They have not been replaced, as far as I can tell; younger people with similar views simply leave the Church, and there is a new orthodoxy abroad.

If Ms Steichen were to produce an updated version, I would be one of the first to buy it. I would love to know what the current situation really is.

UNGODLY RAGE is an examination of feminist movements in the Roman Catholic Church by journalist Donna Steichen. A devout Catholic herself, Steichen sees feminism as a malevolent force destroying the Church, and her book intends to alert the laity to this growing but little-understood movement. My opinion on the book is mixed.

The book consists of a series of case studies in which Steichen examines an event in the Church, such as a problematic seminar, heterodox publishing, or public statements by clergy contrary to the Magisterium. The chapters are loosely linked, and figures well-known from the previous chapter are reintroduced entirely, leading to some rather annoying repetition. Some of the themes Steichen discusses are very serious indeed, and need to be countered by the Church to a great degree. She gives numerous examples of conferences being called to further involvement of women in the Church, but participants hear nary a mention of Jesus Christ and lots of talk about Wicca, Hinduism, and other Nicene Creed-denying spirituality. People who have long since lost all belief in orthodox Christianty remain in churches instead of going over to more appropriate venues such as Unitarian Universalism, with disastrous consequences. Many of the personalities mentioned in the book are still active today, remaining in the Roman Catholic Church and, by their own admission, hoping to dismantle it from within.

Unfortunately, the book is more a screed than an effective uncovering of Roman Catholic sexual issues. Often the author's criticisms seem unfocused, and while she insists on obedience to the bishops of the Church, she calls Vatican II undertaken by these same bishops a grave mistake. The book is written in a slightly sensationalistic journalistic style instead of adhering to more appropriate academic standards, though footnotes are abundant.

It is a pity that in the thirteen years since UNGODLY RAGE was published, no writers have accepted the challenge of writing a book on the same theme but in a more academic fashion and with a look at what's happening in other orthodox denominations besides the Roman Catholic Church. Though this book has its faults, it is one of the few resources available on the topic.

Donna Steichen has done a tremendous service to faithful Catholics everywhere in writing this book...Her objective in writing this book isn't to do an in-depth study of feminism for its own sake. Instead, she focuses on one aspect of feminism - Catholic feminism - and the damage that this ideology has done to traditional Catholicism (especially in the United States) and how it has been allowed to fluorish unchecked by those who have been entrusted with the safe-keeping of the Church's Magisterial teachings. ...as I read, there were simply too many echoes of my own experiences with the parish I attended for those echoes to be merely coincidental. Steichen describes in chilling detail how the various dissenting groups are often connected with one another and the influence that Catholic feminism exerts on the ideologies and activities of these groups. Most appalling is the explanation of how so many Catholic nuns - long a symbol of piety and obedience to the Church - have been converted to feminist ideology and shunned their vows of obedience as a perceived "symbol of patriarchal oppression." And yet these nuns (who by their actions clearly show that they are not operating in good faith) not only remain in the Church, but have exploited the trust and the awe in which they are held by faithful Catholics - who still see them as pious and obedient to the Church - and used it to turn many of those faithful away from the Church's teachings without their ever realizing it. And for those who see this as some kind of conspiracy theory that Steichen has spun out of her imagination, it should be noted that she doesn't simply clump all the stereotypes together; instead, she goes to painstaking efforts to separate the nuns, clergy, and laity who have remained loyal to the Church from those who have been seduced by Catholic feminist ideology, and it is the latter group that she focuses on in her book. As Steichen's title suggests, their actions truly are born out of an ungodly rage!

I highly reccomend this book. Ms. Steichen has written a very well investigated and documented book that outlines the feminist "goddess" religion (gnosticism) that has exploded in recent years. She also does a superb job of relating how it has invaded religious communities (especially women religious) and the methods that these new gnostics are using to influence our children and catechumens.

Even though this book was written before "sacerdotalis ordinatio" over a decade ago, it is still relevant in our day. I used the internet to research those individuals and groups mentioned in the book and was not surprised to see that most were still involved in dissident belief systems. I WAS surprised to see most of them STILLh holding leadership roles in our dioceses and catholic schools.

If you're a real Catholic (to those baptized liberals out there, a "real Catholic" is one who is faithful to the Magisterium), this book is a must-read to get an understanding of just who is behind the bad catechesis, bad liturgy, and "pot-stirring" that besiege our Church. In chapters with titles such as "From Convent to Coven" (no exaggeration!) to "Daughters of Lilith," Steichen describes the mindset and agenda of those women who are, outside of mere sentiment, in no way "Catholic" but who retain positions of "authority" in the Church, refusing to leave it in spite of their hatred for it and/or total disagreement with it. These are the women who teach in Catholic schools, attend Women's Ordination Conferences, act as vocations directors, and push for "inclusive language". These are the women who conduct doctrinally foul RCIA classes and invade the sanctuaries of our parishes. You know them -- they are so busy "dialoguing," "celebrating," "centering," and such that they haven't taken the time to look around and realize they're in the wrong Church. If only America's Bishops would read this book and set them straight about that...

Donna Steichen, you've done your job. Let's just hope the Bishops will do theirs!

This is a difficult book to review because Donna Steichen really is one woman who will stop at nothing she believes is wrong. her conviction that during the 1970s and 1980s American Catholics were being drawn into radical feminism and goddess religion leads her to write "Ungodly Rage".

Steichen certainly has a very good grasp of Catholic teachings and, now that I feel I understand them better than when I originally reviewed this work - at least when studied in relatively practical and/or scientific terms. She certainly is right in that the teachings of radical feminism are contrary to those of traditional Catholicism. She does not consider the way in which veneration of Mary has - actually with considerable truth - been compared with that of ancients goddesses these feminists aim to revive. this fact undoubtedly explains some considerable part of the reason for the affinity between the two groups. Nor does she consider what many people - even if suspicious of the repressive nature of the Vatican's structure - admire about Catholic worship and spirituality.

Another thing she left out - badly - was the fact that even when "Ungodly Rage" was being written there was a great deal being done in the Vatica (eg against Matthew Fox) to end these trends. the way Steichen writes it, nothing was being done by Ratzinger and his aids at all. Rather she focuses on what ordinary Catholics can do - which is a very worthwile thing if one was in her position, but in this case at least looks at only one side.

Maybe I am rather harsh at this moment, but this book, for all its clarity, is arguably the most extreme work I have ever read on any topic. If you think Ann Coulter's a "pit bull terrier", read Donna Steichen.

Donna Steichen exposes radical Catholic feminism for the abhorrence that it is. These same radical feminists will reel as Donna Steichen names names and tells the reality of this hedonism. As a woman she had unprecedented access to some of the secret meetings and covens of withches even among some Catholic nuns and other feminist groups. As an investigative journalist she was able to bring to writing what she saw first-hand. Anyone interested in making sure the gates of hell do not prevail would do well to read this eye opening account of people looking to destroy the Catholic Church from within.