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36 of 44 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Exceptionally Clear Presentation: Must Reading, August 22, 2000
Joanna Manning presents in a logical and well-thought-out manner how those who "lead" the Catholic church have systematically (and illogically) kept women "in their place." Nothing I could say in my comments would say it any better than Manning does throughout her book. She is not bitter or angry, and with her historical perspective, well-documented, she is easy to follow.Those of us who truly believed that the Vatican Council II would bring about positive change and an evolution of new respect for all of the People of God have watched as officials attempted to "put the toothpaste back into the tube," at least regarding the true definition of "Human Rights." Manning is hopeful that these current times (i.e., these very hard and challenging times in the church) will pass and the legacy of John Paul II will not be viewed in a favorable light. For those of us who are hanging on by a thread of slim hope, Manning reminds us that the Church is not the Vatican. This book is a bright light. You won't want to read this only one time, but the first time will be the most exhilarating. Highly recommended for women and men, Catholic or not. Would love to see it discussed in parishes throughout the U.S.
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13 of 15 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Yet One More Voice, October 6, 2000
By A Customer
It is unfortunate that this book _had_ to be written. It is not about the most pleasing topic, it is not the most gentle presentation of the issues, nor is it very original. What it lacks in pleasantry, gentility, and originality, it makes up for in integrity. Here is yet one more voice being added to the chant for change, a chant being sung by the Holy Spirit at the cosmic level. Joanna Manning is one more person hurt by a sometimes unhealthy, sometimes unholy, and sometimes all too human institution. It is a call for compassion and change. It is directed to a Church which has forgotten that "Magisterium" is not just authority but consensus, and not just faith but reason; a Church who has forgotten that the Table belongs not to itself but to the Lord who invites all and turns none away; a Church who has forgotten that the Holy Spirit is a Wild Goose, to use the Irish image, and cannot, no, will not be contained or controlled, but will glorify God equally in men and women.This book is another call to accountability for a Church needing to repent, to do justice, love mercy, and walk humbly with God. . . or has the Church forgotten how to do that, too?
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8 of 11 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
rigor and vitality, June 18, 2002
"The rigor and vitality of the best of the Catholic intellectual tradition had always attracted me," Joanna Manning writes in the opening chapter. She brings the same rigor to the problem of the self-contradiction at the heart of the contemporary Church, where human rights and dignity are maintained rhetorically, while women are accorded a separate-but-equal status which, as the author shows time and again, implies that women enjoy less than human rights while being subjected to de-humanizing conditions and restrictions, in marriage as well as in vocation. In the same chapter she recounts the anguish of an African woman in the Cameroon explaining " 'You know how Africans love children, and we would never reject any of them. But we don't want to have so many. We want a better life for our children, but we can't even clothe and educate them. Yet we are desperate, because the Church tells us that we can only use the rhythm method. It doesn't work, but we don't know how to argue with the priests.'...I had spoken and written about the injustice, the lack of credibility, and the health risks which are the result of the Vatican's intransigent opposition to contraception. Never before had I heard such a direct statement of the pain of poor families, especially women, when faced with the autocracy of the Church. I knew then that my decision to defend women's rights wihtin the Church, whatever the cost, ahd been the right one...As a white Canadian woman, I do not have to face the struggle for survival, which is a daily reality for most women in two-thirds of the world. I have also enjoyed unique opportunities in my life to become theologically educated and literate in the language of the Church. I can read Latin, and I am in a position to 'argue with the priests.' But with this privilege comes the responsibility to struggle against injustice." Some of the concrete examples of the tragedies and absurdities include the beatification of Elisabetta Canori Mora, who jeopardized her own life and her children's in what moral theology would recognize as an overscrupulous interpretation of the sacrament of marriage; a young Canadian student, also a lector, inspired by a social justice encyclical, whose parish pastor screamed that she was possessed for 'criticizing the Church' by suggesting that bequest money be used to start a homeless shelter; the fact that the Pontifical Biblical Commission, having studied the question of ordaining women at Paul VI's instruction, found that the New Testament could not of itself support the exclusion, and that the Commission supported women's ordination by a 12 to 5 vote. Her love for the Church is evident, as is her strong disapproval of the abuse of reason to claim divine origin for irrational stereotypes imposed by clerical fiat under the guise of infallible authority. Grounding all is her argument that "to accommodate a theological position based on genitalia rather than one based on the Genesis account of male and female both made in the image of God, Pope John Paul II and those who aagree with him have been forced to distort othe doctrines of the Catholic Church. These include what theologians call christology, or teachings on the nature of Jesus; soteriology, which describes the work and redemptive mission of Jesus; the resurrection of Jesus; and ecclesiology, or the nature of the Church and in particular, the sacrament of baptism." Perhaps her remaining faithful to the Church despite rampant clerical abuse will be seen as heroic as Elisabetta Canori Mora's.
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