Summary
Title: Is the Pope Catholic? A Woman Confronts Her Church
Author: Joanna Manning
Publisher: Crossroad
ISBN: 0824518691
Pro:
• Makes a Catholic and a theological cases against current attitudes towards women
Con:
• None
Description:
• Analysis of Catholic teachings about women by a former nun
• Argues that basic Catholic doctrines are undermined by teachings on women
• Argues current Catholic teachings about women are essentially anti-Catholic
Book Review
Raising questions about just how "Catholic" the current pope really is constitutes the thrust of Joanna Manning's arguments in her book Is the Pope Catholic? A Woman Confronts Her Church. A former Holy Child nun and teacher for 25 years, Manning the founding member of Catholic Organizations for Renewal (COR) and a leading voice for liberal Catholicism in Canada. In this book, she picks a theological and cultural fight with the Vatican, arguing that the current teachings on the place and role of women actually serve to undermine more important teachings and traditions regarding creation, redemption, and resurrection.
Others have argued that Roman Catholic doctrines on women are wrong in various ways, and Manning certainly does this as well. She adopts the position, for example, that Catholic teachings on women are directly related to violence against women around the world. But whereas many authors might stop that, Manning goes further by making a Catholic case against current Catholic positions.
It's an interesting attempt - certainly not one that most traditional Catholics will accept. Indeed, any number of reviews of this book insist that Manning isn't a "real" Catholic, that she hates Catholicism, and so forth. I have not, however, seen any of those reviews refute her theological arguments. Ad hominems are easy to toss about, but theological refutations are much more difficult.
Manning includes in her book her own personal story and spiritual growth within the Catholic Church. She makes it clear that the mystical traditions deeply colored her early childhood and continue with her even today. She's not anti-Catholic unless one adopts a very narrow understanding of what Catholicism is, but of course that would simply be begging the question against Manning's general argument.
Another common criticism of Manning and of many others who agree with her is: why don't they simply leave Roman Catholicism? This is the reminiscent of the "America, love it or leave it!" crowd that was so vocal in America during the Cold War. This, too, involves begging the question against Manning's position because it assumes that it is not justified to believe that Catholicism can and should change. It also assumes that one is limited to two choices: staying and accepting everything the Catholic hierarchy decides, or leaving and abandoning everything.
Both criticisms are just poor excuses for not taking the dissenters' arguments seriously and for avoiding a serious engagement with the theological issues. The critics don't actually have to consider that the dissenters might be right, much less offer a counter-argument - after all, they aren't "real Catholics" and should leave the church, so why engage their arguments in a substantive way?
