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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 02 June 2025
This article constructively examines the seeming impasse between US Catholic feminist theologies and the Roman Catholic Curia. It proposes that a possible resource for “engaging the impasse” between them can be found in the contemplative processes and practices utilized by the Leadership Conference of Women Religious (LCWR) during the doctrinal investigation of the LCWR undertaken by the (then) Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith in 2009. Using a Catholic feminist decolonial lens of analysis, the article argues that there are resonances between the LCWR’s contemplative processes and the “path of conocimiento” found in the work of Chicana theorist Gloria Anzaldúa. Both share the insight that careful listening to ourselves, “others” and the divine (albeit by different names) is one of the first steps toward building understanding between seemingly opposed entities. Together, they can serve as powerful resources for healing the divide between Catholic feminist theologies and the Roman Catholic Curia and, in so doing, offer hope to our often polarized and suffering world.
1 Pope Francis as quoted in Antonio Spadaro, SJ, “A Big Heart Open to God: An interview with Pope Francis,” America Magazine, September 30, 2013. For Catholic feminist engagements and critiques of this call, see, for example, Jessica Coblentz and Brianne A. B. Jacobs, “Mary Daly’s The Church and the Second Sex after Fifty Years of US Catholic Feminist Theology,” Theological Studies 79, no. 3 (2018): 543–65; Mary Ann Hinsdale, “Vatican II and Feminism: Recovered Memories and Refreshed Hopes,” Toronto Journal of Theology 32, no. 2 (2016): 251–72; Susan A. Ross, “Joys and Hopes, Griefs and Anxieties: Catholic Women Since Vatican II,” New Theology Review 25, no. 2 (March 2013): 30–38; Megan K. McCabe, “The Work of the Spirit, or Machismo with a Skirt? Feminism, Gender, and Pope Francis,” in Conor M. Kelly and Kristin E. Heyer, eds., The Moral Vision of Pope Francis: Expanding the US Reception of the First Jesuit Pope (Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press, 2024), 166–82.
2 Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, Letter to the Bishops of the Catholic Church on the Collaboration of Men and Women in the Church and in the World (May 31, 2004), §2, https://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/congregations/cfaith/documents/rc_con_cfaith_doc_20040731_collaboration_en.html (hereafter cited in text as OCMW).
3 OCMW, §2.
4 OCMW, §3.
5 The idea and practice of “engaging impasse” can be found in the work of Sr. Nancy Sylvester, IHM (a past president of LCWR), whose work is a development of the concept of impasse as theorized in Carmelite Constance FitzGerald’s “Impasse and Dark Night,” in Tilden H. Edwards, ed., Living with Apocalypse: Spiritual Resources for Social Compassion (San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1984), 93–116. Significantly, and especially for the purposes of this article, Sylvester’s and FitzGerald’s insights about engaging impasse are intrinsic to the “contemplative process” engaged by the LCWR during the doctrinal investigation; see “Guide for ‘Behold, I Am Doing Something New’ Contemplative Process,” Appendix D, in However Long the Night: Making Meaning in a Time of Crisis: A Spiritual Journey of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious (LCWR), ed. Annemarie Sanders, IHM (CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform, 2018), 182–83. For examples of Sylvester’s work, see Journey-Faith in an Entangled World, (Detroit, MI: Institute for Communal Contemplation and Dialogue, 2024); Institute for Communal Contemplation and Dialogue, https://iccdinstitute.org/, and Global Sisters Report, https://www.globalsistersreport.org/authors/nancy-sylvester?page=4. For a volume engaging the many insightful works of FitzGerald, see Laurie Cassidy and M. Shawn Copeland, eds., Desire, Darkness, and Hope: Theology in a Time of Impasse: Engaging the Thought of Constance FitzGerald, OCD (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 2021). I will discuss the LCWR’s contemplative processes as well as FitzGerald’s work in part 1 of this article.
6 Since 2022, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF) has been named the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith (DDF). Because it was known as the CDF during the time of the LCWR doctrinal investigation, in this article I refer to it as the CDF. According to the CDF’s “Doctrinal Assessment of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious,” the CDF’s decision to “undertake a doctrinal Assessment of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious (LCWR) was communicated to the LCWR Presidency during their meeting with Cardinal William Levada in Rome on April 8, 2008,” with the “CDF [confirming] its decision to undertake” the doctrinal investigation “in a letter dated February 18, 2009,” (United States Conference of Catholic Bishops [USCCB], “Doctrinal Investigation of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious,” https://www.usccb.org/upload/Doctrinal_Assessment_Leadership_Conference_Women_Religious.pdf, section 2). Hence, the doctrinal investigation officially began in 2009 and concluded in 2015. Reflections by members of the LCWR leadership on this six-year process are found in Sanders, However Long the Night. I engage some of these reflections throughout this article.
7 USCCB, “Doctrinal Investigation of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious,” https://www.usccb.org/upload/Doctrinal_Assessment_Leadership_Conference_Women_Religious.pdf, section 2.
8 Janet Mock, CSJ, and Annmarie Sanders, IHM, “A Word of Hope to a World in Turmoil,” in Sanders, However Long the Night, 19–26, esp. 19.
9 Pat Farrell, OSF, “A Tapestry of Contrasting Colors: Living with Polarization, Differences, and Impasse,” in Sanders, However Long the Night, 84–93, esp. 91.
10 Farrell, “A Tapestry of Contrasting Colors,” 90.
11 Farrell, “A Tapestry of Contrasting Colors,” 90.
12 Gloria Anzaldúa, “now let us shift … the path of conocimiento … inner work, public acts,” in this bridge we call home: radical visions for transformation, ed. Gloria Anzaldúa and AnaLouise Keating (New York: Routledge, 2002), 540–78. Anzaldúa usually does not italicize conocimiento in her work (with an exception on page 541 of “now let us shift …”) so I have decided to follow her convention of not italicizing it. Given that Anzaldúa’s writing style has often been studied for the ways it mirrors the theories she describes, a reviewer asked if her non-italicizing of conocimiento might also be important for me to note. In my reading of her work, I have noticed that she often italicizes Spanish and Nahuatl words in her earlier writings, including Borderlands/La Frontera: The New Mestiza (San Francisco, CA: Aunt Lute Books, 1987), but she does not italicize non-English words in her later works, such as “now let us shift,” and her posthumously published dissertation, Light in the Dark/Luz en lo Oscuro: Rewriting Identity, Spirituality, Reality, ed. AnaLouise Keating (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2015). Perhaps one can read this shift in her writing as an enactment of her later assertion that “we define who we are by what we include” (Gloria Anzaldúa, “Preface: (Un)natural Bridges, (Un)safe Spaces,” in this bridge we call home: radical visions for transformation, 1–5, esp. 3, and discussed later in this article) and thus push against the divisions that separate us from one another. Also, throughout the article, I will use the gender inclusive term “Latine” when discussing Hispanic or Latin American communities more broadly, but will refer to authors in the terms they use to identify themselves. So, for example, Anzaldúa referred to herself as “Chicana,” therefore, I also refer to her as “Chicana.”
13 See, for example, Gloria Anzaldúa, “Spirituality, Sexuality, and the Body: An Interview with Linda Smuckler,” in The Gloria Anzaldúa Reader, ed. AnaLouise Keating (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2009), 74–94.
14 When discussing the dark night’s darkness, its oscuridad, it is important to do so in ways that do not reinscribe racialized dichotomies of “white” and “Black,” “light” and “dark,” which can perpetuate anti-Black racism. Although the Spanish oscuridad is translated as “dark,” it can also be translated as that which is “unclear” or “obscured.” Such a translation would align with John of the Cross’s depictions of the ways this experience of “darkness” is an experience that obscures, at least initially, our relationship to ourselves, others, and God. For theoretical and theological engagements of blackness and whiteness, see, for example, Christina Sharpe, In the Wake: On Blackness and Being (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2016); Willie James Jennings, After Whiteness: An Education in Belonging (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans Publishing, 2020).
15 See, for example, Mary Daly, The Church and the Second Sex (New York: Harper & Row, 1968); Elisabeth Schüssler Fiorenza, In Memory of Her: A Feminist Theological Reconstruction of Christian Origins (New York: Crossroad, 1983); Rosemary Radford Ruether, Sexism and God-Talk: Toward a Feminist Theology (Boston, MA: Beacon Press, 1983); Denise Lardner Carmody, Seizing the Apple: A Feminist Spirituality of Personal Growth (New York: Crossroad, 1984); Sandra M. Schneiders, IHM, Women and the Word: The Gender of God in the New Testament and the Spirituality of Women (New York: Paulist Press, 1986); Anne E. Carr, Transforming Grace: Christian Tradition and Women’s Experience (New York: Harper & Row, 1988); Joann Wolksi Conn, ed., Women’s Spirituality: Resources for Christian Development (New York: Paulist Press, 1986); Margaret A. Farley, RSM, Personal Commitments: Beginning, Keeping, Changing (New York: Harper & Row, 1986); Elizabeth A. Johnson, She Who Is: The Mystery of God in Feminist Theological Discourse (New York: Crossroad, 1992); Ada María Isasi-Díaz, Mujerista Theology: A Theology for the Twenty-First Century (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1996); María Pilar Aquino, Daisy L. Machado, and Jeannette Rodríguez, eds., A Reader in Latina Feminist Theology: Religion and Justice (Austin: University of Texas Press, 2002), to be clear: Daisy Machado does not identify as Catholic but is an ordained minister in the Disciples of Christ Church; Susan Abraham and Elena Procario-Foley, eds., Frontiers in Catholic Feminist Theology: Shoulder to Shoulder (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 2009); M. Shawn Copeland, Enfleshing Freedom: Body, Race, and Being (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 2010); Natalia Imperatori-Lee, Women and the Church: From Devil’s Gateway to Discipleship (Mahwah, NJ: Paulist Press, 2024).
16 FitzGerald’s work on impasse was also at the center of the Catholic Theological Society of America’s 2009 Annual Conference with the theme “Impasse … and Beyond,” held June 4–7 in Halifax, Nova Scotia. Specifically, her address was “From Impasse to Prophetic Hope: Crisis of Memory,” CTSA Proceedings 64 (2009): 21–42. For engagements of her work and the larger theme of “Impasse … and Beyond,” see, for example, M. Shawn Copeland, “A Response to Constance FitzGerald,” CTSA Proceedings 64 (2009): 43–46; Richard R. Gaillardetz, “‘When the Magisterium Intervenes …,’” CTSA Proceedings 64 (2009): 162–64.
17 For more about the apostolic visitation, see, for example, Sandra M. Schneiders, IHM, Prophets in Their Own Country: Women Religious Bearing Witness to the Gospel in a Troubled Church (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 2011).
18 Marcia Allen, CSJ, and Florence Deacon, OSF, “Relationships Matter: Nonviolence and the Pressure to React,” in Sanders, However Long the Night, 69–83, esp. 70.
19 Mock and Sanders, “A Word of Hope to a World in Turmoil,” 19–26, esp. 20.
20 See, for example, Annmarie Sanders, IHM, “Making It through the Long Night, Publicly: Managing Public Information During Crises,” in Sanders, However Long the Night, 133–43.
21 Carol Zinn, SSJ, “Embarking on an Unknown Journey: The Responsible Use of Influence,” in Sanders, However Long the Night, 94–107, esp. 102–03.
22 Zinn, “Embarking on an Unknown Journey,” 103.
23 Mary Hughes, OP, “A Spiritual Journey: What We Learned about Humility,” in Sanders, However Long the Night, 118–32, esp. 131.
24 “Appendix D,” in Sanders, However Long the Night, 182–83.
25 “Appendix D,” in Sanders, However Long the Night, 182.
26 “Appendix C,” in Sanders, However Long the Night, 179–81, esp. 180.
27 Allen and Deacon, “Relationships Matter,” 79.
28 Allen and Deacon, “Relationships Matter,” 79.
29 FitzGerald, “Impasse and Dark Night,” in Edwards, Living with Apocalypse: Spiritual Resources for Social Compassion, 93–116. In this article, I cite the republished version: Constance FitzGerald, “Impasse and Dark Night,” in Cassidy and Copeland, Desire, Darkness, and Hope, 77–102.
30 FitzGerald, “Impasse and Dark Night,” in Cassidy and Copeland, Desire, Darkness, and Hope, 77.
31 FitzGerald, “Impasse and Dark Night,” in Cassidy and Copeland, Desire, Darkness, and Hope, 77–78.
32 FitzGerald, “Impasse and Dark Night,” in Cassidy and Copeland, Desire, Darkness, and Hope, 94.
33 FitzGerald, “Impasse and Dark Night,” in Cassidy and Copeland, Desire, Darkness, and Hope, 94.
34 FitzGerald, “Impasse and Dark Night,” in Cassidy and Copeland, Desire, Darkness, and Hope, 94.
35 Colleen Mary Mallon, OP, “Gracious Resistance: Religious Women Charting an Ecclesial Path,” in Richard R. Gaillardetz, ed., When the Magisterium Intervenes: The Magisterium and Theologians in Today’s Church (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 2012), 63–85, esp. 84.
36 Mallon, “Gracious Resistance,” 80.
37 Mallon, “Gracious Resistance,” 79.
38 Mallon, “Gracious Resistance,” 79.
39 Florence Deacon, “A Delicate Weaving,” Presidential Address to Annual LCWR Assembly, 2013, https://www.lcwr.org/files/calendar/attachments/florence_deacon_osf_-_presidential_address.pdf.
40 See, for example, John Paul II, Ordinatio Sacerdotalis (May 22, 1994), https://www.vatican.va/content/john-paul-ii/en/apost_letters/1994/documents/hf_jp-ii_apl_19940522_ordinatio-sacerdotalis.html; Francis, Amoris Laetitia (March 19, 2016), §251, https://www.vatican.va/content/dam/francesco/pdf/apost_exhortations/documents/papa-francesco_esortazione-ap_20160319_amoris-laetitia_en.pdf; USCCB, “Ministry to Persons with a Homosexual Inclination: Guidelines for Pastoral Care” (November 14, 2006), https://www.usccb.org/committees/doctrine/general-principles.
41 For example, Kate Dugan and Jennifer Owens, From the Pews in the Back: Young Women and Catholicism (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 2009); Joan Chittister, Called to Question: A Spiritual Memoir (London: Sheed and Ward, 2009).
42 USCCB, “Doctrinal Investigation of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious,” https://www.usccb.org/upload/Doctrinal_Assessment_Leadership_Conference_Women_Religious.pdf, section 3, subsection 1.
43 USCCB, “Doctrinal Investigation of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious,” section 3, subsection 1.
44 USCCB, “Doctrinal Investigation of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious,” section 3, subsection 1.
45 USCCB, “Doctrinal Investigation of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious,” section 3, subsection 1.
46 See, for example, Charles Curran, “Humanae Vitae: Fifty Years Later,” Theological Studies 79, no. 3 (2018): 520–42; Kristjan Archer and Justin McCarthy, “U.S. Catholics Have Backed Same-Sex Marriage since 2011,” Gallup (October 23, 2020), https://news.gallup.com/poll/322805/catholics-backed-sex-marriage-2011.aspx.
47 USCCB, “Doctrinal Investigation of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious,” section 3, subsection 1.
48 See, for example, Elizabeth A. Johnson, CSJ, “The Banquet of the Faith,” LCWR and CMSM Assembly, “On This Holy Mountain,” Denver, CO (August 2, 2008), https://www.lcwr.org/files/calendar/attachments/2008_Keynote_Address-E_Johnson.pdf; Laurie Brink, OP, “A Marginal Life: Pursuing Holiness in the 21st Century,” LCWR Keynote Address, Kansas City, MO (August 2, 2007), https://www.lcwr.org/files/calendar/attachments/2007_Keynote_Address-Laurie_Brink-OP.pdf; Mary Ann Zollmann, BVM, “Tending the Holy through the Power of Sisterhood,” LCWR National Assembly Presidential Address, Detroit, MI (August 22, 2003), https://www.lcwr.org/node/4648.
49 Paul VI, Gaudium et Spes (December 7, 1965), §4, https://www.vatican.va/archive/hist_councils/ii_vatican_council/documents/vat-ii_const_19651207_gaudium-et-spes_en.html.
50 Paul VI, Gaudium et Spes, §3.
51 Paul VI, Gaudium et Spes, §1.
52 John Paul II, Pastor Bonus (June 28, 1988), section 3, article 48, https://www.vatican.va/content/john-paul-ii/en/apost_constitutions/documents/hf_jp-ii_apc_19880628_pastor-bonus.html. For a historical overview of the development of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith, see, for example, https://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/congregations/cfaith/documents/rc_con_cfaith_pro_14071997_en.html. Pope Francis modified its internal structure through his apostolic letter Fidem Servare (February 11, 2022), https://www.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/motu_proprio/documents/20220211-motu-proprio-fidem-servare.html.
53 For an important discussion of the vocation of the theologian in relation to magisterial authority, see, for example, Richard R. Gaillardetz, By What Authority?: Foundations for Understanding Authority in the Church, rev. ed. (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 2018), esp. 219–35. See also, Richard R. Gaillardetz, When the Magisterium Intervenes. It is also important to note that Catholic feminist theologians, biblical scholars, and ethicists who are also vowed women religious are more vulnerable to Vatican censure than their nonvowed colleagues because they often belong to congregations that have pontifical right and thus their congregational leadership can—at least in theory—be pressured by the Vatican to silence, and even dismiss, them. For an excellent article tracing the scrutiny of Catholic women theologians, both women religious and nonwomen religious, see Natalia Imperatori-Lee, “Father Knows Best: Theological ‘Mansplaining’ and the Ecclesial War on Women,” Journal of Feminist Studies in Religion 31, no. 2 (Fall 2015): 89–108. Two prominent cases of threatened censure involved Elizabeth A. Johnson, CSJ, and Margaret A. Farley, RSM; interestingly, both have also given LCWR addresses or participated in LCWR publications (The Occasional Papers), and Johnson won the LCWR Outstanding Leadership Award in 2014. For the case involving Elizabeth A. Johnson, see, for example, USCCB Committee on Doctrine, “Statement on Quest for the Living God: Mapping Frontiers in the Theology of God, by Sister Elizabeth A. Johnson,” March 24, 2011, in When the Magisterium Intervenes, 183–200; USCCB Committee on Doctrine, “Response to Observations By Sr. Elizabeth A. Johnson, C.S.J., Regarding the Committee on Doctrine’s Statement about the book Quest for the Living God,” October 11, 2011, www.usccb.org/resources/response-to-observations.pdf; Thomas C. Fox, “Johnson letter to U.S. Bishops’ Doctrine Committee,” National Catholic Reporter, June 6, 2011; Catholic Theological Society of America (CTSA), “Response of the Board of Directors of the Catholic Theological Society of America to the Statement on ‘Quest for the Living God: Mapping Frontiers in the Theology of God,’ by Sister Elizabeth A. Johnson Issued by the Committee on Doctrine, United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, March 24, 2011,” November 4, 2011, https://www.ctsa-online.org/resources/BoardStatements/BoardStatement.TheLivingGod.ElizabethJohnson.USCCBCommitteeDoctrine.4.8.11.pdf; Richard R. Gaillardetz, “Reflections on Key Ecclesial Issues Raised in the Elizabeth Johnson Case,” in When the Magisterium Intervenes, 276–94. For the case involving Margaret A. Farley, see, for example, Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, “Notification on the Book: Just Love: A Framework for Christian Sexual Ethics by Margaret A. Farley, R.S.M.,” March 2012, https://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/congregations/cfaith/documents/rc_con_cfaith_doc_20120330_nota-farley_en.html; Margaret A. Farley, “Statement by Mercy Sister Margaret A. Farley,” National Catholic Reporter, June 4, 2012, https://www.ncronline.org/news/vatican/statement-mercy-sister-margaret-farley. Catholic feminist theologians from outside the United States have also faced scrutiny; for example, Brazilian Catholic feminist theologian Sr. Ivone Gebara was silenced by the CDF in 1995. For Gebara’s reflection on the CDF’s 2009–2015 investigation of the LCWR see, “The Inquisition of Today and U.S. Women Religious,” May 4, 2012, https://feminismandreligion.com/2012/05/04/the-inquisition-of-today-and-u-s-women-religious-by-ivone-gebara/. My thanks to Dr. Elyse J. Raby for her insights about the particular vulnerability of Catholic feminist theologians who are also vowed women religious.
54 Paul VI, Gaudium et Spes, §4.
55 Gaillardetz, By What Authority?, 229.
56 Gaillardetz, By What Authority?, 229.
57 Gaillardetz, By What Authority?, 229.
58 USCCB, “Doctrinal Investigation of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious,” section 3, subsection 1.
59 James F. Keenan, SJ, “Responsive Listening: Giving Recognition and Empowering the Voices of Those Long Ignored,” in The Moral Vision of Pope Francis, 33.
60 Keenan, “Responsive Listening, 33.
61 Keenan, “Responsive Listening, 33.
62 As Ormond Rush notes, “Synodality has been called, if not the central theme, then certainly one of the most emphasized of Pope Francis’s pontificate” (“Dei Verbum and the Roots of Synodality,” Theological Studies 84, no. 4 [December 2023]: 570–91, esp. 570). Pope Francis’s emphasis on synodality—and the practice of listening that is at its heart—has upset some church leaders who have seen this emphasis as a challenge to their authority. See, for example, Francis, “‘Dubia of two Cardinals (July 10, 2023) and ‘Respuestas’ of the Holy Father ‘a los Dubia propuestos por dos Cardenales” (September 25, 2023), https://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/congregations/cfaith/documents/rc_con_cfaith_risposta-dubia-2023_en.html; Nicole Winfield, “Five Cardinals Challenge Pope To Affirm Church Teaching On Gays, Women Ahead Of Synod,” October 2, 2023, https://www.ncronline.org/vatican/vatican-news/five-cardinals-challenge-pope-affirm-church-teaching-gays-women-ahead-synod. In December 2023, Pope Francis’s practice of listening seems to have led him to allow the blessing of couples in same-sex unions as well as divorced and remarried couples. See Francis, “Fiducia Supplicans: On the Pastoral Meaning of Blessings,” https://press.vatican.va/content/salastampa/it/bollettino/pubblico/2023/12/18/0901/01963.html#en. Though the language of “irregular situations” is painfully retained to describe these relationships, this move, and especially the placement of the authority to bless these unions into the hands of local pastors, puts the authority directly into the hands of those who directly accompany the people of God. And it seems to reflect a deep listening to Catholics who have long called for their church to welcome them and bless them as they are. Importantly, this is something that LCWR members have been attempting to do for decades and during papacies that did not emphasize careful listening, especially to those marginalized by the church.
63 Elyse J. Raby, “Pope Francis’s Ecclesial Ethics: Mercy, Subsidiarity, Justice,” in The Moral Vision of Pope Francis, 66.
64 Raby, “Pope Francis’s Ecclesial Ethics,” 66.
65 See, for example, McCabe, “The Work of the Spirit, Or Machismo in a Skirt?,” 166–82.
66 McCabe, “The Work of the Spirit, Or Machismo in a Skirt?,” 169.
67 McCabe, “The Work of the Spirit, Or Machismo in a Skirt?,” 169. Interestingly, McCabe points out that Francis seemed most concerned about the “rigidity” associated with any ideology. She writes, “Francis’s own statements upholding the teaching of gender complementarity are, perhaps, most direct in his warnings against gender ideology. He cautions against a gender ideology that denies sexual difference and denies the connection of biological sex, male and female, to personal identity. The consequence of this kind of thinking, he maintains, is that human identity is reduced to individual choice. Here, Francis expresses a particular concern for a rigidity of thinking that is ‘absolute and unquestionable, even dictating how children should be raised.’ He warns that teaching gender theory can be a form of indoctrination or ‘ideological colonization’” (169). Later she notes, “He is critical of overly rigid ways of thinking and this framing gets applied to the meaning of gender. Thus, despite maintaining masculinity and femininity as essential, he argues that they cannot be held in a rigid way” (171).
68 FitzGerald, “Impasse and Dark Night,” in Cassidy and Copeland, Desire, Darkness, and Hope, 94.
69 Farrell, “A Tapestry of Contrasting Colors,” 90.
70 See, for example, Delores S. Williams, Sisters in the Wilderness: The Challenge of Womanist God-Talk (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1993); Copeland, Enfleshing Freedom; Nancy Pineda-Madrid, Suffering and Salvation in Ciudad Juárez, (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 2011); Elizabeth A. Johnson, Creation and the Cross: The Mercy of God for a Planet in Peril (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 2018). Although there have been varying understandings of suffering operative within the Christian tradition, many feminist and womanist theologians have especially critiqued the notion of redemptive suffering conceptualized by twelfth-century thinker Anselm of Canterbury.
71 Mary Catherine Hilkert, “Preaching the Dark Wisdom of the Cross,” in Cassidy and Copeland, Desire, Darkness, and Hope, 401. Hilkert notes that the “phrase ‘unwanted wisdom’ is the title of Paul Crowley’s book Unwanted Wisdom” (New York: Continuum International, 2005).
72 Hilkert, “Preaching the Dark Wisdom of the Cross,” 401.
73 Gloria Anzaldúa, Borderlands/La Frontera: The New Mestiza (San Francisco, CA: Aunt Lute Books, 1987). For an interesting interreligious engagement of Anzaldúa’s theory of borderlands in relation to spirituality, see, for example, Jung Eun Sophia Park, Border-Crossing Spirituality: Transformation in the Borderland (Eugene, OR: Pickwick Publications, 2016). Park also gave a keynote address at the 2023 LCWR Assembly: “Three Journeys to the Mystery,” LCWR Keynote Address, Dallas, TX, August 2023, https://www.lcwr.org/files/calendar/attachments/2023_lcwr_assembly_-_jung_eun_sophia_park_snjm.pdf.
74 Pearl Maria Barros, “Rethinking Women’s Suffering and Holiness: Gloria Anzaldúa’s ‘Holy Relics,’” Journal of Feminist Studies in Religion 36, no. 2 (2020): 7–24, esp. 10, https://doi.org/10.2979/jfemistureli.36.2.03.
75 Barros, “Rethinking Women’s Suffering and Holiness,” 7–24, esp. 10.
76 Pearl Maria Barros, “Turning toward a Theology of Transformation: Notes from the Borderlands,” Theological Studies 83, no. 4 (December 2022): 579–98.
77 See, for example, Gloria Anzaldúa, “La Prieta,” in The Gloria Anzaldúa Reader, 38–50, and Anzaldúa, “Spirituality, Sexuality, and the Body,” 74–94.
78 See, for example, Anzaldúa, Borderlands/La Frontera, “A massive uprooting of dualistic thinking in the individual and collective consciousness is the beginning of a long struggle, but one that could, in our best hopes, bring us to the end of rape, of violence, of war” (102). See also Anzaldúa, “now let us shift,” 541, 549, 560.
79 The seven stages of conocimiento are: (1) el arrebato … rupture, fragmentation … an ending, a beginning; (2) nepantla … torn between ways; (3) the Coatlicue state … desconocimiento and the cost of knowing; (4) the call … el compromiso … the crossing and conversion; (5) putting Coyolxauhqui together … new personal and collective stories; (6) the blow-up … a clash of realities; (7) shifting realities … acting out the vision or spiritual activism (Anzaldúa, “now let us shift,” 546–74).
80 Anzaldúa, “now let us shift,” 545.
81 Anzaldúa, “now let us shift,” 541.
82 Anzaldúa, “now let us shift,” 541.
83 Anzaldúa, “now let us shift,” 546.
84 FitzGerald, “Impasse and Dark Night,” in Cassidy and Copeland, Desire, Darkness, and Hope, 79.
85 Anzaldúa, “now let us shift,” 550.
86 FitzGerald, “Impasse and Dark Night,” in Cassidy and Copeland, Desire, Darkness, and Hope, 554.
87 Anzaldúa, “now let us shift,” 552.
88 Anzaldúa, “now let us shift,” 553.
89 Anzaldúa, “now let us shift,” 553.
90 Farrell, “A Tapestry of Contrasting Colors,” 86.
91 Farrell, “A Tapestry of Contrasting Colors,” 87.
92 Anzaldúa, “now let us shift,” 560.
93 For more on the concept of “nos/otros,” see, for example, Roberto S. Goizueta, “Nosotros: Toward a U.S. Hispanic Anthropology,” in Listening: Journal of Religion and Culture 27, no. 1 (1992): 55–69; Neomi De Anda, “Jesus the Christ,” in The Wiley Blackwell Companion to Latino/a Theology, ed. Orlando O. Espín, 1st ed. (Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, 2015), 155–71; Andrea J. Pitts, “Conclusion: From Nos/otras to Nos/otrxs,” in Nos/Otras: Gloria E. Anzaldúa, Multiplicitous Agency, and Resistance (Albany: State University of New York Press, 2021), 161–66. I have used the term “nos/otrx” rather than “nos/otros” or “nos/otras” to be inclusive of nonbinary genders; as the gender neutral term “Latinx” has shifted to “Latine,” I now use “nos/otres.”
94 Sanders, “Making It through the Long Night, Publicly,” 142.
95 Anzaldúa, “now let us shift,” 573–74.
96 Gloria Anzaldúa, “(Un)natural Bridges, (Un)safe spaces,” in The Gloria Anzaldúa Reader, 243–48, esp. 245. For an important critique of Anzaldúa’s concept of “new tribalism,” see Cherríe L. Moraga, “The Salt That Cures: Remembering Gloria Anzaldúa,” in A Xicana Codex of Changing Consciousness: Writings, 2000–2010 (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2011), 116–30, esp. 124. Importantly, Moraga also notes the problematics of “new tribalism” for “living tribal communities” for whom “the idea of a new, ethnically inclusive tribalism may resonate as yet another neocolonial attempt to dehistoricize and weaken the cultural integrity of aboriginal nations” (124–25).
97 For a reflection on the centrality of hope in Latina feminist theologies, see María Pilar Aquino, “Latina Feminist Theology: Central Features,” in A Reader in Latina Feminist Theology, 133–60, where she discusses the “empapamiento of hope” as one of the central features of Latina feminist theology. For an important critique of hope as privilege and a critical deployment of “hopelessness” as a way of countering injustice, see Miguel A. de la Torre, Embracing Hopelessness (Minneapolis: MN: Fortress Press, 2017). For me, the hope I imagine is tied to the ambiguity and ambivalence present in Anzaldúa’s concepts of healing and transformation—both are messy and fragmented.