Reconsidering Catholic Lay Womanhood - Pious Transgressors in Late Nineteenth Early Twentieth Century

This book offers a new perspective on the often-overlooked lives of lay women in the English Roman Catholic Church. It explores how over a century ago in England some exceptional Catholic lay women - Margaret Fletcher, Maude Petre, Radclyffe Hall, and Mabel Batten - negotiated non-traditional family lives and were actively practicing their faith, while not adhering to perceived structures of femininity, power, and sexuality. Focusing on c. 1880-1930, a time of dynamism and change in both England and the Church, these remarkable women represent a rethinking of what it meant to be a lay women in the English Roman Catholic Church. Their pious transgressions demonstrate the multiplicity of ways lay women powerfully asserted aspects of their faith while contravening boundaries traditionally assumed for them in an ostensibly patriarchal religion. In fact, the Church could be a place for expressions of unconventional religiosity and reinterpretations of womanhood and domesticity. Connecting together the lives of these women for the first time, this work fills a lacuna in the scholarship of modern Catholic and gender history. Drawing from private collections and numerous archives, it illustrates the surprising range of modes of Lived Catholicism and devotion to faith. Students and scholars of Catholicism, gender, and LGBTQIA+ studies will find significant merit in a book that assigns lay women a more prominent role in the English Catholic Church and offers examples of the flexibility of Roman Catholicism.

List of contents

Introduction 1. Catholicism and Lay Womanhood 2. Margaret Fletcher: A Middle-Class Convert 3. Maude Petre: Womanhood, Cohabitation, and Respectability 4. The Society Sapphists: Mabel Batten and Radclyffe Hall Conclusion: Making Connections Among Lay Catholic Women

About the author

Kathryn G. Lamontagne is a Lecturer in the College of General Studies at Boston University, USA.

Summary

This book brings fresh attention to the forgotten and often overlooked lives of lay women in the English Roman Catholic Church.

Product details

• Authors: Kathryn G. Lamontagne
• Publisher: Taylor & Francis Ltd.
• Languages: English
• Product format: Hardback
• Released: 26.07.2023
• EAN: 9781032267708
• ISBN: 978-1-0-3226770-8
• No. of pages: 190
• Series: Routledge Studies in Religion
• Subjects: Humanities, art, music > Religion/theology > Christianity; England, Modern history to 20th century: c 1700 to c 1900, RELIGION / Christianity / Catholic, European History, SOCIAL SCIENCE / Women's Studies, 20th Century, 20th century history: c 1900 to c 2000, RELIGION / Christianity / History, HISTORY / Women, RELIGION / Sexuality & Gender Studies, HISTORY / Europe / Great Britain / 20th Century, HISTORY / Europe / Great Britain / Victorian Era (1837-1901), c 1800 to c 1900, History of Religion, British & Irish history, Later 19th century c 1850 to c 1899, Early 20th century c 1900 to c 1950, Gender studies: women, Roman Catholicism, Roman Catholic Church, Gender studies: women and girls