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Humble Women, Powerful Nuns : A Female Struggle for Autonomy in a Men's Church
Author
Title
Humble Women, Powerful Nuns : A Female Struggle for Autonomy in a Men's Church / Kristien Suenens.
ISBN
9789461663276
9789462702271
Publication
Leuven : Leuven UP, [2020]
Manufacture
Baltimore, Md. : Project MUSE, 2023
Copyright Notice Date
©[2020]
Physical Description
1 online resource.
Local Notes
Access is available to the Yale community.
Notes
Description based on print version record.
Access and use
Access restricted by licensing agreement.
Summary
Nineteenth-century female congregation founders could achieve levels of autonomy, power and prestige that were beyond reach for most women of their time. With a subject hidden for a long time behind a curtain of modesty and mystery, this book recounts the fascinating but ambiguous life stories of four Belgian religious women. A close reading of their personal writings unveils their conflicted existence: ambitious, engaged and bold on the one hand, suffering and isolated on the other, they were both victims and promotors of a nineteenth-century ideal of female submission. As religious and social entrepreneurs these women played an influential role in the revival of the church and the development of education, health care and social provisions in modern Belgium. But, equally well, they were bound to rigid gender patterns and adherents of an ultramontane church ideology that fundamentally distrusted modern society.
Variant and related titles
Project Muse books annual backfile collection 2023.
Format
Books / Online
Language
English
Added to Catalog
January 17, 2024
Series
KADOC studies on religion, culture, and society
Contents
Humble Women
COV
Def
9789461663276
CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION
PART I: RELIGIOUS REVIVAL, ROMANTICISM AND FEMALE ACTION IN A POST-REVOLUTIONARY AGE: FOUR YOUNG WOMEN(ca. 1820-ca. 1860)
'FOREMOTHERS', REVOLUTIONS AND REVIVAL(ca. 1820-ca. 1848)
The female pioneers of the revival
Ambiguous images of women
Aut maritus, aut murus? Between marriage and the convent
FEMALE RELIGIOUSENTREPRENEURSHIPON THE OFFENSIVE(ca. 1848-ca. 1860)
Religious education: the female voice of the revival
The need for male support
Enterprising and discursive mechanisms
Social and political tensions and female agency
THE SPIRITUAL DIALECTICOF REVIVAL DEVOTION
"L'eucharistie peut sauver le monde"
A plurality of devotional practices and ascetic self-denial
A passion paradigm
Female saints as role models
PART IIFEMALE AGENCYAT A TURNING POINT:FOUR CONGREGATIONFOUNDERS(1857-1867)
BETWEEN LONGINGAND COERCIONSPIRITUAL PARTNERSHIPS
"Une religieuse, c'est une paroisse": frustration and appreciation
Jesuits: irresistible and unavoidable
SOULMATES AND RIVALS. THE POWER(LESSNESS)OF FEMALE ALLIANCES
The convent as a place of refuge
An alternative family unit: ambiguous female bondingon a micro level
"Autel contre autel": the limits of a wider female coalition
MECHELEN AND ROME. NORMATIVE IDENTITY ANDECCLESIASTICAL POSITIONING
Sterckx's pragmatic policy
Basic feminine inspiration
Male implementation
Containing the revival: the struggle with the contemplativelegacy
The crowning accomplishment: a Roman approval
PART III. FEMALE ENTREPRENEURSHIP AND LEADERSHIP IN ANULTRAMONTANE CHURCH: FOUR CONVENT SUPERIORS(ca. 1865-ca. 1885)
BETWEEN DREAM AND REALITY. CHARISMA AND NUMBERS
The story behind two typical congregations
"Les Dames illusionnees": ambitions and criticism
CONVENTS AND CASTLES. AN UNEASY ALLIANCE
In the grip of ultramontane elites
A forced turn to the countryside
"Au comble du bonheur": women for women
The female alliance challenged
CRUSADING IN A CONVENT HABIT
A modern apostolate, conservative ideas
Female agency, the European culture wars and themissionary drive
The inevitability of the crusade: the School War (1879-1884)
The challenge of social Catholicism
Victims and religious entrepreneurs: the spiritual dynamics ofultramontanism
"PAS ASSEZ FEMME"? FEMALE LEADERSHIPIN WOMEN'S CONVENTS
"Une hostie vivante": institutionalised self-denial
Internal power balances
Lay sisters: women among women
"DOMINA ISTA VALDEFACUNDA EST". FEMALE LEADERSHIPIN A MALE CHURCH
A double-voiced 'conventualisation'
Gender, power and freedom of conscience:the confessor issue
Roman feminism?
EPILOGUE. THE SHAPING OF PERCEPTIONS
Fanny Kestre: an active "femme forte", a spiritual"âme simple"
Antoinette Cornet: between oblivion and rediscovery
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