Monica Migliorino Miller articulates a theology that breaks open the essence of ecclesial authority. Authority, if it is authority at all, derives from and exists for authentic Christian worship, namely, the Holy Eucharist. If authority is derived from Eucharistic worship, then authority is fundamentally the authority of a covenant. This book shows that this covenant is spoken according to a primordial sexual language rooted in creation itself.
This title was first published in 2001. This text examines sexuality and interpersonal relationships in relation to the Catholic Church. Topics discussed include spirituality; sexuality; bodiliness and sacramentality; the female experience of sexuality; authority; and the development of Catholic tradition and sexual morality.
The Authority of Women in the Catholic Church elucidates the essential role women play in the covenant of salvation. With the support of Scripture, the writings of the Fathers of the Church, and contemporary theological insights, Monica Migliorino Miller explains how Christian women exemplify the reality of the Church in relation to Christ and the ministerial priesthood. While providing a fascinating response to contemporary feminist theology, The Authority of Women in the Catholic Church clarifies the meaning of authentic feminine authority so needed in the Church today.
Winner of a 2015 Catholic Press Award: Gender Issues Category (First Place). In this first book from an openly lesbian and celibate Catholic, widely published writer and blogger Eve Tushnet recounts her spiritual and intellectual journey from liberal atheism to faithful Catholicism and shows how gay Catholics can love and be loved while adhering to Church teaching. Eve Tushnet was among the unlikeliest of converts. The only child of two atheist academics, Tushnet was a typical Yale undergraduate until the day she went out to poke fun at a gathering of philosophical debaters, who happened also to be Catholic. Instead of enjoying mocking what she termed the “zoo animals,” she found herself engaged in intellectual conversation with them and, in a move that surprised even her, she soon converted to Catholicism. Already self-identifying as a lesbian, Tushnet searched for a third way in the seeming two-option system available to gay Catholics: reject Church teaching on homosexuality or reject the truth of your sexuality. Gay and Catholic: Accepting My Sexuality, Finding Community, Living My Faith is the fruit of Tushnet’s searching: what she learned in studying Christian history and theology and her articulation of how gay Catholics can pour their love and need for connection into friendships, community, service, and artistic creation.
The Roman Catholic Church has in recent decades sent mixed signals with regard to discrimination based on sexual identity. On the one hand, official documents have condemned violence and verbal abuse directed at persons of different sexual orientation; on the other hand, the Church has approved and lobbied for certain types of discrimination: in housing and employment, for example, and also with regard to marriage or civil unions. Sexual Diversity and Catholicism focuses specifically on Roman Catholic magisterial teachings on sexual diversity. It also wrestles with explicitly Roman Catholic views of the relationship among various sources of moral wisdom (between Church teachings, the Bible, philosophy, science and experience) and how their interplay might contribute to the further development of Church teaching. It addresses the issue of sexual diversity and its legitimate expression under the headings Interpreting Church Teachings, Interpreting the Bible, Interpreting Secular Disciplines, and Interpreting Human Experience. Part One: Interpreting Church Teachings, includes My Brother Dan," by Bishop Thomas J. Gumbleton; "Unitive and Procreative Meaning: The Inseparable Link," by James P. Hanigan; "The Bridegroom and the Bride: The Theological Anthropology of John Paul II and Its Relation to the Bible and Homosexuality," by Susan A. Ross; and "The Church and Homosexuality: A Lonerganian Approach," by Jon Nilson. Part Two: Interpreting the Bible contains "The Promise of Postmodern Hermeneutics for the Biblical Renewal of Moral Theology," by Patricia Beattie Jung; "Questions About the Construction of (Homo)sexuality: Same-Sex Relations in the Hebrew Bible," by Robert A. Di Vito; "Romans 1:26-27: The Claim That Homosexuality Is Unnatural," by Leland J. White; "The New Testament and Homosexuality?" by Bruce J. Malina; and "Perfect Fear Casteth Out Love: Reading, Citing, and Rape," by Mary Rose D'Angelo. Part Three: Interpreting Secular Disciplines includes insights from the human and social sciences: "Homosexuality, Moral Theology, and Scientific Evidence," by Sidney Calahan; "Informing the Debate on Homosexuality: The Behavioral Sciences and the Church," by Isaiah Crawford and Brian D. Zamboni; and "Harming by Exclusion: On the Standard Concepts of Sexual Orientation, Sex, and Gender," by David T. Ozar. Part Four: Interpreting Human Experience, brings the voices of two of the Church's faithful women: "Papal Ideals, Marital Realities: One View From the Ground," by Cristinal. H. Traina; and "Catholic Lesbian Feminist Theology," by Mary E. Hunt.
Inasmuch as “sex” and “sexuality” are not words often spoken from pulpits and in academic theological circles, a vast number of utterances have been made in the name of so-called “Christian values” and “biblical views” on sex and sexuality. These are often given from moral-ethical perspectives, and seemingly very prescriptive: who should have sex with whom, when sex should take place, which purposes sex should serve—and especially, when sex is wrong. Moreover, often there is little or no recognition of the complexities surrounding human sexuality, resulting in what appears to be a blueprint for sexuality, applicable to all persons. This volume contains fourteen theological and ethical reflections by South African scholars on human sexuality, with the aim of exploring what a sexual reformation within Christian dialogue might entail. Presented in three sections—namely, systematic theological reflections, biblical reflections, and ethical reflections—the essays represent a range of topics from a variety of perspectives: Luther and marriage; sexual abuse in the Catholic Church; body theology and the sexual revolution; reproductive technologies, sexuality and reproduction; reproductive loss; hermeneutical choices and gender reformation in (South) Africa; queer engagements with “bra” Joseph; explorations on Paul and sex; rape culture and violent deities; the church’s moral authority and sexual ethics; practical-theological considerations regarding infertility; empirical research on masculinities in Zambia; and the lived experience of transgender people in African Independent Churches.
-- Power in the Church, power and world culture.-- Celibacy, the role of women, accountability and infallibility and where they fit into Church tradition.-- Concrete ways to move ahead within the Church through understanding and transforming power.The Catholic Church is a micro-lens (albeit a large one) for viewing power and the effects of power abuses in the larger world culture. In Supreme Authority, the authors of The Complete Idiot's Guide "RM" to Understanding Catholicism take the four marks of Catholic identity -- It is One; It is Catholic; It is Holy; It is Apostolic -- and move them forward to a new understanding of these pillars of the Church. Issues to be explored include the Pre-Vatican II Church, Vatican II, the relationship of power and sexual abuse, how decisions are made in the Church, celibacy, the all-male clergy, the church's hierarchy and more. The object is not to criticize the Church, but rather to empower the people with ways to understand its current dynamics and provide concrete ways of moving forward within it.
In this "brave and good book which shatters bad myths" (Commonweal), McNeill shows that the Bible does not condemn homosexuality, and argues that the Church must not continue its homophobic practices.
