BREAKING THE STAINED GLASS CEILING: INTERSECTIONALITY AND THE FEMALE ORDINATION MOVEMENT IN THE ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH LYNDEL SPENCE A thesis submitted in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Faculty of Arts Department of Sociology and Social Policy University of Sydney 2016 Copyright by Lyndel Spence 2016 All Rights Reserved This is to certify that to the best of my knowledge, the content of this thesis is my own work. This thesis has not been submitted for any degree or other purposes. I certify that the intellectual content of this thesis is the product of my own work and that all the assistance received in preparing this thesis and sources have been acknowledged. Signature Name: Lyndel Spence Thesis Abstract This thesis examines the female ordination movement within the Catholic Church as a feminist social justice collective seeking to overturn gender based oppression within this religious institution. Through a study of three communities, Mary Mother of Jesus, Good Shepherd, and Mary Magdalene Apostolic Catholic Community, this thesis explores the emancipatory strategies utilized by the female ordination movement to instil equality within the Church and within society. Each community’s commitment to gender inclusivity intersects with additional areas of structural reform, including LGBTIQ equality, racial justice, social welfare provision for the poor and the elimination of power and hierarchy within organized religion. This study is thus motivated by the question of how the female ordination movement is incorporating intersectional considerations within its fight of oppression in the Roman Catholic Church. Informed by a feminist epistemology, this thesis integrates the theoretical frameworks of intersectionality and kyriarchy to explore the positioning of the female ordination movement around multiple axes of domination within the Catholic Church, including sexism, racism, homophobia and classism. The methodology is triangulated. Firstly, semi-structured interviews were conducted with members of this movement and were evaluated through narrative analysis. Second, participation observation of the communities’ liturgies was evaluated through ritual analysis. This dual methodological approach addresses both the core beliefs and communal acts of these communities and understands their activism as both ideological and performative in nature. Given that women have been noticeably absent from the androcentric history of the Roman Catholic Church, and given also that there have been few fieldwork-based studies to date of feminist Catholic communities, the inclusion of these women’s voices and experiences represents an important contribution to scholarly inquiries investigating sexism and feminist activism within religious structures. This thesis draws upon their voices and their communal activities to fill a lacuna in research surrounding the tensions between feminism and patriarchy, and the ways in which intersectional feminism is transforming the structures and nature of Catholicism. Table of Contents Acknowledgements ................................................................................................................. iv List of Abbreviations and Acronyms ..................................................................................... v Preface: Breaking the Sense of Self- The Effect of Research on the Researcher .............. vi Introduction: Foundations of the Stained Glass Ceiling ...................................................... 1 Contextualizing the Study: The American Religious Landscape ........................................... 4 Positioning the Female Ordination Movement .................................................................... 14 Establishing the Fundamentals of the Thesis ....................................................................... 18 Methodological and Conceptual Framework ................................................................... 22 Terminology ..................................................................................................................... 26 Thesis Structure ................................................................................................................ 28 Section I: Conceptual and Historical Origins of the Stained Glass Ceiling in the Catholic Church .................................................................................................................................... 30 Chapter 1: Literature Review and Epistemological Framework ...................................... 33 1.1 Feminist Analyses of Oppression: Women as Objects of the Patriarchal Church ........ 33 1.1.1 The Contributions of Simone de Beauvoir and Mary Daly ................................... 40 1.1.2 .................Patriarchy, Kyriarchy and Intersectionality: Problematizing Conceptions of Oppression ............................................................................................................................ 46 1.2 Liberation, Resistance and Agency: Reconceptualizing Catholic Women as Empowered Subjects ................................................................................................................ 56 1.2.1 Feminist Liberation The*logy ..................................................................................... 58 1.2.2 Negotiating Feminism and Catholicism ...................................................................... 62 1.2.3 Resistance and Agency................................................................................................ 68 Chapter 2: History or Herstory? Competing Perspectives Underpinning the Issue of Female Ordination in the Catholic Church. ........................................................................ 81 2.1 His-story of the Ban of Women’s Ordination and the Roman Catholic Church ............... 81 2.1.1 Doctrinal Perspective .................................................................................................. 85 2.2 Her-story: Working Towards Women’s Ordination in the Church ................................... 94 2.2.1 Key Events in the Development of the Female Ordination Movement ...................... 99 2.2.2 Key Groups in the Movement ................................................................................... 108 2.2.3 Charism and Ideology ............................................................................................... 111 Chapter 3: Methods and Methodology .............................................................................. 114 3.1 Methodological Approaches in the Sociological Field of Religion ................................. 114 i 3.2 Methodology Adopted for this Study .............................................................................. 117 3.2.1 Feminist Methodology .............................................................................................. 117 3.2.2 Qualitative Methods .................................................................................................. 119 3.3 Methods Adopted for This Study ..................................................................................... 120 3.3.1 Dual Methodology..................................................................................................... 120 3.3.2 Exploring Beliefs: Semi-Structured Interviews and Narrative Analysis .................. 122 3.3.3 Exploring Collective Ritual: Participant Ethnography and Ritual Analysis ............. 125 3.3.4 Sampling and Recruitment ........................................................................................ 127 3.3.5 Interviews and Ethnographic Observations............................................................... 130 3.4.1 Ethical Considerations............................................................................................... 131 3.4.2 Reflexivity and Objectivity ....................................................................................... 132 Section II: Between Oppression and Liberation— Kyriarchy and Intersectionality .... 138 Chapter 4: Gender (In)Equality and the Roman Catholic Church ................................ 142 4.1 Androcentrism and Sexism as Modes of Oppression................................................... 142 4.2 Moving from a Male Church to Women-Church ......................................................... 154 4.3 The Feminization of Rituals ......................................................................................... 173 Chapter 5: Contesting Power, Authority, and Hierarchy— Mary Mother of Jesus Community ........................................................................................................................... 183 5.1: A Very Un-Traditional History....................................................................................... 183 5.2 Power through Hierarchy ................................................................................................. 186 5.2.1 Clerical Supremacy and Hierarchical Control .......................................................... 186 5.2.2 Moving Towards a Feminist Egalitarian Model of Priesthood and Church ............. 190 5.2.3 The Empowerment of the Laity Through Communal Ritual Engagement ............... 203 5.3 Institutionalized Power and Authority in the Catholic Church ........................................ 208 5.3.1 Authority and Infallibility ......................................................................................... 208 5.3.2 Moving Towards a Deinstitutionalized