Women, Sex and the Church

It's the title of an upcoming release from Pauline, and got the attention of Publisher's Weekly. I saw an advance copy of it yesterday and it is fantastic. I think it will especially be helpful to people who struggle with Church teaching. Anyway, here's what Publisher's Weekly had to say in their religion book feature:

Women, Sex, and the Church: A Case for Catholic Teaching

Edited by Erika Bachiochi. Pauline Books and Media, $19.95 paper (272p) ISBN 978-0-8198-8320-9

 

In this thoughtful and wide-ranging collection of essays, eight women and one man set out to explain and defend the Catholic Church’s teaching on sex, reproduction, priestly ordination, and family. Bachiochi, a lawyer and theologian who edited and contributed to the compilation, opens by calling herself an unlikely candidate for the project because she once “identified with a radical feminist contingent and was adamantly anti-Catholic.” As she learned more about Catholicism’s teachings, she writes, she decided that the church needed a way to explain them as “pro-woman.” The essays she assembled seek to show that the church’s teachings free rather than oppress women. Other contributors to the volume include Sister Sara Butler, a theologian and former proponent of women’s ordination, who wrote the essay on the priesthood, and economist Jennifer Roback Morse, whose essay looks at marriage. Given that this book challenges a popular view of Catholicism as antiwoman, it will be welcomed by those who support the church’s teaching; readers who disagree might still find its perspective provocative.(Aug.)