Notes

Abbreviations

ACA

Archdiocese of Chicago Archives and Records

ADMN

Archdiocesan Council of Catholic Women Collection

CFM

Christian Family Movement

COCN

Lillian O’Connor Papers

CUA

American Catholic History Research Center, Catholic University of America

DI

Daughters of Isabella Records

NCCW

National Council of Catholic Women Records

NCWC

National Catholic Welfare Conference

TUSR

Theresians of the United States Records

UNDA

University of Notre Dame Archives

WLA

Women and Leadership Archives, Loyola University Chicago

Introduction

1. Lumen Gentium, chap. 4, sec. 33. The Dogmatic Constitution on the Church was one of the key documents of the Second Vatican Council and focused on the church’s authority and mission. It was promulgated in late 1964.

2. Father James Murtaugh, “Address,” Chicago Archdiocesan Council of Catholic Women Fall Assembly, October 1963, Proceedings, box 25-P7220, ADMN/ACA, 14. A version of this research on Catholic laywomen and their clergy advisors in the Vatican II era was published previously in U.S. Catholic Historian. See Henold, “Woman—Go Forth!”

3. It is worth noting that the laywoman project was taking place at the same time as a conversation about the “emerging layman,” which has a literature of its own. Titles include Callahan, The Mind of the Catholic Layman; Thorman, The Emerging Layman; O’Gara, The Layman and the Church; Schillebeeckx, The Layman in the Church; and Roche and De Roo, Man to Man: A Frank Talk between Layman and Bishop. Books in this genre tend to discuss laymen as laity, indicating that the authors were far more interested in defining lay status, power, and ministry than in discussing questions of gender. In fact, “layman” was assumed to include women, although men were treated as normative and women were rarely mentioned. In contrast, authors engaged in the laywoman project tended to discuss laywomen as women, engaging gender in ways ignored by the male authors in this field. The only authors in the laywoman project who produced book-length studies in this era tended to be the emerging Catholic feminists. See, for example, Cunneen, Sex: Female; Religion: Catholic; and Callahan, The Illusion of Eve.

4. Sugrue, “The Catholic Encounter with the 1960s,” 62.

5. I planned to include a chapter in this book analyzing the laywoman project of the Ladies of Peter Claver (the women’s auxiliary to the Knights of Peter Claver), the largest organization for African American laywomen. Unfortunately, the organization’s archives are not open to professional researchers at this time.

6. Books on the history of Vatican II abound. For a useful overview of debates in the field over how to interpret the impact of Vatican II, see Cummings, Matovina, and Orsi, Catholics in the Vatican II Era. For a broader understanding of the reception of Vatican II over time, see Faggioli, A Council for the Global Church; and Faggioli, Vatican II. For reception in the American context, see, for example, Kelly, The Transformation of American Catholicism; and McDannell, The Spirit of Vatican II. For a discussion of “rupture” versus “continuity,” see O’Malley, Vatican II.

7. For discussions of Catholics and suburbanization, see McDannell, The Spirit of Vatican II; Massa, Catholics and American Culture; Dolan, The American Catholic Experience; Kelly, “Suburbanization and the Decline of Catholic Public Ritual in Pittsburgh”; and McGreevy, Parish Boundaries. For laypeople and Catholic Action, see Bonner, Denny, and Connolly, Empowering the People of God.

8. See Tentler, Catholics and Contraception.

9. Johnson, One in Christ, 3. For more on Catholics in the U.S. civil rights movement, see Davis, The History of Black Catholics in the United States; Southern, John LaFarge and the Limits of Catholic Interracialism; McGreevy, Parish Boundaries; Koehlinger, The New Nuns; Cressler, “Black Power, Vatican II, and the Emergence of Black Catholic Liturgies”; and Copeland, Uncommon Faithfulness.

10. Bonner, “Who Will Guard,” 225; Johnson, “Taking Marriage ‘One Day at a Time,’” 3.

11. See Kelly, The Transformation of American Catholicism, 227; and Kane, “Marian Devotion,” 116.

12. See O’Toole, “In the Court of Conscience,” 172; Morrow, “Change in the Conception of Sin”; and O’Toole, Habits of Devotion, 5.

13. Westoff and Bumpass, “The Revolution in Birth Control Practices,” 41; Johnson, “The Home Is a Little Church,” chap. 6.

14. Kelly and Kelly, “Our Lady of Perpetual Help,” 6; Kane, “Marian Devotion,” 116.

15. McDannell, “Catholic Domesticity,” 49; see also Johnson, “The Home Is a Little Church.”

16. Johnson, “The Home Is a Little Church,” 114–15; Harmon, There Were Also Many Women There, 244.

17. For a discussion of recent historiography of feminism, see Gilmore, Groundswell; and Laughlin and Castledine, Breaking the Wave. For a study of 1950s organizational women pursuing what we would now consider to be feminist goals before the resurgence of feminism in the mid-1960s, see Johnson and Johnston, “Unfamiliar Feminisms.” On the issue of conservative women and how they fit into a historiography shaped by feminism, see Nickerson, Mothers of Conservatism, conclusion.

18. Blair, Revolutionizing Expectations; Rogow, Gone to Another Meeting; Cobble, “More than Sex Equality”; Weaver, “Barrio Women”; Mathews-Garner, “From Ladies’ Aid to NGO,” 100. The Women’s Division of Christian Service was the precursor of the United Methodist Women.

19. Second Vatican Council’s “Message to the Women of the World,” December 8, 1965, quoted in Bishop Stephen A. Leven, “Votive Mass for Peace,” Conference Proceedings 1968, folder 1968, box 24, NCCW/CUA, 140.

20. For an insightful look at the “lived history” of Vatican II in localities around the world, and a discussion of the importance of the lived history approach, see Cummings, Matovina, and Orsi, Catholics in the Vatican II Era.

21. Betty Jarmusch, “Power Struggle in the Supermarket,” Marriage, January 1972, 62.

22. Mrs. Lucille W. Martin, letter to the editor, Marriage, March 1972, 69.

Prologue

1. Sister Mary Yolanda, BVM, “Vocation: From Doubt to Decision,” Today, March 1959, 18–21.

2. K. A. L., “Vocations Begin (and End) at Home,” editorial, Information, March 1960, 60.

3. Among the forty-one articles, four authors could not be determined; K. A. L., “Vocations Begin,” 61.

4. Rev. Henry E. Strassner, “Four Sermons to Parents on Vocations,” Emmanuel, March 1959, 122–23; Douglas Roche, “Vocations in the Family,” Marriage, March 1962, 47; James F. Kane, “Parents Key to Vocations,” Ave Maria, June 1963, 13; James D. Moriarity, “Vocation Losses by Default,” Homiletic and Pastoral Review, March 1959, 535. Serra International was founded in the late 1930s as an exclusive organization for laymen who wished to promote vocations to the priesthood. Its counterpart for laywomen, the Theresians, was not founded until 1961.

5. For more on the materialist crisis, see Kelly, The Transformation of American Catholicism, 8–9. For more on materialism and gender, see Johnson, “The Home Is a Little Church,” 79; Berthold T. Fahey, O.Carm, “Parental Objections,” Mary, April 1962, 13.

6. Donald F. Miller, C.SS.R., “How Parents Block Vocations,” Liguorian, September 1960, 3.

7. Kelly, The Transformation of American Catholicism, part 1. For a discussion of the complexities of the shift away from Cold War–era devotionalism, see Chinnici, “The Catholic Community at Prayer,” 83.

8. Although this was not mentioned in any of the articles studied, this theme also dovetails with heightened fears, in the larger culture, of “Momism,” the much condemned practice of stifling mother love supposedly responsible for encroaching homosexuality.

9. Fahey, “Parental Objections,” 15; Fr. Gerard McCrane, “Mothers Today Do Not Want Their Children to Be Heroic,” Maryknoll, March 1964, 30 (emphasis added).

10. McCrane, “Mothers Today,” 30; del Rey, Bernie Becomes a Nun, 15.

11. Irene Boyd, “Patty Enters the Convent,” Family Digest, March 1959, 10; Godfrey Poage and John Treacy, “What Parents Ask about Vocations,” Ave Maria, March 1959, 12–14.

12. Rev. Robert A. Burns, OP, “Creating a Vocation Atmosphere in the Home,” Proceedings, National Sisters Vocation Conference, 1964, folder 15/box 88/TUSR/WLA, 19.

13. “Vocation Crisis Must Be Solved,” Homiletic and Pastoral Review, February 1959, 464.

14. “God to Souls—Souls to God,” Isabellan, December 1962, box 12/DI/CUA, 10 (emphasis in original).

15. Moriarity, “Vocation Losses,” 536.

16. Poage and Treacy, “What Parents Ask,” 14; Miller, “How Parents Block Vocations,” 2; Strassner, “Four Sermons,” 124.

17. “Vocation Crisis Must Be Solved,” 464. For a concise explanation of the decline of parochial schools, see Dolan, The American Catholic Experience, 441–42.

18. Bishop Stephen Woznicki, letter to Mrs. Scott D. Hurlbert, February 6, 1961, folder Statements–Board of Directors/box 26/NCCW/CUA.

19. Sister Jean Marie, O.S.B., “I Decide My Destiny,” Catholic School Journal, March 1961, 52–53; Sister M. Dominic, R.G.S., “For Teenagers Only,” Family Digest, March 1962, 41.

Chapter 1

1. Douglas Roche, “Vocations in the Family,” Marriage, March 1962, 47–48.

2. Elwood Voss, “The Theresian Purpose,” c. 1970, folder 13/box 90/TUSR/WLA, 1.

3. Voss and Mullen, The Theresian Story, 2, 53.

4. McCartin, “The Sacred Heart of Jesus, Thérèse of Lisieux,” 63.

5. Voss and Mullen, The Theresian Story, 2 (emphasis in original).

6. Bishop Charles A. Buswell, letter to Elwood Voss titled “The Theresian’s Prayer,” c. March 1963, folder 8/box 21/TUSR/WLA.

7. Sister M. Simone, O.S.B., “Theresian Meetings,” Proceedings, National Sisters Vocation Conference, 1965, folder 10/box 87/TUSR/WLA, 26; “The Theresians of America,” pamphlet, c. 1968, folder 8/box 4/TUSR/WLA, 9.

8. “Quotations from Monsignor Voss on the Theresian World Apostolate,” Presidents’ Handbook, 1972, folder 9/box 2/TUSR/WLA.

9. Italian American Catholicism is one exception to this. Robert Orsi found Italian Catholics to hold especially priests, but also women religious, in lesser esteem. See Orsi, The Madonna of 115th Street.

10. McCartin, Prayers of the Faithful, 12–13.

11. Mrs. John Downs, “A Laywoman Looks to the Sisterhood,” Proceedings, National Sisters Vocation Conference, 1964, folder 15/box 88/TUSR/WLA, 47; Rev. F. A. Marrocco, “Vocations to the Sisterhood—Responsibility of All,” Proceedings, National Sisters Vocation Conference, 1964, folder 15/box 88/TUSR/WLA, 4; Virginia Siegle, “The Theresian Apostolate,” New Mexico State Conference, 1966, folder 7/box 92/TUSR/WLA, 2.

12. Marrocco, “Vocations,” 4; Cynthia Bordelon, “Theresian Programs and Activities,” Proceedings, National Sisters Vocation Conference, 1964, folder 15/box 88/TUSR/WLA, 26 (emphasis in original).

13. Bordelon, “Theresian Programs,” 27; Siegle, “The Theresian Apostolate,” 2; Marge Herrig, “What Adult Women Think of the Changing Sister,” Proceedings, National Conference, 1967, folder 14/box 89/TUSR/WLA, 5.

14. Mrs. Raber Taylor, “The Theresian Influence,” Proceedings, National Sisterhood Vocation Conference, folder 10/box 87/TUSR/WLA, 30.

15. Mrs. Carl Miller, “Establishing a Theresian Unit,” Proceedings, National Sisterhood Vocation Conference, 1965, folder 10/box 87/TUSR/WLA, 17–21.

16. Taylor, “The Theresian Influence,” 28 (emphasis in original).

17. Kane, “‘She Offered Herself Up,’” 88. Vestiges of this type of prayer persist in American Catholicism. Surely I was not the only Catholic teenager who was told to “offer it up” when she complained to her mother of some hardship. I also vividly recall sitting in my hospital bed with my newborn daughter, tears running down my face at the pain of nursing. My mother, a progressive Catholic woman, must have been channeling her own midcentury childhood when she said solemnly, “Offer it up—this is how you earn the jewels in your crown.”

18. Kane, “She Offered Herself Up,” 100.

19. Fr. Howe, letter to Elwood Voss, March 12, 1963, folder 8/box 21/TUSR/WLA; Bordelon, “Theresian Programs,” 25; Marrocco, “Vocations,” 6; Elwood Voss, as quoted in Bordelon, “Theresian Programs,” 25.

20. “The Theresians of Shrine High Newsletter,” April 1967, folder 22/box 36/TUSR/WLA; “The Theresian,” Santa Monica High School Theresians, November 1967, folder 22/box 36/TUSR/WLA. Shrine High School was the school connected to the national Shrine of the Little Flower in Royal Oak, Michigan, founded by the controversial Father Charles Coughlin. Incidentally, it is also my alma mater.

21. Mrs. Charles Lovette, “The Purpose of the Theresians,” Proceedings, National Sisters Vocation Conference, 1964, folder 15/box 88/TUSR/WLA, 8, 11 (emphasis added).

22. Downs, “A Laywoman Looks to the Sisterhood,” 48.

23. Downs, “A Laywoman Looks to the Sisterhood,” 46; Sister Kathleen Mary, SL, “The Modern Girl,” Proceedings, National Sisters Vocation Conference, 1966, folder 3/box 95/TUSR/WLA, 6.

24. Siegle, “The Theresian Apostolate,” 2.

25. Sister Elena, CSC, “Vocation Principles,” Proceedings, National Sisters Vocation Conference, 1966, folder 3/box 95/TUSR/WLA, 4–5 (emphasis in original); Sister Thomas Aquinas, OP, “Religious and Lay Cooperation in the Light of Vatican II,” folder 7/box 92/TUSR/WLA, 5; Father William Steele, “Personalism, Liturgy and Vocations,” folder 7/box 92/TUSR/WLA, 5.

26. Lovette, “The Purpose,” 9; Kathryn Cribari, “Something Else Again,” The Theresian, Summer 1971, folder 4/box 104/TUSR/WLA, 9; Sister Annina Morgan, SC, “The Importance of Communication between Sisters and Young Women,” Theresian National Conference, 1968, folder 17/box 91/TUSR/WLA 3 (emphasis in original).

27. Taylor, “The Theresian Influence,” 29–30; Dan Maio, “A United Effort for Sisterhood Vocations,” conference booklet, 1965, folder 9/box 94/TUSR/WLA, 11.

28. Steele, “Personalism, Liturgy and Vocations,” 5.

29. American Lay Women, conference booklet, National Sisters Vocation Conference, 1964, folder 15/box 88/TUSR/WLA, 12.

30. Sister Margaret Mary, “A Need for Youth in the Vocation Apostolate,” New Mexico State Conference, 1966, folder 7/box 97/TUSR/WLA, 1.

31. Mrs. Charles Strubbe, “A Time for Giving,” Theresian National Conference, 1971, folder 6/box 92/TUSR/WLA, 2–3.

32. Minutes, Theresian Board of Consultants Meeting, Spring 1970, folder 3/box 23/TUSR/WLA, 4; Voss and Mullen, The Theresian Story, front material.

33. See Koehlinger, The New Nuns. See also Borromeo, The New Nuns.

34. Theresians of Long Beach newsletter, January 1970, folder 23/box 36/TUSR/ WLA, 2;”Theresian Questionnaire,” Theresian, Summer 1969, folder 4/box 104/ TUSR/WLA, 9.

35. Saint Mary’s College in Indiana was the first institution to offer a PhD in theology for women in the 1960s.

36. Sister Elena, “Vocation Principles,” 1–3.

37. Sister Thomas Aquinas, “Religious and Lay Cooperation,” 2.

38. Sister Elena, “Vocation Principles,” 4; Sister Thomas Aquinas, “Religious and Lay Cooperation,” 2.

39. Sister Margaret Mary, “A Need for Youth,” 3–4. The author’s order is unknown.

40. Father William Steele, letter to Elwood Voss, September 2, 1969, folder 9/box 4/TUSR/WLA, 1; Minutes, Theresian Board of Consultants Meeting, Spring 1970, folder 3/box 23/TUSR/WLA, 5.

41. Sister Elise Marie, “Theresians of America Student Activities,” report to National Consultants Meeting, 1969, folder 2/box 23/TUSR/WLA; Minutes, National Consultants Meeting, 1970, 2.

42. Minutes, National Consultants Meeting, 1967, folder 1/box 23/TUSR/WLA, 11; program, Theresian National Conference, 1970, folder 9/box 94/TUSR/WLA; Minutes, National Consultants Meeting, 1970, 5. It is worth noting that such fears emerged in the nascent Catholic feminist movement in the same period. Lay feminists were concerned, rightly as it turned out, that women religious would come to dominate the leadership in Catholic feminist organizations.

43. Ebaugh, Lorence, and Chafetz, “The Growth and Decline,” 175; “Report to Consultants’ Conference—Adult Membership,” c. 1968–1969, folder 2/box 23/TUSR/WLA; Sara McCarthy, letter to Elwood Voss, August 29, 1969, folder 9/box 4/ TUSR/WLA.

44. McCarthy to Voss, August 29, 1969; “Report—Adult Membership” (emphasis in original).

45. Elwood Voss, memo to Executive Board, September 4, 1969, folder 9/box 4/TUSR/WLA, 1.

46. Steele to Voss, September 2, 1969, 1.

47. Voss, “The Theresian Purpose,” 1.

48. Voss, “The Theresian Purpose,” 1.

49. Minutes, Consultants, 1970, 2; Elwood Voss, letter to Executive Board, September 1, 1970, folder 3/box 23/TUSR/WLA, 1; Voss and Mullen, The Theresian Story, 14.

50. Voss, letter to Executive Board, September 1, 1970, 1; “President’s Message,” Theresian, Summer 1971, folder 4/box 104/TUSR/WLA, 3; Sister Kathleen McNamara, Women of Vision, 1972, folder 10/box 104/TUSR/WLA, 6.

51. Cribari, “Something Else,” 6–7.

52. Betty Barrett, “Unique We Are,” Theresian, Autumn 1970, folder 4/box 104/TUSR/WLA, 15; “Clothing Workshop Report,” 1970 conference, folder 13/box 90/TUSR/WLA, 1.

53. Mrs. Joseph Zavadil, “Emerging Role of Laywomen in the Church,” New Mexico State Conference, 1966, folder 7/box 92/TUSR/WLA. Friedan says explicitly that “women of orthodox Catholic or Jewish origin do not easily break through the housewife image; it is enshrined in the canons of their religion, in the assumptions of their own and their husbands’ childhoods, and in their church’s dogmatic definitions of marriage and motherhood.” She also calls out prominent Catholic laywomen writers by name, specifically Jean Kerr and Phyllis McGinley, in her assessment of freelance nonfiction writing in the 1950s. Of these writers she remarked, “They are good craftsmen, the best of these Housewife Writers. And some of their work is funny. . . . But there is something about Housewife Writers that isn’t funny—like Uncle Tom, or Amos and Andy. ‘Laugh,’ the Housewife Writers tell the real housewife, ‘if you are feeling desperate, empty, bored, trapped in the bedmaking, chauffeuring and dishwashing details. Isn’t it funny?’” Many Catholic feminists in the mid-1960s gave only conditional support to the book, not because it called out the church (which they did as well) but because it located women’s fulfillment almost entirely in the world of work and neglected both the question of vocation and the idea of spiritual fulfillment. See Friedan, The Feminine Mystique, 351, 57.

54. Friedan, The Feminine Mystique, 5.

55. Sister Margaret Ellen Traxler, excerpts from National Conference address, 1969, folder 19/box 87, 1–2.

56. Minutes, Theresian Board of Consultants Meeting, 1970, folder 3/box 23/TUSR/WLA, 2; “Miss Kathy” [Kathy Cribari], “New (Not So New) Woman,” Theresian, Autumn 1970, folder 4/box 104/TUSR/WLA, 5.

57. McNamara, Women of Vision, 180.

58. Father Robert Wilson, “Woman—Go Forth,” Theresian, Summer 1971, folder 4/box 104/TUSR/WLA, 4; Sister Grace Jose, OSF, “Feminine Fulfillment,” Theresian, Autumn 1970, folder 4/box 104/TUSR/WLA, 6.

59. For a primary source detailing the eternal feminine construct, see von le Fort, The Eternal Woman. See also Henold, Catholic and Feminist, chap. 1.

60. Sister Grace Jose, “Feminine Fulfillment,” 6; Wilson, “Woman—Go Forth,” 4; E. Dawne Jubb, MD, “Woman in the Age of Aquarius,” National Conference, 1971, folder 6/box 92/TUSR/WLA, 3;

61. Father Bernard Mullaney, “A Time for Giving Birth,” 1971 National Conference, folder 6/box 92/TUSR/WLA, 4; Father Bernard Mullaney, “Spirituality in the Theresian Community,” National Conference, 1973, folder 14/box 93/TUSR/WLA, 2.

62. Liturgy booklet, Board of Consultants Meeting, April 1971, folder 4/box 23/TUSR/WLA, 4–5, 15.

63. Liturgy booklet, 3–4, 16.

64. Mrs. Frank (Rita) J. Metyko, “A Time for Community,” 1971 National Conference, folder 6/box 92/TUSR/WLA, 14–16 (emphasis added).

65. Jubb, “Woman in the Age of Aquarius,” 2–5 (emphasis in original).

66. “Sisters Are Needed,” excerpted from the Brooklyn Tablet, Theresian, Summer 1971, folder 4/box 104/TUSR/WLA, 10. One such example can be found in the prescriptive “Separate Spheres” ideology promoted in the antebellum period in the United States, when in a time of great economic and social upheaval moral authorities encouraged women to emulate a particular set of female traits.

67. “Mary,” letter to Elwood Voss, c. 1971, folder 4/box 23/TUSR/WLA, 1; Kathy S., letter to Elwood Voss, January 3, 1973, folder 5/box 23/TUSR/WLA, 1; Theresian News, December 1972, folder 2/box 104/TUSR/WLA, 1 (emphasis in original).

68. Cribari, “Something Else,” 6.

69. Sister Patricia Mullen, memo to Board of Consultants, July 9, 1975, folder 6/box 23/TUSR/WLA, 1. The date on the document reads “July 1975” but I believe this was a typo. Each year’s conference was planned starting in the spring of the same year.

70. Mrs. Maelsel Yelenick, Theresian Position Paper, c. 1976, folder 6/box 23/TUSR/WLA, 1.

71. Patricia Mullen, “Theresian National Conference” planning memo, Summer 1976, 1; Elwood Voss, “Opening Address,” National Conference, 1976, folder 6/box 23/TUSR/WLA, 1.

72. Voss, “Opening Address,” 3; Mullaney, “A Time for Giving Birth,” 1.

73. For more on the underground church, see Henold, “Breaking the Boundaries of Renewal.”

74. Steele, letter to Voss, September 2, 1969; Voss, “The Theresian Purpose,” 2.

75. Advertising flier, 1970 National Conference, folder 13/box 90/TUSR/WLA; Steele, letter to Voss, September 2, 1969. For a discussion of these developments, see Schulman, The Seventies, chap. 3.

76. By the early 1970s feminists were increasingly shifting to the word ministry, a term rarely applied to laywomen in the past, to describe their work, leading to the call for women’s ordination to the priesthood by the mid-1970s.

77. Long Beach Newsletter, January 1970, 2; Jo Taylor, “Newsletter—Community Dimension,” c. 1976, folder 6/box 23/TUSR/WLA, 1; Sister Patricia Mullen, “Theresians of the Future,” National Conference, 1976, folder 5/box 93/TUSR/WLA, 2.

78. Sister Jane Abell, OP, “Women in Support of Women,” National Conference, 1978, folder 3/box 89/TUSR/WLA, 7–8.

79. Barrett, “Unique We Are,” 14; introduction, Theresian, Summer 1971, folder 4/box 104/TUSR/WLA, 3.

80. “A Sense of Mission,” Theresian News, July/August 1979, folder 2/box 104/TUSR/WLA/1.

Chapter 2

1. “The Buried Talents Symposium,” Sign, October 15–19, 1966, 17. An earlier version of the research in this chapter appeared in Bonner, Denny, and Connolly, Empowering the People of God, 197–221.

2. Margaret Ellen Traxler, statement before the Illinois House, March 22, 1973, National Coalition of American Nuns Records, 2/2, Marquette University Archives. See also sociologist Ruth Wallace’s denunciation of the NCCW for its stance on the ERA in 1975; Wallace, “Bringing Women In,” 301.

3. Wallace, “Joseph H. Fichter’s Contributions,” 361; Weaver, New Catholic Women, quoted in Kelly, The Transformation of American Catholicism, 35. For another case of moderate organizational women being criticized for their lack of feminism, see Johnson and Johnston, “Unfamiliar Feminisms.” The authors argue that organizational women in the National Council of Women Psychologists in the “interwave” period did demonstrate a form of feminism that historians later judged insufficient to meet “feminist” standards.

4. The National Council of Jewish Women (NCJW) showed a similar commitment to feminist goals but also chose not to self-identify as feminist. See Rogow, Gone to Another Meeting, 113.

5. The NCCW does not fit comfortably into existing narratives of women’s right-wing activism, despite its opposition to abortion and the ERA. While certainly sympathetic to the antiabortion movement that predated Roe v. Wade, abortion was not a central focus of NCCW activity at the leadership level in the 1960s. For more on the Catholic antiabortion movement, see Williams, Defenders of the Unborn; and Taranto, Kitchen Table Politics.

6. For a discussion of traditional women’s organizations that pursued modest feminist goals without self-identifying as feminist, see Blair, Revolutionizing Expectations. See also Mathews-Gardner, “From Ladies’ Aid to NGO.”

7. National Council of Catholic Women, home page, http://home.catholicweb.com/NCCW/index.cfm.

8. Margaret Mealey, Report to the Board of Directors, December 1959, box 10/NCCW/CUA, 1; Margaret Mealey, Report to the Board of Directors, January 1964, box 10/NCCW/CUA, 5.

9. “Family and Parent Education,” 1960 Conference Proceedings, box 23/NCCW/CUA, 52–53; Margaret Mealey, letter to Catherine Schaefer, August 2, 1967, folder NCCW-Mealey, Exec Dir Corr/box 161/NCWC/USCC) OGS/CUA.

10. Alexander Sigur, “Women in the Apostolate of the Church,” 1960 Conference Proceedings, box 23/NCCW/CUA, 73; John S. Spence, “Woman’s Particular Role,” 1964 Conference Proceedings, box 23/NCCW/CUA, 50.

11. Sigur, “Women in the Apostolate of the Church,” 73; Rev. Leo W. Duprey, O.P., “Challenge to the Nature of Woman,” May 1963, box 34/NCCW/CUA, 1; Spence, “Woman’s Particular Role,” 53; “Nature of Woman,” fact sheet, 1963 NCCW Institute, box 34/NCCW/CUA, 3.

12. Margaret O’Connell, editorial, “Women at Vatican II,” Word 2, no. 2 (November 1965): 3 (emphasis in original).

13. Mary Perkins Ryan, “The Liturgy,” 1964 Conference Proceedings, box 23/NCCW/CUA, 86. For an analysis of Ryan’s preconciliar writings on families and liturgy, see Harmon, There Were Also Many Women There, chap. 5. In the postwar period, Ryan was a great supporter of laywomen applying liturgical concepts in their role as homemakers.

14. Massa, The American Catholic Revolution, 158.

15. Arlene Swidler, “Church Communities Commission: Overview,” 1968 Conference Proceedings, folder 1968/box 24/NCCW/CUA, 88.

16. Margaret Mealey, Report to the Board of Directors, January 1966, box 10/ NCCW/CUA.

17. Margaret Mary Kelly, “Cooperation with Vatican II,” Word 2, no. 1 (October 1964), folder 1964/box 66/NCCW, 11 (emphasis in original).

18. Margaret O’Connell, editorial, Word 4, no. 8 (May 1967), folder 1967(1)/box 66/NCCW, 3.

19. Mrs. Louis H. Sweterlitsch, “NCCW: People and Structures,” 1968 Conference Proceedings, folder 1968/box 24/NCCW, 77; John Tracy Ellis, “The Catholic Laywoman and the Apostolate of Our Time,” NCCW National Conference, November 6, 1962, box 34/NCCW/CUA, 3.

20. Mary Perkins Ryan, Report of the Spiritual Development Committee, 1964 Conference Proceedings, box 23/NCCW/CUA, 190; “Organization and Development,” Word 3, no. 5 (February 1966), folder 1966(1)/box 66/NCCW/CUA, 7.

21. “Committee on Libraries and Literature,” Proceedings, 1960 Convention, box 23/NCCW, 68; Margaret Mealey, “50th Executive Director’s Report,” Word, c. 1970; Kelly, “Cooperation with Vatican II,” 11.

22. Workshop session notes, NCCW National Conference Proceedings, 1966, box 24/NCCW/CUA, 82; Mrs. John A. Paddenburg, “Opportunities in the Church Communities, Myth or Reality?,” NCCW National Conference Proceedings, 1966, box 24/NCCW/CUA, 56.

23. Arlene Swidler, “Church Communities Commission: Overview,” National Conference Proceedings, 1968, box 24/NCCW/CUA, 88–89; “Signs and Wonders,” Word 5, no. 4 (January 1968), folder 1968/box 66/NCCW/CUA, 3; box 186/NCCW/CUA. Timothy Kelly’s research on the Archdiocese of Pittsburgh shows that when the NCCW affiliate there flirted with feminism in 1966 it was rebuked by priests, supporting the claim that the NCCW leadership was more willing to provoke the clergy in this period. See Kelly, The Transformation of American Catholicism, 237.

24. The only long-form scholarly work on the NCCW in this period can be found in Ruth O’Halloran’s dissertation on the NCCW’s history. In it O’Halloran argues that the NCCW was not antifeminist in the 1960s and 1970s, and that it did express feminist ideas. Her dissertation does not pursue the nature of that feminism or its relationship to Vatican II, however. See O’Halloran, “Organized Catholic Laywomen,” 221.

25. Mark Massa makes a similar argument about the difficulties in employing political labels in the postconciliar period. See Massa, The American Catholic Revolution, 160–62.

26. See Henold, Catholic and Feminist.

27. On the history of radical feminism, see Echols, Daring to Be Bad; and Buchanan, Radical Feminists. For the history of Catholic feminism’s radical wing, see Henold, Catholic and Feminist.

28. A helpful comparison is Appalachian women who worked in the antipoverty movements of the 1960s and 1970s. They too responded to and incorporated feminist ideas in this period without making feminism central to their activism. At times they also clashed with more orthodox coastal feminists. See Wilkerson, To Live Here, You Have to Fight. Historian Erin Kempker also describes the “low-key feminism” of women’s rights advocates in Indiana. While they, unlike the NCCW, supported the ERA, they demonstrate the variety of approaches to feminist activism by moderates. See Kempker, Big Sister.

29. Mig Boyle, Report to the Board of Directors, January 1968, box 11/NCCW/CUA.

30. “Of Human Life: A Conversation,” Word 6, no. 2 (November 1968), folder 1968(2)/box 66/NCCW/CUA, 5–11.

31. Arlene Swidler, “Make Theology Your Business,” Word 7, no. 3, folder December 1969/box 66/NCCW/CUA, 4–11; Arlene Swidler, “Feminist Liturgies,” Catholic Woman 1, no. 1 (January 1975), folder 1975/box 66/NCCW/CUA, 3–5. In the previous year, Swidler published a book on feminist liturgy titled Sistercelebrations: Nine Worship Experiences. Historian Timothy Kelly also reports that in 1966 Swidler gave a talk to the Diocesan Council of Catholic Women of Pittsburgh on “Modern Women in the Church.” See Kelly, The Transformation of American Catholicism, 237.

32. Theodora Briggs Sweeney, “Children, Church,—and Lib,” Word 8, no. 1 (January 1971), folder 1971/box 66/NCCW/CUA, 18–19.

33. Paddenburg, “Opportunities,” 57.

34. Mrs. Louis H. Sweterlitsch, “NCCW: People and Structures,” 1968 Conference Proceedings, folder 1968/box 24/NCCW/CUA, 74.

35. Lillian O’Connor, “Women: Their Own Worst Enemies,” Word 5, no. 3 (December 1967), folder 1967(2)/box 66/NCCW/CUA, 6; Sweterlitsch, “NCCW: People,” 8; Joanne M. Moran, editorial, Word 7, no. 1 (October 1969), folder 1969(2)/box 66/NCCW/CUA, 2.

36. Joanne M. Moran, editorial, Word 7, no. 9 (June/July 1970), folder 1970(2)/box 66/NCCW/CUA, 2.

37. Mary Perkins Ryan, quoted in Swidler, “Make Theology Your Business,” 9. Dan W. Dodson, “Why Women’s Organizations?,” 1968 Conference Proceedings, folder 1968/box 24/NCCW/CUA, 41, 46.

38. “Statements Adopted by Board of Directors at Annual Meeting,” January 22–25, 1968, folder Statements of Board of Directors/box 26/NCCW/CUA, 2; Kelly, “Cooperation with Vatican II,” 4.

39. Mary Perkins Ryan, “The Liturgy,” 1964 Convention Proceedings, box 23/NCCW/CUA, 84.

40. Kelly, “Cooperation with Vatican II,” 11; Margaret Mealey, Report to the Board, January 1964, box 10/NCCW/CUA.

41. Proposed resolution at 1966 Convention by Church Communities Committee, box 24/NCCW/CUA; Rosemary Kilch, editorial, Word 3, no. 9 (June/July 1966), folder 1966(1)/box 66/NCCW/CUA, 3.

42. Swidler, “Make Theology Your Business.”

43. Helena Malinowski, “Beyond Stereotypes: Contributions of Women Theologians,” Word 6, no. 2 (November 1968), box 66/NCCW/CUA, 12–13.

44. The NCCW was not alone in linking Vatican II and feminism; self-identified Catholic feminists made the same connection. See Henold, Catholic and Feminist.

45. Historian Dorothy Sue Cobble outlines a trend at midcentury she calls “Social Justice Feminism,” in which advocates of equality for women worked within existing organizations and movements oriented toward other causes, such as the labor movement and the civil rights movement. The NCCW can be interpreted to fit within this framework, pursuing rights within its larger focus on church renewal. See Cobble, “More than Sex Equality.”

46. Margaret Mealey, “Executive Director’s Report to the Board,” February 1970, box 12/NCCW/CUA, 1. For the details on the brief merger of the NCCW and the NCCM, see O’Halloran, “Organized Catholic Laywomen,” chap. 5.

47. This theme was likely drawn from Deuteronomy 30:19, “I call heaven and earth to witness against you today that I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses. Choose life so that you and your descendants may live.” New Revised Standard Version.

48. Mealey, “50th Executive Director’s Report,” 5–6.

49. Such a position is not unprecedented. For instance, it was not uncommon for American suffragists to argue using both the rhetoric of female essentialism and the rhetoric of equality and rights in the last twenty years of the suffrage movement in the United States. See Cott, The Grounding of Modern Feminism, 19.

50. Desmazières, “Negotiating Religious and Women’s Identities,” 76.

51. Rossi, “The Status of Women,” 300–324.

52. Rossi, “The Status of Women,” 316.

53. Proceedings, International Study Days, November 6–9, 1966, folder 13/box 3/COCN/UNDA, 3.

54. “From Study Days to the Congress in Rome,” Proceedings, 1967 WUCWO congress, Rome, folder 23/box 2/COCN/UNDA, 67; WUCWO congress working paper and program notes, October 4–7, 1967, folder 26/box 2/COCN/UNDA.

55. Lillian O’Connor, “For a Better World Tomorrow,” Proceedings, 1967 WUCWO congress, Rome, folder 23/box 2/COCN/UNDA, 105.

56. María del Pilar Bellosillo, “WUCWO after Vatican Council II,” Proceedings, 1967 WUCWO world congress, Rome, folder 23/box 2/COCN/UNDA, 74–78.

57. María del Pilar Bellosillo, “Opening Speech,” WUCWO Assembly of Delegates Report, October 1970, folder 30/box 2/COCN/UNDA, 3–7.

58. María del Pilar Bellosillo, “Aims and Programme,” WUCWO Assembly of Delegates Report, October 1970, folder 30/box 2/COCN/UNDA, 25–29.

59. Marge Brooks, poem, Roster Team Training Institute, Marymount College, n.d. folder 1/box 1/COCN/UNDA; liturgy handout, “Sharing of a Shalom Meal,” February 4, 1972, folder 24/box 3/COCN.

60. Lillian O’Connor, “Prayer for WUCWO Day of Prayer,” 1973, folder 24/box 3/COCN/UNDA; Lillian O’Connor, memo, c. March 1973, folder 25/box 3/COCN/UNDA.

61. Margaret Mealey, note to Lillian O’Connor, March 18, 1973, folder 25/box 3/ COCN/UNDA.

62. Desmazières, “Negotiating Religious and Women’s Identities,” 80–84. The Holy See increasingly came to view WUCWO as a representative of “radical feminism” in the church, particularly under the pontificate of John Paul II in the 1980s, and worked to promote its own “new feminist” ideology within the organization by the end of the Decade of the Woman. New feminism emerged from Pope John Paul II’s theology of the body and reaffirmed traditional gender roles for Catholic women.

63. Cummings, Matovina, and Orsi, Catholics in the Vatican II Era, xvi.

64. Margaret O’Connell, editorial, Word 2, no. 11 (October 1965), folder 1965/box 66/NCCW, 3.

65. Letters to the editor, Word 7, no. 8 (May 1970), 1970(1)/66/NCCW/CUA, 21; Rita M. Burke, letter to Catherine Schaefer, March 18, 1969, folder NCCW General Correspondence 64–70/box 161/NCWC-USCC/CUA.

66. Mrs. Ralph LeBlanc, letter to the editor, Word 6, no. 5 (August/September 1969), folder 1969(1)/box 66/NCCW/CUA, 16; Mrs. Richard Spiering, letter to the editor, Word 7, no. 3 (December 1969), folder 1969(1)/box 66/NCCW/CUA, 15; Catherine M. Cullimore, letter to the editor, Word 6, no. 4 (June/July 1969), folder 1969(1)/box 66/NCCW/CUA, 17.

67. 1968 National Convention Program Evaluation, NCCW/CUA.

68. Report from the 1972 General Assembly, box 26/NCCW/CUA, 27.

69. NCCW National Board Meeting Minutes, January 1969, box 12/NCCW/CUA.

70. General Assembly Minutes, September 5–7, 1974, NCCW Minutes, 1 (58–79)/box 10/NCCW/CUA, 14.

71. C. M. T., “Notes on Church-State Affairs,” 196–97. Other scholars who classify the NCCW as part of the “New Right Coalition” include Conover, “The Mobilization of the New Right,” 636; and Siegel, “Text in Contest,” 310.

72. For two sources that discuss the rise of women’s organizations on the religious Right, see Critchlow, Phyllis Schlafly and Grassroots Conservatism; and Schreiber, Righting Feminism. Notably, there are no references to the NCCW in Critchlow.

Chapter 3

1. Antoinette Bosco, “What’s Really Happened to Women?,” Marriage, March 1971, 60.

2. Bosco, “What’s Really Happened?,” 60.

3. Bosco, “What’s Really Happened?,” 61–63.

4. Bosco, “What’s Really Happened?,” 59.

5. Editorial, Marriage, October 1963, 1; editorial, Marriage, May 1968, 5. These are the only years for which circulation statistics are available. Unfortunately, no papers relating to Marriage remain in the collections of Abbey Press at St. Meinrad Abbey.

6. For a discussion of Catholic practitioners in the field of psychology, and their subsequent influence on Catholic culture in the 1960s and 1970s, see Gillespie, “Psychology and American Catholicism,” 120–21. See also Nussbaum, “Profession and Faith.”

7. The 571 articles were selected for analysis on the basis of their content. First, I chose articles that took gender as their focus. In addition, I selected articles on a range of topics that might lend themselves to commentary about changing gender roles, among them sexuality, rhythm and birth control, large families, lay action, parishes, prayer, vocation, suburban life, authority and obedience, parenting, and the general subject of married life.

8. Walker, Women’s Magazines, 8–9.

9. See Kelly and Kelly, “Our Lady of Perpetual Help,” for a discussion of laywomen reshaping their identity by dropping out of devotional practices.

10. McDannell, “Catholic Domesticity,” 49; see Henold, Catholic and Feminist.

11. Casti Connubii (1930). For a helpful discussion of Casti Connubii and gender, see Kalbian, Sexing the Church.

12. Kalbian, Sexing the Church.

13. Kalbian, Sexing the Church.

14. Kalbian, Sexing the Church, 52, 97–98.

15. Rev. Richard Hopkins, “Role of Husband and Wife,” Act, April 1959, CFM 110, UNDA, 9–10.

16. Lettie Morse, “Woman’s Role in Next Year’s Program,” Act, July 1962, CFM 110, UNDA, 6–7; Dwyer-McNulty, “Moving Beyond the Home,” 88.

17. Johnson, “The Home Is a Little Church,” 114; Imbiorski, “Filling the Husband’s Need,” 34.

18. G. C. Nabors, MD, “Making Rhythm Work, pt. 1,” Marriage, June 1964, 10; J. Cain, “Valentine for a Wife,” Marriage, February 1963, 7; Mrs. Robert Jarmusch, “Town and Country Marriage,” Marriage, January 1962, 11.

19. Aurelius Boberek, OSB, “God’s Image in Woman,” Marriage, March 1962, 42–43; Augustine Rock, OP, “His Care for Her,” Marriage, May 1962, 22.

20. Sr. Mary Eva, OSB, “Femininity Can Be Taught,” Marriage, September 1964, 24–28.

21. Mary Maino, “Getting to Know You,” Marriage, September 1961, 15.

22. Richard and Margery Frisbie, “News and Notes,” Marriage, April 1961, 5.

23. C. Q. Mattingly, book review of The Flight from Woman, Marriage, December 1965, 16; Charles and Audrey Riker, “The Role of Man and Woman in Marriage,” Marriage, July 1963, 6; Karl Rahner, SJ, “Religion and the Man,” Marriage, January 1964, 6.

24. Mary Maino, “Gifts of Mind,” Marriage, June 1961, 59; Maino, “Getting to Know You.”

25. Katherine Byrne, “Happy Little Wives and Mothers,” America, January 1956, 474; Robin Worthington, “Prayers for the Reluctant Housewife,” Marriage, August 1966, 51; Anne Topatimlis, “The Motherhood Wilderness,” Marriage, May 1962, 45.

26. Marge Morton, “Motherhood . . . Bah!,” Marriage, July 1968, 65; Lucille S. Harper, “What Being Feminine Is Not,” Marriage, August 1964, 27.

27. Rosemary Lauer, “College Isn’t Wasted on a Girl,” Marriage, March 1965, 20.

28. Sidney Cornelia Callahan, “Marriage and Family in a ‘New’ Society,” Marriage, August 1965, 36.

29. Kathleen Kinahan, “Reader Reaction,” Marriage, April 1970, 72; Maureen Bond and Linda Erickson, “Reader Reaction,” Marriage, July 1972, 70; Lucille W. Martin, “Reader Reaction,” Marriage, March 1972, 69.

30. Johnson, “Taking Marriage ‘One Day at a Time,’” 19–20. For a discussion of gender and headship in the context of Catholic devotions, see Chinnici, “The Catholic Community at Prayer,” 65.

31. Griffith, God’s Daughters; Neuffer, Helen Andelin, 32. Historian Robert O. Self also demonstrates how African American women in the 1960s were encouraged—through rhetoric originating in the Johnson administration, mainstream African American women’s groups, and the black power movement—to recommit to male headship for the betterment of the black family. See Self, All in the Family, chap. 1.

32. Richard and Margery Frisbie, “Family Front,” Marriage, January 1961, 5.

33. Richard and Margery Frisbie, “Family Front,” Marriage, July 1964, 2.

34. Louise Shanahan, “A Catholic Marriage Clinic,” Marriage, December 1962, 43; Alice Waters, “My Husband, the Boss,” Marriage, February 1965, 54; Mrs. Bill Osbourne, letter to the editor, Marriage, July 1965, 69.

35. Henri J. Breault, MD, “Why Is a Father,” Marriage, September 1961, 41; Harry J. Cargas, “Examination of Conscience for Family Men,” Marriage, September 1964, 17.

36. Raban Hathorn, OSB, editorial, Marriage, May 1962; Raban Hathorn, OSB, editorial, Marriage, May 1964.

37. C. Q. Mattingly, editorial, Marriage, November 1964.

38. Mary Alice Zarella, editorial, Marriage, August 1965; Ann Ward, “What Do Women Really Want?” Marriage, November 1964, 6–12; “Reader Reaction,” Marriage, February 1965, 57.

39. Marian Tompson, “The Head of the Wife,” Marriage, June 1969, 11; Richard Brow, “What Is a Man?,” Marriage, June 1969, 13; Lester A. Kirkendall, “Is Sexual Freedom a Mirage?,” Marriage, July 1969, 58.

40. Louise Shanahan, “The Changing Husband Image,” Marriage, February 1971, 46.

41. Shanahan, “The Changing Husband Image,” 47; Louise Shanahan, “The Neuter Generation,” Marriage, October 1969, 11.

42. Louise Shanahan, “Money: His and Hers,” Marriage, November 1966, 16–20; Louise Shanahan, “Marriage: Act of Negotiating,” Marriage, January 1971, 34.

43. Louise Shanahan, “Are You Planning to Run Away?,” Marriage, June 1971, 54–57; Louise Shanahan, “Is Male Dominance a Thing of the Past?,” Marriage, August 1970, 27.

44. Mrs. Carroll A. Thomas, letter to the editor, Marriage, August 1969, 71; Suzanne L. Bacznak, letter to the editor, Marriage, October 1969, 71.

45. Iris M. Rabasca, “What’s a Mother to Do?,” Marriage, July 1967, 63; Kathryn F. Clarenbach, “Women as Second Class Citizens,” Marriage, December 1967, 34.

46. Gloria Skurzynski, “History’s Woman Haters,” Marriage, July 1971, 20–24.

47. Shanahan, “Is Male Dominance a Thing of the Past?,” 24; Ashley Montague, “Why Dominates Who?,” Marriage, June 1971, 7–8; Virginia Heffernan, letter to the editor, Marriage, November 1972, 70; Rev. John T. Catoir, “The Future of Christian Marriage,” Marriage, January 1973, 55; Arthur Ciervo, “The Career Woman in a Man’s World,” Marriage, January 1973, 48; Louise Shanahan, “The Tyranny of Love,” Marriage, January 1969, 12.

48. The open debate over working wives in Marriage in the 1960s and 1970s has precedent in the women’s magazines of the postwar period. Historian Nancy Walker argues that most women’s magazines managed to present alternatives to housewifery, usually in articles about prominent or famous working women. Walker, Women’s Magazines, 8.

49. Coontz, The Way We Never Were, 161; Blackwelder, Now Hiring, 177.

50. Frisbie and Frisbie, “Family Front” (January 1961), 5; Marie Robinson, MD, “The Mature Woman,” Marriage, February 1961, 10 (emphasis added); Mary G. Low, “I Enjoy Being a Housewife!,” Marriage, May 1965, 53–55; Nellie M. Stewart, “I Don’t Want to Be Free,” Marriage, December 1961, 24–27.

51. Coontz, The Way We Never Were, 162.

52. Mary Ann Black, “How to Untrap the Housewife,” Marriage, May 1967, 62; Doris Evans, “Working Wife: To Get a Job, or Stay at Home,” Marriage, December 1968, 62; Mrs. Patrick J. Boyle, letter to the editor, Marriage, June 1971, 4–5.

53. Marian Behan Hammer, “Danger: Working Wife!,” Marriage, August 1971, 16.

54. Alice Ogle, “7,500,000 Working Mothers,” Marriage, October 1961, 49; Marian Behan Hammer, “Should I Send My Child to a Day Nursery?,” Marriage, December 1971, 63, 65.

55. “Think It Over,” Marriage, February 1961, 25; Mary Place, letter to the editor, Marriage, August 1962, 62.

56. Hertz’s work is consistent with women in the liturgical movement who hoped to encourage laywomen to bring liturgical innovations and a sacramental mindset into the home. See Harmon, There Were Also Many Women There, 244.

57. Richard and Margery Frisbie, “Family Front,” Marriage, February 1964, 4; Solange Hertz, “Meditations While Mopping the Floor,” Marriage, July 1965, 42. Hertz’s writing did not appear in the magazine again after 1965, although she continued to publish elsewhere. By the early 1970s she had become an outspoken critic of the Second Vatican Council. Notably, she published a series of articles in the right-wing Catholic magazine Triumph in 1972 on the need for rigid gender roles. See Popowski, Rise and Fall of “Triumph,” 190.

58. Eleanor F. Culhane, “Part Time Jobs for Mothers,” Marriage, June 1962, 44 (6) 45, 49.

59. Muriel Robertson, “A Good Word for Working Wives,” Marriage, October 1964, 14; Antoinette Bosco, “Mothers without Aprons,” Marriage, February 1968, 39–40.

60. Clarenbach, “Women as Second Class Citizens,” 28, 31; Mattingly, editorial (November 1964); Bosco, “Mothers without Aprons,” 40.

61. Donna McClesky, “The ‘New Woman,’” Marriage, March 1968, 42–43; Betsy Bliss, “Book Review: What’s Happening with He and She,” Marriage, February 1971, 41.

62. Black, “How to Untrap the Housewife,” 62–63; Lorraine Collins, “What’s a Nice Place Like This Doing to a Girl Like Me?,” Marriage, March 1973, 62–63; Louise Shanahan, “Woman 1970: A Counsellor’s View,” Marriage, January 1970, 32; Catoir, “The Future of Christian Marriage,” 56.

63. Virginia Heffernan, “Expanding Woman’s Role,” Marriage, December 1971, 45.

64. Heffernan, “Expanding Woman’s Role,” 43; Joan Schaupp, “Benefits of the Working Mother,” Marriage, October 1972, 57.

65. Richard W. O’Donnell, “Suicide and the Unhappy Housewife,” Marriage, June 1970, 38–43.

66. Linda Hussmann, letter to the editor, Marriage, September 1970, 5 (emphasis in original).

67. Catholic sociologist Andrew Greeley reported in 1977 that “despite the conventional wisdom that Catholics believe a woman’s place is in the home, the overwhelming majority of all the Catholic ethnic groups approve of working wives.” I would argue that the debates that took place in Catholic magazines like Marriage probably helped foster this acceptance. Greeley, The American Catholic, 187.

68. Luise Cahill Dittrich, “To Share Is to Live,” Marriage, August 1973, 2–7. Stephanie Coontz recounts a conversation with historian Ruth Rosen about fear of housewifery among upwardly mobile women in the feminist movement. Coontz believes some readers found support for avoidance of the homemaker role in TheFeminine Mystique. See Coontz, A Strange Stirring, 133.

69. Tentler, Catholics and Contraception. My analysis in the section builds specifically on Tentler’s fifth chapter, “Rhythm, Education for Marriage, Lay Voices, 1941–1962.” For discussions of the theological debates that rocked the American Catholic community over rhythm and artificial contraception, see Kalbian, Sex, Violence, and Justice; and Massa, The American Catholic Revolution.

70. Westoff and Bumpass, “The Revolution in Birth Control Practices,” 41. By April 2011, the Guttmacher Institute published findings that 98 percent of sexually active American Catholic women had used birth control methods other than natural family planning. See Jones and Dreweke, “Countering Conventional Wisdom.”

71. C. Q. Mattingly, editorial, Marriage, November 1966. For helpful discussions of the controversy surrounding the release of Humanae Vitae, see Massa, The American Catholic Revolution; and Kalbian, Sex, Violence, and Justice. For lay involvement in the papal birth control commission, see McClory, “Turning Point.”

72. For one of the few studies of immediate post-Council, post–Humanae Vitae Catholic debates on sexuality, see Burns, “Sexuality after the Council,” an examination of lay attempts to shift the conversation, particularly on LGBT issues, in the Archdiocese of San Francisco.

73. R. Marie Griffith points out that the field of Catholic studies has often left the intersections of sexuality and gender unexplored. She attributes this to a focus in Catholic women’s history on women religious, and to a lack of gender analysis in most comprehensive histories that discuss laypeople in the larger context of American history. Griffith, “Crossing the Catholic Divide,” 85.

74. Bailey, Sex in the Heartland, 202. The direction the magazine took in these years was not inevitable, and was one choice among many for a moderate Catholic magazine. For example, there was a significant movement against the teaching of sex education in Catholic schools in the late 1960s (an early sign of Catholic entry in the emerging culture wars), something that was never even reported in Marriage. See Chinnici, “An Historian’s Creed.”

75. Jim McCartin, “‘Sex Is Holy and Mysterious’: The Vision of Early Twentieth-Century Catholic Sex Education Reformers,” prepublication manuscript; Tentler, Catholics and Contraception, 173, 199. I am indebted to Jim McCartin for his incisive comments on this section of the chapter.

76. Philip Scharper, “Person to Person: Christian Marriage Is an Eternal ‘Yes,’” Marriage, March 1966, 19; Reginald F. Trevett, “Love and Sex,” Marriage, December 1961, 14.

77. Angela Downs, “Marriage Mystery,” Marriage, April 1968, 51; Diane McCurdy, letter to the editor, Marriage, November 1965, 68 (emphasis in original).

78. Maino, “Getting to Know You,” 16, 18.

79. Downs, “Marriage Mystery,” 52.

80. Elizabeth Mulligan, “Pre-marriage Counselling: Is It Working?,” Marriage, September 1970, 66; Florence Weimrath, “Sex . . . Once Over Lightly,” Marriage, June 1963, 7.

81. Jose de Vinck and John Catoir, “How to Enjoy Your Honeymoon,” part 1, Marriage, May 1970, 40 (emphasis in original).

82. Gerhard, Desiring Revolution, 52–53. R. Marie Griffith notes that secular scholarship on the history of sexuality commonly only mentions Catholics when they stood in opposition to agents of change such as Alfred Kinsey. Marriage shows how Catholics did in fact respond to Kinsey in positive, and far more subtle, ways. See Griffith, “Crossing the Catholic Divide,” 95.

83. Beverly Bush Smith, “Starting the Day with Love,” Marriage, October 1971, 21; Virginia Heffernan, letter to the editor, Marriage, October 1971, 3.

84. Henry Sattler, C.SS.R. “Why Female?,” Marriage, May 1965, 8; Brian P. Hendley, letter to the editor, Marriage, July 1965, 68; James P. Considine, letter to the editor, Marriage, July 1970, 52.

85. Francis R. McGovern, “My Husband Is a Great Lover,” Marriage, November 1963, 27.

86. Mario Panzen, “What I Like about Making Love,” Marriage, February 1969, 14.

87. Pat Mainardi, “The Politics of Housework,” 432.

88. Marie Robinson, MD, “The Mature Woman,” Marriage, February 1961, 9. See Gerhard, Desiring Revolution, chap. 2: “By the 1940s, the vaginal orgasm became a standard through which women’s sexual impulses were deemed healthy or pathological” (52).

89. Panzen, “What I Like,” 67.

90. Susan R. O’Hara, “An Open Mind on Women’s Lib,” Marriage, June 1972, 54; Lynn Sallee, “When Your Husband Is Unemployed,” Marriage, October 1971, 35; Hammer, “Danger: Working Wife,” 12.

91. Lester A. Kirkendall, “Unfinished Business: The Double Standard, Part I,” Marriage, June 1969, 69; Cliff Yudell, “The ‘Successful’ Marriage,” Marriage, September 1971, 14.

92. Raban Hathorn, OSB, editorial, Marriage, February 1965, 2.

Chapter 4

1. Mother Mary Hennessey, RC, “Convention Address,” 1966 Convention Minutes/CDA/CUA, 162–64.

2. The Daughters do not fit easily into existing historiographic narratives of conservative women in the United States. They were sympathetic to some right-wing activism—particularly anticommunism—making them seem similar at times to the “housewife populists” described in Mothers of Conservatism, for example, but activism was never as central to their identities as Catholicism. Moreover, most studies see a steady increase in commitment to conservative ideology moving through the 1960s. The Daughters disrupt that narrative somewhat, since there appear to have been several years of reassessment in the 1960s, prompted specifically by Vatican II. See Nickerson, Mothers of Conservatism; and Kempker, Big Sister.

3. Marthaler and Clement, Catholic Daughters of the Americas, 46. See also Clement, Daughters of Isabella.

4. O’Connor, “Defenders of the Faith.”

5. Marthaler and Clement, Catholic Daughters of the Americas, 94; Clement, Daughters of Isabella, 96.

6. The fifteenth-century Spanish queen was responsible for the expulsion of Jews and Muslims from Spain. Nevertheless, the D of I organized a campaign to champion Isabella for sainthood.

7. “The Supreme Directorate,” News and Views, Spring 1958/CDA/CUA, 8; “A Close-up of the Delegation at the Cathedral,” Isabellan, October/November 1962/DI/CUA, 9; “Junior Daughters of Isabella: The Most Outstanding,” Isabellan, October/November 1961/DI/CUA, 29.

8. Francis M. Maher, “This Year of Our Lord, 1958,” News and Views, Spring 1958/CDA/CUA, 4; National Board Meeting Minutes, July 1966, folder National Board Meeting Minutes, 2/64–2/67/CDA/CUA; Convention Minutes, 1966/DI/CUA; National Regent’s Report, National Board Meeting Minutes, 1969, folder National Board Minutes, 2/68–7/70/CDA/CUA, 8.

9. Bishop Vincent Waters, “My Dear Catholic Daughters,” News and Views, Fall 1964/CDA/CUA, 10; Vincent Waters, “Sermon at Mass,” National Convention Minutes, 1962/CDA/CUA, 71; John J. Walde, “Convention Address,” Convention Minutes, 1970/CDA/CUA, 25; William G. Connare, “Junior Catholic Daughters of America—Our Responsibility,” Convention Minutes, 1964/CDA/CUA, 150.

10. Report by Bishop Bernard Flanagan, National Board Minutes, 1972, folder National Board Minutes, 2/71–7/73/CDA/CUA.

11. Colleen McDannell argues that one of the dominant characteristics in Catholic domestic life in the period from 1940 to 1960 was the idea that women needed to defend the Catholic family against threats from secular society. The CDA and D of I clearly absorbed these ideas and carried them into the 1960s. See McDannell, “Catholic Domesticity,” 49.

12. Maher, “This Year of Our Lord,” 4; “More and More Good Reading Is a Fallout Shelter against Smut,” News and Views, National Convention 1962, folder News and Views Fall 1962/CDA/CUA, 55.

13. Waters, “My Dear Catholic Daughters,” 9.

14. For more on the Marylike Crusade, see Kane et al., Gender Identities in American Catholicism. See also Dwyer-McNulty, Common Threads, 138–41.

15. Martin Stepanich, OFM, “Catholic Fashion Shows?,” News and Views, July 1965, folder News and Views July 1965/CDA/CUA, 15.

16. Lucy B. Callahan, “Storming Heaven for Vocations through All Night Prayer Vigils,” News and Views, National Convention 1962, folder News and Views 1962 Fall/CDA/CUA, 35.

17. Margaret Buckley, “Are You Growing or Standing Still?,” News and Views, Spring 1958, folder News and Views Spring 1958/CDA/CUA, 8.

18. Vincent Waters, “St. Paul’s Advice Is Recommended to Meet Challenge of the Sixties,” News and Views, National Convention 1962, folder News and Views Fall 1962/CDA/CUA, 6–7.

19. National Convention Minutes, 1962/CDA/CUA/30; National Convention Minutes, 1960/CDA/CUA, 45–47; “Saint Joseph, Universal Patron of the Vatican Ecumenical Council,” Isabellan, October/November 1961/DI/CUA, 23.

20. Waters, “Sermon at Mass,” 74.

21. Waters, “Sermon at Mass,” 74.

22. Basil Frison, CMF, “God’s Candles,” Isabellan, February 1963/DI/CUA, 18.

23. Frison, “God’s Candles,” 18.

24. Anna K. Ballard, “The Laity—A Reservoir of Catholic Strength,” News and Views, February 1963, folder News and Views 1962 Fall/CDA/CUA, 9; Margaret J. Buckley, “The Organization and the Program,” News and Views, February 1963, folder News and Views 1962 Fall/CDA/CUA, 45 (emphasis added).

25. Philomena F. Kerwin, “A Lady of the Holy Sepulchre,” News and Views, February 1964/CDA/CUA, 8.

26. Convention Minutes, 1966/DI/CUA.

27. “Junior Daughters of Isabella,” 29; National Board Minutes, 1974, folder National Board Minutes, 1/74–7/76/CDA/CUA, 9.

28. Ballard, “The Laity,” 9.

29. Bishop Augusten Frotz, “‘Aggiornamento’ Reaches the Women!,” News and Views, February 1965, folder News and Views February 1965/CDA/CUA, 2; Pope Pius VI, “On the New Liturgy,” News and Views, July 1965, folder News and Views July 1965/CDA/CUA, 23.

30. Mary Sparks, “Address,” National Convention Minutes, 1966/CDA/CUA, 162 (emphasis in original).

31. Sister Mary Luke Tobin, “Women in the Church since Vatican II,” America, November 1, 1986.

32. Philomena Kerwin, “Women at the Council,” News and Views, July 1965, folder News and Views July 1965/CDA/CUA, 26.

33. Maria Fairfax, letter to the editor, Isabellan, October/November 1961/DI/CUA, 38; Patricia P. Adams, “Talk Given at 21st Annual Congress of Religious Education—CCD,” Convention Minutes, 1966/DI/CUA, 2.

34. Connare, “Junior Catholic Daughters of America,” 150.

35. Supreme Regent’s Report, D of I Quarterly Newsletter, February 1967, folder Quarterly Newsletters, 1938–72/DI/CUA, 10; Hennessey, “Convention Address,” 164 (emphasis in original).

36. Alexis McCarthy, O.Carm., “Address,” National Convention Minutes, 1966/CDA/CUA, 81.

37. Anna K. Buckley, “Zeal for World Missions,” News and Views, National Convention 1964, folder News and Views Fall 1964/CDA/CUA, 25; Mrs. Arthur L. Zepf, “Convention Banquet Speech,” Convention Minutes, 1968/CDA/CUA, 96.

38. Joseph Beatty, “The Christian Woman,” The Isabellan, August 1963, 12/DI/CUA 5; Vincent Waters, “Sermon,” National Convention Minutes, 1966/CDA/CUA, 66.

39. Waters, “Sermon,” 1966 (emphasis added); Second Vatican Council’s “Message to the Women of the World,” December 8, 1965, quoted in Bishop Stephen A. Leven, “Votive Mass for Peace,” National Council of Catholic Women Conference Proceedings 1968, 1968/24/NCCW/CUA, 140.

40. “Message to the Women.”

41. Beatty, “The Christian Woman,” 5.

42. Rev. Hubert M. Newell, “Luncheon Address,” 1962 Convention, 1962 Convention Proceedings/CDA/CUA, 83; Waters, Sermon, 1966, 68.

43. Waters, “Sermon,” 1966, 68.

44. Lillian J. Kennedy, “This Is a Woman’s World,” Isabellan, June/July 1962/DI/CUA, 13.

45. Kennedy, “This Is a Woman’s World.”

46. Kennedy, “This Is a Woman’s World.”

47. Hennessey, “Convention Address,” 163–64.

48. Zepf, “Convention Banquet Speech,” 95–96.

49. Zepf, “Convention Banquet Speech.”

50. Adams, “Talk Given at 21st Annual Congress,” 2.

51. Bishop William Connare, excerpt of sermon, News and Views, July 1966, folder News and Views July 1966/CDA/CUA, 26.

52. Convention Minutes, 1964/CDA/CUA, 69–70; Convention Minutes, 1966/DI/CUA (emphasis in original).

53. Unfortunately, the ritual for arriving late or leaving early was not described in the archival material. It might have come in handy in my classroom.

54. “Liturgy: No Light Thing,” editorial, America, August 18, 1962; Convention Minutes, 1962/CDA/CUA, 22.

55. Mary C. Kanane, “The Liturgical Conference,” News and Views, National Convention, 1964, folder News and Views Fall 1964/CDA/CUA, 24; Helen D. Benett, “Report on 1967 National Liturgical Week,” Convention Minutes, 1968/DI/CUA.

56. National Board Minutes, March 1971, folder National Board Meeting Minutes, February 71–July 73/CDA/CUA.

57. National Board Minutes, March 1973, folder NB Min 2/71–7/73/CDA/CUA, 25–26.

58. “Our Potentials—Limitless,” Convention Minutes, 1964/CDA/CUA, 57; Connare, “Junior Catholic Daughters of America,” 151.

59. Catharine G. Lee, “Marian Medal Revision Meeting,” July 1971, Convention Minutes, 1972/DI/CUA, 54b–54i.

60. Marthaler and Clement, Catholic Daughters of the Americas, 101–2 (emphasis in original); News and Views, National Convention 1966, folder News and Views July 66/CDA/CUA, 26; Connare, “Sermon 1966 Convention,” News and Views, July 1966, folder News and Views July 66/CDA/CUA, 22.

61. Ballard, “Report of the National Regent” National Board Minutes, February 1967, 3/CDA/CUA.”

62. Ballard, “Report of the National Regent.”

63. Anna Ballard, “National Regent Stresses Role of Women in the Apostolate of the Laity Movement,” CDA News 1, no. 1 (May 1967), folder CDA News May 1976/CDA/CUA, 2–3; Marthaler and Clement, Catholic Daughters of the Americas, 98.

64. Ballard, “National Regent Stresses Role,” 100.

65. Anna Baxter, National Regent’s Report, National Board Minutes, February 1969, folder National Board Minutes, 2/68–7/70/CDA/CUA, 8–9.

66. Marthaler and Clement, Catholic Daughters of the Americas, 103; National Board Minutes, July 1973, folder National Board Minutes, 2/71–7/73/CDA/CUA; National Board Minutes, February 1974, folder National Board Minutes, 2/74–7/76/CDA/CUA.

67. Clement, Daughters of Isabella, 93; Marie Heyer, letter to the membership, Convention Proceedings, 1974/DI/CUA.

68. National Board Minutes, July 1974, folder National Board Minutes, 2/74–7/76/CDA/CUA.

69. For more on Catholics’ fears of a declining culture, and their subsequent alliance with conservative Protestants in the culture wars of the late 1970s, see Flippen, “Carter, Catholics.”

70. “The Sevenfold Program,” Around the World with the CDA, 1969, folder 1969 Prior to Share/CDA/CUA, 8; National Board Minutes, July 1969, folder National Board Minutes, 2/68–7/70/CDA/CUA.

71. John Walde, “Address,” Convention Minutes, 1968/CDA/CUA, 88–91; National Board Minutes, February 1970, folder National Board Minutes, 2/68–7/70/CDA/CUA.

72. McCarthy, “Address,” 80; Adams, “Talk Given at 21st Annual Congress,” 2.

73. Convention Minutes, 1979/DI/CUA; “The Sevenfold Program,” 6.

74. Convention Minutes, 1970/DI/CUA; Convention Minutes, 1970/DI/CUA.

75. National Directorate Meeting Minutes, February 1967, folder National Board Minutes, 2/64–2/67/CDA/CUA; “Statement of Principles,” Convention Minutes, box 11/CDA/CUA, 16.

76. Convention Minutes, 1974/DI/CUA. For more on IWY, see Olcott, International Women’s Year.

77. Walde, “Convention Address” (1970), 24; Mary Cunningham, letter to National Regent Winifred Trabeaux, March 13, 1975, folder ERA/CDA/CUA. For a thorough discussion of the politics that attracted right-leaning Catholic women in the 1970s and later, see Taranto, Kitchen Table Politics.

Epilogue

1. San Martín, “Amid Focus on Women.”

2. Statuto del Dicastero per i Laici, la Famiglia e la Vita, May 8, 2018, http://press.vatican.va/content/salastampa/it/bollettino/pubblico/2018/05/08/0329/00712.html#ing.

3. Glatz, “Pope Francis: Gender Theory Is the Problem.”

4. Chapman, “Pope Francis: Gender Theory Is an Error of the Mind.” For a scholarly reflection on the Vatican and its “war on gender,” see Case, “Seeing the Sex and Justice Landscape.”

5. Ferrone, “Francis’s Words about Women.”