Catholic nuns in transnational mission, 1528–2015

What is it about?

From the Counter-reformation to the present women in a variety of contexts of colonisation, de-colonisation and slavery crossed the threshold from missionary congregation to missionary workforce to live in Catholic religious community. Comparative, transnational analysis provides insights from a variety of angles into the myriad local factors that fashioned their understandings of the relationship between the spiritual and material benefits so gained. Their experiences were uneven, shaped by the race, gender and status politics of each ecclesiastical and secular context, by their usefulness to the wider missionary project and the state, and by shifts in ecclesiastical rulings that were prompted by changes in the Vatican’s temporal status. In the later 20th century, some became activists and advocates, using their symbolic power to work in the interests of women and poor people, and to reform the patriarchy at the core of the church.

Featured Image

Why is it important?

Advocates of the longue durée have long proclaimed its ethical potential and its capacity to speak truth to power, a call that speaks to historians of the Catholic world where Church teachings on gender, sexuality and women’s reproductive rights continue to rebound negatively on children, women, gays and the world’s poorest people. A long history of Catholic nuns shows authorities ‘stuck in old patterns of practice and ideology’ but also ‘other options, other possibilities and alternative models’.