
Women Breaking Boundaries
A Grail Journey, 1940-1995
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Through memoir, interviews, and historical overview, chronicles the evolution in the U. S. of the Grail—an organization of Catholic lay women dedicated to restoring the Christian spirit to all aspects of life.
Description
Through memoir, interviews, and historical overview, Women Breaking Boundaries chronicles the evolution in the United States of the Grail—an organization of Catholic lay women dedicated to restoring the Christian spirit to all aspects of life. Janet Kalven, who has been part of the movement since its inception in the early 1940s, traces its development through 1995.
Janet Kalven, a founding member of Grailville, is Co-chair of the Grail Women Task Force. She has published many works including With Both Eyes Open: Seeing Beyond Gender (coedited with Patricia A. Johnson).
Reviews
"The Grail story, as told by Janet Kalven, is an inspiration and an education to all who seek to create international, justice-oriented lives and communities. This book shows how 'fast women in a slow church' make all the difference. A great read about a great group!" — WATERwheel
"What is important about this book is that it documents an extraordinary movement in twentieth-century Catholicism and women's spirituality. This movement, with its roots in Europe and its strength in the U. S., reached out to women throughout the world. It was a movement of religious women who were independent, who controlled their work, their organization, and their mission. While documenting the Grail, the book also enriches our understanding of American Catholic history for many decades of this century, a history that is only now being written. " — Dana Greene, editor of Evelyn Underhill: Modern Guide to the Ancient Quest for the Holy
"This is the history of the American Grail as only Janet Kalven could have written it, whose own personal history has been so deeply interwoven with the history of this remarkable movement of American women. To read the story of the American Grail is to read much of the history of progressive Catholicism in the United States in the last fifty-five years. " — Rosemary Radford Ruether, Garrett Evangelical Theological School
"Women Breaking Boundaries is not simply an absorbing and beautifully-written account of an important global women's movement within the Catholic Church, it is also an inspiring narrative about what an originally small group of dedicated and visionary women has been able to accomplish. In this period of cynicism and demoralization, it is a strong reminder that individuals committed to social and religious change can make a difference. " — Judith Plaskow, author of Standing Again at Sinai: Judaism from a Feminist Perspective