CM Launch Articles

Catholicism and Feminism

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About twelve years ago, I gave a paper at a conference on “Women’s Health and Human Rights” at the Vatican. A highlight of the event was a special audience for the conference participants with Pope John Paul II. To the surprise and delight of his listeners, he benignly proclaimed “Io sono il Papa feminista”— “I am the feminist pope.” And Pope John Paul II meant it. He repeatedly called for the development of a “new feminism” which would honor and celebrate the “feminine genius” in all walks of life. At the same time, it is safe to say that many people don’t share the late Pope’s easy association of feminism and the papacy.

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Challenging Marriage Laws in Contemporary Shi’i Iran

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The contradictions of growing up the unveiled granddaughter of an Iranian ayatollah had not occurred to me until I was confronted in 1988 by Dr. Christian Troll, a scholar of Islam and a Jesuit priest living in India at the time. “How is it possible,” he asked, “that your grandfather did not ask you to veil?” Indeed! “Why hadn’t he?,” I wondered. What was specific to him or to Iran at that time in history that made it seem perfectly normal for him to let his daughters and granddaughters go unveiled?

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The Jesuit Role in the Emergence of a Catholic Modernity

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Near midnight, on Saturday evening, October 14, 1854, a mob of one hundred men in the small shipbuilding town of Ellsworth, Maine, attacked Fr. John Bapst, a Jesuit priest. Bapst had stopped in Ellsworth, hearing confessions for much of the day, en route to a sick call in a nearby town. Carrying lanterns and torches, the members of the mob surrounded the modest home of a Mr. Kent, an Irish immigrant, where Bapst was known to be staying. Kent at first denied that Bapst was inside. “We know he is, and we must have him,” yelled the mob.

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The Public Launch of Contending Modernities

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On Nov. 18 and 19, 2010, dozens of scholars, religious leaders, business people, and friends and alumni of Notre Dame gathered in New York for the inauguration of Contending Modernities. On Nov. 18, Rev. John Jenkins, C.S.C., president of Notre Dame, introduced the keynote speakers: Shaykh Ali Gomaa, Grand Mufti of Egypt; Jane Dammen McAuliffe, president of Bryn Mawr College; and John T. McGreevy, professor of history and dean of Notre Dame’s College of Arts and Letters. The remarks of Shaykh Ali Gomaa and Jane Dammen McAuliffe are posted below; John McGreevy’s remarks are posted above.

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Contending Complexities

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Last spring, when Scott Appleby phoned me about the launch of Contending Modernities, I was immediately intrigued. I have worked for many years in various forums of Muslim-Christian relations so I knew that Scott was proposing a project of significant scope and consequence. I am grateful to the University of Notre Dame for undertaking this initiative and hope that I can offer a few words that may prove helpful as the project progresses.

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Cheer, Cheer for Old Notre Dame

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I’m not a cheerleader for the Fighting Irish. (I certainly don’t look like one). I’m not even Roman Catholic or a Notre Dame alum. Nor am I a Muslim. I’m not “secular” either. So perhaps I’ll be forgiven for indulging in a little rah-rah for Notre Dame and its recently initiated project on Contending Modernities: Catholic, Muslim, Secular.

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“McFootball” in New York?: a Muslim Reaction to the CM Launch

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Before departing for the launch of “Contending Modernities: Catholic, Muslim, Secular,” I got another one of those random emails: “Tony Blair’s Sister-in-Law Converts to Islam,” apparently after having a spiritual experience in Iran. A few years ago, Tony Blair announced his own conversion to Catholicism. This prompted me to reflect that one never seems to hear announcements of anyone’s “conversion” to “secularism.”

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An Unlikely Conversation: a Catholic Reaction to the CM Launch

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A college president who is a Catholic and a scholar of Islam cautions that a scholarly project on Catholicism and Islam should not ignore “rapture-ready Christians,” Sufi Muslims, or Christian women who have joined the “Women Aglow” movement. A woman who converted from Catholicism to Islam while a teenager, then became a scholar of Islam and wears a head scarf to boot, criticizes modernity for attacking family and community.

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What is Contending Modernities?

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What is “Contending Modernities”? In a sentence, it’s an effort to confront the fact that the relationship between religion and modernity is a lot more complex than many people anticipated. This relationship has proven more complex in at least two ways. One largely unanticipated complexity is that religion has proven pretty resilient in the face of modernity in all its forms. Religion and secularity are surviving and thriving together, creating a vast diversity of modern ways of life.

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