Resisting Orders: Catholic Sisters Contest Their Church

Catholic religious sisters in Canada occupy a complicated position as they endeavour to live out their vocations while simultaneously representing and confronting a patriarchal and colonial institution that has caused harm. For some this navigation has been painful; for others it has been impossible. Resisting Orders brings to light these women’s untold stories of resistance against religious doctrine and societal norms that contradict their feminist and social justice convictions. Drawing on in-depth interviews with thirty-two Catholic sisters and former sisters who entered the church between 1937 and 1985, the authors reveal the ways these women have understood and strategically addressed the contradictions they faced. Resisting Orders rejects stereotypes of women religious as compliant, subservient, and rigid in their thinking, recounting instead their outspokenness and action when they challenged the church on issues including the criminalization of women’s ordination, the clerical abuse of children, reproductive injustice, and the rejection of 2SLGBTQI+ people. The authors attend to the diversity of women religious as a group, making space for their evolving, unexpected, varied perspectives and lived experiences. Resisting Orders untangles the power and resistance of women religious, asking what it means to agitate for change from within at a time of reckoning for the Roman Catholic Church.

Christine Gervais is associate professor of criminology at the University of Ottawa.