Women, Sainthood, and Power

Oliva M. Espín is professor emerita in the Department of Women’s Studies at San Diego State University and professor emerita of psychology at the California School of Professional Psychology of Alliant International University.

In this extensively researched exploration of a selection of Catholic women saints, Espín, (emer., San Diego State Univ. and emer., Alliant International Univ.) considers how these women accepted and deviated from their specific patriarchal cultural contexts. After a chapter describing the Catholic Church's process for canonizing saints, Espín considers Joan of Arc and Catherine of Siena as political subversives. She then discusses how the hagiography of the anorexic ascetics Rose of Lima and Mariana Paredes influenced colonial South America. Following the report on Teresa of Avila and a masterful discussion of Edith Stein as mystics of political resistance, she considers the pain and psychological distress of Thérèse of Lisieux. Her reflection regarding women proclaimed Doctors of the Church—Teresa of Avila, Catherine of Siena, Thérèse of Lisieux, and Hildegard of Bingen—clearly recognizes that this honor is a pretense of equality bestowed by an institution that enforces inequality. The author concludes with brief sketches of North American women saints Frances Xavier Cabrini, Elizabeth Ann Bayley Seton, Katherine Drexel, and Kateri Tekakwitha, and she identifies Henriette Delille, Mary Elizabeth Lange, Julia Greely, and Thea Bowman as African American women for whom a “cause for canonization” has been opened. Summing Up: Recommended. General readers through graduate students.

• AcknowledgmentsPreface: A Tale about Hope, Courage, and Saints Introduction: Fire and Gas: Women Saints over Five CenturiesChapter 1: La Fabbrica dei Santi— How Politics and Culture Determine Who Is a SaintChapter 2: Political Saints and Saintly Politics: Joan of Arc and Catherine of Siena Chapter 3: “Holy Anorexics” God, Agency, Women’s Bodies and Self-Starvation in Early Colonial Spanish-America: Rose of Lima and Mariana of Quito Chapter 4: Las Santas Criollas: Rosa de Lima, Mariana de Quito, and National Identity in Colonial Spanish-America Chapter 5: Teresa of Avila: The Love of God as Source of Authority Chapter 6: Edith Stein: Paradoxes of a Jewish SaintChapter 7: Mystics of Political Resistance: Teresa of Avila’s and Edith Stein’s Visions of WomanhoodChapter 8: Pain, Loss, and Psychological Distress in Thérèse of Lisieux, The ‘Little Flower’ who wanted to be a PriestChapter 9: Doctors but not Priests- Women Doctors in the Roman Catholic Church: Teresa, Catherine, Thérèse and HildegardChapter 10: North American Saints: Cabrini, Seton, Drexel, Tekakwitha…But No Black American Saints YetConclusion: Final ThoughtsReferencesAbout the Author