I found God in myself and I loved her fiercely
— Ntozake Shange
The Catholic Women’s Network newspaper asserts the above quote literally on page 2 of issue 4, and the mantra of this quote imbibes the very being of the publication throughout its fifteen-plus year run. To dig into the complete backfile of the newspaper in the SCU Archives & Special Collections Digital Collections is to submerse oneself in a brand of feminism lost to the sands of the late 80s and 90s; a brand of feminism that empowers women’s spirituality in a broader context than simply the Catholic context; a brand of feminism that re-envisions how women fit into the Catholic hierarchy where only men can be priests; a brand of feminism that celebrates and frees up the quintessential characteristics of the state of being female, including motherhood, daughterhood, loving and nurturing one’s self and female body, and engaging in charitable acts.
One aspect of the newspapers are the repeated images of women dancing, touching, and enjoying in the fellowship of being free to express themselves together. All through the years, these uplifting, feminine images reoccur, giving all women permission to assemble and explore feminist spirituality through love of their bodies.
Alumna of SCU’s Graduate Program in Pastoral Ministries Arlene Goetze is the creator and donor of the newspaper archive, which also went by the names Catholic Women’s Connections and Network for Women’s Spirituality. It is thanks to her that the publication existed from 1988-2004, and it is thanks to her that SCU Archives & Special Collections now holds, preserves, and provides access to the archive, both as a tangible newspaper and as a digitally-accessible backfile hosted on the department’s Digital Collections.
New as the newspaper may be to Archives & Special Collections, I recently dug into it in preparation for a workshop with the class Women’s Prison Writing taught by Dr. Leuner. The Catholic Women’s Network newspaper provided primary source material for this class in two striking ways: it regularly ran two columns written by incarcerated cell mates Jeri Becker and Vonda White, and it regularly featured writing that gave voice to issues around female incarceration, such as narratives from recently paroled women and female prison chaplains. One of the outputs of the the class’s workshop in the archives was a bibliography of articles from the newspaper touching on these themes. The Women’s Prison Writing bibliography is available for anyone to view through RefWorks, a new citation management software, which is available through the University Library’s database subscriptions.
To read the personal testimonies and perspectives represented in the Catholic Women’s Network newspaper is to feel a familiar sense of home and belonging: one, because the contributors are Bay Area residents, and 2, because we are connected in our femaleness. We invite you to check out the Digital Collection, make an appointment to view the print newspapers, or check out the bibliography curated by Dr. Leuner’s students.
Header Image: Catholic Women’s Network Masthead, January / February, 1992.
It is wonderful to know that University Archives is now housing this collection from one of our Graduate Program in Pastoral Ministry alumnae. The use of it in classes, and the helpful cataloguing that those students and Archives staff have done, have made the archives that much easier to use. The Women’s Prison Writing bibliography comes at the perfect moment, as the GPPM is launching a new restorative justice curriculum in San Diego and in Oakland. Our students doing prison chaplaincy, many of whom are women, will appreciate knowing that the commitment to restorative work with women and men in prisons has long been a concern our our students and alumni. Thank you for all your work!
[…] and linked to the bibliography that we created with her while we researched. Here is Kelci’s blog post, and here is the bibliography that we made as a class, published in […]