Jim Fulner reviewed Women and the Shaping of Catholicism by Gary Macy
Women have always been present, but there were no Dessert Mothers.
I liked it just fine. This book was a summary of a daylong conference held at St. Mary's University in Kansas. Several Historians and Theologians gave their personal papers on women's roles in the Church and how they have changed over the years.
Most of them are what you'd expect, Mary is awesome, there's lots of women saints, the patriarchal church didn't document the works of female believers as well as they did that of the men.
Some of the things were a little out there, and it became clear the round table at the end that not everyone agreed with eachother. They found evidence of women having served as the eucharistic table, that they claimed were being proof of women saying mass, even though from the documents they were quoting it sure looked like alter servers to me. They did have an example of a woman being ordained a bishop when the preceding bishop was drunk as a skunk and said the words, and those in his part of the world were like "oh well I guess it counts" and Rome continually calling out the illicit practice of her and abbesses hearing confession, yet somehow their conclusion was because it was illicit then it happened so we should do it now?
I also had never heard an objection to the phrase "Father, Son and Holy Spirit" but at least one person here did. All and all a quick read and well documented if you want to read more on the topic.
