2 out of 4 stars
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Rise Catholic Women: You Hold the Key is a non-fiction book by Sarah Harding.
This book is primarily about the exclusion of women in the Catholic Church. The author is an older woman who talks about traditional Catholic values and what she was taught growing up. From this perspective, she advocates for adapting to the new age while also learning from the past. The root of all of the Catholic Church’s problems, as she sees it, is that women are kept out of the decision-making process. She gives her views and suggestions on certain matters, like allowing priests to be married without taking away their clerical status. She stresses the importance of women in leadership roles so that men and women can work together in a more balanced fashion. The ultimate goal of all of these changes is to bring more souls to salvation without so many hindrances.
The book is written in a very personable way, but the author has a tendency to inject too much of her personal life into the book in ways that seem like tangents. She references many articles and provides quotes and citations. She also uses Bible verses and excerpts from letters written by popes. There are numbered lists, statistics, and historical facts as well. One of the most interesting aspects of the book is that the author has changed her opinion over the years on a variety of topics, thanks largely to the Internet. For instance, she used to believe wholeheartedly that priests should be celibate but now has a more open mind about such matters.
The author recounts her experience of her eyes being opened by many of the texts that she references throughout the book. She felt the need to share these new insights with the world, via writing this book. She does start to jump around without it always being coherent or straightforward. The book is mostly written in the fashion of how people tend to think: one thought randomly leading to another and then another. By the end, you have a difficult time remembering what even began this train of thought in the first place.
Most of the book contains her reaction to the things she has read, how she was inspired and hopes to inspire the reader as well. I did feel at times that it became a series of advertisements to read all of these books that she has read. After a while, it seemed that the author was basically saying the same thing over and over again with a lot of unnecessary, disjointed filler. The book often strayed from the specifics of changing the Church, which are well outlined in the introduction. I expected that these topics would be thoroughly expanded on in subsequent chapters.
The book started off strong, clear, organized and gradually. However, it became hard to follow at times when the author failed to thoroughly explain her thoughts or see a topic fully through.
I rate this book 2 out of 4 stars. For the most part, it wasn’t as focused as it began and as it needed to be. I’m not Catholic, but I have always been fascinated by the topic of organized religion, both in its historical context and how it is applied in modern-day society. The execution of this book was rather disappointing, but it was informative and well intentioned. I would recommend this book to Catholic readers who are interested in the gender politics of their faith.
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Rise Catholic Women
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