Women towards Priesthood: Ministerial Politics and Feminist Praxis

This book charts the aspirations of women towards priesthood and the resistance that they have encountered. It brings together, in one place for the first time, a record of the documents and debates on this issue over the last two hundred years in the English Methodist Church, the Church of England, and the Roman Catholic Church. In a lively, yet sensitive, overview the author interprets these debates at a number of levels, and draws on sociology, history, biblical studies, theology and psychoanalysis. The patriarchalisation of ecclesiastical structures, and its subsequent theological and christological legitimation, emerges as a recurring pattern in her presentation. Dr Field-Bibb therefore offers a feminist analysis of the resistance to the ordination of women in an attempt to break down what she sees as a false consciousness propagated by subversive symbols.Jacqueline Field-Bibb is the author of 'Women towards Priesthood: Ministerial Politics and Feminist Praxis', published 1991 under ISBN 9780521392839 and ISBN 0521392837.