Resisting Orders
Catholic Sisters Contest Their Church
A rare glimpse at the feminist resistance practices of Canadian Catholic nuns against Church hierarchy.
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Catholic religious sisters in Canada occupy a complicated position as they endeavour to live out their vocations while simultaneously representing and confronting a patriarchal and colonial institution that has caused harm. For some this navigation has been painful; for others it has been impossible.
Resisting Orders brings to light these women’s untold stories of resistance against religious doctrine and societal norms that contradict their feminist and social justice convictions. Drawing on in-depth interviews with thirty-two Catholic sisters and former sisters who entered the church between 1937 and 1985, the authors reveal the ways these women have understood and strategically addressed the contradictions they faced. Resisting Orders rejects stereotypes of women religious as compliant, subservient, and rigid in their thinking, recounting instead their outspokenness and action when they challenged the church on issues including the criminalization of women’s ordination, the clerical abuse of children, reproductive injustice, and the rejection of 2SLGBTQI+ people. The authors attend to the diversity of women religious as a group, making space for their evolving, unexpected, varied perspectives and lived experiences.
Resisting Orders untangles the power and resistance of women religious, asking what it means to agitate for change from within at a time of reckoning for the Roman Catholic Church.
“This work is a novel and exceptional study of voices notably lacking in academia: religious women sharing their stories in their own words and from their own perspectives.” Margaret McGuinness, La Salle University
“Resisting Orders is the gold standard in feminist research on nuns. The authors’ women-centred methodology and remarkable material are unprecedented.” Heidi MacDonald, University of New Brunswick
“The authors let the sisters speak for themselves. They conclude with a (faint) hope that ‘those with privilege, especially men, will be inspired to this work [of reform] and seek the communion that comes from fully listening to, and actually learning to learn from, the people who resist their oppression.’” Studies in Religion
“Resisting Orders is a conscientious study, valuable in its resources and restrained in passionate storytelling, the agenda being changed from within with moderate damnation, chipping away at the clay feet of plaster saints, as opposed to Jesus the revolutionary.”