MARYKNOLL, NY – A peerless spiritual writer and teacher. A leading reformer of religious life. An inspiring advocate for justice and peace. A forceful crusader for women’s rights who refused to be silenced by the Vatican. Benedictine Sister Joan Chittister is recognized around the world, admired by many and criticized by others for her outspoken and fearless attempts to address the many challenges of a post-Vatican II church.
In this intimate biography, journalist Tom Roberts reveals the interior Joan Chittister, from her childhood in Pennsylvania, to the young woman who found both refuge and purpose in her religious vocation, to the public figure whose brilliance produced a body of written work that will long stand as one of the most profound expressions of spirituality and women’s concerns of this era. Hers is a story of survival—as a child she witnessed domestic violence, as a teenager she was stricken with polio, as a novice she experienced the arbitrariness of religious superiors, and as an adult she accompanied her mother in her struggle with Alzheimer’s. Chittister’s story is also one of tremendous growth, through immersion in the Benedictine life and tradition, through and education at Notre Dame and Penn State, and her eventual involvement in leadership as the world of religious life began to radically change.
As time went on, Chittister’s activism resulted in a distancing from church authorities and an end to speaking or teaching in some US dioceses. In one of the book’s most dramatic chapters, Chittister’s insistence on examining the ban on women’s ordination became the occasion of a standoff with Vatican authorities, and an international cause celebré.
As Roberts shows, Joan Chittister’s journey, through deep discovery as well as searing disappointment, from the comfort of certainty to the unsettling abandonment to faith, provides a unique look at one extraordinary life as well as a history of the Catholic church in our time.
Joan Chittister: Her Journey from Certainty to Faith by Tom Roberts
ISBN 978-1-62698-148-5 hardcover 272pp., index, b/w photos. $28.00, Pub Date: October 13, 2015
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