Our Lady of Zion's Congregations: male dominance and women subordination within the Catholic Church

Abstract

The two congregations of Our Lady of Zion, founded in France by Théodore Ratisbonne with a ten years intermission, have a community of name and objective, as well as a most similar rule. Their development is nevertheless quite different. According to the epoch's criteria, women only could not operate the conversion of Jews. The Zion's priests are then founded to put forth a direct apostolate, but their development is quite strenuous, which begins in 1925 with a conversionist emphasis. As for the women's congregation, it moves progressively away from this charisma and consecrates itself to feminine elite education. While the sisters submit to the determinations of the Catholic hierarchy, which vows them to an indirect apostolate, the relationships between the two congregations progress harmoniously. The struggle between them takes place in the 1960's, when the sisters invest the intellectual and theoretical field, traditionally reserved for centuries to the male gender.

Gender; catholic church; congregation; charisma; intellectual field