Angela Bonavoglia

Angela Bonavoglia is nationally recognized for her writing about women’s issues and Catholic Church reform.

In the wake of the 2002 priest sex abuse scandals, Bonavoglia’s article “The Church’s Tug of War,” a lead feature in The Nation, drew national attention to Catholic women’s unheralded roles as the leaders of the progressive Church reform movement in the United States.

Those amazing and courageous women are the subject of Bonavoglia's explosive new book GOOD CATHOLIC GIRLS: How Women Are Leading the Fight to Change the Church.

PRAISE FOR GOOD CATHOLIC GIRLS

--Booklist Pick:
“One of top ten women’s history books of 2005”

“These stories remain vivid for the reader long after the book is finished. They provide access to the real world of Catholic women’s lived religion, so far from the abstract, idealized woman of the papal documents...Bonavoglia’s book belongs in our classrooms and our libraries.”
Journal of American Catholic Studies

"[A]compelling account of what dedicated Catholic women are accomplishing for the church they love."
--Publishers Weekly

"These astonishingly diverse women...are representative of the breadth and variety of this progressive revolution...[Their] calls for reform...make good common and spiritual sense."
--Booklist

"Worth Reading...Bonavoglia traces the growth of Catholic feminism and church reform, and profiles nuns, women church leaders, and lay women who have and still are pushing for change."
--Chicago Tribune

"Detailed and well-documented....Takes a fresh look at the post-sexual-scandal church and finds the landscape both familiar and surprising."
Sally Cunneen
--National Catholic Reporter

"[A]thoughtful, coherent and impassioned call for answers to some of the most pressing questions facing the Catholic Church today."
--Dallas Morning News

"These good, Catholic girls embolden the vision of inclusivity and animate the very word 'Christian.' Bonavoglia deftly interprets the law of conscience articulated in the Constitution on the Church in the Modern World: 'For woman has in her heart a law written by God; to obey it is the very dignity of woman; according to it, she will be judged.' Dignity restored is what Good Catholic Girls is all about."
Peggie Thorp
--In the Vineyard, March 2005
Read full review
Voice of the Faithful

"Reading all the stories as Bonavoglia stitched them together reminded me of some of the best parts of being Catholic...Equally important...she tells the hard truths that will be critical for church renewal [and] shows the steadfast and valiant women who have already laid the foundation for those reforms. Every adult Catholic needs to read this book."
Diana Wear
--New Women, New Church

"The book is an example of the high calling of the good journalist...where writers are unafraid to insert personal conviction into sound reporting. Who, now, is to write the account of good Canadian Catholic girls?"
Rosemary Ganley
--Catholic New Times

"With Good Catholic Girls, Bonavoglia vividly demonstrates that you truly can't keep a good girl down."
Ann Farmer
www.voices-unabridged.org

To buy this book:

For links to progressive Catholic organizations featured in Good Catholic Girls, click here. (37 KB)

"AUTHOR BLASTS BISHOP ON VOTE-RELATED LETTER," SCRANTON TIMES REPORTS

SCRANTON TIMES-TRIBUNE
BY GRETCHEN M. WINTERMANTEL
STAFF WRITER
Published: Sunday, October 5, 2008 4:16 AM EDT

Bishop Joseph Martino’s letter being read at Mass throughout the diocese this weekend advising Catholics to consider the church’s stance against abortion when they vote is political use of the Eucharist, said an award-winning journalist and author.

“I’m astonished that a bishop either would not know what the Bishops’ Conference issued, or he is choosing to ignore this. Abortion is not the be-all and end-all of Catholicism,” said Angela Bonavoglia, a Scranton native who resides in Westchester, N.Y.

Ms. Bonavoglia spoke to nearly 20 people about women and their role in Catholic Church reform Saturday at Anthology New and Used Books.

She recalled coming back to Scranton for Easter in the mid-1980s after she had left the area. She was in the Communion line at St. Peter’s Cathedral when she suddenly found herself telling Bishop James C. Timlin the Church had “a long way to go to make women equal in this church.”

Ms. Bonavoglia also discussed her book “Good Catholic Girls: How Women are Leading the Fight to Change the Catholic Church,” published in 2005. The book was prompted by the child sex-abuse scandals that plagued the Catholic Church in 2002. It chronicles the role of women calling for and involved in the reform of the Catholic Church in the wake of the scandal.

Ms. Bonavoglia spoke of the priest shortage and pointed out Catholic women comprise 80 percent of the lay paid parish ministers in the Catholic church.

“There are untold millions of Catholics around the world going without Mass,” Ms. Bonavoglia said.

She spoke of women like Sister Joan Chittister, a Benedictine nun in Erie who defied the Vatican when she was ordered not to speak at an international women’s conference about the ordination of women.

The Vatican warned her of “grave penalties” and even excommunication.

Ms. Bonavoglia also spoke of Sr. Chittister’s prioress, Christine Vladimiroff, who wrote a letter refusing to forbid Sr, Chittister to speak, and of the 127 fellow nuns who signed that letter.

The Vatican backed down, Ms. Bonavoglia said.

“The hierarchy of the church is men, and men are not God,” Ms. Bonaviglia said.