Late into the evening of December 4th, 2018, as I sat in the basement of Boston University’s Marsh Chapel swallowing what amounted to my fifth (or sixth?) falafel, I came to one of the most liberating realizations in my Catholic life. Before explaining my great “A-ha!” moment, I will provide some more context. 

Our guest speaker for that evening’s Boston Interfaith Leadership Initiative (BILI) session was Judith Rosenbaum, Ph.D, the Executive Director of the Jewish Women’s Archive. She led a discussion about intersectionality and boundary-making in the context of faith. Intersectionality, a term coined in an essay by Professor Kimberlé Crenshaw, refers to the idea that each person’s identity is composed of numerous, overlapping elements. Some of those identities are chosen, and some are not; regardless, an intersectional framework is sensitive to the compounding positive and negative powers exerted by each attribute. For example, race, national origin, religion, socioeconomic class, health, and gender identity are simultaneously at work within someone in their interpersonal interactions. That evening in December, while I was chomping chickpea fritters, I was conscious of how my religious upbringing and my socioeconomic background privileged me in the setting. I was part of the Christian majority among the fellows in my BILI cohort, and everyone in my immediate family has at least a bachelor’s degree, a fact which enables me to enter and feel comfortable in intellectual spaces. At the same time, I was one of just three POC in the room of sixteen, and I am a woman—factors which diminish much of my power in social settings. 

Around the time I was finishing my fourth falafel, we had moved to a discussion of an excerpt from Judith Plaskow’s book, Standing Again at Sinai: Judaism from a Feminist Perspective (Harper Collins, 1991). In this passage, Plaskow explains that she has repeatedly been told to choose between being Jewish and being feminist. She writes, “in the main, however, the process of coming to write this book has been for me a gradual process of refusing the split between a Jewish and a feminist self. I am not a Jew in the synagogue and a feminist in the world. I am a Jewish feminist and a feminist Jew in every moment of my life.” I was amazed. I had felt the same kind of pressure from feminists over the last couple of years of college, and I was so grateful to have finally found this very simple answer. My feminism and my Catholicism are both a part of who I am.

This idea that women may only be loyal to feminism, broadly conceived, or to their faith tradition is one of the innumerable limitations we face because of our gender. I was trapped in this double-bind last summer while I interned on a feminist-egalitarian farm in rural Virginia. Some of my coworkers—women included—expressed their discomfort with my being Catholic, even though I was working alongside them toward the same goal: I had gone to the farm to help organize their annual end-of-summer queer celebration. My co-communards had assumed that I was homophobic and transphobic (in other words, anti-feminist) based on their assumptions about Catholicism. One woman whom I met made an awful and insensitive joke about sexual abuse after the Pennsylvania sexual abuse report came to public attention in August of 2018. It was surprising and honestly very disappointing to encounter this form of prejudice and unkindness from a group of people who pride themselves on being open to all creeds, races, sexual orientations, etc. I recount this story to demonstrate that a strong distrust of religion pervades feminist spaces, even among those who identify as the most radically inclusive.

Why should I have to choose between being Catholic and being a feminist? I refuse. I was baptized before I could walk or speak, so, therefore, Catholicism is an inherent part of me. Now that I am a young adult and have spent time in interfaith spaces, I am empowered to make personal choices and set the boundaries for my own religious identity. Being sensitive to my own intersectionality means recognizing which official or “orthodox” aspects of my religious tradition do not align with some of my other beliefs while remaining in the tradition. 

For instance, I am not in agreement with the Church’s teachings about homosexuality and gender binaries. Essentially, the “theology of the body” presents male and female as the only genders: the only acceptable coupling is male with female, such that only heterosexual couples may receive sacramental marriages and have sex (after they are married). The justification for this dogma is partly found in scripture via the story of Adam and Eve and the letters of St. Paul in the New Testament, which appear to condemn same-sex relationships by aligning same-sex relationships with the despised Roman polytheists. 

I reject these teachings, as I believe that they directly undermine the dignity of women, non-binary and transgender people, and queer people. This idea that we can somehow “love the sinner” (for example, a lesbian) but “hate their sin” (which in this instance would include extramarital sex and sex with someone of the same gender) is laughably paradoxical. To love someone is not to pass judgment on their inherent identities or unfairly restrict them from receiving the same benefits as you. Even though I am a member of the Catholic Church, I cannot now (or ever) marry a woman, although other members of the Church are afforded the privilege of a sacramental marriage.

I came to embrace a queer-friendly version of Catholicism after interacting with other Christians and with Jews and Unitarian Universalists in interfaith settings. I am so thankful that this exchange of ideas and experiences has lead me to question elements of my own religion, and I pray that the Catholic Church may change. I have met people who live a faith that welcomes people on the spectrum without judgment or restriction. I am doing the same, even if it makes me a heretic, because that is what it takes it for me to be both feminist and Catholic.