Church, sex and new visions.

The Magdalene Moment: A Vision for a New Christianity Joanna Manning (Raincoast Books, 2006, 202 pp) 1551928736, $29.95

Seeking Wholeness: Women Dealing with Abuse of Power in the Catholic Church Marie Bouclin (Liturgical Press, 2006, 114 pp) 0814622402, $12.95

TWO NEW BOOKS BY CANADIAN women, different in character, tone and content, merit attention. Each contributes fresh ideas and insights to a constantly deepening grasp of women's status in the Catholic church. One concentrates on healing from adult sexual abuse; the other, on a new feminist vision.

Joanna Manning is a holy phenomenon. A leader and colleague in the progressive Canadian Catholic movement, and adept at the rapid composition of an essay on a hot issue for widely read newspapers, she also heads a household of seven refugees and students in a downtown Toronto neighborhood.

Manning has taught religion in Catholic high schools and written critical pieces on papal politics. When an essay titled "Birth Control: Vatican Roulette" was published in 1994, Manning's employer, the Toronto Catholic School Board, suspended her. Only a directive from an Ontario civil court had her reinstated. The court commented dryly, "Even a Catholic teacher has freedom of speech."

Now she speaks frequently on national media. Hers is a clear, credible voice of dissent and feminist analysis. She has written three books. Is the Pope Catholic? created a stir in 1999, Take Back the Truth appeared in 2004, and now, The Magdalene Moment proclaims, explains and hails a hopeful new time.

The work takes Manning in a new direction. She herself says her "angry books are over with." She sees a time of great hope and fertility in the churches and the world linked to the reinstatement of Mary of Magdala. More than 20 years of scholarship, including the study of non-canonical tracts found in Egypt in 1945, have demonstrated that Mary of Magdala was not the women of ill repute mentioned in the Gospels, but a primary disciple, friend of Jesus and major leader in the early church.

Taking impetus from the global popularity of Dan Brown's novel The Da Vinci Code and the film based thereon, feminist believers are now empowered to imagine a different church, differently led, differently committed, and relevant to the great global challenges of the 21st century. This time holds great promise for final freedom from patriarchy and, after that, the creation of a world that pays attention to women, children and the Earth itself.

Manning, who has never worked in academia, has expert skill at making new concepts understandable for lay readers. She is a kind of organic intellectual, and utterly unafraid.

"My dedication to Christ," she writes, "has distanced me from the hierarchy of the Roman Catholic Church. I leave the moribund institution, to help create a new vision, because spiritual renewal could tip the balance in favor of our common survival. Religion is not the only toxic force in the world but it is one of the most powerful."

Manning has challenged misogyny and the exclusion of women for many years. Now in The Magdalene Moment, she confronts the Christian bourgeoisie on the matter of wealth. If radio phone-in programs are an indicator, this is a nerve that modern Christians, especially evangelicals, do not want touched. "Jesus' Beatitudes say only, 'Blessed are the poor in spirit,'" one caller recently pleaded.

"The precepts of the religious right, Catholic as well as Protestant, run counter to my experience of God," Manning says. "False patriarchal religiosity has distanced us from the sacred."

Yet the spirit of this book is gentle. Manning no longer fights dragons with pugnacity. She clearly has discerned that the time is ripe for a Magdalene moment to "re-establish the prophetic leadership of women that was suppressed early in Christian history."

The Magdalene moment comprises sacred sexuality, a reverence for creation, economic and social reform and an authentic search for meaning. The Magdalene Moment is to be read slowly, by individuals and book clubs; perhaps, one dreams, even parish-based book clubs.

MARIE BOUCLIN'S IS A NEW VOICE, assured and insightful. Now in her mid-60s and having been ordained deacon this summer by Bishop Patricia Fresen, Bouclin is in a sense a quintessential Canadian. This work was first published in French and reflects her study in theology at the University of Sherbrooke in Quebec. As a spiritual companion and social worker, she has listened carefully to 18 abused women in the northern Ontario city of Sudbury. The women have been sexually abused by priests or have been treated badly in their employment by the Catholic hierarchy. Bouclin herself was demoted by her bishop in 1992 because she spoke out on the low status of women in the church.

Her book draws on the work of Marie Fortune, a minister of the United Church of Christ in Seattle, who has said that "sexual intercourse between a priest and a parishioner seeking pastoral help constitutes both sexual abuse and professional misconduct because the power differential between them is so great." Fortune and Bouclin agree such sexual encounter is not consensual. Elisabeth Schussler Fiorenza believes it constitutes violence against women in religion.

At the same time, Bouclin recognizes and calls "co-dependent" the acquiescence of women having affairs with priests. "The women are often devout and vulnerable," she says, "with naivete and an almost infantile perception of religion, faith, the church and priesthood."

The stories ring with authenticity and power. Healing is hard and complicated work, needing one to name what happened as abuse, breaking the silence around it with trusted others, educating oneself about clergy sexual misconduct and "listening to one's inner voice"--"You don't get over it, ever," Bouclin says.

It may be that by combining two topics, sexual liaisons between women and priests and injustice experienced by women in church employment, Bouclin has diluted the clarity of her thesis. But it remains groundbreaking material and has particular value for counselors, bishops, pastors and a wide Catholic public.

ROSEMARY GARLEY has been editor of the Catholic New Times and is a member of its governing committee. She has published countless articles on feminism, gender and Catholicism. She is active in Catholics for a Free Choice Canada.