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Female Saints: Submissive or Rebellious? Feminists in Disguise?

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 Female Saints: Submissive or Rebellious?
Feminists in Disguise?

Oliva M. Espín, Ph.D.

University of Innsbruck
March 2010

Short Abstract:
Although female saints are usually presented as submissive and unquestioning of authority, a
careful reading of their lives reveals patterns of resistance and accommodation to authority. How
do the images of female saints demonstrate perceptions of gender (and sexuality) in different
socio-historical contexts? How do these images suit the political and social climate in which they
were developed? How do the images change over time to reflect changing views of gender? How
did the church and the culture at large conceive of appropriate gender representations and
transgressions through the centuries? Finally, I will discuss the implications of these changing
representations of saints and their impact on present day gendered representations of women.

-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-
Long Abstract:
The representation of female saints through the centuries offers an opportunity to observe
cultural and historical changes in what is considered suitable images of gender. Although the
usual trite perspectives presents saints, particularly female saints, as submissive and
unquestioning of authority, a careful reading of their lives reveals a different reality. Many of
their autobiographical writings reveal patterns of both resistance and accommodation to Church
authorities. Accommodation was sometimes a matter of life and death. This was true for Teresa
of Avila, who spent her adult life under scrutiny from the Inquisition and other authorities.

In this presentation I will examine historical representations and images of several Roman
Catholic women saints through the centuries. A brief historical background of Joan of Arc, Rose
of Lima and a few other saints will be provided, including relevant points about their resistance
and accommodation to authorities and their role in the development of national identities.
Next, depictions of their lives and actions will be analyzed through a gendered lens, situating
their constructions in socio-historical context. Questions that will be addressed include: How do
the changing images of these saints demonstrate perceptions of gender (and sexuality) in
different socio-historical contexts? Why are some images of female saints feminized while others
are masculinized? How do these images suit the political and social climate in which they were
developed? How do the images change over time to reflect changing views of gender? How did
the church and the culture at large conceive of appropriate gender representations and
transgressions through the centuries? Finally, I will discuss the implications of these changing
representations of saints and their impact on present day gendered representations of women.

1
 Female Saints: Submissive or Rebellious?
Feminists in Disguise?

Oliva M. Espín, Ph.D.

University of Innsbruck
March 2010

When I was a girl of eight or nine, los Tres Reyes Magos–the Three Kings or Wise Men

who bring presents to children on January 6, the feast of the Epiphany, in many Catholic

countries–brought me a small book: ―Niños Santos‖ (―Holy Children―). I was already an avid

reader; ―Niños Santos‖ became my constant companion. Around the same time, a film on the life

of Rose of Lima, became a theater success in Latin America. ―Rosa de América,‖ a black and

white feature film, further triggered my fantasies about sainthood. I was mesmerized by

Argentinean actress Delia Garcés playing the role of Rose of Lima. Garcés was a beautiful

woman, as Rosa was supposed to have been. Her beauty made sainthood seem like an attractive

possibility. Then, when I was ten or eleven, I watched Ingrid Bergman playing the role of Joan of

Arc, and for days after I passed the time jumping on furniture carrying my banner, a broomstick

with a rag tied on one end, pretending to be Joan of Arc conquering fortresses. What I wanted

most in the world was to be a saint.

All through my childhood, I saw other films and read other stories and fairy tales.

Disney‘s Snow White was the first film I saw. But the stories of young women who had reached

the Catholic Church‘s pinnacle of sanctity, captivated my imagination with a stronger force than

fairy tale heroines. Waiting for an unknown prince to wake me up with a kiss and then marry

him to live happily ever after without doing much that would be noticed did not seem that

appealing to me.

2
 But while Joan of Arc evoked fantasies of achievement in my childish mind, Rosa had

built her sanctity through acts of self-mutilation. Imitating Rosa could mean hurting my body.

Feminist analyses of women‘s relationship to their bodies were decades in my future. I filled my

school shoes with beans, knelt on pebbles to pray whenever possible and ate foods I strongly

disliked. I even went long hours without drinking water in the Cuban heat, while dreaming about

founding a religious order named after Rose of Lima. I spent hours designing the habit my nuns

would wear, making it as beautiful as possible: white pleated chiffon, trimmed with black velvet

at the neckline, the sleeves and the waist. I guess I wanted to be a fashionable saint!

In the early nineties, when I started teaching Women‘s Studies full time I started

remembering the saints‘ of my childhood and wondering about the meaning of my favorite

saints‘ lives. Women‘s Studies scholarship recovered the stories of women‘s lives in history,

literature, anthropology. Feminist psychologists theorized women‘s emotional experiences and

psychological conflicts as healthy reactions to oppression rather than pathological responses to

individual mental health challenges. I became interested in recovering the rich and complex

legacy of these women as foremothers. My exploration is thus not only my personal quest, but

also a point of convergence in my academic career. Moreover, my fascination with saints is not

unique. Many women raised on their stories share similar fantasies evoked by these legendary

figures.

However, most of the narratives about saints, presented to little girls as role models,

portray them as compliant, obedient, self-sacrificing, faithful to the dictates of authority,

neglecting or denying the fact that their behavior frequently challenged the norms and

expectations placed on them as women. One of the puzzles one encounters when studying

women saints is how the story of their lives presents a perplexing mixture of compliance with

3
stereotypes coupled with an ability to ―use‖ or twist those same stereotypes to serve their own

needs. In one form or another, all women saints transgressed the established norms of female

virtue. By definition, had they not transgressed those established norms, they would have never

been known by those who would make them the object of their devotion. Paradoxically, their

hagiographers characterized them as examples of prescribed womanhood to encourage other

women to follow the established norms obediently, making them seem more acceptable to the

hierarchy and imitable by the faithful. But obedience is not the hallmark of their actual behavior.

The content of their disobedience was less important than the subliminal message I derived from

their behavior (1). I found that their experiences, despite the differences in historical

circumstances, were frequently close to mine. Their femaleness, like mine, presented specific

limitations and provided specific avenues to achievement.

As I searched these women‘s lives and writings, I found multiple examples of their

indomitable resolve to achieve what they believed was important. It didn‘t seem to matter that

they had rebelled against authority figures because they wanted to become cloistered nuns or

self-mutilating fiends. Their rebellion was a way to get what they wanted rather than what others

dictated, no matter how misguided I now might perceive them to be. And once I grasped and

understood their lives through the lenses of their historical and cultural contexts, these women‘s

stories made even more sense. Indeed, their ability to resist while still fitting into culturally

acceptable norms of behavior, ostensibly accepting those norms wholeheartedly, is one of their

most notable achievements.

1 Even little, quiet, unassuming Thérèse of Lisieux –the most popular female saint in the Catholic church– had
spoken to the Pope in public after a specific injunction to remain silent in his presence; she never hid her ardent
desire to become a priest even though she was female. Rosa of Lima played her confessors against each other and
pitted them against her own mother to be able to increase her bodily mortification against their will.

4
 As a psychologist, while I am interested in the developmental vicissitudes and

experiences that shaped these women‘s lives, I am also aware that the association between

pathology or immaturity and religious beliefs has been paramount in the field of psychology.

But, instead, I found that my psychology training facilitated my understanding them from a

developmental perspective that helped explain some of their decisions and the twists in their

lives which might have looked rather puzzling without the lens provided by psychology. My

appreciation of who these women were developed in a new feminist light.

Let me now give you a few concrete examples of saints' lives and writings. I will touch

on more known saints such as Teresa of Avila and Joan of Arc, and then will focus on two less

known female saints that seem to be at both ends of the spectrum of possibilities: Rose of Lima

and Edith Stein.

Teresa de Jesús (of Avila)

Perhaps no other female saint has been so important for me as Teresa of Avila. She has

also been studied by scholars from different disciplines, countries, and languages. In school we

studied her autobiography and her poetry as models of the Golden Age of Spanish literature. We

were taught about her prayer and her deep spirituality. In 1970, Pope Paul VI made Teresa the

first woman Doctor of the Church—meaning her teachings can now be considered official

teachings of the Church. I had always admired her strength and resolve. Thus, it made sense that

I started my search for new perspectives on women saints in the 1990s by reading the writings of

Teresa of Avila again.

Although it would be anachronistic to say that Teresa was a ―feminist,‖ her sharp

understanding and critical interpretation of the constraints of women‘s circumstances remain

relevant today. I began to see that Teresa was not the obedient nun described to me as a child,

5
and rediscovered in Teresa the story of a woman tenaciously struggling against Church

authorities to fulfill what she believed to be God‘s will. Her methods of prayer and meditation

are still taught and practiced all over the world, even though during her lifetime they brought her

to the attention of the dreaded Spanish Inquisition. Her efforts at providing spaces where women

could support each other and feel valuable were striking in a society and time where women

were acutely devalued and always suspect of sinfulness. The importance she attributed to

women‘s togetherness and friendship and to women‘s spiritual strengths is as relevant today as it

was in sixteenth century Spain.

I realized that some of the renunciation of human comforts that she fostered was, in fact,

a strategy for self-preservation. Indeed, sexuality of the sort encountered in marriage gave most

of her women contemporaries very little fulfillment. Moreover, the consequence of sexuality was

one pregnancy after another in rapid succession, often leading to death from childbirth at a very

early age. Teresa makes explicit comments on the topic in some of her writings. As a matter of

fact, her own mother died at the age of thirty-six after bearing nine children.

Other women saints express similar views of marriage in their writings or acted on the

basis of this premise in their lives. Catherine of Siena, for example, made her vow of virginity in

childhood, immediately after one of her older sisters died in childbirth.

Joan of Arc

What I learned from Joan of Arc was not martyrdom among flames, but her feisty attitude

and her strong belief that she had a mission to accomplish. She taught me defiance, and courage

to risk all for well-defined ideals; to get in touch with my right to be visible and known and

respected by peers and others. Joan of Arc and Catherine of Siena show that it is possible for

women to have political influence despite the discriminatory practices that may still be prevalent.

6
 Despite differences in their personal stories, both Joan and Teresa were characterized as

―masculine.― In the case of Joan, her adoption of masculine attire explains this interpretation.

Indeed, it was her refusal to renounce her male attire that eventually cost her her life. Her

decision to dress as a man—which according to her, followed a command from God—obviously

provided protection against sexual assault. But refusing to dress as a woman was considered the

ultimate proof of Joan‘s evil by her judges.

In the centuries after her death, as she was acknowledged as a saintly heroine rather than

a heretic witch in the eyes of Church and country, her attire continued to be a problematic issue.

Representations of Joan in female apparel abound in paintings. She may be holding a sword, but

she is wearing a coquettish hat and feminine clothes. Skirts and long hair were incorporated in

her depictions to make her behavior acceptable and in conformity with prevalent Church

teachings. Representing her as a compliant female served to deny her challenging of authorities

concerning the appropriate dress and role of women.

Teresa of Avila, who struggled all her life with male authorities convinced that as a

woman she did not have the right to teach, was ―masculinized― in a different way. In her case,

followers and supporters presented her as less female than other women. Not being diminished

by all the weaknesses that characterize women, she could without a doubt have the authority to

present her mystical experiences as models for others to follow. This was one of the arguments

used to foster the cause of her canonization.

There is a lot more to say about Teresa concerning her mysticism, its relationship to the

position of women in sixteenth century Spain and its almost unavoidable association with heresy

and ―illumination.― But other authors have explored these themes in relation to Teresa and

women mystics. Her rhetorical style of self-presentation as a poor little woman, while

7
simultaneously using this humble facade as a platform to expand on her ideas has also been

studied. There are also innumerable stories and literary works about Joan of Arc that look at her

short life from many different angles. Therefore, I would like to spend the rest of my time

discussing two women saints that are less known.

Before I go to Rose of Lima and Edith Stein, however, I would like to note that both Joan

and Teresa have been and are still been used for political purposes. For example, Spain‘s

Francisco Franco always travelled with a relic of Teresa‘s finger, to emphasize his special

relationship with her, implying her special protection over whatever he decided. Joan has been

the darling of conservative French politicians, from monarchic factions in the nineteenth century

to, most recently, conservative presidential candidate Le Pen, claiming that like Joan believed,

France should be only for the French, therefore justifying the rejection of immigrants.

Rose of Lima

Born in 1586, barely 50 years after the Spanish conquest of Perú, Isabel Flores de Oliva,

known to the world as Saint Rose of Lima (1586-1617) was the first canonized saint of the

Americas. Rosa‘s ancestry was partly Indian, although in the social hierarchy of colonial Lima,

she was considered ―Spanish.‖ During her short life people believed she had effected many

miracles. She was particularly revered for her care of the sick and poor and for miraculous cures

of Indians and African slaves as well as her protecting the city of Lima from earthquakes and the

attack of pirates through the power of her prayers. True or not, the populace of Lima considered

her a saint during her lifetime. The Catholic Church confirmed the popular beliefs by canonizing

her as a saint in 1671.

8
 Her contemporaries–and later the Church–thought that the extreme penances she had

performed since childhood pointed to her holiness. She slept on a bed of broken glass, pieces of

metal and rocks; walked around the garden every day carrying a heavy wooden cross; hung

herself from her hair; wore a crown of nails under her veil and a locked iron chain around her

waist… Her inventiveness for physical self-destructive behaviors seemed inexhaustible, much to

the chagrin of her mother and her confessors.

Rosa‘s life is a study in contradictions. Her parents, living under serious economic

constraints, were intent on marrying Rosa to some rich man to capitalize on her beauty. Instead,

she refused marriage adamantly, although she never became a nun. She became a Dominican

Tertiary like her most admired Catherine of Siena, remaining ―in the world‖ as a lay person. She

surrounded herself with a group of women who devoted their lives to God and she worked

embroidering and cultivating flowers to help support her family. That she opted for virginity

outside of the convent was a paradox; it challenged the expectations of her social context. Rosa‘s

refusal of both marriage and the convent, opting to become a beata, a woman living her spiritual

calling to prayer and virginity in her family‘s home gave her a special status in colonial Lima.

Although financial problems may have prevented her family from providing Rosa with the

dowry needed to enter a convent, she defended her decision not to join a convent on the basis of

divine intervention. She declared that the image of the Virgin of the Rosary in the Dominican

church she visited in Lima on her way to entering a convent would not allow her to rise from a

kneeling position. Instead, the baby Jesus in the Virgin‘s arms asked her to be his wife and

miraculously gave her a ring that said, “Rosa de mi corazón, se tú mi esposa” (―Rose of my

heart, be my wife.‖). By ―marrying God,‖ despite apparent restrictions on her sexuality, she

provided herself with the freedom to do what she wanted.

9
 Rosa appeared as virtuous and obedient while actively disobeying the authority of parents

and confessors and acting as an independent agent. She rationalized her behavior as following

the will of God. Considering the limited options available to her, she created relatively

independent strategies in her self-styled search for sanctity. Rosa had eleven confessors at some

point in her life and ―played‖ the opinions of some against others, particularly against the

opinions of her mother who begged her to discontinue her extreme self-mutilation.

But, regardless of how bizarre the behavior of Rosa or other self-mutilating medieval

saints may seem to us today, the reality is that their behavior is not so foreign to modern women

who frequently resort to ―controlling‖ their bodies through dieting, plastic surgery or other

means, which produce physical suffering, while sustaining an illusion of control over their lives.

Women ―control‖ their bodies when they feel deprived of control in other areas of life. Research

on the etiology of eating disorders and self-mutilations clearly links these practices to more or

less desperate attempts to control one‘s life (Brumberg, 1988; Vanderycken & van Deth, 1994).

In our post-modern world, women self-sacrifice and self-torture in the name of physical

attractiveness or health. In the case of Medieval and early Modern women saints, such as Rosa,

the theological interpretations of the value of expiatory prayer and self-immolation, particularly

applied to ideals of virtue and sainthood for women, provided the intellectual foundation and

rationale for their behavior (e.g., Brumberg, 1988; Maitland, 1987, Vanderycken & van Deth,

1994). Many women today engage in behaviors for the sake of aestheticism in ways similar to

what women in earlier centuries did for the sake of asceticism (Vanderycken & van Deth, 1994).

Then, as now, the search for perfection through the body is, for any woman, entangled with and

influenced by the vicissitudes of her individual history combined with sociohistorical

circumstances. Even though conscious motivations may be different in different sociohistorical

10
contexts, privatized behaviors may serve a social purpose. Rosa‘s behavior was motivated by

personal as well as the public understandings and experiences, as one would argue about some

paradoxical self-destructive behaviors in contemporary women (e.g., Davis, 1999). (2)

Considering that women‘s bodies were seen as sinful, impure, and imperfect, it is not

surprising that sanctity was equated with controlling and reducing the body. Such control was

the best demonstration of the strength of the soul. Women who aspired to sainthood showed the

power of their spirit through the mutilation or even annihilation of their bodies. By exercising

control of their bodies they subverted their ―natural destiny‖ as women and thus became almost

―non-female,‖ almost male, pure spirit (i.e., holy). Indeed, the starved and sleep-deprived body

stops menstruating (i.e., becomes de-feminized) and is prone to cognitive distortions that can be

described as visions. ―The female body, denied the sensual gratification of a healthy diet,

adequate sleep, or sexual relations, becomes itself a religious text‖ (Morgan, 1998, p.11).

Medieval historian Carolyn Bynum presents an alternative perspective to female saint‘s

extreme self-starvation. Bynum is convinced that ―real medieval women–unlike the unreal

women portrayed by the male authors of the hagiographic romances–found a new way of dealing

with body. Bynum (1987) thinks that even the most bizarre women mystics ―were not rebelling

against or torturing their flesh out of guilt [or helplessness or inability to engage in other

activities...] so much as using the possibilities of [their bodies‘] full sensual and affective range

to soar ever closer to God‖ (p.295). In fact, they ―saw in their own female bodies not only a

symbol of the humanness of both genders but also a symbol of –and a means of approach to– the

2 This alternative, however, was not unproblematic, then or now. Indeed, some of Rosa‘s penitential excesses were
seen as pathological even by her contemporaries. For example, some of Rosa‘s confessors believed that her
supposed mystical experiences may have been due to ―flaqueza” (―weakness‖), “desvanecimientos” (―dizzy
spells‖), and “melancholia” (―melancholy‖) or “vahidos de cabeza, de vapores melancólicos” (―fainting due to
melancholic vapors‖) rather than to virtue. Nonetheless, ―Rose of Lima can be an exemplar of heroic sanctity only
within a context in which her practices […] are perceived as holy and meaningful rather than as aberrations‖
(Graziano, 2004, p.8).

11
humanity of God‖ (Bynum, 1987, p.196). It is possible that Rosa, whose spirituality was deeply

influenced by the medieval piety prevalent among the Spanish conquerors and missionaries, may

have experienced her bodily penances in this way.

According to Elizabeth Petroff, ―virginity is the sine qua non of the female saint, but

virginity is associated with [...] being invisible. Visibility, then, is almost equivalent to the loss of

virginity and cannot be part of female sanctity‖ (Petroff, 1994, p.163). Yet, despite this emphasis

on invisibility as the demonstration of women‘s virtue, Rosa was rather visible in Lima during

her life and was credited with the protection of the city from external dangers by her public and

visible activities.

In a sociohistorical context in which female virtue was equated with maternity or

virginity that, above all, demanded invisibility, ―the ‗visibility‘ of the female saint [was]

dangerous‖ (1994, p.163). ―Beauty [in particular]...is a dangerous quality for a saint‖ (Petroff,

1994, p.164). Rosa, who is reputed to have been a beautiful young woman, actively struggled

against the dangers of her own beauty by cutting her hair, burning her hands, putting garlic in her

eyes, and other similar activities. The danger was sometimes rather concrete: accusations of

demonic intervention raised the possibility of being burnt at the stake. Some of Rosa‘s female

associates landed in the Inquisition jails shortly after her death (Iwasaki, 1993). Rosa herself was

examined by a tribunal of Lima‘s Holy Inquisition to ascertain the orthodoxy of her beliefs. Yet,

she was successful in using these self-mutilation gestures to mark her body as sacred, saintly.

For centuries, Church authorities claimed the Apostle Paul‘s injunctions denied Christian

women the right to teach others. Learning and teaching became dangerous activities for women.

Deprived of ―their ability to serve God and the Church via their words or evangelistic excursions,

pious women expressed their faith by means of that which they could (to some degree) control,

12
namely their bodies. [The saint‘s] body rather than her words [constitutes] the locus of spiritual

authority and exemplarity‖ (Morgan, 1998, p.11). For women aspiring to sainthood, ―the body,

specifically the female body‖ is both instrument of sanctification and problem. (Petroff, 1994,

p.163).

Considering that our knowledge of Rosa comes from interpretations of men writing what

Catherine Mooney (1999) and Elizabeth Petroff (1994) call ―hagiographic romances‖ about her,

it is next to impossible to determine what the real motivations for her extreme self-destruction

were. But what is certain is that she took it upon herself to control the destiny of her body,

including inviting death, rather than leave that control in the hands of others. She did so in the

only and rather ―contorted‖ way available to her in her specific cultural and religious context. In

this endeavor, no matter how submissive to authority she appeared to have been, she presumed to

have a life, a body, an identity apart from male authority and from cultural definitions of what

should constitute femininity. Her efforts at ―fooling‖ parents and confessors alike into allowing

her to perform ever more extreme penances, although baffling to us, show her self-determination

to pursue her own goals, perceived by her and presented to others as God‘s will. And, although it

is important to problematize this behavior (e.g., Maitland, 1987) as a manifestation of the

negative messages and limited options available to women, it is important to not simply

pathologize her behavior by looking at it from our perspective, several centuries later (as

Graziano does in his recent book, 2004).

Rosa was what Kathleen Norris calls a ―fierce holy little girl‖ (1996, p.203) intent on

reaching God in her own way, even in the face of the opposition of her family and the norms for

women in her own society. In doing so, she challenged authority and became a ―model‖ of

sainthood for women. At the same time, through her extreme behaviors, she re-inscribed the all-

13
encompassing equation of women with the body. Because she focused on her body as the

instrument of her sanctification, she underscored the importance and problematic nature of

women‘s bodies. As was to be expected, she shared her contemporaries‘ constructions of

women‘s bodies and sanctity. And, as it is true for women today, this isn‘t an either/or situation

but rather both/and: self-mutilation and self-starvation are both an effort to control personal fate,

within the context of accepted cultural values, in the face of relative powerlessness and an effort

to escape that lack of control that may end up backfiring. These behaviors become pathological

expressions of the social expectations imposed on women as they intertwine with individual

women‘s life histories. The damaging consequences of cultural norms that inspire self-

destructive behaviors in women should not remain unproblematized.

One of Rosa‘s recent biographers (Alvarez, 1992), believes that her inability to express in

any other way her solidarity with the suffering of the indígenas (the Indians), which she must

have witnessed repeatedly led to her extreme self-mutilation and self-torture. He sees Rosa‘s

extreme penances as an embodied protest against injustice–albeit the helpless protest of a woman

deprived of other means of expression–rather than some psychological deficiency or tendency to

masochism inherent in her as an individual. Yet any acknowledgement of Rosa‘s social

conscience by 17th century hagiographers would have clashed with the Spanish crown‘s interests

and thus hindered Rosa‘s canonization as a saint.

There is yet another unexplored possibility in the case of Rosa that may or may not be

applicable to her or to any other ascetic woman. I hesitate to speculate about this because of the

danger of ahistoricizing experience. On the other hand, I cannot avoid thinking as a psychologist

when confronted with these extreme cases of physical self-destruction. I am referring to the

possibility that some of these behaviors may have been a consequence of childhood physical

14
abuse. Researchers have been able to trace adult self-destructive behavior to its traumatic

childhood origins (e.g., Van der Kolk, Perry & Herman, 1991). Abused children tend to grow up

confusing love and pain and believing that one necessarily involves the other. Attempting to

control the effect of damaging experiences, they sometimes resort to self-mutilation (e.g.,

Favazza, 1996; Hyman, 1999; Strong, 1998; Walsh, & Rosen, 1988; Walsh, 2006).

We know from Rosa‘s history that she received severe physical punishment as a child

from both her mother and her grandmother (3). Needless to say, a powerful message about how

one deserves to be treated is conveyed to a child who receives multiple beatings every day

throughout childhood. Did this experience influence Rosa‘s extreme physical self-abuse? If yes,

are similar experiences responsible for the presumed asceticism of so many other women saints?

This may not be such an absurd proposition if we consider how widespread the abuse of girls and

women continues to be today. I am not affirming this unconscious link between abuse and self-

destruction was present in Rosa‘s life or the life of other women saints, I am merely asking a

question that, to my knowledge, has never been asked before.

Regardless of Rosa‘s reasons for her choices, we can see in them the social construction

of women‘s bodies and roles in early colonial Latin America and its implications for the

construction of popular culture and national communities reflected in her life. Rosa‘s life

provides a graphic example of how communities construct their saints and how saints contribute

to the creation of communities. Her role in the creation of Peruvian national identity is a

demonstration of the importance of saints. Her canonization was the first successful attempt at

acknowledging the possibility of holiness in the New World. The ―effervescence‖ of sanctity in

3 Baptized as Isabel, the name of her grandmother, her mother and an Indian servant took to calling her Rosa
because her beauty resembled the beauty of roses. During her childhood, every time she responded when called
Rosa, her grandmother beat her up, and every time she responded to the name Isabel, her mother did the same.
Since they called her by one or another name multiple times during a given day, she was beaten by one or another of
these two women every time she obediently responded to a call.

15
Perú became the best testimony of the value of the task of evangelization that the Spanish Crown

was carrying out in the Americas.

Rosa became a symbol. As symbol, her struggle for self-control was obliterated by her

hagiographers, her devout followers, and the Spanish crown. As already mentioned, her

canonization was used by the Spanish monarchy for their own purposes: she became ―proof‖ of

the benefits of the Spanish conquest of America (4). Being used by others for their own purposes

is the unavoidable destiny of anyone who becomes ―famous,‖ particularly famous members of

powerless groups. On the other hand,–and aside from whatever manipulative intent on the part of

the Crown and the Church–the fact is that Rosa was a symbol for the populace of Lima. Through

Rosa, all limeños had a ―direct line to heaven‖ and Lima was represented in the heavenly court.

The first saint of the Americas was a criolla–a person of Spanish descent born on Spanish-

American soil–and thus criollos had received a ―seal of approval‖ from God. Her canonization

process, where all sectors of limeña society were widely represented as witnesses and unified by

their commitment to her elevation to the altars, demonstrates her symbolic value and appeal in

the later construction of criollo identity (Hampe-Martínez, 1997). In the birth of colonial Lima

and criollo identity, Rosa‘s image substituted for that of the Virgen del Rosario (Our Lady of the

Rosary) who had been the symbol of the Spanish conquistadores and of Rosa‘s own Dominican

order. Perhaps only another woman could give birth to this new identity.

4 Two illustrations of this point: The Archivo de Indias in Seville holds a big stack of documents referring to all the
festivities ordered by Queen Mariana of Austria, then Regent of the Spanish throne, in 1671, to celebrate Rosa‘s
canonization all over the territories of the Spanish Empire. There are several allegorical paintings produced after her
canonization that depict Rosa holding the Eucharist in a monstrance above her head. Standing to her right side with
his sword drawn is the King of Spain whom Rosa is assisting in defending the Eucharist from the Moors standing to
her left. I am quite sure that Rosa never saw a Moor in her life but, of course, the allegory is about siding with the
Spanish Crown against the only ―enemies of the faith‖ that the unknown painter could imagine.

16
 Let me now turn to another canonized saint, almost our contemporary, completely

different in her presentation and understanding of spirituality.

Edith Stein (Teresa Benedicta of the Cross)

Edith Stein, perhaps one of the most controversial women to be canonized as a saint by

the Roman Catholic Church, was born on Yom Kippur, October 12, 1891 in Breslau (then

Germany, now Poland). She was put to death in Auschwitz, August 9, 1942.

On May 1, 1987, forty-five years after her death, Pope John Paul II, beatified Stein as a

martyr and a confessor of the Catholic Church. He canonized her on October 11, 1998. The

appellation ―confessor,‖ was based upon her exemplary life, her philosophical work on Thomas

Aquinas, and her activities on behalf of Catholic women in German-speaking countries during

the 1920s-30s. She was deemed a ―martyr‖ because her death, like her companions in the August

9 transport, was an act of Nazi retaliation, precipitated by the actions of the Catholic bishops of

The Netherlands on behalf of Jews in their country.

Edith Stein‘s beatification and, later, her canonization, have stirred considerable

controversy amongst Jews and perplexed many Catholics. If she was murdered because she was

a Jew, how can she be a martyr of the Catholic Church? Compounding the confusion is her

feminist posture, which she demonstrates in her writings on women. Why did John Paul II, with

few feminist sympathies, consider her an exemplary model–a ―confessor‖ of Catholic faith? In

fact, he bestowed upon her a unique distinction–she is the only person ever to be beatified as

both a martyr and a confessor. ―When she was canonized in 1998 she was the first Jewish-born

Christian since the days of the early church to be added to the roster of the saints‖ (Sullivan,

2004, p.18).

17
 My personal interest in her emanates from my more than forty-year interest in

self-education on Jewish history and the Shoah/Holocaust in particular. I believe that Stein‘s

story and her canonization joins with other forces compelling Catholics/Christians to take

responsibility for one of the most horrifying and shameful events of history and for all the long

list of acts of cruelty and discrimination against Jews. Additionally, her views on women were

highly influential for a segment of German-speaking women and men in the first part of the 20th

century, anticipating the feminist theology insights of the late 20th century. These two factors

fuel my interest in her life and writings.

My first encounter with Stein happened while I was working in Costa Rica (Central

America) in the early 1960s at a girls‘ high school directed by the sisters of Notre Dame de Sion,

a congregation dedicated to educating Catholics about anti-Semitism. In the school library, I

found a small pamphlet describing Stein as a philosopher of Jewish background who converted

to Catholicism before WW II and the circumstances of her death. Several decades later, in my

continued effort to learn more about the Shoah/Holocaust, I came across a book entitled The

unnecessary problem of Edith Stein (Cargas, 1994) in which several Jewish and Christian

scholars presented their position about the beatification of Stein by John Paul II in 1987. When I

encountered Stein‘s writings on women and on empathy in the early 1990s, it was a matter of

course that Edith Stein would be included in my ongoing project on women saints (5).

5 Therefore, several years ago, I set out to follow some of Stein‘s steps: I went to Poland to visit Wroclaw
(Breslau) where she was born and Auschwitz-Birkenau, where she was murdered. I visited the Cologne Carmel,
where I spent an afternoon looking at Stein‘s manuscripts–including the page she was writing when she was
arrested–and talked at length with Mother Amata Neyer, the curator of Stein‘s manuscripts with the help of Fr. John
Sullivan, a Carmelite priest, as our interpreter. Earlier that summer, in Rome, I had read the documents of her
beatification at the General House of the Discalced Carmelites. Fr. John Landy, who had facilitated my access to
these documents, learning that I was about to teach a course on women saints that would include Stein, kindly
offered to get passes for me and the students to attend the canonization ceremony. So, on October 11, 1998, I was
sitting on seventh row at St. Peter‘s square to witness and participate in Edith Stein‘s canonization ceremony with a
group of students from San Diego.

18
 Stein converted to Catholicism at the age of 30 in 1922 and eventually entered a Carmelite

convent. In contrast to many converts, she never denied her Jewish background and consistently

reminded others of it–including the nuns in her convent.

Edith Stein was the seventh and youngest child of a lumber merchant family. Her father

died suddenly of sunstroke when Edith was two. At that time, her mother assumed charge of the

family lumber business. The business prospered until the Nazi era. Thus, from a very early age,

Edith was accustomed to seeing her mother as both breadwinner and loving parent. This seems to

have convinced young Edith that women could practice all professions without ―losing their

femininity.‖ More importantly, she later interpreted her mother‘s competency to mean that God

wanted women to participate in all walks of life, a conviction that would become part of her own

life and her teaching in later years.

While still living at home, Stein entered the University of Breslau in 1911, only 10 years

after women won admission to German universities. As we shall see later, she used her

experience as a woman in academia to the benefit of many other women. After a year studying

Psychology, she decided this discipline did not offer the method for discovering the truth she so

wanted to find. While at the University of Breslau, she had begun reading the works of Edmund

Husserl. In 1913 she decided to go to Goettingen to study phenomenology under him and in

1916, she graduated summa cum laude with a thesis on the phenomenon of empathy. Stein was

only the second woman to receive a degree in philosophy from a German university.

After graduation, Stein became Husserl‘s assistant. This was an unheard of position for a

woman. Assisting Husserl, however, was not a glamorous job. In what she called her

―philosophical kindergarten,‖ she prepared incoming students for his lectures. She also

19
deciphered and prepared his manuscripts, which were written in a confusing and disorganized

manner, for publication. She tolerated his mood changes and arbitrary commands.

After a frustrating year and a half, in which Husserl paid little attention to her reviews and

comments on his manuscripts and she accomplished little of her own work, she decided to apply

for habilitation in another university. Husserl refused to recommend her; ―on principle‖ he

rejected the idea. When he finally wrote a letter of recommendation full of praise for her, it was

too late. The male faculty members in other German universities were not inclined to accept

women in their midst. Many were reluctant to welcome another Jew. The thesis she had written

to apply for habilitation was returned unread.

Stein protested formally against this action, even though she realized her protest would not

make any difference in her case. On December 12, 1919 she wrote the Ministry of Science, Art

and Education protesting prevalent practices. Several months later, the Minister ruled that

―belonging to the female sex may not be seen as any hindrance to obtaining habilitation‖

(Koeppel, 1990, p.63). In a 1987 article written to commemorate Fifty Years of Habilitation of

Women in Germany, (Elizabeth Boedeker & Maria Meyer-Platt;cited in McAlister, 1989), Stein

is given credit for initiating the challenge to the exclusionary rules with her protest. Stein‘s

courage as a pioneer woman in academia determined the fate of many other women who

benefited from the official changes initiated as a consequence of her action. The effects of her

protest against unjust sexist discrimination are still felt.

Other events were developing in her life simultaneously. The phenomenologists in Stein‘s

circle, many of them agnostic Jews, had been actively seeking an understanding of ―the

phenomenon of religion.‖ Eventually, many of them converted to Christianity in the course of

their philosophical explorations. In the summer of 1921, she found herself at a significant

20
spiritual crossroads. She had, by chance, picked-up Teresa of Avila‘s autobiography from a

friend's library shelf. After reading it throughout the night, she became convinced that this was,

in her words, ―the truth.‖ Significantly, Teresa‘s Jewish background was unknown until several

years after Stein‘s death. But I wonder if it was not the tone of Teresa‘s writing, as a woman of

Jewish ancestry, which touched a deep chord in Stein‘s heart in ways that other, purely

intellectual arguments could not.

Edith Stein was baptized and officially became Catholic on January 1, 1922. Some Jewish

women authors think, as I do, that ―it seems hardly a coincidence that the book that decisively

turned Stein toward faith was written by a woman."

After her conversion, Stein had continued her job search but, unable to find a position as a

philosopher at a university, she took employment at a Catholic girls‘ high-school and teachers‘

college in Speyer, teaching German literature. During her eight years at Speyer, Stein became

very interested in the education of women. She began writing and lecturing on women‘s issues

and developed a reputation as a prominent Catholic feminist. Her writings about women date

from these years. Stein‘s feminist writing and her theorizing concerning the education of girls

and the importance of women in national life have been given little attention amidst the

controversy surrounding her canonization. Many of her writings in this area, actively

contradicted the Nazi government policies concerning women. They also challenge some present

day teachings of the Catholic Church, including the ban on the ordination of women.

Stein had been an active feminist, concerned with women‘s suffrage and rights in her

youth. As a university student, she was a member of the Prussian Society for Women‘s Right to

Vote. She obviously believed that women were capable of intellectual achievement and deserved

equal rights, as demonstrated by her writings, life, and actions. Although later in her life she did

21
not apply the label ―feminist‖ to herself as readily as she had done in her youth, her behavior and

her writing demonstrate a deep commitment to feminist ideals all through her life.

Her perspectives on women‘s psychology predates and echoes many late 20th century

feminist psychological theories. Today, her views may be considered too conservative,

particularly because of her strong essentialism. She believed women had innate characteristics

that enabled them to perform specific roles. However, if we take into consideration the language

of the times–and her philosophical background–I find that her perspectives are not that different

from those of some present day feminists (6). Some of Stein‘s ideas concerning women are

worth citing extensively because of their uniqueness among saints‘ writings. For example,

discussing what she considers the ―essence‖ and ―nature‖ of women, she describes as

a quality unique to woman [...] her singular sensitivity to moral values and an

abhorrence for all which is low and mean; this quality protects her against the

dangers of seduction and of total surrender to sensuality (Stein, 1996, p.78).

For Stein, essential differences between men and women are never to be construed as proof of

women‘s inferiority but rather as a sign of women‘s unique value and of their God-given role as

educators of humankind. Stein presents this morally superior position of women as a statement

of women‘s responsibility to use these capabilities to combat evil. Stein firmly believed ―that

woman has a mission in society as well as in the home‖ (Oben, 1988, p.55). Nonetheless, she

rejected all idealizations of women, particularly those that could be used to exclude women from

active participation in their chosen profession or from involvement in national political life.

6 Similar perspectives are represented in psychology by the works of the Stone Center for Developmental
Studies at Wellesley College in Massachusetts and other feminist psychologists who, like Stein, believe that women
more capable of intimacy and caring than men (e.g., Jordan, 1991).

22
 In a discussion that contains a very current feminist tone, Stein supports this argument

while recognizing the differentiation within the sexes. She asks the rhetorical question:

Should certain positions be reserved for only men, others for only women, and

perhaps a few open for both? I believe that this question also must be answered

negatively.[...] Many women have masculine characteristics just as many men share

feminine ones. Consequently, every so-called ―masculine‖ occupation may be

exercised by many women as well as many ―feminine‖ occupations by certain men

(Stein, 1996, p.81).

She strongly supported this conviction on a broader scale, in that ―no legal barriers of any

kind should exist‖ which would prevent a ―natural choice of vocation‖ (Stein, 1996, p.81) for

either women or men (7) and decried idealizations that can have destructive consequences for

women,

Sporadically, there are Romanticists who idealize women, painting them in delicate

colors against a gold background, who would like to shield woman as much as they

could from the hard facts of life. Curiously, this romantic view is connected to that

brutal attitude which considers woman merely from the biological point of view;

indeed, this is the attitude that characterizes the political group now in power. Gains

won during the last decades are being wiped out because of this Romanticist

7 The following quotes from the many lectures on women‘s issues she presented in the 1920s-30s serve to
illustrate her positions. Many of these statements have a contemporary ―ring‖ to them: ―Until a few decades
ago, public opinion concurred that woman belongs in the home and is of no value for anything
else; consequently, it was at the cost of a weary and difficult struggle that woman‘s too narrow
sphere of activity could be expanded [...] There is still a multitude of thoughtless people satisfied
with expressions concerning the weaker sex or even the fair sex. They are incapable of speaking
about this weaker sex without a sympathetic or often a cynical smile as well. They do this
without ever reflecting more profoundly on the nature of the working woman or trying to
become familiar with already existing feminine achievements."
23
 ideology, the use of women to bear babies of Aryan stock, and the present economic

situation. (Stein, 1932/1996, p.144). [Emphasis mine]

Positions that emphasized biologism were abhorrent to her. From her perspective,

―[v]iolence is being done to the spirit by a biological misinterpretation and by today‘s economic

trend‖ (Stein, 1932/1996, p.144). It is important that we appreciate her assertions actively

contradicted the doctrines of the rising Nazi party on women and their exclusive

biological/reproductive mission. This statement was part of one of her last public lectures on the

relationship of women to national life and to international politics during a time of intense Nazi

propaganda designed to keep women at home and away from public life. Coming from a woman

of Jewish descent in those perilous times, her statements impress as doubly courageous. Stein

presented her views publicly, intending to address directly the Nazi positions to prevent

Catholics from being seduced by these doctrines that threatened the achievements of the

women‘s movement (8).

Stein was adamant about the importance of education; she suggests that one way to counter

the beliefs imposed by the Nazi party was through teaching. By giving girls the necessary skills,

an uninspired, traditional life would not have to be their only option (9).

8 According to Stein, the political trends she was witnessing in Germany could be dangerous for the incipient
women‘s movement. Because the women‘s movement could be threatening to the increasingly powerful Nazi party,
the hard-won changes could be lost before being given a chance to solidify. She warned that even though ―we have
today such an extensive system of vocational training [for women] and of professional life that we can scarcely
imagine retrenchment, [...] we must realize that we are at the beginning of a great cultural upheaval; at this early
stage we must expect to suffer what we might call ―childhood diseases‖ and make every effort to overcome them.
There is still essentially basic work to be done― (Stein, 1932/1996, pp. 139-140). At this historical junction, more
than ever, Stein asserts, ―Women need basic political and social preparation for civic responsibilities; however, this
is true not only for women but for the entire German nation which entered into a democratic form of government
while still immature and unfitted for it. And we need special methods to prepare for government service in posts
open to women. All this would come about if we had years of peaceful development before us. Naturally, we cannot
foresee how conditions will be formed after a forcible break with the organic development― (Stein, 1932/1996,
p.147).

9 She states that ―an essential part of the educational process is the activation of one‘s practical and creative
capacities. And practical abilities in life are required of the majority of women. Only if we allowed them to already

24
 When Stein turned her attention to the role of women in the Catholic Church, her opinion
was equally forceful. Although she accepted the authority of the Church‘s traditions concerning

women, she differentiates ―between the attitude expressed in dogma, in canon law, and by the

hierarchy of the Church and that taken by Our Lord Himself.‖ She asserts that although some

people ―interpret certain remarks of priests concerning women‘s vocation as binding dogma of

the church,‖ this is not so because ―we do not have a precisely defined dogma ex cathedra on the

vocation of woman and her place in the Church‖ (Stein, 1932/1996, p.147) (10).

Stein continued to differentiate between dogma, patriarchal interpretations, and the actual

text of the Bible. For example, she gives an interpretation of the story of creation in Genesis,
refuting the traditional (male) reading that has historically been used to justify the subservient

position of women. She uses this text of the Bible to explore the assumptions made so readily

about the superiority of man, made in the image of God, and the inferiority of woman as the

punished temptress. She points out that they were both created in the same light, given mutual

responsibility together. Indeed, Stein believes that we must all follow in the footsteps of Christ

and in his image. ―Whether man or woman, whether consecrated or not, each one is called to the

imitation of Christ‖ (Stein, 1996, p.84). She believes that the Church needs womanpower, and

strongly asserts that the call to work for the transformation of the world was issued to both man

and woman (Oben, 1988, p.56). These interpretations echo the work of feminist theologians both

past and present.

act during the time of schooling will we rear practical, able, energetic, determined, self-sacrificing women― (1996,
p.137). Her use of the word ―act‖ emphasizes the practical involvement necessary in the education of girls. Stein
encouraged women to ―an intensified participation... in girls‘ education on the principle that authentic women can be
formed only by women‖ (p.155). Because ―...only women and, indeed, only adequately prepared women are able to
educate young girls, which requires theoretical foundation as well as practical application, this is specifically a
feminine responsibility‖ (p. 172).

10 In her words, although ―no doubt there have been utterances in the patriarchal vein stating that woman‘s activity
outside of the home is out of the question and the man‘s tutelage of woman is necessary in all domains. Although
there are still advocates of this opinion, it is by no means universally true. And, on the other hand, we must
emphasize that straightforward, farsighted theologians were part of the very first group who set out to examine
impartially the claims of the liberal feminist movement; they evaluated its compatibility with the entire Catholic
philosophy of life; and, in doing so, many of them became the pioneers of the Catholic Women‘s Movement―
(Stein,1932/1987, p.148).

25
 Yet, Stein‘s writing can often be viewed as a negotiation between her own feminist beliefs

and the teachings of the Church. Most often she takes a strong stance, as in her insistence that

there is no theological reason that women should not become priests, or in her convictions about

women education. At other times her ambiguous or almost contradictory statements become

confusing. Perhaps, the balance between her beliefs becomes difficult to maintain. Or perhaps

she uses seemingly contradictory statements as a way of presenting her position without

appearing to oppose Church teachings. Stein recognizes that,

in present canon law, equality between man and woman is doubtlessly out of the

question inasmuch as she is excluded from all liturgical functions [that require

ordination into the priesthood. However,] the legal status of women in the Church

and their present position have deteriorated in comparison to the early years when

women had official duties as consecrated deaconesses. The fact that a gradual

change took place indicates the possibility of development in an opposite direction.

(Stein, 1932/1987, p.148) [Emphasis mine].

This faith in the possibility of change in the Church reflects the basic feminist tenet of the

possibility of social change. Stein‘s feminism is evident in her struggle to understand and shape

the place of women in the Church as well as in the larger society. Knowing that the possibility

for change exists, provides her with the hope for the effort to continue. Thus, she could not see

any theological reason why women should not be ordained to the priesthood in the future since

she believed the status of women in the Catholic Church could be transformed. However, she

realistically did not anticipate rapid change and proceeded to accept the present status on the

basis of historical precedence (11).

11 In summary, for Stein, ―The goals of the Catholic Women‘s Movement have much in common with the
non-Catholic feminist movement and are indebted to it for valuable preparatory work: the opening up of educational

26
 Some of Stein‘s Catholic biographers (e.g. Graef, 1955) have some difficulty explaining

away her insistence that there is no theological reason against the ordination of women as priests.

And, it is puzzling that during her beatification and canonization processes the Vatican

authorities chose to ignore her statements about women‘s ordination at almost the same time they

were forbidding discussion on this topic in the Church at large because they considered dogmatic

the exclusion of women from ordination and, therefore, closed.

Stein remained in her teaching position at St. Magdalena College in Speyer until 1932.

After another failed attempt at obtaining a professorship teaching Philosophy at a state

University, and because of her prominence in the Catholic Women‘s Movement, she was offered

a new position at the Institute for Scientific Pedagogy in Munster–a teacher training, higher

education institution. In Munster she lived at the Collegium Marianum, a residence that housed

some faculty and students of the Institute.

While she was working at this institution, on an evening in early 1933, a casual

acquaintance, unaware of her Jewish ancestry, talked about the anti-Jewish measures instituted

by the Third Reich. Hitler had been elected Reich Chancellor in January of that year. Years later,

as she was about to flee Germany for Holland, Stein recalled this significant life moment:

I had indeed already heard of severe measures being taken against the Jews. But

now on a sudden it was luminously clear to me that once again God‘s hand lay

heavy on His people, and the destiny of this people was my own (Stein, 1938, The

Road to Carmel, cited in Poselt, 1952, p.117). (12)

opportunities and gainful employment in the economic field for women; the establishment of jobs in the legal,
political and social fields; also in the value placed on marriage and motherhood, the Catholic Women‘s Movement is
in agreement with the moderate elements of the feminist movement― (1932/1996, p.159).

12 Compelled to action, she requested an audience with Pope Pius XI. She hoped she could convince him to
condemn Nazism. After all, she was well known amongst Catholics for her translations and interpretation of St.
Thomas Aquinas‘s philosophy and her participation in the Catholic German Women‘s Movement. Because of her

27
 Shortly after, she was asked by the Director of the Pedagogical Institute to stop lecturing

because she was a Jew. Supposedly, she was to stay in the Marianum doing research, with the

restriction that she could not meet her classes. By the end of the academic year she was informed

that her contract would not be renewed. In one of her many statements of identification with the

Jewish people, she wrote in reaction to this news:

I was almost relieved to find myself now involved in the common fate of my people, but I

had of course to consider what I was to do (Stein, 1938, The Road to Carmel, in Poselt,

1952, p.117).

And what she decided after her dismissal was that the time had come to honor her greatest desire,

born after reading the autobiography of Teresa of Avila and her conversion to Catholicism

twelve years earlier: enter a Carmelite monastery.

Many in Stein‘s family were actively seeking emigration to escape Nazi persecution. All of

them agonized over the situation, anticipating the worst possible fate. They could not understand

her decision to join the Carmelites at that explosive juncture. Her entry into a convent must have

felt like an act of treachery, particularly in that historical moment of such extreme Jewish

vulnerability (13).

prominence she had expected that her request would be accepted. It was, but not for a private audience. She could
have participated in a semi-private audience with several others. She was disappointed, as a semi-private audience
would not provide her with the opportunity to present her views in adequate detail. She rejected the offer and
decided instead to send a sealed letter to the Pope in Summer 1933. In her words, ―through my inquiries in Rome I
ascertained that, because of the tremendous crowds, I would have no chance for a private audience. At best I might
be admitted to a ‗semi-private audience,‘ i.e. an audience in a small group. That did not serve my purpose. I
abandoned my travel plans and instead presented my request in writing.‖ (Batzdorff, 1990, p.17). Abbot Walzer,
Superior of the Benedictines in Germany, and Stein‘s spiritual director, hand-delivered the letter. The Pope sent her
his spiritual blessing rather than respond to the content of the letter.

13 It deepened the wound she had inflicted with her conversion and baptism. Her niece, Susanne (Biberstein)
Batzdorff, who was 12 at the time of Stein‘s entry in the convent, remembers asking her aunt, ―Why are you doing
this now?‖ To which her Tante Edith answered, ―What I am doing does not mean that I want to leave my people and
my family... And don‘t think that my being in a convent is going to keep me immune from what is happening in the

28
 By 1938, the persecution of the Jews was intensifying. Stein‘s continued presence in

Germany became dangerous both to her own safety as well for the other nuns in the convent. Her

superiors decided to send her to the Carmel in Echt, Holland in December of that year. Like

other German Jews who crossed the border into the Netherlands (probably the most famous

Anna Frank and her family), Stein hoped for safety. But this move was not to protect her like she

had expected because the Nazis were to cross that border themselves to invade the Netherlands

in a few years.

Shortly after the Germans invaded the Netherlands on May 10, 1940, the Christian

churches in that country began protesting the deportation of Jews. The Nazi authorities offered

the Dutch churches a bargain: if Church authorities agreed to keep silent about the deportation of

Jews they would guarantee the protection and exemption from deportation for converted Jews.

The bishops of the Roman Catholic Church, however, refused to comply. On Sunday, July 26,

1942, priests read in all Catholic churches a pastoral letter from the bishops condemning the

deportation of the Jews (14).

The Nazi authorities in the Netherlands were outraged at what they saw as audacity on the

part of the Catholic bishops. In retaliation, euphemistically, they ―refused to guarantee the safety

of Catholic Jews‖ (Poselt, 1952, p.204). On August 2, all non-Aryan members of religious

world ‖ (Batzdorff, 1994, p.37). Prophetic words.

14 A part of the letter read as follows: ―All of us are living through a period of great distress, both from a
spiritual and from a material standpoint. But there are two sets of people whose distress is deeper than that of others,
the distress of the Jews and the distress of those who are deported to work abroad. Such distress is the concern of us
all; and it is the purpose of this pastoral to bring it before your minds [...] The following telegram in favor of the
Jews and others was dispatched on Saturday the 11th of July: ―The undersigned religious organizations of the
Netherlands, deeply shaken by the measures against the Jews which have excluded them from the normal life of the
people, have learnt with terror of the later regulations by which men, women, children and whole families are to be
deported to the territory of the German Reich. The suffering which has been imposed on thousands of people, the
awareness that these regulations offend the deepest moral convictions of the Netherlands people, and above all, the
denial in these regulations of God‘s precepts of justice and mercy, forces the undersigned religious organizations to
request most urgently that these regulations shall not be carried out...‖ (cited in Poselt, 1952, p. 203).

29
communities were arrested. Edith Stein and her sister Rosa were among them. They were first

taken to Amesfoort Camp; then they were transferred to Westerbork and later to Auschwitz,

arriving there on August 9 where they were gassed upon arrival.

One of the primary paradoxes surrounding Edith Stein, one of the places where she stands

at the cross-road of established lines, was her death. She was murdered as a direct consequence

of one of the few official actions of the Catholic hierarchy to protect the Jews from Nazi

persecution (15).

Edith Stein converted out of conviction rather than convenience. Perhaps that is why she

never rejected her Jewish roots (16). During her stay in Breslau in the summer of 1933,

immediately before her entry into Carmel, Stein began writing her autobiography, Life in a

Jewish Family. She continued writing during her years in the convent. As she stated in the

foreword, the book constitutes a response to ―the horrendous caricature‖ of Jews that emerged

from ―the programmed writings and speeches of the new dictators.‖ Her purpose in writing this

book is to counteract ―the battle on Judaism‖ launched by the Nazis (17).

15 I am not ―heroizicing‖ this action of the Dutch bishops, particularly in light of its tragic, unanticipated
consequences. My intention is to highlight that this small act of resistance of the Church hierarchy provoked the
Nazis into deadly retaliation and Stein‘s life was lost. It is possible that her murder was unavoidable since the Nazis
were bent on Jewish destruction. However, historical evidence tells us that while many Dutch Jews who had
converted to Lutheranism (approximately 9,000) were not deported, practically all Catholic Jews in the Netherlands
lost their lives, including many nuns and priests.

16 She did not perceive any real opposition between the two religions. In fact, she saw them as a complementary
whole. In the words of Shoah/Holocaust scholar Rachel Felhay Brenner (1994), ―It appears that Stein‘s Jewishness
played a crucial role in her Christian life. Her determination to assert her Jewish identity at the time of the Nazi
terror emerges, paradoxically, as the validation of the vision of redemption that she strove to find in the Church.
Stein‘s Weltanschauung thus denotes a convergence of religious identities, rather than the conversion from one
identity into another: she seems to find no contradiction claiming her part in Jesus, and at the same time, asserting
her ties to the Jewish people (p. 258).

17 In her introduction to this book she tells us, ―Repeatedly, in these past months, I have had to recall a discussion I
had several years ago with a priest[…]. In that discussion I was urged to write down what I, child of a Jewish family,
had learned about the Jewish people since such knowledge is so rarely found in outsiders. […] Last March, when
our [government] opened the battle on Judaism in Germany, I was again reminded of it. [There are] persons, [who]
having associated with Jewish families as employees, neighbors or fellow students, have found in them such
goodness of heart, understanding, warm empathy, and so consistently helpful an attitude that, now, their sense of

30
 She left the unfinished manuscript in Germany when she crossed the border into The

Netherlands because its discovery would have endangered her safe passage. A few months later a

volunteer transported it. In Holland, she continued developing her manuscript and finished the

last chapter during the last months of her life (18). Interestingly, in her autobiography Stein

omits all references to her subsequent conversion and vocation as a nun, but rather ends with her

doctoral dissertation and makes no reference to the circumstances of her later life. In a footnote,

she places her autobiographical undertaking in the context of the memoirs of other Jewish

women such as Glueckel von Hameln and Pauline Wengeroff, rather than refer to the many

Christian women autobiographers who had preceded her, most notably, her fellow Carmelites

Thérèse of Lisieux and Teresa of Avila, whose autobiography had played such a significant role

in Stein‘s final decision to convert to Catholicism.

Some biographers believe that the manuscript was interrupted and left incomplete by her

arrest (for example, Koeppel, who is the translator of this document into English, in her

introduction to Stein, 1986). Others, however, believe that the omission was done consciously.

These scholars believe the silence about her later life was motivated by ―an awareness that under

the circumstances of Nazi anti-Jewish persecution the story of a conversion would not help to

promote the cause of racial tolerance‖ (Brenner, 1994, p. 264). I tend to agree with this latter

view because even if she did not have time to write about her later life, she could have made

reference to her adult activities and convictions while writing of her earlier life. In fact, many

justice is outraged by the condemnation of this people to a pariah‘s existence. But many others lack this kind of
experience. The opportunity to attain it has been denied primarily to the young who, these days, are being reared in
racial hatred from earliest childhood. To all who have been thus deprived, we who grew up in Judaism have an
obligation to give our testimony“ [Emphasis mine] (Stein, 1986, p.23).

18 At this time, she was also writing a study on the theology on St. John of the Cross that was interrupted by her
arrest (Stein, 1994). In her years in the convent Stein had also continued writing philosophy Her most important
book, Finite and Eternal Being, was not published during her lifetime because of the Nazi prohibition against
publications by Jewish authors and her refusal to publish under a false non-Jewish name.

31
autobiographies rewrite the events of early life in light of future events. But there is nothing of

the sort in Stein‘s Life in a Jewish Family (19). (20).

Stein‘s sense of commitment to her people was unshaken by Christian prejudices. As a

psychologist, I can only guess at her pain and internal conflict as she struggled with her two

identities and loyalties and lived with the negative reactions and suspicion of both Jews and

Catholics who surrounded her. To feel Jewish and yet feel Catholic, at her particular junction in

history, was by no means an easy task (21). (22).

19 I concur with Brenner that this self-imposed silence was most probably a conscious choice. ―Her decision to
write about her Jewish life at that particular historical moment communicates a moral attitude which, at the time of
moral disintegration dismisses not only religious differences, but also the risk of personal danger‖ (Brenner, 1994,
p.89).

20 The circumstances surrounding Stein‘s arrest were the basis for the Catholic Church‘s beatification of her as a
martyr. The Roman Catholic Church has never issued a dogmatic definition of martyrdom. However, there is a
model of what is recognized as the yardstick of martyrdom. A martyr is an innocent person who dies at the hands of
a tyrant in defense of his or her faith. It is the martyr‘s fidelity to his or her faith that ―provokes the tyrant‖ into
executing him or her (Woodward, 1996, p. 129). Although Stein did not herself ―provoke the tyrant‖ (a condition to
be considered a martyr) her arrest and death were a consequence of the action of the Dutch bishops.
In many cases, martyrdom has been a historically political act because it involves a refusal to bow to the authority of
the tyrant over the martyred person. Since the beginning of Christianity, those considered ―tyrants‖ were non-
Christians who persecuted Christians for their faith. The term was developed during Roman persecutions of
Christians. It comes from the Greek word for ―witness.‖ Earlier Christian saints were martyrs of the Roman Empire.
The Nazis, with their pretense of Christianity, as well as, say, the death squads in El Salvador or Guatemala,
uniquely challenge the Catholic Church‘s definition of who is a tyrant and who is a martyr.The Vatican
Congregation for the Causes of Saints, encouraged by the Pope John Paul II‘s decision to beatify and canonize Stein
and others, is extending this transformation of the concept of martyrdom to include under the definition of ―tyrants‖
other right-wing dictators who hide under a pretense of Christianity. Several beatifications and canonizations have
been test cases for this new understanding. In addition to Edith Stein, these include: Titus Brandsma, a Carmelite
from Holland, killed in Dachau for encouraging the Dutch Catholic Press to resist Nazi propaganda; Maximilian
Kolbe, the Polish Franciscan who died in Auschwitz after offering his life for the life of another prisoner who had
been condemned to starve to death; Rupert Mayer, a Jesuit from Munich, and others. Among them, Stein is the only
woman and the only Jew. In the process of their beatifications and canonizations, the Pope made an important point
about the definitions of tyrants and martyrdom, and opened the door for the future canonization of others in which
he may have been less interested, such as Archbishop Romero and the six Jesuits priests and their housekeepers, all
murdered by Salvadoran right-wing death squads. Clearly, John Paul ―used‖ the lives of those he beatified and
canonized to make deliberate theological statements as well as statements about world history and politics.
21 Catholic theological perspectives on Judaism during Stein‘s life were rather anti-Semitic. Not only did they foster
negative stereotypes (Ruether, 1981; 1982) but definitely lacked insight into the special vocation of the Jewish
people later developed by Vatican Council II in the 1960s. There is no doubt that anti-Semitic theological
perspectives were to blame for the success of the Nazi anti-Semitic policies. Stein‘s theological perspectives on Jews
and Judaism did not benefit from the later understandings.

22 In Nostra aetate, the 1965 Vatican Council‘s Declaration concerning non-Christian religions, the spiritual
connections of the Catholic Church with Judaism and the Jewish people are presented in a new light. Both Nostra

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 In addition to the implications of her canonization for Catholic‘s understanding of the

Shoah/Holocaust, if Stein‘s writings on women become known among Catholics, her thinking

could exercise a significant influence on the role of women in the Church. Her words now carry

the authority of a canonized saint... and no canonized saint has ever been so explicit about

sexism in and outside of the Church or openly defined herself as a feminist.

To summarize, women saints constructed and modeled their own lives and identity after

culturally available interpretations of women‘s roles, influenced by their own personal histories

and psychological makeup. Rosa constructed her life on the basis of understandings about

women‘s bodies and women‘s sanctity available to her. In so doing, though, she constructed

herself as different from other women contemporaries. She challenged her confessors, family,

and even her hagiographers to interpret her life in ways that both fit and subverted acceptable

interpretations of women‘s lives. What forces in her own individual history made her uniqueness

possible? The real Rosa and her motivations remain a mystery to us. However, the fact is that she

resisted the life that had been planned for her. Despite her own bizarre means of self-assertion,

her lack of conformity and her independent decision-making conspire against the hagiographers‘

efforts to make her appear only as an accommodating and submissive woman. In particular,

Rosa‘s role in the creation of Peruvian national identity is a demonstration of the importance of

saints. Her canonization was the first successful attempt at acknowledging the possibility of

aetate , and the more recent document from the Pontifical Biblical Commission (2002), The Jewish people and their
sacred scriptures in the Christian bible, insist on the continuity of Israel‘s covenant and the debt of Christians to
Jewish scripture and traditions. The natural consequence of this acknowledgment should be a new form of Catholic-
Jewish relationships as well as a new Catholic understanding of Christian scriptures and traditions (See, for
example, J.T. Palikowski, 2007, ―Reflections on covenant and mission forty years after Nostra aetate.‖ Cross
Currents 56(4), 70-94). It may be interesting to note that readings of the Mass of Stein‘s canonization were from Ch.
4 in the book of Esther, when she pleads with God to give her the strength to save her people and from Ch. 4 of
John‘s gospel, in which Jesus tells the Samaritan woman that ―salvation comes from the Jews.‖

33
holiness in the New World. The story of Rosa and other women saints‘ lives suggest that women,

though constrained by difficult circumstances and having limited resources, may resort to bold,

even destructive measures, to assert their own capacity for action and resist being just passive

victims. In this way their lives are lived paradoxically against the grain of societal scripts…while

limited in their choice of possibilities by those same scripts. The crux, for each woman, is in the

specific intersection of subjectivity and social power; in ―dissecting how [oppressive] regimes

compel submission on the level of [her] subjectivity‖ (Bergner, 2005, p. 17)

For me, personally, Rosa‘s story creates more questions and paradoxes than it solves. I

know that, as a child, watching movies and reading books about Rosa and other women saints,

offered a vision of alternatives heroism and possibilities for my life as a woman. I liked that they

played an active role in their own lives. But as I look at Rosa through a feminist lens, I am

mostly disgusted and horrified at the price she paid for her elevation to the altars. And, as a

therapist, I have been witness to how our modern society also destroys women‘s lives and bodies

in the name of beauty or love.

Edith Stein, on the other hand, closer to us in history and in her thinking, provides us with

another--explicitly feminist--perspective about women. In particular, I see her as a model of

personal integrity and, no less important, as a model of intellectual woman.

As a feminist deeply touched by liberation theologies, I believe in the importance of

resisting oppression. I am conscious that each one of us has a limited repertory to do so. I think

that Rosa, Edith, and many women saints, like us, were both conformists and resistors. I have

come to realize that the ―resistance narrative‖ embedded in Rosa‘s story is present in one form or

another in all women‘s lives, including mine, because I know that I have not always made the

best decisions while trying to live my life to its fullest.

34
 To this day, Teresa of Avila and Edith Stein show me the value and power of writing and

intellectual pursuit. Rose of Lima, Mariana Paredes of Quito, and Teresa of Los Andes present

alternative ways to be Latin American despite racial tensions, social injustice and political

upheaval and point out the pitfalls of relying on individual, personal spiritual approaches in the

face of our unique mixture of historical circumstances. Rosa‘s and Mariana‘s influence on the

development of a Latin American identity in their respective cities in early colonial times persists

to this day with its implications for the construction of popular culture and national identity.

Because I am a psychologist, I see human behavior through the lens provided by

developmental, social, and clinical psychologies. Because I am a feminist, I read all historical

information about these women with a certain ―hermeneutical suspicion‖ that helps me see

important information in the interstices, in what is not said by them as well as by other writing

about them. Because I live in these historical times, I have access to understandings of gender

and women‘s lives that were not prevalent before the twentieth century. Although the human

developmental journey is widely different in different historical and cultural settings, saints are

like us–down to earth. Their gritty resistance to authority and sometimes stubborn conformity,

their personal limitations and successes, can illumine our own lives‘ struggles.

Looking at these and other women, I hope that I have learned some lessons along the

way. And above all, I hope I can transmit those lessons to other women to encourage them to

make their lives all they can be without resorting to self-destruction.

35
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