Catholicism: End or Beginning?
Catholicism: End or Beginning?
£29.99
GBPPublication in 1968 of The Church and the Second Sex turned Mary Daly into a leading – arguably the first – Catholic feminist theologian. She then, in 1972, preached an incendiary sermon at Harvard Memorial Church, 'left behind centuries of darkness,' as she put it, and walked out of patriarchal religion. Daly next established herself, with Beyond God the Father (1973), as a post-Christian feminist philosopher. In between these trailblazing writings, she began to draft another book entitled Catholicism: End or Beginning? In the moment that she abandoned the text, she also seemingly renounced the institutional Roman Catholic Church. This volume comprises that lost, unfinished manuscript – remarkably rediscovered – augmented by complementary chapters from six preeminent feminist writers. Though partial, it completes the corpus of an iconic figure in radical liberationist and Catholic thought, delving deep into the mind of a woman who dared to leap into uncharted territories of faith and philosophical imagination.
- The vital missing piece in the complex Daly jigsaw. Written after the author wrote The Church and the Second Sex, and before she wrote the influential Beyond God the Father, it attempts a new and revitalized ecclesiology
- Initial publication in English of a work that has never appeared before in print: a powerful, hitherto lost, manuscript by 'the world's first feminist philosopher' (Guardian)
- The rediscovered work is augmented by deep reflections from six feminist writers – some of the foremost scholars in their fields. They not only demonstrate the work's relevance to Daly's other writings but also make connections with wider feminist theory and philosophy, theology, and Catholic history
Reviews & endorsements
'Mary Daly's unfinished Catholicism: End or Beginning? represents a brilliant example of a brilliant woman thinking, and indeed writing, out loud, as her explorations – and especially her burgeoning sense of the fundamental misogyny running through the institutions of Protestantism and Catholicism – led her to make an inevitable and inexorable break with those traditions that had no respect for what Luce Irigaray would call a dialectic between the sexes. It is an extraordinarily valuable record of a pioneering woman's struggle toward intellectual, theological, and personal integrity.' Mary Teresa Condren, Centre for Gender and Women's Studies, Trinity College, University of Dublin
'What a remarkable find! So here we see Mary Daly's struggle with traditional male theology come to a head. Perhaps encountering Paul Tillich was the last straw. She walks away and chooses another path that takes her Beyond God the Father. And onward she clears the path for the rest of us, for which we are most grateful.' Marie M. Fortune, Founder of FaithTrust Institute
'This is an astonishing find: an early 'lost' text of Daly's that fills an intellectual gap in her oeuvre. Students of Daly will appreciate her teaching voice in this text and see not only a foreshadowing of her later work in the existentialist content of the extant chapters but also clarity of their importance and helpful contextualization by preeminent Daly scholars. This volume constitutes a vital contribution to scholarship on one of the least cited but most influential intellectual luminaries of the last century.' Laurel C. Schneider, Research Professor, School of Theology, Boston University
'Mary Daly fans will be delighted to encounter this newly discovered manuscript, written by Daly in the formative period between The Church and the Second Sex and Beyond God the Father. Its surprising contents are well-contextualized by six very helpful contributions by leading feminist thinkers. The book makes clear the ideas that Daly rejected but also those that continued to shape her even as she led her famous walkout from Memorial Church.' Judith Plaskow, Manhattan College
Product details
October 2025Hardback
9781009180634
368 pages
216 × 140 mm
Not yet published - available from October 2025
Table of Contents
- Introduction Meg Stapleton Smith
- Part I. Catholicism: End or Beginning? Mary Daly
- Part II. 1. The Many Minds of Mary Daly Mary E. Hunt
- 2. Reformist Catholicism: The Road Not Taken for Mary Daly Lisa Cahill
- 3. Feminist Intrigues at the Limits of Schizoid Theology Siobhán Garrigan
- 4. Abstraction, Mysticism, and Revolution: From Catholicism: End or Beginning to Beyond God the Father and Pure Lust Jennifer Rycenga
- 5. Catholicism: End or Beginning? : An Open-ended Journey Toward a Theology of Difference Zahra Moballegh
- 6. A More Dalyan Christianity Xochitl Alvizo.
