Many people who oppose the idea of women as deacons fear that the potential candidates aren’t faithful Catholics. That couldn’t be further from the truth.
Too often the pro-life movement has been tempted into the pursuit of political power and domination over pro-choice opponents. But women worried about their rights are not the enemy.
Abortion is being promoted as a workaround for the far messier and more urgent task of building an economy that is not mired in sexism. It is not a real choice for those in poverty.
In “The Agitators,” Dorothy Wickenden explores 19th-century intersections of class, racism and patriarchy through the lives of the escaped slave Harriet Tubman and the activists Martha Wright and Frances Seward.