Catholic Feminism, Strategic Saints, and the Fight for Abortion Rights in the Americas

This paper explores contemporary Catholic feminism and abortion rights activism and advocacy in Mexico, Argentina, and the U.S., with a focus on three nongovernmental organizations: Catholics for the Right to Decide Mexico, Catholics for the Right to Decide Argentina, and Catholics for Choice in the U.S. Specifically, I examine how these organizations strategically employ saints and their hagiographies to advance abortion rights. In the wake of Pope John Paul II's "sustained programme of ... 'strategic canonization,'" Catholic feminists have demonstrated that the “many models of holiness” the pope sought to highlight to advance the Vatican's agenda can also be employed to challenge the Church’s official positions (Bennett, 2011, p. 441, p. 448). Ultimately, the use of saints in Catholic feminism points to the ways in which the Catholic tradition, perhaps paradoxically, sets the stage for Catholic feminism to emerge.