Abigail Favale teaches “Catholicism and the Sexes”
This fall, the theology department offered a new class titled “Catholicism and the Sexes.” As outlined in the course description, the course seeks to provide students with an opportunity to learn about the development of the Church’s teaching on the significance of the difference between men and women, as well as its response to alternative ideas over time, such as contemporary feminist conceptions of sexual difference.
The class has 40 students and is taught by Abigail Favale, Professor of the Practice, Theology and Literature in the McGrath Institute for Church Life.
Favale explained to the Rover her intentions behind the class in the context of the cultural moment: “We are living in a time where there are distorted narratives of sexual difference on the broader secular left and within the Catholic right, especially online.”
Favale continued, “On one side there is the perception that the Catholic church is anti-women, which is a distorted perception, and on the other side there is growing anti-feminism within certain Catholic circles that distorts what the church teaches about men and women.”
The first half of Favale’s course traces the historical arc of Church teaching on men and women. The second half dialogues Catholic and non-Catholic conceptions of the sexes, particularly through the lens of the term “sexual difference,” which describes the significance of the distinctions and similarities between men and women. The conclusion of “Catholicism and the Sexes” is dedicated to engaging with contemporary questions and controversies in these topics, such as female priests, transgenderism, and the meaning of marital submission in the Catholic rite of marriage.
Theo Austin, a philosophy and theology major in the class, said, “Professor Favale presents the teachings of the Catholic Church with great care, not shying away from correcting Doctors of the Church who derived their views from poor science, and yet drawing from the history of the Church, presents the view of sexual complementarity emanating from the Bible and later theologians like Edith Stein and Hildegard Von Bingen.”
He continued, “The class engages many conflicting views and theories regarding who men and women are and how they ought to relate to one another. However, all of these views are considered within a Catholic framework, informed primarily by the personalism of Pope Saint John Paul II and the Creation account of Genesis.”
To help students learn accurate Church teachings on the sexes, Favale’s class intentionally analyzes Catholic doctrine as a whole, both across time and through a variety of sources, in order to avoid misunderstandings due to reading specific sources without their proper historical context. To this end, students in “Catholicism and The Sexes” are challenged to look at the underlying worldview behind each source, particularly any underlying societal assumptions made about gender at the time of its writing.
When asked of her goals for her students, Favale said, “I would like them to be able to engage with perspectives other than their own with charity and without fear.” In her choice of class readings, she specifically noted her intention to “strong-man” the various perspectives on gender and sexuality.
In addition to building a complete understanding of the true Catholic teaching on sexual difference, students in “Catholicism and the Sexes” read both from Catholic authors, such as Hildegard of Bingen and Pope St. John Paul II, as well as secular figures, such as Beauvoir, Butler, and Bettcher.
One of the ways in which they are prompted to think in this way is through an assignment called a framework analysis, where students are trained to recognize the underlying worldview of a text, ask what its assumptions are, and understand how those assumptions affect the understanding of the text.
Caroline Isom, a student in “Catholicism and the Sexes,” commented on her experience to the Rover, saying, “Professor Favale brings a wealth of knowledge, experience, and charity that has made the class invaluable. … [T]hese [modern theories on men and women] can be directly opposed to or even actively work against what the Church teaches is true and good, but Professor Favale has taught me to look critically and carefully for the truth rather than immediately writing off an author or text.”
She continued, “I am now able to better articulate who I am as a woman and a human being, and how this informs my vocation. … That’s why Professor Favale and her class are so great—I am leaving with meaningful knowledge, and an education that is also a formation, which I will carry with me indefinitely.”
Although this is the first time she has taught “Catholicism and the Sexes,” Favale has taught other classes at Notre Dame, such as “Introduction to Edith Stein’s Theology of Women” and “Religion and Literature.” When asked about her future teaching plans, Favale commented, “I hope for [Catholicism and the Sexes] to be the main course that I teach here, and I plan to offer it every year or maybe every other year.”
Favale has a background in feminist and gender studies and is the author of three books. Her second, Into the Deep: An Unlikely Catholic Conversion, is a memoir of her journey to the Church as an evangelical and post-modern feminist. Favale welcomes a broader dialogue in her class, saying, “I design the course to be a place where students coming from different perspectives can come in and engage.”
Favale works both in the theology department and the McGrath Institute for Church Life. When asked about the significance of Favale’s newest class, John Cavadini, director of the McGrath Institute and professor of theology, told the Rover, “I like the idea of a course that offers students a sympathetic vantage point for the disciplined and thoughtful reception of the wisdom of the Church, drawn from revelation, regarding the sexes, as well as the opportunity to ‘seek understanding’ of what is received.”
Cavadini continued, “The class offers an intellectually sophisticated and sympathetic account of what the Church teaches for students to work with, engage and react to, even as various critiques of the Church’s teaching are also engaged.”
Though “Catholicism and the Sexes” is not offered this spring, students interested in learning more about theology and gender studies can read Favale’s latest book, The Genesis of Gender: a Christian Theory.
Noah Salak is a senior studying environmental engineering and theology. Though he is not an expert in gender studies, he does have an interest in the opposite sex. Noah can be reached at nsalak@nd.edu.
Photo Credit: McGrath Institute for Church Life
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