Power of Sisterhood: Women Religious Tell the Story of the Apostolic Visitation - Softcover

Margaret Cain McCarthy, PhD, is a professor in the Department of Graduate Education and Leadership at Canisius College and an associate member of the Sisters of St. Joseph of the Diocese of Buffalo.

Mary Ann Zollmann, BVM, PhD, has been a Sister of Charity of the Blessed Virgin Mary for 55 years. Holding a doctorate in spirituality, Mary Ann has served in numerous leadership roles, including as president of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious from 2001 to 2004.

Editors Margaret Cain McCarthy and Mary Ann Zollmann, BVM, have rendered a valuable service in gathering these chapters about the Vatican's 2009-2011 Apostolic Visitation (AV) of U.S. congregations of women religious. . . .This book succeeds very well in analyzing how a significant number of sisters experienced the AV. The chapters are very well researched, clearly written, and insightful. They express an inspiring degree of faith and charity. . . .[This book] will be especially useful to scholars of Catholicism, religious history, and women's studies. (American Catholic Studies)

Power of Sisterhood is a multifaceted vehicle for recording the responses of surveyed women religious to the Apostolic Visitation. . . . The authors develop a lively and engaging narrative which captures insightfully individual and communal reactions, providing a rich portrait of the present status of American women religious and an invaluable historical record. I recommend this study highly. (Howard J. Hubbard, bishop emeritus, Diocese of Albany)

If you really want to know what is going on between the nuns and the Vatican, read Power of Sisterhood. This work is clear: the problem is not that the nuns did not “think with the church” (sentire cum ecclesia). The problem is that they did. Power of Sisterhood is a story, a reference book, a history, and most of all, an insight into what happened in every diocese, parish, and convent in the country—as well as what it has meant to be Catholic—in the last 50 years. This book is a landmark in the history of women and a gift to the church. If it will only listen. (Joan Chittister, OSB)