Cultivating Prophetic Ambivalence among Young Adult Catholic Women

Abstract

The landscape of religious belonging is rapidly changing in the United States. This dissertation contributes to conversations concerned with how to engage young adults in faith development in the rise of religious disaffiliation. This dissertation specifically engages the lived reality that while many young women struggle with belonging in the Catholic Church, they are negotiating ways to participate and resist from within the community of the faithful. An experience of ambivalence often manifests from the dialectical nature of this negotiation. Drawing from the work of religious scholar Mary Bednarowski, I argue that ambivalence, cultivated as a virtue, can serve as a prophetic posture from which to participate in transforming the Church. I suggest a narrative pedagogical approach of critique, conserve, and transform to encourage prophetic participation. The articulation of ambivalent belonging towards institutional religion can serve as an access point for belonging and faith development for young adult women. This work is rooted in an ecclesiology that articulates the ambivalent nature of the pilgrim Church, grounded in the vision of Vatican II, that is open to how the Spirit is working through all the faithful, revealing God’s hope-filled mission in the world.