“I am no innocent bystander. I am a woman with a history, a woman scarred, a woman at her wit’s end. I abide the women in this book. I echo their words. I applaud their patience. And I remind this Church how fortunate it is to have such brilliant and devoted women clamoring for the Catholic hierarchy to open its doors, bring the wizard out of the sacristy, rethink the sacred with women in mind, and make a new Catholic Church.”

So says journalist and author Angela Bonavoglia in the introduction to her provocative book: GOOD CATHOLIC GIRLS: How Women Are Leading the Fight to Change the Church.

The recently exposed transgressions of priests within the Roman Catholic Church stunned the faithful, implicated the hierarchy, and sent a new surge of energy through the progressive Church reform movement in the United States.

Despite the movement’s growing profile, only recently has the world learned that Catholic women are the driving force behind reform. GOOD CATHOLIC GIRLS is a compelling account of those amazing and courageous women, as seen through the eyes of a sympathetic Catholic everywoman, author Bonavoglia.

Backed by supporters worldwide, these women are re-thinking Catholic theology and changing the face of ministry. They are resurrecting the lost lives of female Church leaders and boldly moving ahead with women's ordination.

They are challenging the Church’s sexual repression, defending the victims of clergy sex abuse, campaigning for optional celibacy, and calling the Church to openness and accountability.

Their work is brave, provocative and vital, for what becomes of women in the Catholic Church will determine what becomes of the Church itself. As GOOD CATHOLIC GIRLS illustrates, the Church ignores them at its peril.

PRAISE FOR "GOOD CATHOLIC GIRLS"

--Booklist Pick:
“One of top ten women’s history books of 2005”

“These stories remain vivid for the reader long after the book is finished. They provide access to the real world of Catholic women’s lived religion, so far from the abstract, idealized woman of the papal documents...Bonavoglia’s book belongs in our classrooms and our libraries.”
--Journal of American Catholic Studies

"[A]compelling account of what dedicated Catholic women are accomplishing for the church they love."
--Publishers Weekly

"These astonishingly diverse women...are representative of the breadth and variety of this progressive revolution...[Their] calls for reform...make good common and spiritual sense."
--Booklist

"Worth Reading...Bonavoglia traces the growth of Catholic feminism and church reform, and profiles nuns, women church leaders, and lay women who have and still are pushing for change."
--Chicago Tribune

"Detailed and well-documented....Takes a fresh look at the post-sexual-scandal church and finds the landscape both familiar and surprising."
Sally Cunneen
--National Catholic Reporter

"[A]thoughtful, coherent and impassioned call for answers to some of the most pressing questions facing the Catholic Church today."
--Dallas Morning News