New book on women and the Catholic Church to launch in Trim

To coincide with International Women’s Day, Trim based author, Sharon Tighe-Mooney will launch 'What About Me? Women and the Catholic Church', at Trim Castle Hotel this Thursday, 8th March at 6.30pm.

Sharon Tighe-Mooney grew up in County Roscommon and now lives in Meath. She has an MA in English, Sociology and Theology from the NUI and a PhD from NUI Maynooth. She is co-editor of 'Essays in Irish Literary Criticism: Themes of Gender, Sexuality, and Corporeality' (2008) and is a contributor to Reality magazine.

In a time when the spotlight is on gender-equality and equal rights how can the church continue to justify its stance? The objective of the book is to explore, inform, speculate and question. In 2010 the Vatican upgraded the ‘crime’ of ordaining women to Catholic ministry, rendering it one of the most serious crimes against church law. But where did the exclusion of women emanate from? How can the institutional Church be so certain that women priests were never to feature in Catholicism? Why is the Catholic Church so determined not to discuss the issue of women priests? Where does the implicit antipathy expressed towards women in the institutional Catholic Church come from? How are women in the Catholic faith, supposed to digest and understand such views? This book sets out to answer these questions.

"It is the 21st century and the Catholic Church s hierarchy remains wilfully deaf to the entirely reasonable question explored brilliantly here. They need to read this book and respond before a lot of women (and men) stop bothering to care about the answer or the Church."  - Mary McAleese.

This event is open to the public and Antonia’s bookshop will be selling books at the event.