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All adult Catholics probably can make a distinction between the religion they grew up with (enduring the primary education that has spawned the countless bumper stickers "I Survived Catholic School," chewing grimly on ill-cooked fish once a week, listening to Sunday sermons that-to put it tactfully-inspired much creative inattention) and the pluralistic Catholicism that exists now. Today, in America, there are probably as many modes of Catholic worship as there are Catholic churches, or even Catholics.
Recently, out of the blue, a nun, who had traveled the world, said to me, "We nuns have more freedom than any married woman, or any mom, could ever have. That's always been true. We have always had that freedom." This seems strange and unexpected, in a church that depends on hierarchy, and is ultimately answerable to a single man in Rome. But these questions are exactly the ones that the author here, Julia Lieblich, addresses.
Lieblich profiles four women-one of them an "enclosed" contemplative nun, the other three who were working out on the edge of...