Faithful Daughters
Chapter four explores how two conservative, fraternal orders for Catholic laywomen – the Catholic Daughters of America (CDA) and the Daughters of Isabella (DI) – experienced the upheavals of feminism and Vatican II. The two groups attempted to reassess their organizations and beliefs in the wake of Vatican II, seriously considering new ways of viewing both Catholicism and Catholic womanhood. Ultimately, however, the groups rejected new conceptions of laywomen’s identity and vocations, affirming complementarity and female difference. Analysis of their records suggests that these laywomen perceived their power to be linked to traditional perceptions of Catholic womanhood and their own obedience to authority. As a backlash to the changes of Vatican II began in the mid-1970s, they had little incentive to adjust their worldview.