Lay Women: International Experts and Theologians avant-la-lettre. Legacies and Entangled Histories (1945-1962)

The overarching objective of this project is to demonstrate European Catholic lay women's vital contributions as international agents, thinkers and theologians avant-la-lettre, from the end of World War II up to the celebration of the Second Vatican Council (1945-1962).

While several studies have dealt with lay (and religious) women during and after the Council, their pioneer role as intellectuals and international experts in the pre-conciliar years has significantly received less attention. The history of this period has mostly been written in strikingly national, secular and rather masculine terms.

A crucial aspect of the period was the Church’s attempt to expand the ranks of lay International Catholic Organisations (ICOs).

As a result of their engagement in shaping pastoral strategies, international policies and agenda setting, lay women in positions of leadership became experts, they travelled extensively, and gradually adopted ‘female’ forms of agency as a route into male-dominated arenas (theology, international relations and action) By paying particular attention to the entangled history of Belgium and Spain (both understood in their relationship to the wider Spanish and French speaking Catholic worlds), by adopting an interdisciplinary approach (political and social sciences, visual and intellectual cultures, theology, anthropology) and a gender perspective, the project will 1) systematically recover and establish a ‘genealogy’ of lay women's intellectual agency; 2) map and conceptualise their collective action and transnational networks; 3) illustrate the strategies used to consolidate communities of secular and religious knowledge (including alternative forms of governability); 4) visualise their legacies.

In this manner the project aims to contribute to reconfigure public perceptions about women in positions of leadership, and to the promotion of gender equality and more reflective European societies.