Author Archives

Cynthie Garrity-Bond, feminist theologian and social ethicist, is completing her doctorate from Claremont Graduate University in women studies in religion, with a secondary focus in theology, ethics and culture. For the past two years Cynthie has been teaching in the department of theological studies at Loyola Marymount University where she completed both her BA and MA in Theology. Her research interest includes feminist sexual theology, historical theology with particular emphasis on religious movements of women, transnational feminism and ecofeminism. Cynthie is researching the decriminalization of prostitution from a theological perspective.

• Where Did She Go?  A Slothful Seeking of the Divine by Cynthia Garrity-Bond

  By Cynthia Garrity-Bond on March 16, 2018 • ( 18 )

   A week ago today was my birthday.  I’m the same age as my mother when she died of a stroke some twenty-eight years ago.  This past year has been marked by the deaths of close friends and family; most recently my… Read More ›

• Should Sexual Misconduct of Theologians or Sexism in Their Writings Affect Evaluation of Their Theologies: What Consitutes Complicity in the Rendering of Woman as Sexual Temptress? by Cynthia Garrity-Bond

  By Cynthia Garrity-Bond on November 17, 2017 • ( 24 )

  

  The accusations made by over seventy women against entertainment mogul Harvey Weinstein carved out a safe space for other women to come forward with their stories of sexual harassment, abuse and assault against Hollywood elites, namely big name actors who… Read More ›

• The Medieval Beguines: Models for Spiritual Agency Today by Cynthia Garrity Bond

  By Cynthia Garrity-Bond on September 13, 2017 • ( 11 )

  

  In a recent article from U.S. Catholic, Common Law lawyer Karen Gargamelli and her newly founded lay community Benincasa are profiled.  Established in New York’s Upper West Side, Benincasa, is named and patterned after 14th century mystic and theologian, Catherine… Read More ›

• Learning Compassion from Inmate Number 74799 by Cynthia Garrity-Bond

  By Cynthia Garrity-Bond on July 21, 2017 • ( 15 )

  

  Technically I was employed as a lab assistant at our community hospital. This position entailed multiple responsibilities, from receptionist to actual bench work within the laboratory. The task I dreaded most was my assistance at autopsies. Beyond a strong constitution,… Read More ›

• It Takes a Village: Responding to the Needs of Rosemary Radford Ruether by Cynthia Garrity-Bond

  By Cynthia Garrity-Bond on January 19, 2017 • ( 16 )

  

  As many of you may already know, on August 24, 2016, feminist theologian and scholar Rosemary Radford Ruether suffered a significant stroke. There has been some speculation from those who know or have known Rosemary about her current condition.  Here… Read More ›

• The Collateral Damage of Addiction by Cynthia Garrity-Bond

  By Cynthia Garrity-Bond on September 16, 2016 • ( 20 )

  

  I am the mother of three adult children.  I am also the mother of an addict living the nightmare of denial and the consequence of said addiction.  Like many, my family of origin is riddled with alcoholics and addicts.  I… Read More ›

• White Privilege: Confessions of a Poor White Girl by Cynthia Garrity-Bond

  By Cynthia Garrity-Bond on July 31, 2016 • ( 22 )

  

  Recently FAR contributor Sara Frykenberg posted an article to Facebook that caused me to think again about the now-famous essay by Peggy McIntosh, “White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack.” In “Explaining White Privilege to a Broke White Person,” Gina Crosley-Corcoran… Read More ›

• “Spotlight” and the Recovery of a Lost Faith by Cynthia Garrity-Bond

  By Cynthia Garrity-Bond on January 15, 2016 • ( 16 )

  

  Last week I was finally able to see “Spotlight“, the recent movie depicting the true story of the Pulitzer Prize-winning Boston Globe investigation into the priest pedophilia abuses. What makes “Spotlight” so compelling is the shared burden of culpability by those… Read More ›

• The Acid Attack on WomanPriest Alexandra Dyer: The Cancelation of Evil with the Face of God/ess by Cynthia Garrity-Bond

  By Cynthia Garrity-Bond on September 19, 2015 • ( 22 )

  

  On August 20, Alexandra Dyer, a Roman Catholic WomanPriest was the victim of a targeted acid attack to her face.  Dyer had just left a meeting at The Healing Arts Initiative in Queens, NY.  As she was walking to her… Read More ›

• An Indecent Reading of Mary Magdalene by Cynthia Garrity-Bond

  By Cynthia Garrity-Bond on July 16, 2015 • ( 13 )

  

  Recently I took one of those on-line quizzes that show up on Facebook. Based on my response to particular questions, it promised to tell me what my Biblical name would be. To my joy I received Mary Magdalene. To my… Read More ›

• Ireland’s Same-Sex Referendum & The Necessity for Reconstructing Sexual Ethics in the Catholic Church by Cynthia Garrity-Bond

  By Cynthia Garrity-Bond on May 31, 2015 • ( 10 )

  

  At this writing, Ireland successfully passed the same-sex marriage referendum which reads, “Marriage may be contracted in accordance with law by two persons without distinction as to their sex.”  It has been 22 years since homosexual acts were decriminalized in… Read More ›

• University of Oklahoma and Female Complicity in Patriarchy by Cynthia Garrity-Bond

  By Cynthia Garrity-Bond on March 31, 2015 • ( 9 )

  

   By now most, if not all, readers of FAR have read or watched the disturbing YouTube video of University of Oklahoma Sigma Alpha Epsilon (SAE) Fraternity sing their racist chant. The two male SAE members who led the “song” were… Read More ›

• What the GOP can learn from The Syrophoenician Woman by Cynthia Garrity-Bond

  By Cynthia Garrity-Bond on November 9, 2012 • ( 4 )

  

   From there he (Jesus) set out and went away to the region of Tyre.  He entered a house and did not want anyone to know he was there.  Yet he could not escape notice, but a woman whose little daughter… Read More ›

• Proposition 35: Prohibition on Human Trafficking and Sex Slavery—Criminalizes the Sex Worker and not the Trafficker, By Cynthia Garrity-Bond

  By Cynthia Garrity-Bond on September 14, 2012 • ( 8 )

  

  But beyond the sound bites and hyperbole of Proposition 35 resides a poorly written law that further criminalizes and discriminates against sex workers and their consensual adult clients. The importance of the upcoming November 6 election cannot be overstated. Beyond… Read More ›

• The Search for Belonging by Cynthia Garrity-Bond

  By Cynthia Garrity-Bond on August 10, 2012 • ( 16 )

  

  My life today is a continuation of the desire to belong I felt as a child, only the terrain is now a spiritual homelessness of sorts, the inability to feel welcomed and accepted in what seems to be an oxymoronic… Read More ›

• The Tale of Two Breast: From Religious Symbol to Secular Object by Cynthia Garrity Bond

  By Cynthia Garrity-Bond on June 15, 2012 • ( 11 )

  

  I am less concerned with the legitimacy or morality of public breast-feeding . . . rather I am asking what contributes to this strange binary of, on the one hand, social acceptability of near-porn-like images of breast used in advertising,… Read More ›

• The Sainthood of Hildegard von Bingen by a Feminist-Friendly Pope? by Cynthia Garrity-Bond

  By Cynthia Garrity-Bond on May 18, 2012 • ( 15 )

  

  While I celebrate the rise in status of Hildegard to official saint and soon to be Doctor of the Church, I cannot help but be suspicious of the Vatican’s motivations.  One only has to take in the last two months… Read More ›

• Presumed Guilty by the Sin of Silence: U.S. Nuns, Network, and The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith by Cynthia Garrity-Bond

  By Cynthia Garrity-Bond on April 20, 2012 • ( 12 )

  

  In 1965, the Council document Perfectae Caritatis, Decree on the Adaptation and Renewal of Religious Life, encouraged women religious to situate themselves and their vocations in the social milieu to which they belonged.  Each religious community adjusted rules and customs… Read More ›

• Mary, Mother of God or Godd/ess?

  By Cynthia Garrity-Bond on April 5, 2012 • ( 15 )

  

  While I have always intuitively seen Mary as more than Theotokos, my training in orthodoxy came to overshadow my orthopraxis of Mary. But today I hold a different stance because  I have come to view my Marian practice as indeed… Read More ›

• The Naming of Our Mother-Lines by Cynthia Garrity-Bond

  By Cynthia Garrity-Bond on March 9, 2012 • ( 8 )

  

  I am Cynthia, daughter of Pauline, daughter of Ellen, daughter of Mary. I first spoke this litany of names at a retreat given by Carol Christ.  As we entered the chapel, each woman was given a rose to place in… Read More ›

• Feminism, Impasse, and the Redemption of Hugo Schwyzer by Cynthia Garrity-Bond

  By Cynthia Garrity-Bond on February 10, 2012 • ( 57 )

  

  In Constance FitzGerald’s article Impasse and Dark Night,* she draws from sixteenth century Spanish mystic and reformer St. John of the Cross-and his Dark Night of the Soul.  FitzGerald moves from the individual’s experience of impasse to a larger societal… Read More ›

• Occupy Wall Street Denver and the Birth of a Lunchtime Consciousness by Cynthia Garrity-Bond

  By Cynthia Garrity-Bond on January 9, 2012 • ( 5 )

  

  Over the post-Christmas holiday I helped move my middle daughter to a suburb outside of Denver, (releasing my 28 year old to the Universe should be a blog post in-and-of-itself.)  While exploring the downtown area of Denver, Em and I noticed… Read More ›

• The Undoing of Patriarchy in the Life of Tom Jorde (1922-2011)

  By Cynthia Garrity-Bond on December 12, 2011 • ( 4 )

  

  Last week I attended the funeral of the one man, who in my feminist musings, was able to image the maleness of God as father, friend and pastor.  If I had thought about it, I would have given him the… Read More ›

• ADVENT: THE ACTIVE-WAIT, PART II, By Cynthia Garrity-Bond

  By Cynthia Garrity-Bond on November 28, 2011 • ( 2 )

  

  On Nov. 14 I posted Part 1 of Advent: The Active-Wait. What follows (in Part II) is a rereading or exegesis of Mary’s encounter with her cousin Elizabeth as an Advent waiting with hope, anticipation and trust, but also with… Read More ›

• Part I: Advent as the Active Wait By Cynthie Garrity-Bond

  By Cynthia Garrity-Bond on November 14, 2011 • ( 3 )

  In the Advent reading of the Annunciation we are silent witnesses to the conversation between the Angel Gabriel and Mary  (Luke 1: 26- 40). I would like to bring to the surface two ways of looking at the season of… Read More ›

• Anita Caspery, IHM: Prophetic Icon of Renewal By Cynthia Garrity-Bond

  By Cynthia Garrity-Bond on October 17, 2011 • ( 6 )

  

  this we were, this is how we tried to love, and these are the forces they had ranged against us, and these are the forces we had ranged within us, within us and against us, against us and within us…. Read More ›

• The Misbegotten Male: Male Sex-Selection & Female Abortion By Cynthia Garrity Bond

  By Cynthia Garrity-Bond on October 3, 2011 • ( 9 )

  I turned away and, despite myself, the tears came, tears Of weakness and disappointment; for what woman wants a girl for her first-born?  They took the child from me.  Kali said: “Never mind.  There will be many later On.  You have plenty of time” Kamala… Read More ›

• Sex as a Weapon of Sustenance By Cynthia Garrity-Bond

  By Cynthia Garrity-Bond on September 19, 2011 • ( 8 )

  In a recent news post, Filipino women went on a sex-strike in order to bring peace to their rural village. “If you keep fighting,” warned Aninon E. Kamanza, of the Dado Village Sewing Cooperative, “you’ll be cut off.”  It seems… Read More ›

• The Dark Night of a Theological Education By Cynthia Garrity-Bond

  By Cynthia Garrity-Bond on August 22, 2011 • ( 9 )

  

  Yesterday I decided I would attend Sunday Mass.  I have been involved in some fairly weighty theological conversations with my friend, bringing to the surface awareness that I am restless and in a state of holy longing for the Absolute… Read More ›

• Love, Loss and Longing: The Rebooting of a Feminist Heart By Cynthia Garrity-Bond

  By Cynthia Garrity-Bond on August 9, 2011 • ( 6 )

  

  It has been said time heals all wounds, I do not agree.  The wounds remain, in time the mind, protecting its sanity, covers them with scar tissue and the pain lessens, but it is never gone.  Rose Kennedy  This past… Read More ›