Finding their way to heaven: Women,self-narratives and Catholicism in Quito,Ecuador

Abstract

In this paper I look at personal histories of middle class women who belong to a Catholic group in Quito, Ecuador. Using a poststructuralist definition of the subject I explore the reasons why these women intentionally break the Church’s rules and make decisions that constitute sins. I argue that in order to understand their disobedience to Catholicism, it is necessary to contextualise their decisions. Their choices can be explained if we look at these women’s lives not only as Catholics but also as belonging to a social class and ethnicity and as members of a family. In this paper I want to explore how these different affiliations are combined and why and when one is prioritised over the others. In other words, how Catholic women adapt religion to fit in with their other needs. Ultimately, this paper will provide insights on the concept of agency and decision-making.

While doing fieldwork in Quito for my PhD dissertation, I met many Catholic women who, at times, disregarded Catholic teachings on issues such as the use of contraception or engaging in sexual relations outside marriage. Although they knew their choices were forbidden by the Church they truly believed that they were good Catholics. In this paper, I argue that to explain contradictions between these women’s faith and their practice, it is necessary to look at their lives within a context; not only as Catholics but also as belonging to a social class and ethnicity and as members of a family. I explore how these different affiliations are combined and ultimately, how, why and when one is prioritised over the others, even if momentarily. In other words, how Catholic women adapt religion to fit in with their other needs. I take poststructuralist conceptions of subjectivity and identity as the point of departure. Poststructuralists reject the notion that a person is a cohesive self, endowed with reason, free will and a fixed core identity. Rather, they believe that various subject positions that respond to different discourses coexist within one individual and that identities are multiple and temporary (Butler, 1990, 1993; Chopp, 1992; Hall, 1996; Moore, 1994, 2007; Scott, 1988; Weedon, 1987, 1999, among others). Using Smith and Watson’s (1996, 2001) ideas on the construction of identities through autobiography and narratives of the self, I analyse how women represent themselves and how they negotiate their different identities. Ultimately, this paper provides insights on the conception of agency and decision-making.

I carried out fieldwork in Quito, Ecuador from 2004 to 2006 as part of my PhD dissertation. My goal was to understand women’s participation in Catholic groups in Quito. I interviewed more than 20 middle class mestizo women, aged between 30 and 50. I used both open ended and semi structured interviews to understand their everyday Catholic practice. The group included married, single and even divorced women; housewives and professionals with paid jobs. What they had in common was that they all described themselves as practicing Catholics and were part of one of the following Catholic groups. Firstly, Communion, a women-only group organised by the parish church of a middle class neighbourhood; members of communion are mostly housewives with grown up children. Secondly, Jesus is our Saviour, a community that started as a charismatic group and is now part of an international ecumenical organisation; this community is a closed group and families that wish to join go through a selection process. Thirdly, an international organisation, Immaculate Conception, that venerates the Virgin; participants of this group are generally young, single or married couples and are mostly professionals.

Catholicism in Ecuador

One of the legacies that the Spanish left in Ecuador is a deep-rooted Catholicism that has been very influential throughout the history of the country. In fact, from the colonial period onwards the Church has occupied an important position and exercised a great amount of power by participating in the social and political life of Ecuador (Cuvi Sánchez, 2006; Goetschel, 1999; Herrera, 1999; Radcliffe and Westwood, 1996; Williams, 2001). However, during the past decades, the religious sphere in Ecuador, as in the rest of Latin America, has been transformed. The almost 500-year monopoly of the Catholic Church has ended and has given way to religious pluralism (Levine, 2009). There are around 560 evangelical churches in Ecuador (Andrade, 2004) that compete for followers with the Catholic Church. In addition, an increased secularisation of society and the adoption of new ways of life that are deemed modern have weakened the presence of Catholicism in Ecuadorian society (Roberts, 2006). Moreover, the Church has also had to deal with internal divisions: Liberation theology, a leftist strand of Catholicism born in Latin America, has challenged, at times, the authority of the Church’s hierarchy (Kuecker, 2007; Lyons, 2001); new Catholic lay movements such as the Charismatics have become prominent in Ecuador and compete for followers with more conservative branches of the Church (Calderón Muñoz, 2011).

In spite of all these changes and fragmentations, the Catholic Church is still very influential in Ecuador and remains a symbol of unity in a divided country (Cuvi Sánchez, 2006; Radcliffe and Westwood, 1996). Catholic ideas permeate many ambits of life in Ecuador, and the Church’s interpretations about what is good or bad are taken seriously and are rarely questioned; in this way, the Church exercises power even over non-believers. As an example, the gender ideology of Catholicism, though regarded as outmoded and conservative, still influences how women are defined and treated in this country (Calderón Muñoz, 2011; Moldstat, 1997).

In this paper I am referring to the Catholic Church in singular. While I acknowledge that Catholicism is not homogeneous and that the Church encompasses institutions and ideologies as diverse as liberation theology, Opus Dei and the Charismatic Renewal, it is at the same time a universal institution with common rules and doctrine. Even if the women interviewed belong to different groups, they are all under the guidance of the Vatican and do not completely oppose the hierarchy of the Church and, most importantly, they feel part of a global institution. My focus in this paper is not to look at differences of interpretation between Catholic groups but to understand the intersections between gender, subjectivities and belief.

Poststructuralism and subjectivity

Although poststructuralism is not a single unified body of theory, it is based on certain premises. One of these is the rejection of universal explanations; poststructuralism favours analysis of power relations that are socially and historically contextualised (Scott, 1988; Weedon, 1987). The concept of discourse is another feature of poststructuralism and has been developed by various thinkers such as Foucault, Derrida and Lacan. Foucault (1972, 1980) used the term to describe institutions such as the Church, the government or the law that organise social structures and processes. For him, discourses are material practices that produce power relations; they are historically and socially specific and are constructed through language. Discourses compete for attention and subject individuals to various degrees. They seek legitimacy so they speak to us with the ‘language of common sense’ which is backed up by the knowledge that comes from experience or science (Weedon, 1987). Discourses through language define subjectivities (Butler, 1993; Hollway, 1984; Weedon, 1987). Weedon (1987: 32) describes subjectivity as ‘… the conscious and unconscious thoughts and emotions of the individual, her sense of herself and her ways of understanding her relation to the world’. If subjectivities are constructed, then there is no essential characteristic of the subject as was posited by the enlightenment. The humanist viewpoint defined the essence of the individual as a conscience or a soul in religious terms or as an inner core with which the person was born. Poststructuralism does not equate subject with an individual. A man or a woman may adopt several ‘subject positions’ within different discourses. Some of these subject positions are in conflict within one another and are ordered hierarchically and the prevalence of one depends on the context and the relative power of the discourse that it responds to. The fact that an individual is made up of different subject positions does not mean that there isn’t a coherent self. According to Moore (1994: 55):

What holds these multiple subjectivities together so they constitute agents in the world are such things as the subjective experience of identity, the physical fact of being an embodied subject and the historical continuity of the subject where past subject positions tend to overdetermine present subject positions.

Discourses construct engendered subjects. As such, the experience of being a woman or a man is different under the same discourse. However, Catholicism is not the only discourse that subjects women so it is important to keep in mind that the women interviewed exist within various other discourses that determine the meaning of the word ‘woman’. They are not only Catholic; they also belong to a social class and an ethnic group; they are mothers, wives and daughters. These discourses may compete with each other, and thus some of the choices women make may cause internal conflict.

If discourses dictate our lives and construct our subjectivity, how can we escape from them? Is it possible to modify discourse and if yes, how, if our lives and understanding are shaped by them? If we reject the vision of an autonomous subject that exists prior to discourse and that makes decisions, will there be room for personal agency and political change? De Lauretis (1984, 1986) offers an alternative view of the subject and of the construction of subjectivity that helps us answer these questions. For her subjectivity is constructed not only through language but also through experience. She defines experience as:

… a process by which, for all social beings, subjectivity is constructed. Through that process one places oneself or is placed in social reality, and so perceives and comprehends as subjective (referring to, even originating in, oneself) those relations – material, economic and interpersonal – which are in fact social and, in a larger perspective, historical. (de Lauretis, 1984: 159)

Furthermore, de Lauretis argues that our understanding and experience of the world is influenced by an internal process of reflexive practice or what she terms a process of consciousness of self. For de Lauretis (1986: 8), consciousness ‘is a particular configuration of subjectivity, or subjective limits, produced at the intersection of meaning with experience’. Women, through experience, criticise aspects of dominant discourses and in this way alter their view of discourse. Therefore, subjectivity is not only informed by the outside context and discursive practices but by inner reflexivity. Reflective practices are always changing and fluid and we engage in them continually. However, this process is carried out within limits imposed by meanings that are available through language at a specific time.

Scott (1992) has criticised de Lauretis’ concept of experience because it fixes subjects as autonomous individuals that exist prior to discourse. For Scott, experiences are a product of discourse and therefore ‘… it is not individuals who have experience but subjects who are constituted through experience’ (Scott, 1992: 26). While I agree with Scott that experiences are generated by discourse, I believe that de Lauretis’ conception of reflexivity and consciousness of self gives room for agency and political practice within poststructuralism. The women I interviewed are subjected to different discourses, but they are not passive victims of them. They engage in reflexivity, continually interpreting their reality and modifying it. Certainly there are limits to the extent women can interpret Catholicism. Those limits are imposed by the women themselves, but also by external guidelines given by powerful people within the Church and by Catholic tradition in which they firmly believe.

Identity and self-narrative

In an article entitled ‘Who needs “identity”?’, Stuart Hall (1996) argues that the concept of identity has been widely debated within different academic perspectives and disciplines and that most of the critiques have in common a rejection of the idea of a unified subject with a clear and determined identity. He believes that although the concept of identity should be reformulated it is still necessary: ‘(it is) an idea which cannot be thought in the old way, but without which certain key questions cannot be thought of at all’ (Hall, 1996: 2). Thus, for him, identity is a concept ‘under erasure’ in a Derridean fashion.

Hall contends that identity or more exactly, identification, is important to understand the relationship between subjects and discursive practices. Identification for Hall is not a complete and neatly defined process, rather it is never fixed; it is contextual and provisional. In the same way, identity is not something that comes with the individual and remains unchanged from birth to death, a stable and definite characteristic at his or her core that may be masked by different covers but always there. For him, identities are multiple and fractured, forever changing and conditional. They are constructed through discursive practices and thus subjected to discourses and ideologies.

Identities for Hall are not defined through similarities alone; they are also the product of differences. They are built in opposition, defined by what they exclude more than by what they include. Consequently, the relation with the oppositional other is what shapes them. Further on, identities are not only formed by past experiences but additionally through future possibilities and by how individuals are represented by others and by themselves:

Though they seem to invoke an origin in an historical past with which they continue to correspond, actually identities are about questions of using the resources of history, language and culture in the process of becoming rather than being: not ‘who we are’ or ‘where we came from’, so much as what we might become, how we have been represented and how that bears on how we might represent ourselves. Identities are therefore constituted within, not outside representation. (Hall, 1996: 4)

Catholicism is a good example of the above. Catholic identity is constructed within representation, in other words within the meanings we ascribe to Catholicism. Thus, no one is essentially a Catholic although many are born within a Catholic family. The process of becoming a Catholic starts formally with baptism / conversion and continues through life and is nourished by shared cultural imaginings, rituals and traditions. To construct subjects, the church provides an image of an ideal that Catholics should strive for, and that for women is the Virgin Mary (Calderón Muñoz, 2014). This narrative of the good Catholic runs parallel to or competes with other narratives and it can encompass different meanings as I will discuss later.

How do these ideas about identity link or relate to the postructuralist vision of the subject and of subjectivity? For many postructuralists, identities are simply the same thing as subject positions. For example, Smith and Watson (2001) use the two terms interchangeably. For them, just as for Hall, identities are rooted in difference and constructed through discourse, thus neither essential nor natural. However, Hall (1996: 6) differentiates identities from subject positions and contends that identities are the articulation between subject and subject positions:

I use ‘identity’ to refer to the meeting point, the point of suture between on the one hand the discourses and practices which attempt to ‘interpellate’, speak to us or hail us into place as the social subjects or particular discourses, and on the other hand, the processes which produce subjectivities, which construct us as subjects which can be ‘spoken’. Identities are thus points of temporary attachment to the subject positions which discursive practices construct for us.

Hall’s distinction is important because it is the identification with or the rejection and exclusion of a group of people that makes it possible or desirable for the individual to adopt certain subject positions. It means subject positions are not forced on the subject but chosen and accepted through processes of identification. As Hall (1996: 7) argues: ‘The notion that an effective suturing of the subject to a subject position requires, not only that the subject is ‘hailed’ but that the subject invests in the position, means that suturing has to be thought of as an articulation, rather than a one-sided process …’.

For Hall, it is through the narration of the self that identities occur. Thus, we are always in a process of imagining ourselves and defining who we are similar to and different from. The stories map what we believe in a specific time and in a certain context and will probably change when the circumstances change. In other words, we are constantly defining and redefining ourselves according to our experiences of the world and contact with other people.

Smith and Watson (1996) are also interested in theorising the experience of narrating the self. They argue that we are constantly telling our stories through different mediums: filling in questionnaires; reconstructing our lives through family albums, through personal ads, etc. We are also telling them through the way we dress, the car we drive or the objects we possess. These authors believe that the myth of autobiography is to believe the narration of the self is a single, linear and clear account of events told with objectivity. They argue that:

Autobiography is contextually marked, collaboratively mediated, provisional. Acknowledging the dialogical nature of autobiographical telling, we confront the ways in which autobiographical telling is implicated in the microbial operations of power in contemporary everyday life. In telling their stories, narrators take up models of identity that are culturally available. And by adopting ready-made narrative templates to structure experiential history, they take up culturally designated subjectivities. (Smith and Watson, 1996: 9, italics in original).

Smith and Watson contend that some institutions such as the Catholic Church provide us with pre-packaged stories of ourselves that we adapt to fit our personal context. They argue that: ‘when we interact with these institutions we engage their already provided narratives of identity, their already mapped-out subject positions’ (Smith and Watson, 1996: 11). Indeed, the women’s stories that I present below are very similar which may be because, as Watson and Smith argue, certain narrative templates are culturally available. These narratives of identity are reinforced by institutions such as the media, the Church, the government apparatus or the schooling system in Ecuador.

In the following section I will analyse the stories that women told me about themselves during interviews. These were moments in which they chose what to tell; what they said, their silences and pace gave me clues about the position of Catholicism in the narrative of their lives. My purpose in interpreting these narratives is to understand the meanings and the importance they give to their Catholic identity and how and why they transgress the rules they know so well. I will start by pinpointing ideas that were repeated in many of their narratives such as their conversion to a true Catholicism, the importance of religion when making decisions and their personal practice of Catholicism. I will then analyse why they disobey Catholic rules and how they explain these transgressions.

The discovery of a personal Catholicism and the acquisition of a Catholic identity

Most interviews started with the description of the point of true conversion. All of the women interviewed were born to a Catholic family and some of them went to a Catholic school. Although family and school were important for the development of their beliefs, they did not define their present faith. Many of the women interviewed told me how oppressive these environments were. For this reason, some of them distanced themselves from the Catholic Church at some point in their lives, and in some cases even rejected religion. Furthermore, it was common in their narratives to describe a situation that divided their existence between a before and after; between being nominal Catholics and active, convinced ones. This point of rupture usually originates in a special event in their lives such as the death of a relative or a lack of sense in their existence. The conversions of Victoria, Soledad and Isabel illustrate these points.

My name is Victoria and I belong to a very religious family. My parents thought that the best for their children was to be educated in a Catholic school. But I had a bad experience because the nuns in my school were very authoritarian and they showed us a punishing God, a very harsh God. That is why in my youth I left religion. For me it was like liberation when I left school. Later, I got married and had my children. My health problems started and other things happened to me and I knew something was missing and it was God. I started to look for a group that would pray with me, that would guide me, that had my same ideals and I came to this group.

Victoria, one of the youngest members of Communion, is in her late thirties. She exemplifies the idea of the disenchantment of Catholicism due to repression and a view of God as an unforgiving God, ready to punish. However, even if she rejects religion at some point she realises there is something missing. This coincides with or is a consequence of her personal problems that include a miscarriage and a difficult relationship with her mother in law.

Soledad discovers a different way of practicing religion in an organised group. Soledad is a member of Jesus is our Saviour and has been a part of it for more than 15 years; Soledad belongs to a very religious family; she is in her late thirties, teaches English at a primary school and is married to another member of the community. They have three children.

I come from a Catholic family. Since I can remember, we have always gone to church on Sundays and my mother has always taught us to love the Virgin. I went to a religious school and when I had a particular need I used to go the school church to pray to the Virgin. But my Catholicism was something learned, not something mine. When I graduated from school I went to study to the Catholic University. Almost at the end I had the opportunity of visiting a charismatic group where something special happened to me. Even if I had always been close to Catholicism, this time I experimented something that was personal. I felt closer to a living God. I realised that Jesus was not in a book where his story is told but that he was alive.

Isabel, a member of Immaculate Conception, does not experience a rejection of Catholicism but she becomes more engaged in religion due to a crisis at home:

I was a super executive woman; I didn’t care about anyone. I lived for my job. I used to work from 8.00 in the morning till 8.30 at night. I picked them up [her two daughters] at night when they were already sleeping and in the morning I barely saw them. Suddenly my daughter made me change because she required my attention. She started having problems …. It was a year of crisis and I decided to change and I don’t know if it was because I was feeling guilty, but I started to pray the rosary every day asking for enlightenment and since then I have only received blessings.

Isabel went to a middle class Catholic School and later attended a Catholic university in Quito where she studied business administration. After finishing her studies she found a well-paid job as an executive of an IT company, got married and had two daughters. During the interview she mentioned how guilty she felt during those years of leaving her daughters with her mother while she worked, especially as one of her daughters needed learning support. Thus, she decided to dedicate more time to her family and she found a part time position in the Church where she is in charge of administering funds for social projects. Isabel now finds she can combine effectively being a mother and a wife with her professional life. The money she makes now is less than she made at her previous job but for her the sacrifice is worth it. The crisis she describes was successfully overcome with the help of her faith.

An analysis of these stories of conversion illustrates how Catholicism is not something that is learned or imposed (although the women all come from a Catholic background). Catholicism is an ideology that is discovered and appropriated at the right moment, and these women believe that it is God who decides when a person is ready to change. These accounts also exemplify the idea that identities are not fixed; rather they are perpetually evolving when circumstances change. Thus, it is different to experience Catholicism as a young, single woman than as a married woman with children, as motherhood entails an extra responsibility – the socialisation of children as Catholics, as I will discuss later. In addition, for the women I interviewed it is not sufficient to describe themselves as Catholic. They need to add a qualifier; consequently, they talk of themselves as true or practicing Catholics as opposed to non-practicing or nominal Catholics.

Being a Catholic in this world

Most of the women interviewed consider themselves good Catholics. They go to mass on Sundays, confess their sins regularly and try to pray every day. They are also interested in educating their children in the Catholic faith and in preaching Catholicism to husbands and relatives. Being a good Catholic is not easy and they are constantly trying to improve their behaviour.

As I have previously mentioned, an identity exists in relation to other identities. The women interviewed frequently cited differences between themselves and those who were not religious or who were evangelicals. They also compared their own practice and measured their own commitment against an ideal practice of Catholicism. Amelia, a young, single professional, and a member of Immaculate Conception, describes an evangelical church as an alien environment where members are driven by passion instead of by reason:

… I had a friend that was a Christian. She invited some close friends to some kind of retreat and I told her I was afraid they were going to attack my beliefs. … I didn’t like their fanatism. At the beginning they made us read the Bible and reflect and that was nice but later, they started to shout ‘Aleluya’ and they started acting as if they were desperate. There was a minister who was touching their heads and they started supposedly to be ecstatic, others said that the Holy Spirit was inside them and started to be sick and you could really see them vomiting; others started to speak weirdly as if their tongues were twisted, very weird. I thought they were mad and I didn’t like it.

The threat of Evangelical churches to the Catholic Church was a prevalent theme during the interviews. Many of the women I interviewed have visited at some point an evangelical church, and while there are things that they appreciate (such as the sense of community they see in those churches) they do not like their atomisation – there are several hundred Christian churches in the city and they do not interact with each other – or their rejection of what Catholics consider is the only true Church. They also believe that evangelicals are wrong in rejecting the Virgin Mary and the Saints, who for Catholics are an important part of their faith (Calderón Muñoz, 2014).

The women I met during fieldwork do not only compare themselves to evangelicals but also to other Catholics who they consider are not good enough. They are also very critical of young women who have grown up in a different and more liberated age than them. They disapprove of their lack of interest in religion and Christian values. Daughters and other members of their families do not escape criticism. Although most of the women I interviewed had chosen a Catholic school for their daughters, they complained that they didn’t go to mass, or wanted to pray at home. They weren’t obedient as their mothers were when young. They were also amazed at the sexual activity of young girls that belonged to Catholic families.

Regarding their own practice, most of the women interviewed thought there was room for improvement and some of them admitted that they didn’t do enough as Catholics. Dolores, from Immaculate Conception, is a medical doctor with a six-year-old son. One of her concerns during the interview was the future of children, growing up in a more secular world. She was also worried about her own role as a mother and her commitment to teach her son about religion:

I consider myself a practicing Catholic but not completely because I think I should teach more about religion to my child but I commit a sin, that of the working mother. I have so little time. When I used to work less, I had more time to teach my son more about God. He doesn’t attend a Catholic school but he goes to Sunday school and I think he doesn’t learn much. I asked him who wrote the Bible and he said ‘some nuns’.

In this testimony, Dolores signals the difficulties of being a good Catholic mother and fulfilling her professional role as well. Dolores, whose husband has been unemployed for the last three years, is the main breadwinner. However, she feels guilty for having to work full time and neglecting her son’s religious education. Men do not have the same dilemmas as women (Cuvi Sánchez, 2009; Radcliffe and Westwood, 1996). Their role as fathers does not imply 100% dedication to the children. They are the providers, and providing wages for the family is more important than looking after children, an idea confirmed by many women. Isabel, who had to give up her job as a business manager in order to spend more time with her daughters, believes mothers have a more direct role in raising the children than fathers:

We manage our finances together. He also helps me with the children but their education is my job; the children need their mother. When you are a professional and and you are a mother, you can’t do everything. I used to get home late at night and didn’t even have time to talk to my husband because I was too tired. Now I have reorganised my life, I work, I am a mother and I have time for him and that is the way it should be. Marriage is teamwork and this is not an idea that is machista. The husband has to devote completely to providing money for the whole family and the wife, to look after the family.

Motherhood, according to the Catholic Church, is women’s main role as exemplified by the Virgin (Calderon Muñoz, 2014; Maeckelberghe, 1994; Melhuus, 1996; Neale, 1998; Pope John Paul II, 1987, 1995; Ratzinger, 1988; Ratzinger and Amato, 2004). Accordingly, Dolores and Isabel firmly believe their role as mothers is more important than that of professional women. However, they are also working mothers and time dedicated to their professional role means time away from their children and this may cause them distress even though many women, such as Dolores, need to or want to work.

Multiple subjectivities

Women look for guidance in the Catholic doctrine when they need to find answers or they have to make important decisions. The following testimonies show that the women interviewed are aware of the rules and that they know the way they are supposed to behave if they want to be good Catholics.

Religion gives you a code of conduct. A general code is the Ten Commandments that are written in the Bible. For example if you kill someone, that is wrong. (Isabel, Immaculate Conception)

That is what the school left me, Catholic teachings …. I do believe that our children should grow up with God. I didn’t put them in the Catholic school I went to because of what I was saying before about the social position of the school … but I looked for a Catholic school for my daughters. (Gabriela, Immaculate Conception)

I like this Pope very much, I have no problem …. Everybody said that he is a rigid Pope, that he has a mental structure that is too German, but I think he is in the right path. They said he was too conservative but I believe that he needs to be conservative because he cannot let people do whatever they want. Those who think he is too conservative could be because they don’t want discipline. (Beatriz, Communion)

These three excerpts show that women know that there is an authority, the Pope, that dictates the rules and there is a book of rules, the Bible, that all Catholic should adhere to. There is no difference of interpretation between women of different groups. They do not question these principles. However, even if they understand the rules of the Church, and feel part of this institution, some of them will not let the Church regulate their private lives completely. An example of this is the use of contraceptive methods, as for the Church believes that sex should lead to procreation.

Fernanda is a woman in her early forties, married to a businessman and with four children. Fernanda is the president of Communion. She considers herself to be very devoted to the Virgin, and she knows extensively about Catholicism as she has studied theology at university level. When she had her fourth child she was surgically sterilised. She felt she had to tell this to the parish priest, Father Rolando:

I confessed that I had been sterilised and supposedly it is a very serious sin and Father Rolando told me that he couldn’t give me the absolution. So I went to a priest from the Opus Dei. Imagine, that is the most conservative branch of the Church and he told me that I had to have a reverse operation. I told him that I already had four children and that I didn’t want any more. So I went to another priest and he absolved me.

In Ecuador, as in other countries in Latin America, poor women do not have sufficient information or access to contraception and tend to go through several pregnancies (Bremner et al., 2009; Felitti, 2008). In contrast, middle class women establish distance from poor women through the control of their sexuality. They have access to contraception and the knowledge to use these methods (Ishida et al., 2009). Thus these women defend their freedom to choose. Fernanda is clear that she does not want more children. She has knowledge of and access to contraception and defends her freedom to choose, although she understands the Catholic Church’s position on this matter. Fernanda’s testimony also shows that she believes that the power of the priests is relative and that there are differences in how priests interpret Catholic rules as some are more liberal than others. For Fernanda, confession is mostly a social ritual, and in a way she is not looking for God’s forgiveness because she feels she has done nothing wrong.

Sexual relations before marriage is, for Catholicism, a serious fault. Cristina, from Immaculate Conception, is an economist in her early forties. She told me in the interview that she had lived with her husband before getting married. I asked her if pre-marital cohabiting had caused conflict with her faith:

Yes, it is a contradiction but it was very complicated to solve it, terribly complicated because I would have liked him (my husband) to accept my faith from the beginning …. After our wedding my family was happier because it was a conflict for them since they didn’t expect that from me. For me it was less of a conflict because I knew he was the one. If he doesn’t want to be with me anymore I would never look for someone else. … When I met him, there were other influences in my life. It was the time I was learning about feminism and gender. It was very contradictory because I thought that first I should try to see if it works with him. It was a difficult time. I was 27 or 28 years old.

Cristina describes herself as a feminist and so has to confront her political views with Catholicism. She justifies her choice by saying that she knew he was the man she would ultimately marry. Although she describes the situation as conflictive, she does not consider her actions to be sinful because they feel right to her.

However, disregarding the rules may bring about conflictive feelings, so how do these women cope with them? When I asked them why they did things that they knew were forbidden by the Church they gave me different explanations. The most common one was that the Church was an institution made by human beings, and was thus not perfect. They argued that men made the rules, not God. Some were even critical of the Pope and priests that acted as mediators between human beings and God.

The Pope is against certain things but Catholics do those things even though they know the Pope is against them because they have a life to live. The Pope shouldn’t have the last word in the world but that is the way it is. I think that the gospels have the last word. … I am against that the Pope should say that it is a sin to protect oneself [use contraception]. Everybody does it. Obviously, you have to believe and love the Pope. I love the Pope, I love the Church with its mistakes. In the past they said one thing and now they say something different, contradictory, because the Church is human, it is not perfect. That is why I don’t get scared if I feel a bit guilty and I think: what I am doing is correct? But then, a new Pope comes and he will change certain things. What is constant and never changes is the love for the Virgin, the faith but go to mass every Sunday is not a norm of God. (Fernanda, Communion)

It is important to learn to discriminate. There are a lot of things that come from centuries ago, that have been imposed to control people, to have economic control, but that does not mean that the Church in itself is a bad thing and that it is wrong to believe in God and all that. We have to learn how to discriminate and say: okay, this was invented, it is not relevant. The topic of Sunday mass does not mean necessarily that you have to go and sit for one hour. You might not even listen to the priest but you have done your duty as a Catholic just because you were there. Listen, I used to live in Chile and the mass on the University where my husband studied was on Thursdays, with a wonderful priest. It was a dialogue more than a mass, a teaching for life and that was my Sunday mass. I haven’t found anything like that in here. If I find it I will go and I don’t think it is a sin not to go. I don’t think I need confession because I haven’t gone to mass on Sundays. I think you have to mature your own faith. (Gabriela, Immaculate Conception)

In both of these narratives, these two women question the supremacy of the Pope and the priests that represent him. They differentiate between the Church with its arbitrary rules and God whose wishes and rules are written in the Bible. Fernanda and Gabriela are both middle class and have a good grasp of Catholic doctrine. Fernanda believes the Pope shouldn’t rule on issues of personal choice. Gabriela refers to her faith as mature and in this way she establishes differences with those that are incapable of discerning and who accept without further analysis the rules imposed by priests and the Pope. However, both women show how much they love the Catholic Church in spite of being human and thus, prone to mistakes.

Thus, when there are contradictions between their different identities, for example that of middle class mothers and their identity as Catholics, women have to make choices and live with those decisions. As I have described, the Catholic Church imposes rules that, if followed, are rewarded with the idea of heaven and if not, punished with hell. Making decisions is not an easy task and some women have to negotiate with themselves and ultimately, find a logical explanation for their choices.

The following testimony comes from Amparo. She was part of the community Jesus is our Saviour but was asked to leave it when she divorced six years ago. She has decided to remarry. Marriage for Catholics is sacred and cannot be dissolved, so a second wedding constitutes a serious sin. Even though she knows this, she will go through with it and this is her justification:

Yes, I consider that I am a good person and I want to rebuild my life; with God’s help, I am going to marry again. For me it has been a struggle, a process to be able to say these things, a very long process. I knew that this was not something ‘accepted’. But I have also talked to other priests and more than anything, I have prayed and before God I feel in peace, do you understand? I am a person that has never acted incorrectly, not even when I was married. My marriage didn’t end because of infidelities or things like that. Unfortunately, it ended; I got divorced but I don’t think it is God’s idea that you are always sad, always lonely, you made a mistake, you are ruined. I feel that the Catholic Church closes the doors on you. I don’t think God is like that, he never excludes you, he always opens his arms to you. … I am going to do it and I don’t feel God is going to stop loving me for that. I have the right to start again.

Amparo, similarly to the other women interviewed, separates the Church, a human institution, from God. She believes that God is a loving and forgiving father who wants the best for her, unlike the Church that excludes those that have made mistakes. However, she does not want to leave the Church completely. Amparo mentions that she has spoken to other priests to seek their advice and to validate her choice. Thus, she still feels a good Catholic and both part of and a member of the Church.

Even though bending the rules is a common behaviour, there are other people who will not openly do that. Some of them believe that the doctrine of Catholicism should be followed strictly. This is true especially of people belonging to the community Jesus is our Saviour as it has very strict rules regarding acceptable behaviour for their members. Leaders of the community argue that the Bible should not give way to different interpretations and that its teachings are not open to discussion. The following testimony is from Paula:

The decisions I make in my Christian life are based on the Bible. The Catholic Church gives you parameters based on the gospels, about how a Christian person should live. I analyse all these things when I have to make decisions in my life. At present there is a new current, that of relativism. There are so many people that call themselves Catholics or Christians or of different religions. However, they do not have a full knowledge of the Gospel. For example, if you are a Catholic but at the same time you believe in the tarot or astrology, it is because you don’t have a personal relationship with God. This is a matter of faith.

Paula is a young mother of a two-year-old girl, married to one of the leaders of the community. Paula is very consistent with her faith: she prays every day, does not watch television or films and she only reads Christian books. She is very clear that Catholic rules should not be bent to accommodate personal whims. Paula is raising her daughter with strict Catholic rules.

Lucia, the wife of one of the leaders of Immaculate Conception, also promotes coherence and integrity in the practice of Catholicism. For her, Catholics should live according to strict principles that cannot be negotiated and temptation should be avoided on a daily basis:

Christians do not act coherently and they are led astray by ‘the new age’, the angels, the tarot. We should cut that down by the root with all these things that the Church prohibits. If we see homosexuals with good eyes we have to change that. We have to be clear that they live in sin and we have to tell them that. So many times, in order to appear trendy we accept homosexuality. … I haven’t gone to a disco for at least eight years and do you think I am unhappy? No, I am very happy. Not going to a disco is a personal call. In the discos you cannot find neither God nor the angels. There are people that drink, that use drugs; women dressed as if they were ready for you know what. I don’t go to the cinema as well. The film industry is an industry of Satan. In all films there are scenes with homosexuals, lesbians and they are portrayed as natural.

Both Lucia and Paula take Catholicism very seriously. For both of them it is impossible to relativise Catholic teachings and adapt them to conform to personal beliefs. For them the Bible is clear and it is not up to humans to interpret it as they wish. Their position regarding Catholicism and rules may be related to their place in their respective groups, as both are the leaders’ wives and thus they are role models for other women members of the groups.

Conclusion: Decisions, agency and identities

The examples above illustrate several points. The first one is that various identities coexist within a person; furthermore, these multiple identities can clash and cause internal conflicts because they respond to different discourses. With these testimonies I have shown that the Catholic discourse on women can become problematic for some of them as Catholicism has a very clear gender model of social order that states that motherhood is women’s main role. Thus Catholicism does not take into account other roles and needs that they may have. Women are supposed to abide by decisions and rules imposed by the Pope and priests, all of them men, and they resent obeying rules that go against their freedom to choose, especially on issues such as contraception. Because Catholicism does not tolerate dissension, women have to rebel silently and look for ways to justify their decisions. The level of compliance with Catholic rules varies according to personal belief and the way these women understand Catholicism. In addition, the testimonies show that personal beliefs and practices are reinforced by the women’s collective membership to a Catholic group. For example, more conservative strands such as the community Jesus is our Saviour may follow more closely the Bible and thus may be less willing to re-interpret rules.

The examples also demonstrate that individuals are always in the process of explaining their decisions through self-narratives. Narrating the self provides coherence to an individual’s life and gives it a sense of linearity. Narratives of the self can also help justify choices when there are conflicts between different identities. In the examples shown above, women manage their feelings of guilt by looking for logical arguments to explain why they deviate from rules imposed by a religion that is clearly important to them.

The women’s narratives show that when there are so many influences to consider decision-making is a complex process and experience plays an important part, as argued by de Lauretis (1984, 1986). Past experiences as women, wives, mothers and professionals as well as inner processes of self-reflexivity help them decide when there are conflicts. Women, then, are not blindly guided by Catholicism but are capable of dissenting when they need to. Agency then, although subjected to power discourses, is a product of experience and self-reflexivity.

The stories presented demonstrate that Catholic identity is not fixed; its limits are tested all the time and are constantly under revision. Of course, the redefinition of Catholicism may occur at a conscious or unconscious level; in other words, Catholics may know that they are going against certain dogmas and give an explanation to justify it or they might not be aware that they are giving new meanings and interpretations to the Church’s doctrine. In the latter case, Catholicism has become a part of these women’s lives; something that goes without saying and that does not need explaining, not even to themselves. Consequently, identities are not clear-cut and defined; they intersect with each other. Women may not be able or may not want to separate being Catholics from being mothers, wives or professionals. Identities are intertwined and it is difficult to know when one finishes and when others start, and unless there are conflicts between them they go unnoticed.