Carmen M. Mangion
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Choosing religious life
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Convent documents such as necrologies and biographies reinforced the standard tenets of nineteenth-century femininity by highlighting the obedience and piety of women even when faced with family opposition to their entering religious life. These two discourses, the Protestant one that argued that women entered religious life under duress and the Catholic discourse of a 'higher calling', had one thing in common: both dismissed the agency of women entering religious life. The chapter questions these discourses and examines women's agency in 'choosing' religious life. The role of the clergy was particularly important in the early years of a congregation's existence, before educational institutions and kinship relationships began to play such an important role in introducing women to religious life. Religious institutions were stamped with the congregation's special spirit of evangelisation and were essential for the growth of Catholic missions in England.

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Contested identities

Catholic women religious in nineteenth-century England and Wales

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