Women and liturgy, yesterday, today and tomorrow

What has been the contribution of women's theological reflection to liturgical-sacramental theology?   This question is the starting point for Paula Depalma's book Donne e teologia liturgica [Women and Liturgical Theology], published by San Paolo. The author emphasizes that this question is “certainly legitimate if we consider that first the liturgical movement and then the liturgical reform intersected with the new awareness of faith that Catholic women developed during the 20th century, under the impetus of ecumenical confrontation”. The book, with the subtitle, Riesaminare il passato, trasformare il presente, disegnare il futuro [Re-examining the Past, Transforming the Present, Designing the Future], has an introduction by Andrea Grillo, who edited the Italian edition.

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Biblical women who were disobedient to power

Women of Israel. L'emancipazione femminile nell'Antico Testamento [Women's emancipation in the Old Testament] by Pietro Pierantoni, San Lorenzo editions, unfolds through twenty-two Old Testament female portraits.  What emerges is “the attitude of biblical women towards power, often under the banner of disobedience (here, recalling Sifra and Pua and of the Pharaoh's daughter, of Raab, of Vasti), for a deeper obedience towards the weak, towards life, towards their own conscience”, writes the theologian and biblical scholar Emanuela Buccioni in the preface. (WCW)