Mary T. MALONE.  Four Women Doctors of the Church.  Maryknoll: Orbis Books, 2015.  pp. 121.  $16.00 pb. ISBN 978-1-62698-240-6.  Reviewed by Moni MCINTYRE, Duquesne University.  Pittsburgh, PA  15282.

In this slim volume, Mary T. Malone highlights the contributions of the only four women Doctors of the Roman Catholic Church, “who are officially part of the magisterium, the official teaching body of the Roman Catholic Church” (9).  They are Hildegard of Bingen, Catherine of Siena, Teresa of Avila, and Therese of Lisieux.  Malone invites the church in our day to learn about these amazing women and to allow them to “become as familiar and influential in our lives as the teachings of the male doctors” (119), of whom there are “about thirty” (9).  Writing with the deep knowledge and insight of an accomplished church historian, and the keen observation of a feminist in a male-dominated church, the author reveals some of the ironies present in the lives of these outstanding women even as she situates them in their own time.  Following each chapter, Malone offers suggestions for further reading on each figure.  She points out the discrepancies in awareness between our age and that of each Doctor.  She neither faults them for their lack of awareness of today’s insights nor does she skirt the implications of some of their dated conclusions in extremely sexist times.  Malone is indeed faithful to these women and their accomplishments as she demonstrates easy familiarity with historical facts and figures.

Beginning with Hildegard of Bingen (1098-1179), Malone notes that this giant of her time was never canonized even though she was recognized by Pope Benedict XVI as a Doctor of the Church in 2012.  Living in churning times, Hildegard appeared between the great ages of contemplative monasticism and Scholasticism.  As a Benedictine abbess for most of her life, she was more at home in the subjectivity of  monasticism than the objectivity of Scholasticism, the flourishing of which she never lived to see.  Malone not only highlights Hildegard’s well known theological, spiritual, and musical achievements, but the author also points out such interesting factoids as, “Hildegard was the first woman to write reflectively about women in the plan of God” (32).  Furthermore, we learn about Hildegard’s amazing preaching and teaching in an age when women were expected to be silent. 

Just as Hildegard was on the world stage preaching the Second Crusade in the twelfth century, Catherine of Siena (1347-1380) actively intervened in the antipope scandals in the world church of the fourteenth century. Living during the time of the Black Death, which devastated the whole of fourteenth century Europe, the young Catherine was also involved in a crusade, because “she saw it as arousing the Christian spirit of the people, and stopping the endless warfare that was tearing Europe, and more immediately, Italy, apart” (49).  She was also mightily concerned with restoring the priesthood.  She worked to achieve her goals through the writing of hundreds of letters and The Dialogue as well as making friends with people in high places. Like Hildegard before her, Catherine was a mystic-for-others.  Her intense love of God overflowed into her dealings with others.  Malone tells us that “this young Sienese woman was declared a Doctor of the Church [along with Teresa of Avila by Pope Paul VI in 1970] because of her utter devotion to the Truth” (65).

Teresa of Avila (1515-1582) was another towering figure in the life of the church. Her “whole life was a search for holiness” and she understood holiness as “living the fullness of humanity in imitation of the life of Jesus” (69).  As with Hildegard and Catherine before her, Teresa demonstrated her holiness in a profound love for God and others.  Despite the trials placed in her path by the Inquisition, Teresa managed to write volumes and travel extensively throughout Spain spreading the Tridentine Reform and making it make sense to individual believers. Malone notes, “Like so many other mystics, Teresa learned her humanity from Jesus” (78) and was able to communicate it in her voluminous writings to all those who desire intimacy with God.

Therese of Lisieux (1873-1897) grew up in Jansenist France, which seemed to foster her “severe scrupulosity” (102).  Her short life in Carmel ended before she would have attained the average age of ordination to priesthood.  Like the other Doctors before her, Therese did not blame the church for their sexism; instead, she treasured ordinary life because she believed that that was where she would find God.  So, despite the fact that “all her life Therese had longed to be a priest” (109), she lived the “Little Way” of the ordinary Sister of Carmel, and for this she was named a Doctor of the Church in 1997 by Pope John Paul II.  She acted heroically in her rather mundane life and accepted the challenges of a morally rigoristic climate in which “sentimental pieties, profound awareness of the devil and a preoccupation with death and the next life” (114) were her constant companions.  Therese’s autobiography is a testament to her faith and fortitude in the difficult circumstances of ordinary life.

Mary Malone has done a superb job of making the average reader acquainted with the lives of four extraordinary Doctors of the Church.