Reviews

Review: Women of Faith

Means well, but the execution is flawed

By GERALD PEARY | June 24, 2009

2.0 Stars

Rebecca M. Alvin's documentary is a sincere attempt to understand the call to a Catholic religious vocation, but it's confused and disorganized in its telling. The film begins with a visit behind the walls of the Monastery of Saint Clare in Jamaica Plain.

Then it leaps, without explanation, to vintage documentary footage of Maryknoll nuns serving as missionaries around the world, and then to recent protests of Catholic women wanting the priesthood opened up to females. Slowly, a liberal-Catholic point-of-view emerges, through extended interviews with a woman who has declared herself a priest and is conducting Catholic services, an ex-nun who is an out lesbian, and several progressive nuns who espouse a liberation theology.

The discussions are only moderately interesting; the shooting of the film is rudimentary. Women of Faith seems better suited for Catholic discussion groups than to stand alone as a work of cinema.

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Topics: Reviews , Culture and Lifestyle, Religion

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