ST. JOAN'S INTERNATIONAL ALLIANCE

Also known as Alliance Internationale Jeanne d'Arc, Saint Joan's International Alliance is a Catholic association of men and women working for the implementation of the principle of equality of the sexes in society and in the Church. Founded in 1911 in London by Gabrielle Jeffery, May Kendall, and Beatrice Gadsby as the Catholic Women's Suffrage Society, the organization recruited members in other countries and extended its activities to all aspects of women's rights. In 1924, under the name of St. Joan's Social and Political Alliance, it became a founding member of the Liaison Committee of Women's International Organizations. A French section was established in 1931, the U.S. section was formed in 1965. At the beginning of the 21st century, the society had sections and members in 15 countries.

The Alliance has worked with the League of Nations and the United Nations for the abolition of forced marriages, child marriages, female slavery, and other forms of economic servitude, trafficking of women for sexual exploitation, and the sexual mutilation of women. It has campaigned for equal opportunities for women in education, employment, and leadership positions; equal pay between the sexes for the same jobs; and the right of married women to employment.

Promoting equality for women in the Catholic Church was an important concern for the Alliance. During the 1950s and 1960s, the Alliance maintained cordial relations with Pius XII, John XXIII, and Paul VI. In 1961, when Pope John XXIII invited the laity to express their opinions before the approaching Vatican Council II, six members of the Alliance (a lawyer and five theologians) published in Zürich an eloquent plea for the admission of women to the ministerial priesthood entitled Wir schweigen nicht länger. The Alliance presented petitions for the opening of the restored diaconate to women (1961), for the presence of laity as observers at the Council (1963), for the admission of women to the priesthood (1963),and for the revision of Canon Law (1965). In the wake of Vatican Council II, membership was opened to men. The Alliance focused its efforts in the Church and removed "Political and Social" from its name. It joined the Conference of International Catholic Organizations. In 1967, at the insistence of the Alliance's president, the World Congress of the Laity in Rome interceded, with near total unanimity, for the rights of women in the Church. In 1971, following the intervention of the Alliance's Canadian section, the Canadian Catholic Bishops made an unprecedented plea at the Synod of Bishops for the ministerial ordination of women.

The promulgation of the Declaration on the Admission of Women to the Ministerial Priesthood in 1976, followed by subsequent documents prohibiting further discussion of this issue changed the landscape. Many members, dispirited and discouraged, left the Alliance and the Catholic Church. In the social arena, the Alliance has made full use of its unique position as the only feminist NGO officially accredited to both the United Nations and the Vatican to work for better conditions for women all over the world. Before the Synods of African Bishops and Asian bishops, it submitted recommendations on the widespread victimization of women in Africa and Asia.

The Alliance's official journal, The Catholic Citizen, has appeared uninterrupted since 1915. In 1977, a second journal, L'Alliance, appeared in French, replaced in 1993 by a quarterly published in Belgium entitled Terre des Femmes Sociétés Religions Nouvelles Internationales.

Bibliography: g. heinzelmann, ed. Wir schweigen nicht länger. Frauen äussern sich zum II. Vatikanischen Konzil (Zürich 1964). m. daly, The Church and the Second Sex (New York 1968) 85–6. p. and w. proctor, Women in the Pulpit: Is God an Equal–Opportunity Employer? (New York 1976) 157–158.

[a.–m. pelzer]