Prodigal Daughters: Catholic Women Come Home to the Church / Edited by Donna Steichen

In this memorable book, seventeen women of the Baby Boom generation tell their poignant personal stories of apostasy and repentance. Each left the Catholic Church to seek autonomy and fulfillment on the major cultural battlegrounds of this era. Each eventually turned homeward to find, like her prodigal brother in the best-loved of Christ's parables, that her Heavenly Father had been calling her throughout her absence, watching and yearning for her return.

Feminists in the bureaucratic networks of Catholic dissent continually predict that women will abandon the Church en masse unless they are soon admitted to the hierarchy. The women who recount their experiences in this timely and important book prove the dissenters wrong. They are representative of a growing stream of "reverts" who have recognized and repented of their errors when they rediscovered the living heart of Christ at the center of the Church.

Today, when virtually all faithful Catholics wait and pray for the return of some family member or friend who has strayed from the Church, these accounts of faith reborn offer hope and direction to lift the heart of every reader.

"A terrific group of stories. A must not only for younger people who have lost faith in their childhood Catholic Faith, but also for older Catholics to understand the reasoning both behind the defection of the young and also their intense yearning to find their way back. Thank you Donna Steichen for this gem."
—Ronda Chervin, Ph.D.

Donna Steichen, author of the best-selling book Ungodly Rage: The Hidden Face of Catholic Feminism, is a Catholic journalist and former teacher.