In Springs of Water in a Dry Land: Spiritual Survival for Catholic Women Today a professor of religious studies and women's studies at Indiana University, speaks to a wide crosscut of Catholic women both within and outside the Catholic church. Although Jesus's attitudes toward women were essentially sensitive and empowering, the same cannot by any stretch of the imagination be said to be true of contemporary patriarchal Catholicism. Far too many women in the church feel like second-class citizens — "invisible, powerless, unwelcome, and trivialized." In seven essays directed to those who have remained in the Catholic church despite its widespread misogyny, Weaver challenges women to trust their inner voice in the spirit of Teresa of Avila, a 16th century Spanish Carmelite.
Weaver also acknowledges the efforts of those in the Womenchurch movement who have set out in the wilderness to create new communities, stories, and rituals. The author, who herself has feelings of "spiritual homelessness," advises them to look to the God of process theology who "grows in understanding and relatedness along with the rest of us."
Although Weaver realizes the drawing power of Goddess spirituality, she believes that Catholic feminists in the wilderness should tap some of the "nurturing springs" of mysticism within the tradition of Catholicism. Her comments on the spirituality which can derive from these resources are edifying.