ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the Roman Catholic Church as revealed in Catholic theologian Tina Beattie’s critique of Hans Urs von Balthasar, whose disturbing theology has contributed to a misogyny she argues has poisoned the entire body of the Church. Beattie’s critique is used as a point of departure into a potentially transformative poetics the author believes Beattie hints at but never fully pursues. Beattie and von Balthasar differ greatly, yet they are alike, the author suggests, in their decision to remain in the institutional Catholic Church. Their reluctance to leave their religious home will provide a starting point of discussion for this work on faith, poetry, and gender, asking as it does what might happen if the sort of creative theological thinking both engaged in were given leave to leave home.
