Catholic feminists live with the ongoing tension of seeking the intellectual freedom to explore theological ideas that liberate women while at the same time maintaining communication with the Catholic institution, said a renowned feminist theologian.

Rosemary Radford Ruether, a scholar and prolific author or editor of 44 books and hundreds of articles, talked about her life's work April 23 at the Barnsdall Gallery Theatre in Hollywood. Her lecture, attended by about 50 people, was sponsored by the Immaculate Heart Community as part of their annual Anita Caspary Lecture Series.

"I'm obviously interested in maintaining a critical presence, a Catholic presence in the Catholic Church of reform Catholics including Catholic feminists," said Ruether, who noted that most of her professorial positions have been at Protestant institutions. "You have to have a combination of certain kinds of autonomy, and institutions that protect you, while at the same time find ways to stay in communication."

Early in her career Ruether taught 10 years at Howard University, a historically black college in Washington, D.C. She taught one year at Harvard University and in the mid-1980s spent a year in Sweden on a Fulbright scholarship. She served as the Georgia Harkness Professor of Theology at Garrett-Evangelical Theological Seminary in Evanston, Ill., for 27 years. She and her husband Herman, a political scientist, retired to Claremont. Ruether now teaches feminist theology as a visiting professor at Claremont Graduate University and Claremont School of Theology, and she writes columns for National Catholic Reporter.

Her varied scholarship has included books on ecology from a feminist perspective, the history of women and religion in North America, the theological roots of anti-Semitism, the current Israeli-Palestinian conflict, racism and liberation theology. She wrote several articles criticizing Roman Catholic views on sex and reproduction that was underlying its ban on artificial birth control. One of her most recent books is "Integrating Ecofeminism, Globalization and World Religions."

Ruether said she grew up in a diversity of religious culture. Her mother was Catholic, her father was Episcopalian, and her favorite uncle, a painter and musician, was Jewish. It was from her mother that her intellectual curiosity was sparked. "She passed on to me a sense that the Catholic tradition should be taken seriously but thought about freely and critically," said Ruether.

In the mid-1950s she studied the classics, comparative religions and the history of Christian thought at Scripps College, a women's college in Claremont. She earned her masters and doctorate degrees at Claremont Graduate School, specializing in Roman history, patristics and the first four centuries of Christianity while at the same time giving birth to her three children.

Ruether told The Tidings she thought it was important for young Catholic women to study other religions to be able to "put your own culture in context and to have some kind of perspective on your tradition."

During her remarks she applauded the multi-contextualization of feminist theologies by African-American women, Latinas, Jewish, Buddhists and Christian women.

"All that is to be encouraged. Women exist in every class, race and religious context," she said. "What does feminism mean in all these different contexts?"

Ruether noted that in Buddhism, Buddhist nuns are secondary to monks. The oldest Buddhist nun must defer to the youngest Buddhist monk. Nuns must be taught by monks, but must never teach monks.

"There are a whole series of inferiorizing laws these nuns have to deal with, and criticize and question and overcome," she said.

By studying world religions, said Ruether, women recognize their parallel struggles and understand the value and limitations of their own religious tradition.