“Mary Leads the Way”: female mystical leadership and marian apparitions in the political context of nineteenth-century Europe

Abstract

The rise of feminist movements coincided with the strategic use of Marian devotion to shape women’s
social roles, while Catholic Romanticism of the period actively encouraged mystical religious experiences. In this context, countries such as Germany, Italy, and France witnessed a significant increase in cases involving female mystics and visionaries. However, the Catholic Church’s differing responses—encouraging the passivity of female visionaries in relation to Marian apparitions while restraining female mystical leadership—reveal the ambiguous ways in which women, the Virgin, and female mysticism were instrumentalized in support of the Church’s strategies for survival in modernity. This article investigates the relationship between the political and religious revival
of the Catholic Church in nineteenth-century Europe and the notable increase in reports of Marian apparitions and female stigmata mysticism during the same period. The study relies on both qualitative and quantitative analyses of reported cases, along with a critical review of the historiography on the subject.