Oct 14, 2026 · 1 hr 9 min · 12 segments
In this episode, I sit down with Catholic feminist, lay theologian, and spiritual director-in-training Salina Bear to talk about her unlikely journey from Reformed Protestantism, through…
One of the things you talk a lot about on your platform is the, the buzzword of, of feminism that so many people are obsessed with.
And, um, one of the things that I often hear from women growing up in the church is that they feel like religion might be for them, but it's always away from the men.
Or especially in the Catholic Church, it's like, "I can be Catholic, but because I can't become a priest, I can't really be fully Catholic," or, "I can't imagine myself sort of leading or preaching or really taking my faith for my own." What was it like for you to realize that maybe your experience of religion was a little bit different being a woman, um, and how did that affect your sort of taking a break around, uh, you said this is sort of, like, 24 mark?
I was about to say, not to give you too loaded of a question.
[laughs]
I think, like, so, um, at age 24, you know, being in Protestant land, um, I thought that, you know, women could run churches.
But it was more like I could not find anybody who was, who was taking the-- This sounds so cheesy, but, like, taking the gospel seriously.
Like, I was constantly in Protestant churches where they were just remodeling everything all the time.
And I was like, "Shouldn't we be giving this money to poor people?" Like, "Shouldn't we be feeding, you know, the six homeless people that are outside our church every week?" And they're like, "Oh, well, we did donate some money to the soup kitchen eight months ago." You know, that sort of thing.
And e- it, you know, everybody communicated in these odd, like, buzzwords like, "Oh, how is your faith growing? How is your, how is your walk with Jesus?" Like, it wasn't real English.
Um, it just all felt like some sort of- Manufactured Protestant American Christianity that you were served every week and expected to participate in, and say all the correct words, and raise your hand for the praise and worship choruses.
And then you just, like, went home, and nothing about your life was different, except maybe you went to a fellowship group on Thursdays.
And then you just came back on Sunday and did the same thing, which a lot of Catholics also experience, uh, from what I hear, growing up Catholic.
I think it was just a disillusionment of pretend religion or, like, playing at religion.
Um, I did spend a lot of time studying and reading about kind of like a complementarian versus an egalitarian view of the sexes, which is more of a debate within Protestant circles than it is within Catholicism, at least phrased that way.
One of the things you talk a lot about on your platform is the, the buzzword of, of feminism that so many people are obsessed with.
And, um, one of the things that I often hear from women growing up in the church is that they feel like religion might be for them, but it's always away from the men.
Or especially in the Catholic Church, it's like, "I can be Catholic, but because I can't become a priest, I can't really be fully Catholic," or, "I can't imagine myself sort of leading or preaching or really taking my faith for my own." What was it like for you to realize that maybe your experience of religion was a little bit different being a woman, um, and how did that affect your sort of taking a break around, uh, you said this is sort of, like, 24 mark?
I was about to say, not to give you too loaded of a question.
[laughs]
I think, like, so, um, at age 24, you know, being in Protestant land, um, I thought that, you know, women could run churches.
But it was more like I could not find anybody who was, who was taking the-- This sounds so cheesy, but, like, taking the gospel seriously.
Like, I was constantly in Protestant churches where they were just remodeling everything all the time.
And I was like, "Shouldn't we be giving this money to poor people?" Like, "Shouldn't we be feeding, you know, the six homeless people that are outside our church every week?" And they're like, "Oh, well, we did donate some money to the soup kitchen eight months ago." You know, that sort of thing.
And e- it, you know, everybody communicated in these odd, like, buzzwords like, "Oh, how is your faith growing? How is your, how is your walk with Jesus?" Like, it wasn't real English.
Um, it just all felt like some sort of- Manufactured Protestant American Christianity that you were served every week and expected to participate in, and say all the correct words, and raise your hand for the praise and worship choruses.
And then you just, like, went home, and nothing about your life was different, except maybe you went to a fellowship group on Thursdays.
And then you just came back on Sunday and did the same thing, which a lot of Catholics also experience, uh, from what I hear, growing up Catholic.
I think it was just a disillusionment of pretend religion or, like, playing at religion.
Um, I did spend a lot of time studying and reading about kind of like a complementarian versus an egalitarian view of the sexes, which is more of a debate within Protestant circles than it is within Catholicism, at least phrased that way.
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