Welcome to the waves, Slate's Podcast about Gender Feminism and Where the Catholics

are at this week. Every episode you get a new pair of feminists to talk about the thing we can't get off our minds and today you've got me Shaina Roth a senior producer for slate and me Molly Olm said a staff writer for slate.

This week we are talking about the intersection between row and abortion rights and the Catholic Church. I personally am Jewish but I

converted about eight years ago before I got married, though not just because I was

getting married. I grew up Catholic, went to Catholic schools all through high school, and then

to a private college. But I think from a fairly young age, I want to say

middle schoolish, I kind of knew I wasn't going to stay Catholic. I went to the

private college not for the religion, but for the small size and the beautiful campus.

And the reason I always knew I was going to change religions at some point was in large part to how the Catholic Church treats female autonomy,

especially when it comes to things like abortion,

taking birth control, and marriage.

Molly, I wanted to talk to you about the Catholic Church

and how it treats women's rights when I saw your

peace in slate.

Is the Catholic Church under attack?

It's a fascinating piece about how the church is constantly claiming to be under attack and how much they actually are,

especially in the wake of Roe being overturned.

And before we dig into the piece itself, Molly, why did you write it?

For a while, I've been interested

in how the religious rights sort of create

these counter narratives to help them win the culture wars.

It's a kind of remarkable thing to watch them do this

...