Patty Crowley: founder of the Christian Family Movement dies

Catholic New Times, Dec 18, 2005

Patty Crowley died on Nov. 23 at her home in Chicago, at the age of 92. With her husband, Pat, she was one of the founders of the Christian Family Movement in the United States. The Crowleys travelled extensively in the 1950s and 1960s, spreading the ideas and activities of CFM. They were presidents of International CFM at the time of Pat's death in 1974.

The creation of CFM was a unique moment in the history of the church in North America. It was the first church movement to be started by the laity. It recognized marriage as a special gift to the church and the world in a time when single-sex organizations were the norm.

Crowley and her husband were members of Pope Paul VI's Birth Control Commission in 1966. When they arrived in Rome, they were flabbergasted to discover that they had been assigned separate rooms in separate houses. They took it all in good stride, and according to Fr. Bernard Haring, the preeminent Catholic moralist of the day, it was the correspondence of anguished Catholics brought to the table by the Crowleys that tipped the scales in the Commission's majority report advocating a change in the church's position on birth control. However, so strong was the lobbying effort of the minority members that the pope reserved the decision for himself and upheld the ban on artificial contraception.

A well-known bon mot of Crowley's circulated in the Catholic world at that time. In response to Jesuit moralist Fr.Zalba's query, "What then of the millions we have sent to hell, if these norms were not valid?" she quipped, "Father Zalba, do you really believe God has carried out all your orders?"

"I think women should have the choice to use contraception. They want to have children, but they want to have them responsibly," Crowley told the Chicago Tribune in a 1994 published report. However, the clash never distracted her from her faith or her mission, her family members say.

Raised in privilege in the Chicago area, Crowley attended the Sorbonne and married her husband, Pat, in 1937. The couple had six children and several foster children.

Crowley was no longer active in the movement after Pat's death, although she was involved in the 50th anniversary celebration of the movement at Notre Dame University in 1999. She received many letters in recent years from those who wrote to say how important CFM was to their spiritual formation. She treasured these.

In later years, Crowley was present at Deborah's Place, a homeless shelter for women started by her daughter, Patricia, a Benedictine nun on Chicago's North Side. She was known for rolling out a sleeping bag and spending the night with the homeless women there. Crowley also visited imprisoned women at the Metropolitan Correctional Center every Sunday until recently, and worked tirelessly for social justice.

Her daughter Patricia reminisced about her mother's life and was grateful for her exposing her to the many diverse cultures in the Chicago area. "We were talking about how blessed we were, having so many people come in our house during the 1960s, when racial relations were so tense. We grew up in a world that she told us was meant to be diverse, that it made the world richer," her daughter said.