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‘Full of Grace’ focuses on what the Catholic Church envisions for the feminine genius.
“All I heard were these two extremes of femininity: One was being an extremely independent and power-hungry woman, while the other one was a mother just having child after child. Was my femininity defined by my accomplishments or in my fertility?”
That was a question from Pamela Medina, an 18-year-old rising freshman at Franciscan University of Steubenville. Medina’s query is shared by many young women facing a 21st century cultural morass. And Medina found her answer, along with 15 other high-school age young women at a camp run by the Gratia Plena Institute.
The camp, held July 20-24 in Leonardtown, Maryland, is the first of many annual events. Its founder, Kelly Marcum, was moved to start the camp while praying at Mass. As a newly married woman working in pro-life policy, she was “nonplussed” by the inspiration’s specificity; but the idea would not leave her alone. So, in 2020, with added impetus from her husband, Marcum founded the institute and planned its inaugural 2021 camp.
Medina was drawn to the camp because it offered answers to modern distortions of femininity. Keira Thomas, 14, a younger sister of Marcum, decided to attend the camp because she was already seeing the “damage that toxic feminism was doing” to her middle-school peers.
Continued below.
In an Age of Toxic Femininity, Gratia Plena Camp Offers Authentic Womanhood
“All I heard were these two extremes of femininity: One was being an extremely independent and power-hungry woman, while the other one was a mother just having child after child. Was my femininity defined by my accomplishments or in my fertility?”
That was a question from Pamela Medina, an 18-year-old rising freshman at Franciscan University of Steubenville. Medina’s query is shared by many young women facing a 21st century cultural morass. And Medina found her answer, along with 15 other high-school age young women at a camp run by the Gratia Plena Institute.
The camp, held July 20-24 in Leonardtown, Maryland, is the first of many annual events. Its founder, Kelly Marcum, was moved to start the camp while praying at Mass. As a newly married woman working in pro-life policy, she was “nonplussed” by the inspiration’s specificity; but the idea would not leave her alone. So, in 2020, with added impetus from her husband, Marcum founded the institute and planned its inaugural 2021 camp.
Medina was drawn to the camp because it offered answers to modern distortions of femininity. Keira Thomas, 14, a younger sister of Marcum, decided to attend the camp because she was already seeing the “damage that toxic feminism was doing” to her middle-school peers.
Continued below.
In an Age of Toxic Femininity, Gratia Plena Camp Offers Authentic Womanhood
