SING TO HEAVEN A NEW SONG: Review

In the first part of ''Women-Church'' (there are two sections; the first on theology, the second on practice) Ms. [Rosemary Radford Ruether] articulates yet again, with brilliance and sway, her comprehensive feminist theology. She argues broadly that ''the churches we have inherited have confused patriarchy and Christianity,'' that women have been determinedly erased from religious history, and that, more specifically, a pattern of ''promise and betrayal'' toward women has always been characteristic of religious renewal groups. She calls for a new kind of community of faith - ''Women-Church'' - to exist side by side, not schismatically, with parent church institutions. She defines ''Women-Church'' as an antihierarchical ''exodus community'' of ''liberation from patriarchy.'' One measure of Catholic feminists' fierce debarment from the Church, actually, can be inferred from how old-fashioned Ms. Ruether's feminism is: reading ''Women-Church'' - particularly the section on liturgies -feels almost like going back in time. Where else in this country, in this era of assimilation, is feminism still reactive, angry, full of revolutionary intellectual brimstone? Ms. Ruether's Women-Church is in the tradition of separatist (''the last shall be first'') as opposed to classical (''the last shall be integrated'') feminism. To be sure, she insists that her Women-Church is separatist only ''as a stage in a process'' and not as an ideology. But as Cynthia Ozick once pointed out: ''Separatism quickly becomes a characteristic, not a strategy, of feminism. The so-called temporary has an ineluctable inclination to turn into long-range habit.'' Many of the liturgies in ''Women-Church,'' I'm afraid, already bear this tendency out. These liturgies were written for many occasions by a variety of women. Some representative texts are: ''Ritual of Moving From an Old House to a New House,'' ''Rite of Healing From an Abortion,'' ''Good Friday Walk for Justice,'' ''Puberty Rite for a Young Woman,'' ''Earth Day Celebration'' and ''Menopause Liturgy.''