The 13th Annual Anne Drummey O'Callaghan Lecture on Women in the Church

Dr. Teresa Berger

Originally from Germany, Professor Berger came to Yale in 2007, after having taught theology at Duke Divinity School for many years. Professor Berger holds doctorates both in liturgical studies and in constructive theology. Her scholarly interests lie at the intersections of both disciplines with gender theory, specifically gender history. Her most recent research project, titled Gender Differences and the Making of Liturgical History, will be published in the Ashgate series “Liturgy, Worship and Society” in 2011. Previous publications include Dissident Daughters: Feminist Liturgies in Global Context (2001); Fragments of Real Presence: Liturgical Traditions in the Hands of Women (2005); and a video documentary Worship in Women’s Hands (2007). Professor Berger has also written on the hymns of Charles Wesley and on the liturgical thought of the nineteenth-century Anglo-Catholic revival. She co-edited, with Bryan Spinks, the volume The Spirit in Worship-Worship in the Spirit (2009). An active Roman Catholic, Teresa Berger has produced (with MysticWaters Media) a CD-ROM, Ocean Psalms: Meditations, Stories, Prayers, Songs and Blessings from the Sea (2008); and she contributes to the liturgy blog Pray Tell. Professor Berger has been a visiting professor at the Universities of Mainz, Münster, Berlin, and Uppsala. In 2003, she received the distinguished Herbert Haag Prize for Freedom in the Church.

Wednesday, October 2, 2013, 7:30 p.m.
Regina A. Quick Center for the Arts
Kelley Theatre

Image: T Berger

Women as Celebrants and Interpreters of Catholic Liturgy: From Sacrosanctum Concilium to Cyberspace

This lecture will map the many ways in which both women’s lives and Catholic liturgy have changed significantly over the last fifty years. Highlighting vibrant gains in these changes as well as some quite remarkable losses, Berger will attend to the immense diversity of women’s voices as they have emerged and made themselves heard with regard to Catholic liturgy.

The Anne Drummey O'Callaghan Lecture On Women in the Church began in October of 2001 with speaker Elizabeth A. Johnson, C.S.J., Ph.D. This lecture honors the memory of O'Callaghan, formerly of Norwalk, who dedicated herself to religious education, especially as it relates to liturgy. She served as youth minister and director of religious education at both St. Jerome and St. Joseph parishes in Norwalk. Active on numerous catechetical boards and committees of the Diocese of Bridgeport, she was chair of BRED, the professional association of Bridgeport Religious Educators. She was particularly interested in church history and was passionate about the role of women in the church. This lecture series is designed to acknowledge the advanced role of women in the church and provide a forum to converse on other important religious issues.

Image: Anne Drummey O'Callaghan

History of the lecture series:

2012: Dr. Francine Cardman, Associate Professor of Historical Theology and Church History, Boston College
"Conciliar Women: Precedents and Portents"

2011: Dr. Michele Dillon, Professor and Chair, Department of Sociology at the University of New Hampshire
"Can Catholic Women Revitalize the Church?"

2010: Dr. Kristin Heyer, Associate professor of Religious Studies at Santa Clara University
"Reservoirs of Hope and Resillence: Catholic Women's Witness"

2009: Dr. Margaret A. Farley, Gilbert L. Stark Professor Emerita of Christian Ethics, Yale Divinity School
"Agenda for Women in the 21st Century Church"

2008: Dr. Nancy Dallavalle, Associate professor and chair of the Department of Religious Studies, Fairfield University
"Icons and Integrity: Catholic Women in the Church and in the Public Square"

2007: Sr./Dr. Jamie T. Phelps, O.P., Director of the Institute for Black Catholic Studies and professor of systematic theology at Xavier University in Louisiana
"Towards Full Communion: Black Catholics in the Roman Catholic Church of the United States"

2006: Dr. María Pilar Aquino, Professor of Theology and Religious Studies and Associate Director of the Center for the Study of Latino/a Catholicism at the University of San Diego
"Option for Women Today: Feminist Theological Perspectives"

2005: Dr. Elizabeth Dreyer, Professor of Religious Studies, Fairfield University
"Medieval Women Mystics: Weird or Wonderful?"

2004: Joan Chittister, OSB, a leading voice in contemporary spirituality and church and world issues,
"God, Women and the World: Telling the Story Another Way"

2003: Dr. Dolores Leckey, senior fellow at the Woodstock Theological Center
"Catholic Women at the Threshold: New Ministers, New Leaders"

2002: Dr. Susan A. Ross, professor of theology at Loyola University Chicago
"Be Thou My Vision: Women and the Sacramental Life of the Church"

2001: Dr. Elizabeth A. Johnson, C.S.J.,
"Women Imaging God"