The 11th Annual Anne Drummey O'Callaghan Lecture on Women in the Church

Dr. Michelle Dillon

Michele Dillon, Ph.D. (University of California - Berkeley), is Professor and Chair, Department of Sociology at the University of New Hampshire. Her research focuses on religion and culture, with a particular interest in authority, autonomy, and tradition in Catholicism. Her publications include Catholic Identity: Balancing Reason, Faith, and Power (Cambridge University Press, 1999), In the Course of a Lifetime: Tracing Religious Belief, Practice, and Change (with Paul Wink; University of California Press, 2007), Debating Divorce: Moral Conflict in Ireland (University Press of Kentucky, 1993), Handbook of the Sociology of Religion (editor; Cambridge University Press, 2003), Introduction to Sociological Theory (Wiley-Blackwell, 2010), and over forty research articles and book chapters. Professor Dillon is past-Chair of the American Sociological Association section for the sociology of religion, and past-president of the Association for the Sociology of Religion. Among her current projects, she is collaborating with William D'Antonio, Mary Gautier, and Greg Smith on a national survey of American Catholics.

Wednesday, October 5, 2011, 7:30 p.m.
Regina A. Quick Center for the Arts
Kelley Theatre

Image: Michelle Dillon

Can Catholic women revitalize the Church?
Catholic women have long shown a more vigorous commitment than men to Catholic sacramental practices and the institutional life of the church even as they contest Vatican teaching on sexuality, women's ordination, and other matters. Today, however, in a time of declining denominational loyalty, many Catholic women are finding spiritual nourishment outside the church. Does this new trend, coupled with the Vatican's reassertion of the impermissibility of women's ordination, foreshadow the declining presence of women in the life of the church? Or, can Catholic women harness their spiritual energies to help restore the credibility and vitality of the Church in the post-sex abuse crisis era? I will probe these questions drawing on, among other sources, newly collected (2011) survey data from American Catholic women and men.

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:

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"