The Center for Catholic Studies at Fairfield University will host Dr. Cristina Traina on campus for a lecture titled “Women and Children First?: The Pandemic’s Lessons for Society and the Church.” This in-person event will also be livestreamed for virtual attendance.
On Wednesday, October 6, the 21st Annual Anne Drummey O’Callaghan Lecture on Women in the Church will be delivered by Cristina Traina, PhD, at 5 p.m. in the Dolan School of Business Event Hall. This in-person event is free and open to the public, and will also be available for remote viewers. Register for the livestream at fairfield.edu/cs.
Dr. Cristina Traina
In her lecture, titled “Women and Children First?: The Pandemic’s Lessons for Society and the Church,” Dr. Traina will discuss how women have faced a threefold struggle within the U.S. economy for decades, and how the Covid-19 pandemic has only served to magnify their hardships.
Most acute for families of color, Dr. Traina will argue that this triple-bind — of earning lower wages for essential work, shouldering the majority of family caregiving responsibilities, and grappling with the shortage of affordable, high-quality childcare — exemplifies our societal inhumanity toward the children who constitute our common future, and toward all who care for them.
Further, Dr. Traina will detail the ways in which the pandemic also rendered women and children absent from “online Catholicism,” while the clergy sex abuse crisis played out. Her Oct. 6 lecture will mine the theological and ethical wisdom we can draw from this moment of heightened awareness.
Dr. Cristina Traina is the Avery Cardinal Dulles, S.J., Professor of Catholic Theology at Fordham University. She is the author of Feminist Ethics and Natural Law and Erotic Attunement: Parenthood and the Ethics of Sensuality between Unequals, as well as many articles and essays in theological ethics. Her foci include method, children, migration, sexuality, and the ethics of touch, among other topics. She is a past president of the Society of Christian Ethics and serves New Ways Ministry as a guest blogger and advisory board member.
Presented by the Center for Catholic Studies at Fairfield University, this 21st annual lecture honors Anne Drummey O’Callaghan, who devoted her life as catechist, advocate for the intellectually disabled, youth minister, and director of religious education to spreading the good news among children, teenagers, and adults in the Diocese of Bridgeport.
Register for the Oct. 6 livestream at fairfield.edu/cs, or join us in-person at 5 p.m. in the Dolan School of Business Event Hall L01.
Please note that Fairfield University recommends all visitors to campus be vaccinated or be able to provide proof of a negative PCR test within 72 hours of a campus visit. Masks are required inside all campus facilities. For complete information regarding Fairfield University’s Covid-19 protocols, please visit our Healthy Campus webpage at fairfield.edu/coronavirus.
