On October 8, Fairfield University will host Heidi Schlumpf at the 25th Annual Anne Drummey O’Callaghan Lecture on Women in the Church. Her lecture titled: What Comes from the Holy Spirit Cannot Be Stopped: A Critical Moment for Women in the Church, will take place from 7 – 8:30 p.m., at the Dolan School of Business Event Hall. The event will also be available via livestream.
Heidi Schlumpf is an award-winning journalist and podcaster with three decades of experience covering religion, spirituality as well as political, social and women’s issues. She spent 16 years with the National Catholic Reporter as a columnist, correspondent and executive editor/vice president. She previously served as managing editor of U.S. Catholic magazine, and as a reporter at Chicago’s archdiocesan newspaper. Her work has appeared in Mother Jones, CNN Opinion, Religion News Service, Commonweal and Sojourners magazine, and she has been featured on CNN, NPR, PBS and the New York Times podcast.
Schlumpf has been a co-host of The Francis Effect podcast for five years. She is also a part-time faculty member in theology at Loyola University Chicago. She previously taught journalism as an associate professor of communication at Aurora University in Chicago. A graduate of the University of Notre Dame, Schlumpf earned a master's of theological studies from Garrett Evangelical Theological Seminary at Northwestern University, where she studied with feminist theologian Rosemary Radford Ruether. She is the author/editor of three books, including Elizabeth A. Johnson: Questing for God (Liturgical Press, 2016), the Notre Dame Book of Prayer (Ave Maria, 2010), and While We Wait: Spiritual & Practical Advice for Those Trying to Adopt (ACTA, 2009).
This lecture, hosted by the University’s Center for Catholic Studies, honors Anne Drummey O’Callaghan whose life’s work was sharing the Good News and serving the Diocese of Bridgeport as a catechist, youth minister, director of religious education, and advocate for the intellectually disabled. "For twenty-five years, the lecture has been shepherded with the competence and wisdom of Fairfield’s Catholic Studies Center. The lecture has more than met our initial goal to provide a forum for our very best women theologians to present their work to a general public,” says Anne Drummey’s daughter, Catherine O’Callaghan.
This lecture is part of the yearlong suite of arts and cultural programming, America250: The Promise and Paradox, through which Fairfield University explores 250 years of the American experiment.
This event is free and open to the public. To register and stay up to date with
Center for Catholic events, please visit fairfield.edu/cs.
