'Women in the Church' Lecture

The University of St. Francis will hold its eighth annual Bishop Joseph L. Imesch Women in the Church Lecture in the university’s San Damiano Hall.

“At the Threshold: Women, Tradition, Modernity” will be presented by Dolores R. Leckey, senior research fellow at the Woodstock Theological Center.

According to Leckey, women have an important role in nurturing the well-being of those who surround them. The presentation will feature a review of the status of women around the world and how that status affects all the institutions of a society–especially the church.

The teachings of the Second Vatican Council and the pronouncements of Pope John XXIII and subsequent popes, as well as American bishops, will underscore the responsibility of Catholic church leadership to bring tradition into dialogue with the forces of modernity.

Leckey will also go over how to bring voices of women into the decision-making processes of the church, and how best to use the gifts of women in both church and secular leadership. The framework for discussion will be the metaphor of building a new house or home.

Leckey is the former executive director of the Secretariat for Family, Laity, Women and Youth at the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, where she served for 20 years. She has also previously served as a producer for WNVT in Northern Virginia; and as a faculty member at the DeSales School of Theology.