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March 26-28, 2025 University of Notre Dame
Morris Inn William and Mary Ann Smith Ballroom (north end of hotel)
Thirty years ago, in both Evangelium Vitae and his Letter to Women, John Paul II issued a clear call for the genius of women to be “more fully expressed in the life of society as a whole, as well as in the life of the Church” (Letter to Women 10). Throughout his papacy, in fact, JPII emphasized women’s “prophetic character,” calling on them to be “witnesses” and “sentinels” — guardians of the sacred gift of life and the order of love (Mulieris Dignitatem 29; Homily at Lourdes 2004).
This vision for women, clarified and proclaimed in the late twentieth century especially, has yet to be fully realized. Catholics in contemporary America face distorted narratives about women from both poles of our divided culture. By revisiting and extending John Paul II's thought, this conference aims to offer a positive countervision to, on the one hand, the growing anti-feminism in some Catholic circles and, on the other hand, the widely-held perception that the Church is anti-woman. There is a great need to speak the Church’s wisdom in the midst of polarization.
In presenting this vision, our approach will be twofold: to reflect upon the past and to revitalize the present, to celebrate the feminine genealogy of the faith and to amplify the prophetic mission of women in our current moment. By illuminating the riches of the faith and reading the signs of the times, we hope to equip faithful Catholics and formators with a robust foundation for understanding and articulating the Church’s vision for women in our time.
“The Church's two-thousand-year history, for all its historical conditioning, has truly experienced the "genius of woman”; from the heart of the Church there have emerged women of the highest caliber who have left an impressive and beneficial mark in history.” – Letter to Women, 1995
“In transforming culture so that it supports life, women occupy a place, in thought and action, which is unique and decisive. It depends on them to promote a "new feminism" which rejects the temptation of imitating models of "male domination", in order to acknowledge and affirm the true genius of women in every aspect of the life of society.” - Evangelium Vitae, 1995
“From this grotto I issue a special call to women. Appearing here, Mary entrusted her message to a young girl, as if to emphasize the special mission of women in our own time, tempted as it is by materialism and secularism: to be in today’s society a witness of those essential values which are seen only with the eyes of the heart. To you, women, falls the task of being sentinels of the Invisible!” – Homily at Lourdes, 2004
Schedule of Events
Events take place at the Morris Inn: William and Mary Ann Smith Ballroom (north end of hotel) unless otherwise noted.
During regular University business hours (Monday-Friday, 6 a.m. - 4 p.m.), all visitors must pay to park using ParkMobile, which allows payments using their app, their website (ParkMobile.io), by texting “PARK” to 77223, by Google Pay, or, if you don’t have a smartphone, by calling 1-877-727-5007.
The closest visitor lot to the Morris Inn is the Walsh Architecture Visitor Lot, accessible by Holy Cross Drive on the east side of the Walsh Family Hall of Architecture (located north of the Raclin Murphy and Charles B. Hayes Family Sculpture Park).
Helen Alvaré, J.D. is Professor of Law and the Robert A. Levy Chair in Liberty & Law at the Antonin Scalia Law School at George Mason University, where she teaches and writes scholarship concerning Family Law and Law and Religion. She is also a member of the Vatican's Dicastery for Laity, Family and Life, and a consultant to various Holy See initiatives concerning women, including at the Permanent Observer Mission of the Holy See to the Organization of American States. Her work appears regularly in law reviews and in public media. Among other books, she has authored Religious Freedom After the Sexual Revolution: a Catholic Guide, and Breaking Through: Catholic Women Speak for Themselves.
Sr. Ann W. Astell, Ph.D. is Professor of Theology at the University of Notre Dame. She is the author of six books, most recently Eating Beauty: The Eucharist and the Spiritual Arts of the Middle Ages (2006), and is now completing a monograph on hagiography and the Bible. She has been the recipient of an N.E.H. fellowship and a John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Fellowship. She has edited eight collections of essays, most recently Saving Fear in Christian Spirituality (2020). Past President of the Society for the Study of Christian Spirituality and also of the Colloquium on Violence and Religion, she has published recently in Cistercian Studies Quarterly, Spiritus, Theological Studies, Marian Studies, and Religion and Literature.
Erika Bachiochi is a legal scholar working at the intersection of constitutional law, political theory, women’s history, and Catholic social teaching and the author of the acclaimed 2021 book, The Rights of Women: Reclaiming a Lost Vision. A Fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center, she is also the editor-in-chief ofFairer Disputations, the online journal of sex-realist feminism, and a 2024–25 Fellow at the Nesti Center for Faith and Culture at the University of St. Thomas (Houston) where she is teaching in the new Catholic Women and Gender Studies Program. Erika is the happily married mother of seven children, ages 23-6.
Rachel M. Coleman, Ph.D. is an Assistant Professor of Theology at Assumption University in Worcester, M.A. In addition to her Ph.D. in Theology, she holds a B.S. in Biology and B.A. in Philosophy, and writes most often about metaphysics.
Kathleen Buckley Domingo serves as Executive Director of the California Catholic Conference. In her role, she lobbies on behalf of the 12 Catholic dioceses in California, representing the bishops of California on issues such as human life and dignity, strong healthy families, racial justice, environmental justice, healthcare access, housing, restorative justice, educational excellence and religious liberty.
Kathleen served for eight years in the Archdiocese of Los Angeles as Senior Director of the Office of Life, Justice and Peace. She led OneLife LA, created Respect Life Week, and built the first Caring for the Whole Person diocesan-based program in the nation. Kathleen is a national speaker, writer, and organizer. She regularly shares her insights and resources with dioceses and organizations around the country and internationally. Kathleen holds a B.S. from the University of San Francisco as well as a Certificate from its St. Ignatius Institute. She earned a Master’s degree in Theology from the Pontifical John Paul II Institute for Studies in Marriage and Family in Washington, D.C.
Abigail Favale, Ph.D. is a writer and professor whose work lies at the intersection of Catholic theology, literature, and women’s studies. Her abiding interest as a writer and scholar is the meaning and dignity of woman, and her work explores sexual difference and embodiment in the Catholic imagination. Abigail supports MICL programming by writing and teaching on women, feminism, and gender from a Catholic perspective. She holds a concurrent appointment in the Department of Theology, where she teaches on topics like Edith Stein’s Theology of Woman and Religion & Literature.
Abigail has a bachelor's degree in philosophy from George Fox University, as well as a master's degree in Women, Writing and Gender and a Ph.D. in English Literature from the University of St. Andrews in Scotland. Her first book, Irigaray, Incarnation, and Contemporary Women's Fiction (Palgrave 2013) was awarded the 2014 Feminist and Women's Studies Association Book Award. Her second book is Into the Deep: An Unlikely Catholic Conversion (Cascade 2018), a spiritual memoir that traces her journey from birthright evangelicalism to postmodern feminism and, finally, to the Catholic Church. Abigail's most recent book, The Genesis of Gender: A Christian Theory, was published in 2022 by Ignatius Press and has already been translated into multiple languages. Her numerous essays have appeared in MICL's Church Life Journal, The Atlantic, First Things, Public Discourse, Comment, and elsewhere. Abigail is also a fiction writer and was awarded the J.F. Powers Prize for Short Fiction in 2017.
Angela Franks, Ph.D. is a theologian, speaker, writer, and mother of six. She serves as Professor of Theology at St. John's Seminary in Boston and as a Senior Fellow at the Abigail Adams Institute in Cambridge. She is the President-elect for the Academy of Catholic Theology for 2024-25, as well as a Life and Dignity Writing Fellow for Church Life Journal (University of Notre Dame). In August, she will be an Associate Professor of Theology at the Catholic University of America. Her areas of specialty include the body, identity, the Trinity, Christology, and the thought of John Paul II and Hans Urs von Balthasar. Her book Body and Identity: A History of the Empty Self comes out from the University of Notre Dame Press in the summer of 2025. She has written two other books on sexual ethics and the history of eugenics. An experienced speaker, she has spoken at numerous conferences and on EWTN, Catholic Answers Live, FOX News, and many other outlets. She has been published in America Magazine, First Things, Public Discourse, Church Life Journal, Catholic World Report, The Plough, and academic journals such as Theological Studies, Christian Bioethics, Nova et Vetera, Communio, and others.
Jess Keating Floyd, M.Div. directs the Notre Dame Office of Life and Human Dignity in the McGrath Institute for Church Life. In her role, she leads the Institute’s research, education, and outreach efforts on the nature and dignity of the human person and contemporary threats to the sanctity of life. Jess also collaborates schools and dioceses to develop innovative educational content and strategies to integrate a pedagogy of life across the academic disciplines.
Jess originally hails from the Maryland suburbs of Washington, D.C. She completed her undergraduate degree in Philosophy and Sociology from St. Joseph’s University in Philadelphia, PA. She earned her Masters of Divinity from the University of Notre Dame in 2013. In addition to her work with the Institute, she is pursuing her Ph.D. in Systematic Theology at Notre Dame.
Jess’ writing has appeared in popular publications such as, America Magazine, Aleteia, The Imaginative Conservative, and the Catholic Catalogue, as well as a in the volume of essays, Dante, Mercy, and the Beauty of the Human Person.
Sarah Denny Lorio, Ph.D. is a speaker, podcast host, and part-time ethicist with the National Catholic Bioethics Center. She holds a Ph.D. in Bioethics from the Pontifical Athenaeum Regina Apostolorum in Rome and an M.A. in Theology from Notre Dame Seminary and Graduate School in New Orleans, LA. Her doctoral research focused on the differing philosophies that affect the practice of women’s health in the United States of America and argued for a "third way" of sex education that teaches young people fertility awareness-based methods both as preventive medicine and as proximate vocation preparation.
Throughout the last 14 years, Dr. Denny Lorio has taught at both the university and high school levels: working as an ethics professor at Loyola University in New Orleans, teaching and coaching young women at Archbishop Chapelle High School, and speaking and leading international trips for college students as a campus minister at Louisiana State University. Trained in two methods of fertility awareness—Creighton Model FertilityCare System (2013) and FEMM (2024)—her passion is to empower women through a deeper knowledge of the great gift and beauty of their bodies and sexuality. In her work, Dr. Denny Lorio consistently seeks to integrate the demands of medicine with the dignity of womanhood and highlights the essential role of human freedom in the education of young women. She is in the process of developing a high school curriculum focusing on these issues as well as creating similar resources for parents. Dr. Denny Lorio currently lives in New Orleans, LA, with her husband, Alex.
Sister Virginia Joy, S.V., entered the Sisters of Life in 2009. The Sisters of Life are a contemplative active community consecrated to protect and enhance the sacredness of human life. Immersed in Eucharistic prayer within a vibrant community life, the Sisters’ missions include caring for women who are pregnant and in crisis; inviting those suffering after abortion to receive the healing mercy of Jesus; intercessory prayer; retreat works; and fostering a culture of life through evangelization and mission. Sr. Virginia Joy currently serves in Washington DC as the Sisters of Life Director of Services to Women. For many years Sister served in Manhattan as the Director of the Respect Life office for the Archdiocese of New York while living in the communities Holy Respite mission where pregnant women are welcomed to live with them.
Bronwen McShea, Ph.D. is the 2025 Teilhard de Chardin, S.J. Fellow in Catholic Studies at Loyola University Chicago. She is a historian and the author so far of three monographs, including Women of the Church: What Every Catholic Should Know (Ignatius Press, 2024). Her writings have also appeared in an array of scholarly journals, such as The Sixteenth Century Journal and The Journal of Jesuit Studies, as well as popularly accessible forums such as The Wall Street Journal, First Things, and Church Life Journal. She has held research and teaching positions at several institutions, including Princeton University and Columbia University, and she holds a Ph.D. in Early Modern European History from Yale University and an M.T.S. in the History of Christianity and a B.A. in History from Harvard University.
Melissa Moschella, Ph.D. is a philosopher whose work spans the fields of ethics, political philosophy, and law. Her areas of special expertise include natural law theory, biomedical ethics, and the family (especially parental rights). Even prior to joining the faculty at the MICL, Melissa has been a frequent collaborator with the Notre Dame Office of Life and Human Dignity and the Science & Religion Initiative. She will continue to contribute to the mission of the MICL through her research, writing, teaching, and public speaking on a variety of contemporary topics, such as religious freedom, reproductive technologies, life issues, and issues related to marriage and family. Melissa is also affiliated with the Business, Ethics, and Society Program in the Mendoza School of Business, where she teaches on a regular basis. Before coming to Notre Dame, Melissa was Associate Professor of Philosophy at the Catholic University of America, where she worked for over a decade.
Sr. Theresa Aletheia Noble is a Sister of the Little Way of Beauty, Truth, and Goodness. Along with Sr. Danielle Victoria Lussier, she has begun a new, private association of the faithful with a mission of listening, outreach, and solidarity with people on the fringes or outside of the Church, especially people who have been wounded, scandalized, or abused by members of the Church. Their website is sistersofthelittleway.com.
Leah Libresco Sargeant is the author of Arriving at Amen and Building the Benedict Option. She works in family policy in Washington, D.C. Her writing has appeared in The New York Times, TheWashington Post, Plough, First Things, and other outlets. She runs Other Feminisms (otherfeminisms.com), a substack community focused on advocating for women as women in a world that treats us as defective men. Her next book, The Dignity of Dependence for Notre Dame University Press, will come out in Fall 2025.
Deborah Savage, Ph.D. is Professor of Theology at the Franciscan University of Steubenville. Dr. Savage is a student of St. Thomas Aquinas with a particular interest in investigating his thought in light of contemporary questions. Her research areas include: the nature of man and woman, the human person, the theological meaning of human work and the conversion of the acting person. She is a recognized scholar of the work of Karol Wojtyla/John Paul II and has written and presented or published several papers on how his philosophical anthropology informs his body of work as Pope, his understanding of human work, the complementarity of man and woman, and of the dignity and vocation of women. She has written and presented many talks and papers on these topics both nationally and internationally.
