Dominican University St. Catherine of Siena Lecture

Dominican University will host its annual St. Catherine of Siena Lecture featuring Susan Ross, professor and department chair of theology at Loyola University Chicago, on Tuesday, April 24 at 7:00 p.m. in the auditorium of Dominican’s Priory Campus, 7200 W. Division Street, River Forest.

The lecture will examine the evolution of feminine language in the church and laity, and the meaning it holds in today’s world of changing roles for women and growing lay ecclesial ministry.

Ross has written and lectured extensively on feminist theological topics. She is the author of Extravagant Affections: A Feminist Sacramental Theology and For the Beauty of the Earth: Women, Sacramentality and Justice. From 2006-08 Ross served as director of the Ann Ida Gannon, BVM, Center for Women and Leadership at Loyola and is a vice president and member of the board of editors of Concilium, the international theological journal.

She received the Book of the Year Award from the College Theology Society in 1999, an Honorable Mention for Best Gender Issues Award from the Catholic Press Association in 2007, and the Ann O’Hara Graff Award from the Catholic Theological Society of America, to which she was recently elected president.

Ross received her bachelor’s degree from Manhattanville College, and her master’s and doctoral degrees from the University of Chicago.

The event is free and open to the public. For more information, visit the dom.edu/siena or contact the Siena Center at (708) 714-9105.

Dominican University established the Siena Center to engage the critical issues of church and society in the light of faith and scholarship. The center was named for St. Catherine of Siena, a 14th century laywoman who worked for the reform of the church and justice in the world. Her passionate devotion to the central issues of church and society inspires the work of the center in its schedule of lectures, symposia, workshops, retreats, research and seminars.