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“Is Catholicism's 'Woman Problem' a History Problem?” Teilhard de Chardin Lecture featuring Dr. Bronwen McShea

The Hank Center is honored to welcome the Spring, 2025 Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, S.J. Fellow in Catholic Studies, Dr. Bronwen, McShea, to offer this year’s Teilhard lecture, titled, “Is Catholicism's 'Woman Problem' a History Problem?"

Sixty years after Vatican II, eyebrows still go up when women assume leadership positions in the Catholic Church. Yet forms of female leadership were integral to Catholicism’s development long before modern times. McShea links Catholicism’s often perceived “woman problem” to chronic forgetfulness about this within the Church and urges more mature engagement with history per se in Catholic intellectual life.

Event Details

March 20, 2025
7:00-8:30 PM
Information Commons, 4th Floor, Lake Shore Campus

This event is free and all are welcome.

About Bronwen McShea

Bronwen McShea is a historian and the author of Women of the Church: What Every Catholic Should Know (2024), La Duchesse: The Life of Marie de Vignerot, Cardinal Richelieu’s Forgotten Heiress Who Shaped the Fate of France (2023), and Apostles of Empire: The Jesuits and New France (2019). Her writings have also appeared in many academic journals and popular forums including The Wall Street Journal and First Things. With a Ph.D. in History from Yale University and M.T.S. from Harvard Divinity School, she has held research and teaching posts at Princeton University, Columbia University, the University of Nebraska Omaha, and the Leibniz Institute of European History in Germany, among other institutions.