The Importance of Retrieving 'the Women of Galilee

About This Event

Sister Sara Butler, M.S.B.T., Professor Emeritus, Mundelein Seminary, Chicago

The rediscovery of the women in Jesus’ company, and the retrieval of their story, opens new vistas for women in the Church. Feminist scholarship on these “women of Galilee” has clarified more of what we can know of them and their role in proclaiming the Gospel. It also responds to the feminist critique that Mary, “alone of all her sex,” models women's participation in the Church.

Sr. Sara Butler, M.S.B.T., is Professor Emeritus of Sacramental Theology at Mundelein Seminary. Her scholarship includes essays on deaconesses in the early Church. Her landmark work is The Catholic Priesthood and Women: A Guide to the Teaching of the Church (Hillenbrand Books, 2006).

“Mulier Fortis: Women Scholars on Women in the Early Church” is a series of free public lectures in honor of Prof. Patrick James Hartin, a priest of the Diocese of Spokane and Professor Emeritus of the Department of Religious Studies at Gonzaga University. The lecture series began in 2016 with three lectures on “The Church and Her Scriptures” and will continue in 2018.

The Gonzaga University Faith and Reason Institute is dedicated to developing an integrationist understanding of faith and reason through a philosophical investigation into both the nature and results of scientific research and through critical discussion and reflection on topics in philosophical theology.