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[Woodstock Report, October 1998, No. 55]
Copyright © 1998 Woodstock Theological Center
All rights reserved
Dolores R. Leckey joined the Woodstock Theological Center in August as a senior fellow after 20 years as an executive director with the National Conference of Catholic Bishops. She now coordinates Woodstock’s Church Leadership Program, which is a week-long retreat of prayer, exchange of experience, and study to help church leaders develop a spirituality and the management skills to guide their communities in responding to the urgent needs of the contemporary world. Other formats are currently being explored.
In the short time she has been at Woodstock, Dolores finds her work and her life are enriched. She says, "The spirituality of St. Ignatius Loyola is woven into the total environment, and people really believe that the Spiritual Exercises, together with the interdisciplinary method of theologian and philosopher Bernard Lonergan, S.J., can make a real difference to our church and to the world. There is a sense that God is up to something and our job is to get aligned with God’s project. I find that enormously energizing. These beliefs and hopes undergird the Church Leadership Program."
In addition to the Church Leadership Program, Dolores is working on two books to be published in 1999: Lighting the Way: Seven Essentials for the Spiritual Journey (Crossroad) and Blessings All Around Us (Resurrection Press). A third book planned is, While Shepherds Kept Watch, a memoir of sorts about the church in the United States during the last quarter of the 20th century. A lover of biography, Dolores says that, "The ‘memoir’ will have a number of petit bios, more like ‘portraits of light,’ of bishops, monks, nuns, and laity who have been engaged in the formation of what Lonergan calls authentic communities. I hope I can do justice to their inspiring stories."
Woodstock’s director, Father James Connor, praises Dolores as one of the most highly respected lay women in the Catholic Church. "We welcome Dolores Leckey as a new fellow at Woodstock. She brings with her a wealth of experience, having worked so closely for two decades with the U.S. Catholic bishops and the laity. Her intellect, wisdom, spirituality, and warm good humor inspire and enlighten all of us at Woodstock and the work we do."
Dolores is the former executive director of the Secretariat for Family, Laity, Women and Youth at the National Conference of Catholic Bishops (NCCB). She was an official advisor to the American Catholic bishops at two Roman Synods: in 1980 at the Synod on the family and in 1987 at the Synod on the laity. A highly regarded writer and speaker, Dolores is the recipient of eleven honorary doctorates, three of them the doctor of divinity (Jesuit School of Theology at Berkeley; St. Mary's Seminary and University, Baltimore; Lafayette College, Easton, Pennsylvania). In 1988 the Washington Theological Union awarded her its Distinguished Service Award for her work in the area of lay spirituality and she was awarded the Pro Ecclesia et Pontifice medal by Bishop Anthony Pilla, president of the NCCB, in November 1997.
Dolores is the author of a number of books including: Winter Music: A Life of Jessica Powers, Poet, Nun, Woman of the Twentieth Century (Sheed & Ward, 1992); Women and Creativity (Paulist Press), which was the 1991 Madaleva Lecture; Laity Stirring the Church (Fortress/ Augsburg, 1987); and The Ordinary Way: A Family Spirituality (Crossroad/Continuum, 1982). She has also written numerous articles and chapters on a variety of topics related to the contemporary church. She is the executive producer of a number of videos, the latest being the award-winning when you preach . . . REMEMBER ME, which encourages preaching on the difficult subject of domestic violence. Dolores has lectured widely throughout the United States as well as in Europe and Australia. In 1994 she was in residence at TANTUR: The Ecumenical Institute for Theological Studies, near Jerusalem. In early 1998, she was a "scholar in residence" at the College of Preachers in Washington, D.C.
Currently, Dolores is a trustee of the University of Dayton, a member of the Ecumenical Institute of Spirituality, and a founding member of the Arlington Partnership for Affordable Housing. Dolores is married to Thomas Leckey and they are the parents of four adult children.
Drew Christiansen, S.J. returned to Woodstock in September after 18 years to direct the Center’s International Visiting Fellows program. He will play the key role of rapporteur in Woodstock’s project on the impact of the global economy on various cultures and countries, with special concern for its effect on the poor. Thirty-eight Jesuit centers in 33 countries are participating in this project. Drew will also continue his active participation in the Woodstock project, Forgiveness in Conflict Resolution.
For the past seven years Father Christiansen was director of the Office of International Justice and Peace of the United States Catholic Conference (USCC), the public policy arm of the U.S. bishops. While director, he also acted as policy advisor for the Middle East. In addition, he helped found and supervised the bishops' environmental justice program. From Woodstock he will continue to serve as a counselor to the USCC on Mideast affairs and other matters.
Drew did his theological studies at Woodstock College and received his Ph.D. in religious social ethics from Yale University in 1982. He has served on the faculty of the Jesuit School of Theology and the Graduate Theological Union at Berkeley (1980-86) and the University of Notre Dame (1986-90). He has been a fellow and associate, respectively, at the Woodstock Theological Center (1977-80) and the Kennedy Institute of Ethics (1979-80) at Georgetown University, director of the Center for Ethics and Social Policy in Berkeley (1982-86), and a founding team member of Notre Dame's Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies (1986-90). Drew serves on the boards of the U.S. Interreligious Committee for Peace in the Middle East, the Galilee Fund, the U.S. Catholic China Bureau, the Churches' Center for Theology and Public Policy, and the planning committee of the U.S. chapter of the World Conference on Religion and Peace.
His staff work for the U.S. bishops has included their 1991 environmental pastoral, Renewing the Earth, and the 1993 tenth anniversary peace pastoral, The Harvest of Justice Is Sown in Peace, which has served as the basis for the USCC's post-Cold War international policy. As director of the Office of International Justice and Peace, he has traveled often on missions to several world trouble spots, particularly to the former Yugoslavia and the Holy Land.
Pope John Paul II appointed Father Christiansen an expert to the Synod for America held last November and December in Rome. This past Easter the Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem, Michel Sabbah, honored Drew for his work on behalf of the church in the Holy Land by investing him as a Canon of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. The Catholic Community of Immaculate Conception Parish in the village of Bir Zeit on the West Bank also honored him with a special award for his service to Palestinian Christians. He continues to work closely with the Holy See and other bishops' conferences on Middle East issues.
Father James Connor, S.J., says, "We are fortunate to have Drew Christiansen rejoin the Woodstock team. His interests in ethics and international affairs, Catholic social teaching, Mideast affairs, and environmental ethics mesh well with the programs we currently have at Woodstock."
The author of more than 70 articles on ethics, Catholic social teaching, and public policy, Drew is co-editor of three books: Peacemaking: Moral and Policy Challenges for a New World (NCCB, 1994), "And God Said It Was Good": Catholic Theology and the Environment (NCCB, 1996), and Morals and Might (Westview, forthcoming).
Drew's recent articles include: "Afterword" to 2nd ed., John Howard Yoder, When War Is Unjust, "Aging and the Mystery of God: A Catholic Theological Perspective," "The Duty to Intervene: An Analysis of Types of Humanitarian Intervention" (with Jerry Powers), "Learn a Lesson from the Flowers: Catholic Social Teaching and Environmental Stewardship," "A Moral Perspective on Economic Sanctions" (with Jerry Powers), "Movement, Asylum, Borders: Christian Perspectives," "Solidarity and Subsidiarity in International Affairs," and "The Vatican" for Encyclopedia of Religion and Politics.