“Male and Female He Created Them” is the theme of this year’s Worcester Catholic Women’s Conference, and Deborah Savage has spent many years studying and teaching on this very topic. Helping to guide people back to the lives God intended for them, Mrs. Savage’s talk is titled “Return to the Garden: Man and Woman in the Order of Creation.”
Mrs. Savage earned a doctorate in religious studies from Marquette University in 2005. Since then, she has taught both philosophy and theology at St. Paul Seminary School of Divinity at the University of St. Thomas in St. Paul, Minnesota, and more recently at Franciscan University in Steubenville, Ohio. Responding to the call by St. John Paul II for a new Christian feminism, Mrs. Savage co-founded and directs the Siena Symposium for Women, Family, and Culture, an interdisciplinary think tank.
Mrs. Savage says she has been influenced by St. Thomas Aquinas. Academically, her primary areas of interest include philosophical and theological anthropology, with recent research focusing on the development of a robust theology of the nature of man and woman, both their identities and their complementarity. Stemming from her previous experience in the business sector, her secondary research area is the meaning of human action, the significance of human work and vocation, and the metaphysics of creation as a foundation for both stewardship and economics. She has investigated the theological meaning of work as a venue of personal conversion and sanctification. She has studied the work of Karol Wojtyla/John Paul II and has spoken frequently and published several papers on how his philosophical anthropology influenced his writings as pope.
She has written for several publications, including Nova et Vertera, Logos: A Journal of Catholic Thought and Culture, First Things, The Humanum Review, Catholic World Report, and Public Discourse. Recently published articles, “Redeeming Woman: A Catholic Response to the Second Sex Issue,” appeared in the journal Religions and “The Therapeutic and Pastoral Implications of Pope St. John Paul II’s Account of the Person,” was published in The Journal of Christian Bioethics. The most recent iteration of her theory of man and woman is a chapter in The Complementarity of Men and Women, edited by Dr. Paul Vitz and published by Catholic University of America (CUA) Press. She is currently writing a book titled Woman and Man to be submitted to CUA Press.
Mrs. Savage is a member of the Academy of Catholic Theology and the American Catholic Philosophical Association. She has been married to Andrew Percic for 32 years and they reside in Steubenville with their daughter, Madeline.
Also speaking at the conference will be Father Colin Blatchford, Patricia Sandoval, Father Derek Mobilio and Christopher Klofft. In addition to the speakers’ program, the sacrament of reconciliation will be available during the lunch break. The conference will begin with adoration and the rosary led by Bishop McManus who will also celebrate the vigil Mass at 5 p.m. in St. Joseph Basilica in Webster.
DETAILS
St. Joseph School, Webster, Saturday, October 7
Tickets are $60 and include continental breakfast and lunch.
Visit www.wcwconference.com for details and registration information, or call
Corinn Dahm at 508-277-3969.