The Case for Catholic Teaching: Women & The Church: Speakers

Speaker Bios

• Erika Bachiochi holds a BA from Middlebury College, a JD from Boston University School of Law, and a MA in theology from Boston College, where she was a Bradley Fellow at the Institute for the Study of Religion and Politics. In 2004, Bachiochi published The Cost of “Choice”: Women Evaluate the Impact of Abortion (Encounter Books), and in 2010, Women, Sex & the Church: A Case for Catholic Teaching (Pauline Books & Media). Bachiochi’s most recent publication, entitled “Embodied Equality: Debunking Equal Protection Arguments for Abortion Rights,” was published in the Summer 2011 issue of the prestigious Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy. Her writing has appeared in National Review Online, including “The Pill Is Not Good For Women”, Crisis Magazine, Human Life Review, Touchstone Magazine, the Washington Times, the NY Post, and at Public Discourse. George Weigel has called Bachiochi “one of the intellectual leaders of the new Catholic feminism in the United States.” Bachiochi lectures at colleges, universities, and law schools on feminism, abortion, the law and the Church, and keynotes various conferences and retreats for Catholic women. She and her husband live outside of Boston with their six young children.
• Sister Sara Butler, M.S.B.T., S.T.L., Ph.D. holds her doctorate in Systematic Theology from Fordham University and her S.T.L. from the University of St. Mary of the Lake. Sr. Butler is a member of the Missionary Servants of the Most Blessed Trinity. She is the Chester and Margaret Paluch Professor of Theology at Mundelein Seminary in the Archdiocese of Chicago. She is a member of the International Theological Commission (a group of 30 theologians that advises the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith), a consultant to the Pontifical Council for Promoting the New Evangelization, and a consultant to the U.S. Bishops’ Committee on Doctrine. The author of numerous scholarly articles, Sr. Butler recently published The Catholic Priesthood and Women: A Guide to the Teaching of the Church (Hillenbrand Books, 2007).
• Katie Elrod obtained her B.A.(1992) and her M.A.(1994) in Philosophy from Boston College, where she was a Lonergan Fellow. She has been a humanities teacher and administrator at independent schools for over fifteen years, and has taught in the Perspectives Program at Boston College. Ms. Elrod has spoken on natural fertility treatment at MIT, Boston College, Notre Dame University and at various Catholic women’s conferences. She and her husband Kevin live outside of Boston with their son, T.J..
• Angela Franks, Ph.D. holds a doctorate in Systematic Theology from Boston College (2006), a M.A. in Philosophy from Catholic University of America (1997), and her undergraduate degree summa cum laude from the University of Dallas (1995). Dr. Franks is the Director of Theology Programs for the Theological Institute for the New Evangelization (TINE) at Saint John’s Seminary. An author and speaker, Dr. Franks published Margaret Sanger’s Eugenic Legacy: The Control of Female Fertility (McFarland, 2005), a scholarly work and feminist indictment of the eugenic foundations of the American birth-control movement. She recently served along with her husband, David, as the coordinator for the Massachusetts Catholic Conference Marriage Initiative, The Future Depends on Love, a state-wide effort by the bishops of Massachusetts to educate the public about the Church’s teaching on marriage, human sexuality, and the meaning of man and woman. Dr. Franks also teaches part-time at the postgraduate level for several Catholic institutions, speaks at universities and conferences across the country, and (with her husband) home-schools their five young children. They reside in Boston.

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