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Man, Woman, and the Order of Creation Conference, Franciscan University, October 24-26, 2024:
Dr. Savage is currently organizing a conference to be held at Franciscan University on October 24-26, 2024. The conference is on Man, Woman, and the Order of Creation. The event is being co-sponsored by the University and the Ethics and Public Policy Center in Washington, D.C.
The aim of the event is to offer a constructive account of the nature of the human person, embodied as man and woman, both in themselves and in relation to one another – and to illuminate the way in which their complementarity informs their mission in the family, the Church, and the world.
The Siena Symposium for Women, Family, and Culture
Dr. Deborah Savage is the co-founder of the Siena Symposium for Women, Family, and Culture, an interdisciplinary think tank, organized to respond to Pope St. John Paul II’s call for a new and explicitly Christian feminism. It is housed at the University of St. Thomas. Deborah Savage served as the Director of the Symposium from its start but direct involvement had to pause when she left UST in 2021. The Symposium is now a part of the UST Law School’s Pro-Life Center, and directed by Professor Teresa Collett, J.D. Work is underway to establish a new presence for the Symposium at Franciscan University of Steubenville .
The Siena Symposium began over 25 years ago as a response to Pope St. John Paul declaration, found most explicitly in his 1995 encyclical, Evangelium vitae, that it is up to women themselves to articulate a new and explicitly Christian feminism. Research and the social changes in the intervening years led the scholars involved to see the topic in the broader context of culture and its influence on family life and the life of faith. This vision is reflected in its formal name—the Siena Symposium for Women, Family, and Culture. The mission, too, changed as the focus moved to a pursuit of a faithful and philosophically robust understanding of the nature and mission of both woman and of man, the genius unique to each, and the complementarity that characterizes their relationship.
The Siena Symposium has spent a quarter-century dedicated to reshaping the dialogue on women, family, and culture. Learn about our groundbreaking work.
The Catholic Women's Forum
Dr. Savage is an active member and collaborator with The Catholic Women’s Forum at the Ethics and Public Policy Center in Washington, D.C., where she serves as a member of the Forum’s Advisory Council. The mission of the CWF is to amplify the voice of Catholic women – within the culture and the Church – in support of Catholic teachings. The Forum has held a number of very important symposia over the years, featuring the thought of many accomplished women from a variety of disciplines and walks of life, as they considered the questions most critically in need of thoughtful exploration. For more information on the CWF, visit https://catholicwomensforum.org.
In 2019, the Siena Symposium and the CWF co-sponsored an important conference on “Man and Woman in Dialogue: On Identity, Complementarity, and Mission.” For more information on that event, please visit https://catholicwomensforum.org/event/2019-symposium.