Women in Catholicism, Islam focus of lectures

2/9/2013

A new lecture series at Lourdes University opens Sunday with “Feminine Models of Spirituality in Catholicism & Islam.”

Phyllis H. Kaminski, a professor at St. Mary’s College in Notre Dame, Ind., will talk about Jean Donovan, a lay missionary from Ohio killed along with three nuns by the National Guard in El Salvador in 1980. Ms. Kaminski will also discuss St. Therese of Lisieux, “the Little Flower,”a Carmelite nun proclaimed a saint in 1927 and named a doctor of the church by Pope John Paul II in 1997.

Fatima Agha Al-Hayani will talk about two Islamic women of the 8th century: Zubayda al-Rashid, who used her resources as a caliph’s wife to advance education, and Rabi’a al’Adawiyyah, a freed slave.

The first installment in the free “Faith Talks” series is at Lourdes’ Franciscan Center, 6832 Convent Blvd., Sylvania, at 2 p.m. Sunday.