By Mike Clemens '15
Next Wednesday, October 1, Siena will host its 21st annual Clare Center Lecture. The lecture is held during the College’s celebration of St. Francis Week, which leads up to the Feast of St. Francis of Assisi. The academic lecture focuses on the contemporary implications of Siena’s Franciscan and Catholic tradition.
“It’s a way of looking at some aspect of the Franciscan tradition and putting it into a context that is relevant to the broader Siena community,” said Holly J. Grieco, Ph.D., associate professor of religious studies and director of the Clare Center Lecture. “The events of Francis Week are rightfully focused on St. Francis, but they are also focused on the broader tradition. This lecture is an excellent way to remind people that the Franciscan tradition is about more than just Francis; that it’s a living tradition.”
This year’s speaker is Catherine Mooney Ph.D., associate professor of church history at Boston College’s School of Theology and Ministry and a renowned church scholar. Mooney holds a Master’s degree from Harvard Divinity School, as well as two Master’s and a doctoral degree from Yale University. The University of Pennsylvania Press will publish her new book, Regulating Religious Women: Clare of Assisi and the 13th Century Church, later this year.
Her address, titled “The Franciscan Tradition and the Liberation of the Laity” will be grounded in research concerning the Church of the thirteenth-century, but also make connections to common issues that are influential today.
“I hope that through this talk, students will learn something about the richness and the diversity of the Franciscan tradition, and they will see how it is relevant and important to them,” Grieco said.
The Clare Center Lecture will be held at 4:15 P.M, in Roger Bacon Hall’s Key Auditorium. It is free and open to the public.
