Appearing at DePaul University Monday, October 11, 1999 at 7pm

Since 1960, Jeannine Gramick has been a member of the School Sisters of Notre Dame, a religious order of Catholic nuns.

On July 14, 1999, she was prohibited by the Vatican's Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith from any further pastoral work with lesbian and gay people. This directive, signed by Pope John Paul II, was announced by Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, Prefect of the Congregation, after a lengthy investigation of the last 22 years of her lesbian/gay ministry.

The investigation focused on two books which she and her colleague, Fr. Robert Nugent, authored: Building Bridges: Gay and Lesbian Reality and the Catholic Church (Twenty-Third Publications, 1992) and Voices of Hope: A Collection of Positive Catholic Writings on Lesbian/Gay Issues (Center for Homophobia Education, 1995). She has written and edited numerous articles and books on homosexuality.

In 1971, while engaged in graduate studies, Jeannine Gramick became involved in a pastoral outreach to the lesbian/gay community. In 1972-73, she co-founded the Baltimore and Washington, DC chapters of Dignity, a national organization for lesbian and gay Catholics. In 1977, she co-founded New Ways Ministry, a social justice center working for the reconciliation of lesbian/gay people and the Catholic Church.

Sister Jeannine holds a Ph.D in Education from the University of Pennsylvania and an M.S. in Mathematics from the University of Notre Dame. Between 1972 and 1979, Sister Gramick was an Assistant Professor of Mathematics and Education at the College of Notre Dame of Maryland. She also served as a Lecturer in mathematics at the University of Maryland and the University of California at Los Angeles.

Sister Gramick served on the national boards of the National Assembly of Women Religious, the Religious Network of Equality for Women, Women-Church Convergence, the Lambda Legal Defense and Education Fund, and the Women's Ordination Conference. Since 1995, she has co-chaired the board of the National Coalition of American Nuns. She is strongly committed to a justice agenda and is vitally interested in promoting women's ministries.

September 2, 1999