Sr. Mary Madeline Todd

Sr. Mary Madeline Todd serves on the Board of Directors for the GIVEN Institute. She joins me on The Dignity of Women to talk about the need for Catholic Women Leaders in our culture and how young women are being formed through continuing mentorship at GIVEN.

Sister Mary Madeline Todd, O.P., S.T.D., a Dominican Sister of the Congregation of Saint Cecilia, serves as Chair of the Philosophy Department at Mount de Sales Academy and Adjunct Professor of Theology at Aquinas College in Nashville.

Sister earned her doctorate at the Pontifical University of St. Thomas Aquinas in Rome and a Master of Arts in English from the University of Memphis. Her dissertation was on Christ, The Liberator of Woman, a study of the theology of Mulieris Dignitatem in light of current questions.

Sister Mary Madeline writes on spiritual and moral theology and speaks on both theological and literary topics internationally. She currently serves on the Board of Directors for the GIVEN Institute and St. Agnes Catholic School. Her retreat and parish mission ministry has been a graced opportunity to share the light of Christ’s merciful love from Australia to Alaska.

What is Given?

When deciding what to call this initiative, our founding Sisters began with the reality that all we have has been given to us by God: our faith, our hope, our love, our gifts, our destiny, our lives—everything–is freely given to us by God. The GIVEN Institute explores the feminine response to God’s love, to illuminate the “the feminine genius” that women contribute to families, society, the Church, and the world. We desire to help women receive the gift that they are, realize the gifts they’ve been given, and respond with the gift that only they can give.

The GIVEN Institute was established in February 2018 and has its origin in the 2016 GIVEN Catholic Young Women’s Leadership Forum, organized by the Council of Major Superiors of Women Religious. Sister Mary Gabriel, SV and Sister Bethany Madonna, SV, Co-Chairs of the 2016 GIVEN Forum, conceived of the idea to host a leadership forum for young women throughout the United States with the aim of helping them to “receive the gift they are, realize the gifts they’ve been given, and respond with the gift that only they can give.”

Mother Agnes Mary Donovan, Superior General of the Sisters of Life and an organizer of the event, said “GIVEN was conceived in the hearts of women religious and remains a significant response on the part of the Church to encourage, inspire, and mentor young women at a crucial moment in their lives. We want each of them to know they are loved, noticed, and necessary.”

The 2016 GIVEN Forum brought together nearly 300 young adult women from every state in the country, and connected them with some of the leading women in the Church. The attendees were accompanied by over 70 religious sisters from more than 25 different religious communities. Each participant developed a post-forum action plan that they implemented in a community of their choice. The GIVEN Institute was formed to continue the inaugural forum’s mission of activating the gifts of young adult women for the Catholic Church and the world.