34 Facts About Ellen Leonard

Ellen Margaret Leonard was a Canadian systematic theologian and Roman Catholic religious sister.

Ellen Leonard published three books on figures important in Roman Catholic modernism, and wrote about feminist and ecological Christologies.

Ellen Leonard served as the president of the Canadian Theological Society from 1989 to 1990.

Ellen Leonard entered the Congregation of the Sisters of St Joseph after high school and worked as a teacher and administrator, prior to earning her PhD and joining the Faculty of Theology at University of St Michael's College.

Ellen Leonard received an honorary doctorate from the University of St Michael's College in 2014.

Ellen Leonard died on August 18,2022, in Toronto, Ontario.

Ellen Leonard was born in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, in 1933 to Hugh and Mary Leonard, as the elder of two daughters.

Ellen Leonard completed a six-month postulancy period and then entered the novitiate on March 19,1952, receiving her religious habit and the name "Sister Loyola".

Ellen Leonard then spent most of the next 18 years as an elementary school teacher, principal, and religious resource teacher in Niagara and the greater Toronto area.

Ellen Leonard left elementary teaching behind and moved forward in her theological education by earning a master's degree in religious studies from Manhattan College in New York City in 1971.

Ellen Leonard set aside her habit and veil and moved into a small community of six sisters rather than remain in the large motherhouse of the Sister of St Joseph.

Ellen Leonard began doctoral studies at the University of St Michael's College at the University of Toronto in 1973.

Ellen Leonard joined the Faculty of Theology at St Michael's as a lecturer during her final year of doctoral studies.

Ellen Leonard completed her doctorate and became assistant professor in 1978.

Ellen Leonard gained her associate professorship in 1982 and became a full professor in 1991.

Ellen Leonard remained a full-time faculty member at St Michael's until she retired in 1999 with emerita status.

Ellen Leonard was among the first women in Canada to study systematic theology and among the first women in Canada to teach on a faculty of theology.

Ellen Leonard described modernism as a controversial orientation through which scholars at the turn of the twentieth century grappled with advances in science, philosophical ideas about individual autonomy, and changing methods of biblical interpretation.

Ellen Leonard contributed the definition of Roman Catholic Modernism to The Cambridge Dictionary of Christianity, noting that, "viewed in its historical context, Modernism can be interpreted as a renewal within Catholicism that offered an alternative to the liberal Protestant outlook and in some ways anticipated the Second Vatican Council".

Ellen Leonard served on the steering committee of the Roman Catholic Modernism group of the American Academy of Religion.

Ellen Leonard argued that Tyrrell's ideas on modernism were pastoral rather than developmental of a systematic theology of reform.

Ellen Leonard served in this capacity from 1975 to 1984.

Ellen Leonard attended two WCC assemblies as an accredited observer: the sixth assembly in Vancouver, Canada, in 1983, and the seventh assembly in Canberra, Australia, in 1991.

Ellen Leonard argues that "feminism is a prophetic movement, one that calls for conversion".

Ellen Leonard was especially interested in how personal experience and social location influenced the shaping of Christology.

Ellen Leonard has been supportive of the ordination of women in the Catholic Church.

Ellen Leonard was a core member of the group for the next seven years as it formalized an organizational structure, began a newsletter, and connected with groups pursuing the same goal in other countries.

Ellen Leonard stepped down from CCWO's core leadership group in 1986, and the organization was reshaped into the Catholic Network for Women's Equality in 1988.

Ellen Leonard was a keynote speaker at the CNWE conference in 2001, which CNWE marked as the 20th anniversary of the group's founding.

Ellen Leonard was recognized as a co-founder of the organization at the 2015 CNWE conference.

Ellen Leonard, who had Parkinson's disease, lived in the Sisters of St Joseph home in Toronto in her final years.

Ellen Leonard was recognized for her academic work as well as her activism.

In 2004, Ellen Leonard received the Ann O'Hara Graff Award from the Women's Seminar in Constructive Theology of the Catholic Theological Society of America.

In recognition of her work with recent immigrants, Ellen Leonard received the inaugural Becoming Neighbours Annual Margaret Myatt, CSJ, Recognition Award in 2012.