UPDATE Jan. 30, 2026: The Kennedy Lecture has been canceled due to weather conditions in Chicago and Charlotte. If Sister Barbara Reid's schedule allows, St. Peter Church says they hope to reschedule her talk for March or April 2026.
Dominican Sister Barbara Reid, one of the country’s leading feminist theologians, will be the speaker Jan. 31 at the 26th annual Kennedy Lecture.CHARLOTTE — Learn about the roles women played in the early history of the Church at the 26th annual Kennedy Lecture Jan. 31 at St. Peter Church in uptown Charlotte.
The 2026 Kennedy Lecturer is Dominican Sister Barbara Reid, one of the country’s leading feminist theologians. She will speak on the topic “Women Leaders in the Early Jesus Movement:
Could the pivotal role women played in Jesus’ earthly ministry point the way to a greater role in the modern Church?”
After her remarks, Sister Reid will sit for an interview on a wide range of issues, including the roles of women in the Church, caring for creation, the new generation of seminarians, the recent worldwide Synod, divisions in the Church and the papacy of newly elected Leo XIV.
Conducting the interview will be two parishioners at St. Peter: Tim Funk, former religion reporter at The Charlotte Observer, and Joan Guthrie, a longtime television producer and the parish’s former communications director.
The lecture will be held from 9:30 to 11:30 a.m. in the church. Admission is free.
Sister Reid will also sign books starting at 8:30 a.m. in the parish’s Biss Hall. Her books include “Wisdom’s Feast: An Invitation to Feminist Interpretation of the Scriptures” and “At the Table of
Holy Wisdom: Global Hungers and Feminist Biblical Interpretation.”
The Kennedy Lecture is funded through Thomas and Richard Kennedy in memory of their parents, Keith and Joan Kennedy. This year's lecture will be recorded and will be available on the parish website after the event.
Begun in 2000, the Kennedy Lecture series takes a deeper look at Catholic teachings and aims to stimulate thinking by engaging prominent people in the field of religion and ethics.
Past speakers in the Kennedy Lecture series have included Kate Hennessy, the granddaughter and biographer of Dorothy Day; Paul Elie, religion reporter for The New Yorker (he has a piece on the new American pope in the current issue) and author of a joint biography of Thomas Merton, Flannery O’Connor, Dorothy Day and Walker Percy; Father Agbonkhianmeghe Orobator, the Nigeria-born dean of the Jesuit School of Theology at Santa Clara University and one of Pope Francis’ appointees to the Vatican’s Synodality sessions; and Father Greg Boyle, the Jesuit founder of Homeboy Industries in Los Angeles, the largest gang-intervention and rehabilitation program, and author of the bestseller “Tattoos on the Heart: The Power of Boundless Compassion.”
— Christina Lee Knauss
More online
At www.stpeterscatholic.org: Get details and registration information.