Maureen Fiedler

Sister Maureen Fiedler, S.L., Ph.D. is an American activist and radio host and a member of the Sisters of Loretto. She is a progressive, sometimes controversial activist within the Roman Catholic Church. She has a long history working with interfaith coalitions on a variety of issues including: social justice, peace, anti-racism work, gender equality, human rights and female ordination in the Catholic Church. She holds a doctorate in Government from Georgetown University.

In 1984 she was one of 97 theologians and religious persons who signed A Catholic Statement on Pluralism and Abortion, calling for religious pluralism and discussion within the Church regarding its position on abortion.^[1] The Vatican later reported that she had disavowed the statement, but she responded, "I have never retracted or recanted one syllable... I continue to stand behind every word of it without the slightest reservation."^[2]

She has hosted the newsmagazine and talk radio program Interfaith Voices since it debuted in 2002. Starting with just one station, the show has grown to 60 stations in the United States and Canada. The program began as a project of The Quixote Center, a non-sectarian non-profit collective in Brentwood, Maryland. It later became a separately incorporated non-profit for tax reasons. Interfaith Voices had been previously called Faith Matters. However, due to a trademark dispute, the name was changed. Faith Matters is the name of a program still produced by the Reverend Dr. Leith Anderson, now president of the National Association of Evangelicals. In 2007, Interfaith Voices interviewed Rev. Anderson after he assumed the NAE presidency from Reverend Ted Haggard. The program's mission is the promotion of interfaith understanding and religious dialog in the public square.

Fiedler received a card from the now-deceased Sister Mary Luke Tobin when Fiedler was involved in an "uncertain venture" regarding women's ordination. It read: "Go out on a limb. That's where the fruit is." ^[3]

Interfaith Voices has had six producers since it began. Among them are Peter B. Collins, who now owns KRXA-AM in Monterey, California; Paul Woodhull, executive producer of The Bill Press Show; Josephine Reed, host of WPFW-FM radio show On The Margin and a vice president for programming for XM Satellite Radio; John E. Parman; and Laura Kwerel.

References

1. ^ Keller, Rosemary Skinner; Ruether, Rosemary Radford; Cantlon, Marie (2006). Encyclopedia of women and religion in North America. 3. Indiana University Press. pp. 1104–1106. ISBN 0253346886. 
2. ^ "11 Nuns Deny Recanting Stand on Abortion". Los Angeles Times. UPI. July 26, 1986. http://articles.latimes.com/1986-07-26/local/me-88_1_vatican-statement. 
3. ^ http://www.nationalcatholicreporter.org/update/nt082506.htm National Catholic Reporter obituary for Sister Mary Luke Tobin

External links

• http://www.womenpriests.org/called/fiedler.asp
• http://www.abc.net.au/lateline/stories/s572435.htm
• http://interfaithradio.org/aboutus

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Name	Fiedler, Maureen
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