Jennifer Bryson

Fellow

Jennifer Bryson, Ph.D., is a Fellow in EPPC’s Catholic Women’s Forum. Currently, she is translating the works of Ida Friederike Görres (1901–1971) from German to English. She lives in Lincoln, Nebraska.

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Jennifer Bryson, Ph.D., is a Fellow in EPPC’s Catholic Women’s Forum. Currently, she is translating the works of Ida Friederike Görres (1901-1971) from German to English. She lives in Lincoln, Nebraska.

Dr. Bryson grew up in California. She has studied and worked in Egypt and Yemen, been an intelligence agent for the Defense Intelligence Agency, including two years as an interrogator at Guantanamo, and worked at several research institutes, including the Witherspoon Institute and Religious Freedom Institute. Dr. Bryson has written extensively on foreign affairs, sex, marriage, and other issues. Her articles are at jenniferbryson.net.

Dr. Bryson earned her B.A. from Stanford in Political Science, her M.A. in medieval European intellectual History from Yale, and her Ph.D. in Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations from Yale, with a focus on Greco-Arabic and Islamic studies. She learned German in high school in Austria and while studying Marxism-Leninism for a year in former East Germany as an undergraduate. Bryson was an Earhart Fellow, a Richard M. Weaver Fellow of the Intercollegiate Studies Institute, and a Fulbright Scholar. Her Ph.D. work included the study of translation theory.

From 2021–2023 she was a Visiting Researcher at the Pope Benedict XVI Philosophical-Theological Institute, known as Hochschule Heiligenkreuz, in Austria, while translating several works by Ida Görres. Her translations include the German government’s report, “Anti-Semitism among Islamists in Germany,” Görres’ 1970 lecture “Trusting the Church,” and Görres’ book The Church in the Flesh.

Bryson is an adult Catholic convert.

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Teach Children About Creation: Why and How

Jennifer Bryson

Complicated debates about creation rage.

Articles

One Peter Five / July 10, 2023

Introduction to “The Bride of Alexius”

Jennifer Bryson

Jennifer Bryson has published an introduction to a story by Ida Friederike Görres in a new collection of short stories by twentieth-century Catholic authors.

US Bishops Anchor Opposition to Gender Body Mutilation in Creation

Jennifer Bryson

“We did not create human nature; it is a gift from a loving Creator.”

Articles

Why do heretics remain in the Church?

Jennifer Bryson

The counterfactual optimism of heretics keeps them in the Church while working to destroy it.

Articles

Crisis Magazine / March 24, 2023

Germany’s Synodal Way Hymnal, Part 2: Trojan Horse Hymns

Jennifer Bryson

The fate of one of the most famous traditional German Catholic hymns following the Second Vatican Council offers an example of how the Church in Germany used what I call “Trojan Horse hymns” to influence Catholics to think about the Church in new ways, thus helping to pave the way to today’s German Synodal Way.

Articles

One Peter Five / March 7, 2023

The German “Catholic” Hymnal Before the Synodal Way

Jennifer Bryson

A deep dive into the differences between hymns today and those of the past.

Articles

One Peter Five / March 4, 2023

Secret Tentative Intimation

Jennifer Bryson

The greatest challenge to my conscience at Guantanamo came right at the start, right when I was least prepared.

Articles

The Lamp / May 23, 2022

The True Mary: German Catholic Women Fight Against Feminism

Jennifer Bryson

EPPC Fellow Jennifer S. Bryson discusses her work with an association of German Catholic women who are making public their unity and loyalty to the Catholic Church and the Magisterium.

Articles

OnePeterFive / May 6, 2022

Austrian Catholics Launch Public Rosary in Response to Lockdowns

Jennifer Bryson

The new Austria Prays initiative has historical inspiration, an approach to the current crisis of pandemic-related politics, and aspects of intra-Catholic collaboration that I think offer Americans something worth considering.

Articles

Crisis / December 14, 2021

“Trusting the Church: A Lecture,” by Ida Friederike Görres, translated by Jennifer S. Bryson

Jennifer Bryson

EPPC Fellow Jennifer S. Bryson has translated the lecture “Trusting the Church,” delivered in 1970 by Ida Friederike Görres.

Articles

Catholic Culture Audiobooks / June 23, 2021