Mary Rice Hasson

Mary Rice Hasson is the Kate O’Beirne Fellow in Catholic Studies at the Ethics and Public Policy Center in Washington, D.C. She also directs the Catholic Women’s Forum, a network of Catholic professional women and scholars seeking to amplify the voice of Catholic women in support of human dignity, authentic freedom, and Catholic social teaching.

Mary is an expert on topics related to women, faith, culture, family, sexual morality, and gender ideology.  She has been a keynote speaker for the Holy See during the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women for the past three years (2019: “Gender Ideology: Ideological Aggression Against Women and Girls” and “Valuing Unpaid Caregiving: The Human Dimension”; 2018: “The Integral Education of Rural Women and Girls” and 2017: “The Distinctiveness of Women’s Work and Women’s Empowerment”). Mary is a Consultant to the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops Committee on Laity, Marriage, Family Life, and Youth. She speaks frequently at national, regional, and diocesan conferences and conducts workshops for Catholic parishes and dioceses on sexuality, gender identity, and pastoral care.

Mary’s writing has appeared in a variety of websites, policy journals, and scholarly publications; she has been interviewed by a wide range of national media and is a frequent commentator on EWTN and Catholic radio.

Mary is the co-author, with Theresa Farnan, PhD, of Get Out Now: Why You Should Pull Your Child From Public School Before It’s Too Late (Regnery: 2018), the editor of Promise and Challenge: Catholic Women Reflect on Feminism, Complementarity, and the Church (Our Sunday Visitor: 2015), and the co-author with Kimberly Hahn of Catholic Education: Homeward Bound (Ignatius Press: 1996). She is also the co-author of the report, What Catholic Women Think About Faith, Conscience, and Contraception (EPPC 2012), co-author of a study on parents’ use of media ratings, published in the medical journal Pediatrics (2011), and the author of a chapter (“What About Sex: Habits of Heart for a Fulfilling Sexual Relationship and a Happy Marriage”) in the recent book, Venus and Virtue: Celebrating Sex and Seeking Sanctification (2018).

Before joining EPPC, Mary worked as an attorney and writer and served the Church for over twenty years in leadership positions in Catholic marriage preparation programs, diocesan education efforts, and Catholic ministries to women and families. She is a graduate of the University of Notre Dame and the University of Notre Dame Law School.

Mary was the recipient of the 2019 Humanitarian Award from the Siena Symposium of the University of St. Thomas, and in 2015, Mary and her husband, Kevin J. “Seamus” Hasson, the parents of seven, were the recipients of the 2015 Saint John Paul II Award for the New Evangelization.

A note about the Catholic Women’s Forum:  Taking its inspiration from Pope St. John Paul II, who wrote that women have “the task of assuring the moral dimension of culture…a culture worthy of the person,” (Christifideles Laici, 51) and Pope Francis, who wrote of the need for  “a more incisive female presence in the Church,” (Evangelii Gaudium, 103), the Catholic Women’s Forum shapes the culture and serves the Church through its members’ expertise, an annual scholars’ symposium, media work, and periodic networking events. CWF also offers timely articles and resources through its website, newsletter and social media. To learn more, please visit catholicwomensforum.org.

Selected Interviews, and Lectures

• “Faith in the Time of COVID,” Archdiocese of St. Andrews & Edinburgh, February 8, 2021
• The Changing Conversation around Homeschooling: An Argument for More Data and Less Ideology, 7, U. St. Thomas J.L. & Pub. Pol’y 1 (2012)
• “Sexual Consent and Our Current Throwaway Culture,” Love and Fidelity Network Conference, Princeton University, November 8, 2019
• “The Transgender Moment,” Veritas Center for Ethics in Public Life, Franciscan University of Steubenville, September 2019
• “Religious Liberty for All,” Sutherland Institute Congressional Series, August 2019
• “Should We Stay or Should We Go?” Parents’ Rights in Education, Lake Oswego, OR, May 2019
• “Gender Ideology: Ideological Aggression Against Women and Girls,” UN Commission on the Status of Women, March 2019
• “Valuing Unpaid Caregiving: The Human Dimension,” UN Commission on the Status of Women, March 2019
• “Alive in Christ,” Catholic Women’s Commission 2019 Day of Reflection, Archdiocese of Newark, March 27, 2019
• “The Gender Revolution,” Catholic Women’s Commission 2019 Day of Reflection, Archdiocese of Newark, March 27, 2019
• “Truth, Conscience and Love in a Post-Christian Culture,” 2018 NAPA Institute Conference
• Interview about Get Out Now (alongside Theresa Farnan), The Eric Metaxas Show, October 2018
• “Should Pope Francis Resign?“, TRT World, September 2018
• Comments on the McCarrick scandal: “Spiritual Reform Is the Answer”, EWTN News Nightly with Laura Ashburn, July 2018
• Transgenderism & Child Welfare, World Lutheran News Digest, June 2017
• Birth Mothers and Adoptive Mothers Celebrate Mother’s Day, EWTN “Pro-Life Weekly,” May 2017
• “The Distinctiveness of Women’s Work and Women’s Empowerment”,  Commission on the Status of Women, United Nations, March 2017
• Redeeming the Gender Revolution, Genuine Feminine Conference, January 2017
• “Women and the Church: An Inter-Tradition Dialogue – Is Christianity Bad for Women?” panel discussion, University of Notre Dame, September 2016
• Interview about Promise and Challenge, Salt and Light TV’s “Subject Matters,” June 2016
• “Women and Sexual Freedom: Is Consent All That Matters,” panel presentation, Center for Ethics and Culture, University of Notre Dame, November 2015
• Interview during Pope Francis’s visit to US, CSPAN, October 2015
• Keynote Remarks of the 2015 Saint John Paul II Award for the New Evangelization, Catholic Information Center, October 2015
• Burwell v. Hobby Lobby, panel presentation, Southwestern Law School, 2015

• Dialogue must serve truth, Catholic leader says in response to women’s conference, Elise Harris, Catholic News Agency, March 2018
• Notre Dame alumna addresses Catholic response to gender revolution, Nicole Simon, The Observer, February 2018
• The Trans Teen Industrial Complex, Rod Dreher, The American Conservative, February 2018

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