Christine Burke IBVM (Loreto) lives in Quezon City, Philippines. She was engaged for many years in various aspects of adult faith education in the archdiocese of Adelaide, Australia. Her Ph.D. asked how the Christian tradition could speak more relevantly to a secular society.  In the 1990s, Christine pioneered the Church Ministry Program at Catholic Theological College in Adelaide, helping form lay pastoral leaders for parishes. As a feminist theologian, Christine is interested in ways of helping people connect daily life with the Gospel and explore new possibilities for our Church. From 2005-11, Christine was province leader for the IBVM sisters in Australia, Vietnam and East Timor. Christine moved to the Philippines in late 2013 to begin a House of Studies for younger sisters from the province. Christine and a group of Congregation of Jesus sisters from Korea and China, have pioneered a shared community in Manila. Because of opportunities she has been given to study the life and spirituality of Mary Ward, the founder of CJ and IBVM, Christine has given lectures on Mary Ward in Korea (2014), Zimbabwe (2015), India (2015) and Kenya (2018), as well as earlier lectures in Australia. She is currently giving a seminar course at Maryhill School of Theology on Feminist Theology and Spirituality and supervises some post-graduate students.

Christine has published “Freedom Justice and Sincerity: reflections on the life and spirituality of Mary Ward” and “The gift of Mary Ward”, as well as an earlier volume “Through a woman’s Eyes” which presented meditations and feminist insights into Gospel stories.

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