Natalie Terry is a minister, preacher and educator with an ever-evolving call to accompany people and communities in their spiritual journeys. She currently serves as the Assistant Executive Director of Villa Maria Education & Spirituality Center in Northwestern Pennsylvania. In her ministry journey, Natalie has served as the director of an Ignatian spirituality center, as a faith-based community organizer and as a high school campus minister and philosophy teacher. She is committed to John Lewis’ call to get in necessary and good trouble.

After graduating from John Carroll University with a BA in Religious Studies, Natalie served as a Humility of Mary volunteer at Villa Maria (where she works now!) and inherited a deep respect for nature and a love for radical hospitality. Her ministerial formation continued in California, where she received a Master of Divinity (M.Div.) from the Jesuit School of Theology in Berkeley.

In 2012 she was awarded a ministry fellowship with the Fund for Theological Education where she embarked on a project to explore modes of discernment for Roman Catholic women to explore calls to ordained ministry. Since then, her perspective on ordination has shifted and transformed tremendously, in large part after experiencing the 30-day Spiritual Exercises retreat. While the call is ever-evolving, her heart focus is now on deconstructing patriarchal spaces and creating healing space for exploration and renewal in an evolving church.

Natalie is originally from Wynantskill, New York and grew up in the Albany Diocese where her call was born amidst the leadership and ministry of her grandmother, parents, and high school campus minister. She is an alumnus of Catholic Central High School in Troy, New York.