Kate Ott

Religious Institute for Sexual Morality, Justice and Healing

Dr. Kate Ott is Associate Director of the Religious Institute on
Sexual Morality, Justice and Healing. She holds a doctorate in
Christian Social Ethics from Union Theological Seminary in the city of
New York.

Dr. Ott was Director of Research for the
Yale Women Faculty Forum, where she worked on issues of gender equity
and professional ethics in Academia. Prior to her research position,
Dr. Ott was the Director of Youth Ministries and Christian Education at
Fairfield Grace for five years while finishing her doctorate. She has
over 10 years of church-related experience in campus ministry, youth
ministry and Christian education programs. She conducts workshops for
local churches as well as national denominational committees.

Dr.
Ott is at work on a book project titled, Saying No is Not Enough:
Teens, Sexuality, and Faith based on her dissertation. In addition to a
number of scholarly articles, Dr. Ott is co-author of the second
edition of A Time to Speak: Faith Communities and Sexuality Education.
She wrote and reviews the "Sexuality Education Curricula for Faith
Communities: An Annotated Bibliography." For two years, she served as
senior editor of the Union Seminary Quarterly Review.

Dr.
Ott has received a Woodrow Wilson Humanities at Work grant for her
integration of academic study and community outreach. Also, she
received the William H. Fogg Scholarship and Sterling Quadrangle Social
Justice Scholarship at Yale for her outstanding academic work and
commitment to social justice. Dr. Ott has worked for six years with
youth and health education in the Connecticut area. Through the Health
and Wellness Center in the West end of Bridgeport, CT, she initiated
programs for Problem Solving for Better HealthTM and the 21st Century
Lighthouse federal grants for community based health initiatives.

Dr.
Ott has a Masters of Arts in Religion from Yale Divinity School and an
undergraduate degree from the University of Wisconsin at Madison. She
teaches at Sacred Heart University in Fairfield, CT and is an assistant
instructor at Yale Divinity School. Dr. Ott has been married for ten
years and is the proud mother of a 6 year old daughter and an 3 year
old son.

As Christmas Nears, Contemplating Miraculous Births

Miraculous biblical stories of birth fit more closely with our notions of reproductive technologies than with the Vatican's re-assertion that the only authentic context for human life is an act of reciprocal love between a man and woman in marriage.