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.