Mary Jo Leddy

Mary Jo Leddy, CM (born 1 February 1946) is a Canadian writer, speaker, theologian and social activist.

Leddy is widely recognized for her work with refugees at Toronto's Romero House. She began working for the centre as a night manager in 1991, and has been its director since then. .

In 1973, she was the founding editor of the Catholic New Times. She is author of the books "Say to the Darkness We Beg to Differ" (Lester and Orpen Denys, finalist City of Toronto Book Award), Reweaving Religious Life: Beyond the Liberal Model (Twenty Third Publications, 1990), At the Border Called Hope: Where Refugees are Neighbours (HarperCollins, 1997 and finalist for the Trillium Award, Radical Gratitude (Orbis Books, 2002), "Our Friendly Local Terrorist" (Between the Lines 2010) and "The Other Face of God: When the Stranger Calls Us Home" (Orbis 2011).

Leddy was the recipient of a Ph.D. in philosophy from the University of Toronto with a thesis titled "The Event of the Holocaust and the Philosophical Reflections of Hannah Arendt." She studied under the direction of Emil Fackenheim, and she is currently a Senior Fellow at Massey College, University of Toronto, and a board member of PEN Canada and Massey College. After thirty years as a member of the Roman Catholic Sisters of Our Lady of Sion, she left the congregation in 1994.

Leddy received the Human Relations Award of the Canadian Council of Christians and Jews (1987), the Ontario Citizenship Award (1993), and the Order of Canada (1996).^[1]

She has received several honorary doctorates:

• LL.D - York University
• D.Litt- Mount Saint Vincent
• LL.D - Windsor
• D.Litt- Waterloo
• DD - St. Andrew's
• D.M. - Catholic Theological Union, Chicago
• Honourary Fellow, University of St. Michael's College
• DD - Atlantic School of Theology

References