Catholic Women in the Arts & Sciences: An Underappreciated Tradition – Dr. Bronwen McShea
The Thomistic Institute
The Thomistic Institute
4.8 • 873 Ratings
🗓️ 6 February 2026
⏱️ 51 minutes
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Summary
Dr. Bronwen McShea uncovers the rich but often forgotten history of Catholic women in the arts and sciences, showing how figures from late antiquity through the early modern period—nuns, scholars, patrons, and university professors—have long made serious intellectual and cultural contributions within the Catholic tradition.
This lecture was given on October 16th, 2025, at The United States Naval Academy.
For more information on upcoming events, visit us at thomisticinstitute.org/upcoming-events.
About the Speakers:
Bronwen McShea is a historian of Catholicism from medieval to modern times and is the author of three books: Women of the Church: What Every Catholic Should Know (Ignatius Press, 2024); La Duchesse: The Life of Marie de Vignerot, Cardinal Richelieu's Forgotten Heiress Who Shaped the Fate of France (Pegasus Books, 2023); and Apostles of Empire: The Jesuits and New France (Nebraska Press, 2019). Her reviews, articles, and essays have also appeared in The Wall Street Journal, First Things, America Magazine, The Journal of Religious History, and many other popular and academic periodicals. She has held research and teaching positions at Columbia University, Princeton University, Loyola University Chicago, and several other institutions. She holds a Ph.D. in Early Modern History from Yale University and both an M.T.S. in the History of Christianity and B.A. in Intellectual History from Harvard University.
Keywords: Catholic Women And Scholarship, Catholic Women In Science, Early Modern Catholic Women, Hildegard Of Bingen, Laura Bassi And Bologna, Maria Gaetana Agnesi, Medieval Nuns And Learning, Renaissance Humanism, Women Of The Church
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Welcome to the Tomistic Institute podcast. |
| 0:06.2 | Our mission is to promote the Catholic intellectual tradition in the university, the church, and the wider public square. |
| 0:13.1 | The lectures on this podcast are organized by university students at Temistic Institute chapters around the world. |
| 0:19.5 | To learn more and to attend these events, visit us at |
| 0:22.5 | to mystic institute.org. I would like to formally start the talk. I want to just dive right into |
| 0:28.5 | some historical details, and then I'll expand that word. From there, and the details come from my |
| 0:34.3 | 20-23 book, La Duchess, a biography that I wrote about the niece and heiress of the |
| 0:40.7 | famous French 17th century prime minister Cardinal Richelieu. I don't know if that name is |
| 0:47.7 | familiar to some of you. So her name, the 17th century Duchess, was Marie de Vignoreau, and she was titled |
| 0:56.5 | The Duchess of Aguillon. |
| 0:59.1 | And one of many things that I found out about the 17th century woman that made me want to |
| 1:04.1 | write a book about her in the first place was that, among many other remarkable things she |
| 1:09.3 | did in her life, she was a great patroness of writers, scholars, and artists. |
| 1:15.0 | And among those whose works that she supported |
| 1:17.4 | were a young female mathematician named Marie Kru, |
| 1:22.5 | as well as the more famous young mathematician, |
| 1:25.4 | Lais Pascal, when he was very young. She also supported the |
| 1:29.5 | poetry and dramatic work of Pascal's sister, Jacqueline, and she helped the careers, too, of some |
| 1:36.1 | other women, as well as many men, who were devoted to various arts and letters in 17th century |
| 1:41.9 | France. And one especially interesting book that the Duchess of Aguillon |
| 1:47.0 | publicly backed was entitled, |
| 1:50.0 | L'Honest Femme, which more or less translates, |
... |
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