The GIVEN Institute and the Modernist Reduction of Catholic Womanhood to Naturalistic Self-Actualization
EWTN News reports (June 26, 2026) on the 2026 GIVEN Catholic Young Women’s Leadership Forum held in Washington, D.C., presenting it as an initiative to help young Catholic women “understand their gifts and how to share them with the world.” The five-day gathering, hosted by the GIVEN Institute, features “keynotes, leadership training, mentorship, adoration, prayer, and Mass,” and aims to instill in participants the idea that “they are a gift” and “beloved daughter[s] of God.” Executive director Jennifer Cole-Schaefer stated: “We hope women will take away an understanding, on a much deeper level, that they are a gift. They are a beloved daughter of God… It’s all about receiving this idea that we are a gift, realizing what our gifts are, and responding in a way that only we can respond with our particular gifts.” The forum also bestowed Mother Agnes Mary Donovan, SV with its “Fiat Award,” honoring women who embody Our Lady’s response through “faithful leadership, service, and love.” Dominican Sister Mary Madeline Todd, OP delivered a keynote asserting: “God reveals ‘you are the gift’ and ‘you are the love’… Every gift we’ve been given is to call others into the relationship with the Lord they were made for.” This entire enterprise is a quintessential expression of post-conciliar modernist subversion, replacing the supernatural vocation of Catholic womanhood with a naturalistic, therapeutic cult of self-emptying “gifts” detached from the true holiness, sacrifice, and doctrinal fidelity demanded by the pre-1958 Church.

