Featured Speakers
Kathy Coffey
Biography
Kathy Coffey is the author of Hidden Women of the Gospels, Women of Mercy, God in the Moment: Making Every Day a Prayer, (Orbis) Dancing in the Margins (Crossroad), Immersed in the Sacred: Discovering the Small s Sacraments (Ave Maria), catechetical resources such as Children and Christian Initiation, Baptism and Beyond and Confirmation: Anointed and Sealed with the Spirit (Living the Good News), and many articles in Catholic periodicals like America, U.S. Catholic, St. Anthony Messenger and Catechumenate. She taught for fifteen years at the University of Colorado, Denver, and Regis Jesuit University. She has won thirteen awards from the Catholic Press Association, the Foley Poetry Award from America magazine, the Independent Publishers Book Award and the Associated Church Press Award for Editorial Courage.
Kathy has spoken at national conventions such as the L.A. Congress, the East Coast Congress, NCCL, NCEA, and many diocesan gatherings. She gives retreats and workshops nationally and internationally. An editor for Living the Good News and the mother of four, she lives in Denver, Colorado.
Richard Chiola
Biography
Father Richard Chiola is pastor of St. Cabrini Church and Director of Ongoing Formation for Priests in the Springfield Diocese. A native of Springfield , Fr. Chiola has served several parishes in the Springfield Diocese, including St Thomas in Decatur , St. Louis in Nokomis, St. Agnes, in Springfield , and St. Augustine Parish in Ashland.
Fr. Chiola holds several degrees in theology including a Ph.D. from St. Louis University and M.A in counseling from UIS. He has served as Assistant Professor of Pastoral Theology at Yale University , Catholic Chaplain at University of Chicago , and a consultant for Hospital Sisters Health System. He is the author of Catholicism for the Non-Catholic published last fall by Templegate.
