Joanna Arellano-Gonzalez is a proud first-generation Mexican-American from the La Villita neighborhood on Chicago’s South Side. She is a co-founder and Director of Training and Formation at the Coalition for Spiritual and Public Leadership (CSPL), a Catholic and Christian-rooted community organizing coalition that advances community transformation through spirituality and grassroots organizing. She holds a Master of Arts in Christian Spirituality from Fordham University, with a concentration in Spiritual Direction.

A writer, speaker, and formator, Joanna explores the intersections of spirituality, theology, organizing, and the historical Jesus. Her essays, reflections, and articles have appeared in a variety of Catholic and social justice publications, including Give Us This Day and the Center for Action and Contemplation. She has also preached three times for Catholic Women Preach – most recently for the 2026 Feast of St. Mary Magdalene.

Mollie Clark is a graduate of Fordham University, where she studied Theology and Women, Gender, & Sexuality Studies with a concentration in American Catholic Studies. While at Fordham, she co-founded the Catholic Women Speak Conference with AnnaMarie Pacione and Lauryn Sweeney. Since 2024, the annual conference has striven to uplift and affirm the voices of those who have experienced social and liturgical marginalization. Through her studies, Mollie had the opportunity to engage with synodality at both the institutional and local levels alongside AnnaMarie, bearing witness to the Universal Phase of the Synod on Synodality in Rome and traveling to parish communities across the United States. Mollie also served in Campus Ministry and was a member of the University Choir. She considers the time she spent accompanying students at the Mary Mitchell Community Center in the Bronx to be among the most formative and meaningful parts of her Fordham experience.

Mollie is particularly passionate about the academic study of feminist and queer theologies, advocacy for the ordination of people of all genders, and the implementation of inclusive, intersectional, and expansive liturgical practices. She recently attended the 50th Anniversary celebration of the Women’s Ordination Conference, where she was humbled to receive the Young Feminist Award. Committed to further growth in the work of solidarity and accompaniment, she is thrilled to spend the next year as a Jesuit Volunteer with Catholic Charities’ Nutritional Development Services agency in Philadelphia, PA.

AnnaMarie Pacione received her B.A. in Humanitarian Studies and Theology, including a concentration in American Catholic Studies from Fordham University this spring. She was transformed through gifts of experience received both inside and outside the classroom, including: her world-and-spirituality-expanding theology and Catholic studies courses and professors, co-founding Fordham’s Catholic Women Speak Conference, opportunities to lead spiritual retreats, engagement with the Synod on Synodality, participating in the Arrupe Accompaniment program at Catholic Charities Day Laborers, and her time with Global Outreach, as a member of the El Salvador project with CRISPAZ and the leader of the Dominican Republic project with Rostro de Cristo. Each of these left indelible seals of awareness and responsibility upon her, planting the seeds of her emerging values of pacifism, hospitality, solidarity, personal sacrifice, resistance, hope, rejoicing, and interconnectedness.

During her summers she lived in community at St. Joseph’s Catholic Worker in NYC, and Annunciation House, a house of hospitality for refugees in El Paso, Texas. Days that withheld capacities of great sorrow and joy, of being accompanied and accompanying opened her eyes to re-understanding the world, its systems of death, communities of Life, and her place amid them. She hopes her future living is discerned from her remembrance, honor, and orientation towards those relationships and their stories—her greatest teachers.

This fall, she began her year of service as a Jesuit Volunteer in Los Angeles, California as a Community Organizing Intern at UNITE HERE Local 11, which represents hospitality workers fighting for more just working and living conditions. In her unfolding journey, hopes to have the courage to live up to these values of accompaniment and reparation, where her prayers become embodied.

Lauryn Sweeney is a middle school Religion and History teacher at St. Anthony Catholic School in Robstown, Texas. She is an ACE (Alliance for Catholic Education) Teaching Fellow at the University of Notre Dame, where she is pursuing a Master of Education while teaching. Her academic interests lie at the intersection of Catholic education, theology, and religious education curriculum, with particular attention to Catholic social teaching and gender in the classroom.

Prior to beginning the ACE program, Lauryn graduated from Fordham University with a double major in International Political Economy and Theology with a concentration in American Catholic Studies (CACS). During her time at Fordham, she was a Division I student-athlete on the volleyball team, served in Campus Ministry and the Center for Community Engaged Learning, and co-founded the Catholic Women Speak Conference alongside Mollie Clark and AnnaMarie Pacione. The conference, first launched in 2024 and continued in 2025 and 2026, creates opportunities for dialogue on intersectional issues within the Church, with an emphasis on women’s voices, leadership, and lived experiences.

Alongside her undergraduate academic studies, Lauryn interned with the Catholic Charities Refugee Resettlement Department. She also held an internship with the International Presentation Association (IPA) at the United Nations, where she researched global implementation of the Copenhagen Declaration and collaborated on advocacy related to the dignity of women and children, Indigenous rights, and care for creation. She later became a Lay Associate with the Presentation Sisters, continuing her commitment to integrating Catholic social teaching with education and ministry.

Inspired by the Catholic intellectual tradition and the Church’s call to justice, she hopes to contribute to conversations about how Catholic classrooms can empower young people.