Phyllis Zagano

Zagano was born in Queens, New York.[1] She graduated from Sacred Heart Academy in 1965. She has a BA from Marymount College in Tarrytown, New York (1969); master's degrees in communications from Boston University (1970), in literature from Long Island University (1972), and in theology from St. John's University (1991); and a PhD from the State University of New York at Stony Brook in 1979.[1]

Zagano was program officer at the National Humanities Center from 1979 to 1980, and taught at Fordham University from 1980 to 1984.[1] She was a researcher at the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of New York from 1984 to 1986 and a Coolidge Fellow at the Episcopal Divinity School in Cambridge, Massachusetts in 1987.[1] She taught at Boston University from 1988 to 1999.[1]

Since 2002, Zagano has taught at Hofstra University in Hempstead, New York, where she is senior research associate-in-residence and adjunct professor of religion.[1] In 2005 she held a visiting professorship at the Yale Divinity School in New Haven, Connecticut. In 2009, she was a Fulbright Fellow at the University of Limerick's Mary Immaculate College in Limerick, Ireland, where she was a lecturer.[1] In 2015 she was a Fulbright Senior Specialist at the Waterford Institute of Technology, in Waterford, Ireland.

Zagano received "Layperson of the Year" award from Voice of the Faithful in 2012.[7]

She received the 2014 Isaac Hecker Award for Social Justice from the Paulist Center of Boston.[8][9]

In 2016, Pope Francis appointed Zagano to the Papal Study Commission on the Women's Diaconate.[10][11] The Commission's first meeting was held November 25–26, 2016.[12] It produced an initial report to Pope Francis[13] by January 2019.[14] In May 2019, Francis said the Study Commission had not produced a "definitive response" due to a lack of consensus regarding the role of deaconesses in early Christianity. While Francis indicated that individual study continued, he did not indicate whether the Study Commission remains active as a body.[13]

Her papers are archived by the Women and Leadership Archives of Loyola University Chicago.[1]

Zagano's publications include:

• Woman to Woman: An Anthology of Women's Spiritualities, 1993, editor.[6]
• On Prayer, 1994.
• Ita Ford: Missionary Martyr, 1996.
• The Exercise of the Primacy: Continuing the Dialogue, 1998, co-editor.
• Things New and Old: Essays on the Theology of Elizabeth A. Johnson, 1999, co-editor.
• Twentieth-Century Apostles: Christian Spirituality in Action, 1999.
• Holy Saturday: An Argument for the Restoration of the Female Diaconate in the Catholic Church, 2000; Catholic Press Association Book Award; 2002 College Theology Society Book Award.
• Dorothy Day, 2003, editor.
• Called to Serve: A Spirituality for Deacons, 2004.
• The Dominican Tradition: Spirituality in History, 2006, co-editor.[15]
• Women & Catholicism: Gender, Communion, and Authority, 2011; Catholic Press Association Book Award in category B15, "Gender issues".[16]
• Women Deacons: Past, Present, Future, 2011, with Gary Macy and William T. Ditewig.[17]
• Women in Ministry: Emerging Questions about the Diaconate, 2012.
• Mysticism and the Spiritual Quest: A Crosscultural Anthology, 2013.
• Ordination of Women to the Diaconate in the Eastern Churches: Essays by Cipriano Vagaggini, 2013, editor and translator.
• Sacred Silence: Daily Meditations for Lent, 2014.
• In the Image of Christ: Essays on Being Catholic and Female, 2015.
• Women Deacons? Essays with Answers, 2016, editor and translator. Catholic Press Association Book Award in category B15, "Gender issues".[18]
• The Light of the World: Daily Meditations for Advent, 2016.
• Women: Icons of Christ, February 6, 2020