2025 Hobart Lecture

Join us for the annual Hobart Lecture featuring Episcopal Bishop Mariann Budde and Poet Theologian Pádraig Ó Tuama.

About Bishop Budde:

Bishop Mariann Edgar Budde serves as spiritual leader for the Episcopal congregations and schools in the District of Columbia and four Maryland counties that comprise the Episcopal Diocese of Washington. The first woman elected to this position, she also serves as the chair of the Protestant Episcopal Cathedral Foundation which oversees the ministries of the Washington National Cathedral and Cathedral schools. Bishop Budde is an advocate and organizer in support of justice concerns, including racial equity, gun violence prevention, immigration reform, the full inclusion of LGBTQ+ persons, and the care of creation. Bishop Budde was consecrated as the ninth bishop of Washington in November 2011. Prior to her election, she served for 18 years as rector of St. John’s Episcopal Church in Minneapolis. She earned a B.A. in history at the University of Rochester, graduating magna cum laude. She earned both a Master of Divinity (1989) and Doctor of Ministry (2008) from Virginia Theological Seminary. She is the author of three books; the most recent, How We Learn to Be Brave: Decisive Moments in Life and Faith, was published in 2023.

About Pádraig Ó Tuama:

Pádraig Ó Tuama’s poetry and prose centre around themes of language, power, conflict and religion. His work has won acclaim in circles of poetry, politics, psychotherapy and conflict analysis. His formal qualifications (PhD, MTh and BA) cover creative writing, literary criticism and theology. Alongside this, he pursued vocational training in conflict analysis, specialising in groupwork. His published work is in the fields of poetry, anthology, essay, memoir, theology and conflict. Profiled in The New Yorker, Pádraig’s poems have been featured in Poetry Ireland Review, Ploughshares, Academy of American Poets, Harvard Review, New England Review, Raidió Teilifís Éireann’s Poem of the Week, and the Kenyon Review.

Pádraig has told stories at The Moth, has been featured on NPR’s All Things Considered, has presented programmes on poetry and language for BBC Radio 4; and has extended interviews with On Being, with Kim Hill on Radio NZ, and Soul Search on Radio National (Australia). In addition, he has interviewed poets and public figures including former President of Ireland Mary McAleese, Fady Joudah, Hanif Abdurraqib, The Edge, Sarah Perry, Joy Harjo, Billy Collins and Martin Hayes.