about

Renée Darline Roden is a journalist, author and storyteller.

She has an undergraduate Bachelor of the Arts in theatre and theology (with a minor in Catholic Social Thought) from the University of Notre Dame and a MTS degree in systematic theology from the University of Notre Dame.

She earned an MS in journalism from Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism. Her reporting has appeared in The Nation, Religion News Service, The Associated Press, Washington Post, Commonweal, Sojourners, America, U.S. Catholic, and Notre Dame Magazine.

In 2022, she led a team of reporters – the intrepid Kelly Sankowski and Isabella Volmert – in writing a comprehensive story on the maternity leave policies in the U.S. Catholic Church. You can read the original report here.

Their reporting gathered wide-spread media coverage and prompted several diocese to update their policies. You can listen to interviews on their work in America Magazine and EWTN. And you can read Renée’s two-year update to the report on FemCatholic.

In addition to her work as a journalist, Renée has taught theatre for nearly two decades, to preschool thespians, high school students, college students and seminarians.

She has directed productions at the University of Notre Dame, and off-off-off-off Broadway in New York City. She is a playwright whose work has appeared at staged readings and festivals in Milwaukee (“Pedro & Galileo”), New York City (“The Last Hurricane”; “Genna the Goldfish Solves it All”), Chicago (“Cali-for-No-One”) at the Catholic Imagination Conference (“Is the Internet in Color?”) and has been produced in New York City (“SHE”).

Renée writes frequently for catholicworker.org and its newsletter, Roundtable. She blogs at Sweet Unrest.

Her first book, Tantur: Seeking Christian Unity in a Divided City is coming Spring 2025 from Liturgical Press. Learn more here.