2320 Airport Drive
Columbus, Ohio 43219
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www.oppeace.org
For Information, contact:
Dee Holleran, Director of Communications
614-416-1046
[email protected] For Immediate Release
Columbus, OH – Sr. Annie Killian, OP, PhD, a member of the Dominican Sisters of Peace and
Assistant Professor of English at Ohio Dominican University, has been elected to the
national council at Pax Christi USA, an organization that rejects war and all forms of
violence and domination.
Sr. Annie’s vision for Pax Christi includes bringing the gifts of Christian nonviolence into
collaboration with human rights organizations that are opposed to US militarism and state
violence.
She thinks the threat of violence may be real this election year. She also says that exorbitant
defense spending has raised public consciousness of the harm American-made weapons are
inflicting on people of this country and abroad. She believes that the time is right for Pax
Christi to build a coalition and a movement for democracy and liberation.
“I welcome the responsibility of a council position with Pax Christi, it is an organization that
I was immediately attracted to in 2020 when I found the Pax Christi Young Adult Group. Its
purpose and vision fit perfectly with the Dominican Sisters of Peace and our mission of
being peace, building peace and preaching peace,” says Sr. Annie Killian.
Grounded in the Gospel and Catholic social teaching, Pax Christi USA is a membership
organization that rejects war, preparation for war, every form of violence and domination,
and personal and systemic racism. Michelle Sherman, Project Director for Pax Christi USA,
views Sr. Annie as a leader and a prophetic voice for peace within Pax Christi and says,
“During the past three years, Sr. Annie's leadership both within the Pax Christi Young Adult
Caucus and the movement nationally has been remarkable: coordinating public witnesses,
leading study circles, preaching at retreats-- she was also invited to present during Pax
Christi’s 50th Anniversary National Conference. She will bring much to our national council
as both a young leader and as a Dominican Sister of Peace. We know that she will be
instrumental and effective with spreading the message of both Gospel nonviolence and anti-
racism. We are excited and grateful for her 'yes!' to serve on Pax Christi USA's national
council, which is an affirmation of her demonstrated leadership at the national level of our
movement.”
In her life as a Dominican Sister of Peace and in conjunction with Pax Christi, Sr. Annie
helped organize actions promoting a cease-fire in Gaza earlier this year and participates
with Catholic Sisters against Gun Violence. She has also served in the Kolbe House Jail
Ministry of the Archdiocese of Chicago. Sher serves in the ministry of education where she
takes the message of nonviolence into the classroom, incorporating an anti-racist pedagogy
in curricular design as a professor of college writing at Ohio Dominican University.
“Non-violence is central to Catholic teaching and my hope is that as a Dominican Sister of
Peace and now a member of the Pax Christi national council I can be influential in making
even more people aware of the importance of adopting a culture of non-violence and
antiracism. The message is more important now than ever.”
Sr. Annie earned her PhD in English Language and Literature from Yale in 2019 and joined
the Dominican Sisters of Peace just a few weeks later. Between 2021-23, she served as the
inaugural Public Humanities Fellow for the Medieval Institute at the University of Notre
Dame. Her research and publication focus on religion, literature, and church reform in
fifteenth-century England. She has an article on care of creation in Julian of Norwich
forthcoming in “Spiritus: A Journal of Christian Spirituality.”
She is one of three who were elected this summer to the national council at Pax Christi USA.
Sr. Annie Killian will attend her first Pax Christi National Conference meeting in New
Mexico this fall.
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About the Dominican Sisters of Peace:
Dominican Sisters of Peace, members of the Order of Preachers, are vowed Catholic women who
preach the Gospel of Christ through lives of service and peace-making. The Dominican Sisters of
Peace are present in 22 states and Nigeria. The Sisters serve God’s people in many ways, including
education, health care, spirituality, pastoral care, prison ministry, the arts, and care of creation.
There are more than 300 Sisters and more than 600 lay women and men associated with the
congregation.
