Dagmar Braun Celeste
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Dagmar Ingrid Braun Celeste (née Braun; born November 23, 1941) is an American counselor, and author. The former first lady of Ohio, she was married to former Ohio governor (1983–1991) and U.S. ambassador Richard F. Celeste, whom she met while attending Oxford University in England. They have six grown children, and were divorced in 1995.
Early life and education
Celeste was born in Krems, Lower Austria, Nazi occupied Austria. She received a bachelor's degree in Women's Studies and Public Policy from Capital University in Ohio in 1982. In 1988, she was granted a master's in Alcoholism and Drug Abuse Ministry at the Methodist Theological School in Delaware, Ohio.<ref name=":0" />
Politics and social issues
Some notable achievements as first lady of Ohio included chairing the Ohio Recovery Council, spearheading the drive to establish the first state-sponsored on-site child care center and Employee Assistance Program in Ohio, initiating the Task Force on Family Violence, co-chairing the Governor's Commission on Volunteerism, and serving as co-chair of the Council on Holocaust Education. She was an Ohio delegate to the Democratic Convention in 1980.<ref>"Nation: Making Quite a Difference". Time. August 25, 1980.</ref> Since 1992, she has been active with the National Peace Institute, Women's Action for Nuclear Disarmament, the Council for Ethics in Economics, and the Women's Community Fund in Cleveland.<ref name=":0">Template:Cite web</ref>
Ordination
In 2002, Celeste announced that she had secretly been ordained a priest of the Roman Catholic Church under the pseudonym of "Angela White." She was one of seven women, the "Danube Seven," ordained by Argentinian independent Catholic bishop Rómulo Antonio Braschi on a boat on the Danube River, making her the first female American Roman Catholic to call herself a priest. Celeste was subsequently excommunicated by the Roman Catholic Church, which does not recognize the validity of the ordination of women.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
Other activities
Celeste serves as a life balance coach and the executive director of the Tyrian network, "an intentional learning community founded in 2000 on Kelleys Island, Ohio and dedicated to Brigid, both the Goddess and the Saint."<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> She is the author of the auto-biographical book We Can Do Together: Impressions of a Recovering Feminist First Lady. She has also participated in productions of The Vagina Monologues, among others at a Unitarian Universalist Church in 2003.<ref>East Shore Unitarian Universalist Church website Template:Webarchive</ref>
Bibliography
- We Can Do Together: Impressions of a Recovering Feminist First Lady (Kent State University Press 2002) Template:ISBN.
- “Soli Deo Amor: Story of a Vagabond Troubadour,” in Women Find a Way: the Movement and Stories of Roman Catholic WomenPriests; edited by Elsie Hainz McGrath, Bridget Mary Meehan & Ida Raming; Template:ISBN.
- Making Waves, a play / oral history project by Kay Eaton and Cece Miller of Sacred Space in Cleveland, OH, includes a reading of the career of Dagmar Celeste
References
External links
- 1942 births
- Living people
- 20th-century American non-fiction writers
- 20th-century American women writers
- 20th-century Austrian women writers
- 20th-century Roman Catholics
- 21st-century American non-fiction writers
- 21st-century American women writers
- 21st-century Austrian women writers
- 21st-century Roman Catholics
- Alumni of the University of Oxford
- American Roman Catholic writers
- American women non-fiction writers
- Austrian emigrants to the United States
- Austrian Roman Catholic writers
- Capital University alumni
- Christian feminist theologians
- First ladies and gentlemen of Ohio
- Methodist Theological School in Ohio alumni
- People excommunicated by the Catholic Church
- People from Krems an der Donau