Dr. Molly Louden

“Spiritual Journey Woman and Guide” - CT 60 Over 60 Top 10 Winner

The Rev. Dr. Molly O’Neill Louden has experienced a number of life-changing moments over the course of her 75 years. They have shaped her beliefs, her thinking, her faith and the way she treats others. In nominating Molly for 60 Over 60, her husband, Bruce Louden summed her up in one word: “amazing.”

Molly graduated summa cum laude from college when she was 23 and the mother of two children. While living in the South in the 1960s, she agreed to lead a summer vacation school for her church only if it was integrated. The school was a success but Molly was “blackballed” from the leading women’s organization in her community.

The Loudens moved to Connecticut in 1969 and Molly continued to work for racial and social justice. She became a deeply involved member of Trinity Episcopal Church where she became chair of the fundraising committee and taught Sunday school. She also taught in the Head Start program at Stowe Village in Hartford.

In the 1970s, Molly became the first development officer at Hartford College for Women while remaining involved with Trinity Church. She recognized a vocation and entered Yale Divinity School, graduating in 1983. When she was ordained in 1984, she was one of the first female priests in the Episcopal Church nationally. Currently, she is the priest associate at St. James’s Episcopal Church in West Hartford where she developed and leads a healing ministry, a caregivers’ group and a pastoral calling group.

While serving in her first parish, St. Mark’s in New Britain, Molly started a feeding ministry that involved a number of churches and became a large social service institution in the city. She ministered at St. Andrew’s in Meriden for four years when her life took another turn. Molly decided to enter a doctoral program. Equipped with her psychology undergraduate degree and a Ph.D. in pastoral care, she started her own psychotherapy practice in the 1990s. In 2001, she and a colleague founded Gestalt Pastoral Care to teach counseling skills to clergy and other religious.

In the past year, Molly’s faith has deepened as a result of a pilgrimage to Iona, a small island off the coast of Scotland and the seat of Celtic theology. The Celts’ theology, their commitment to the earth, to the Divine Feminine and to justice resonated with Molly. “I had been ordained for 33 years and had never found a theology that worked for me. When I went to Iona, I knew I was home,” she says. Since the trip, Molly has become the facilitator of a Greater Hartford Celtic spiritual group that meets for services once a month.

Molly shows no signs of slowing down. She recently assumed another commitment, joining the student affairs committee at Goodwin College as a friend, ambassador and psychotherapist. She was drawn to the school due to its “brilliant, cutting edge [mission] to help young women, especially mothers, to get an education and a career.”