It’s an impressive family
Tricia Bruce appointed as one of six new Consultors to the General Secretariat of the Synod of Bishops for the Catholic Church.
If you are an entrepreneur in the Volunteer State, you no doubt have met or at least have heard of Brandon Bruce. He’s a larger-than-life fixture in the East Tennessee entrepreneurial community, not just because he towers over most people at 6 foot 8 inches tall, but also because of his many activities.
From Uncat, his newest start-up business, to helping launch Market Square Ventures, a new venture capital firm in Knoxville, and serving as Managing Director for the third cohort of the “Techstars Industries of the Future Accelerator,” he has his fingers in much of what is going on in the region.
That said, you probably don’t know as much about Tricia Bruce, his wife, who has established her own entrepreneurial niche, albeit more on the research end. She is a sociologist who has dedicated her career to trying to understand American Catholics’ attitudes and behavior, and the importance of her lifetime of work just was enhanced when she was one of six people named as Consultors to the General Secretariat of the Synod of Bishops for the Catholic Church on February 17.
How significant is that appointment? According to this article in a publication named Our Sunday Visitor, the Secretariat has 16 total Consultors and 12 are priests. The other four include one who is a religious sister and three, including Bruce, who are laywomen. Most are theologians.
The article notes that Bruce earned her doctorate in sociology from the University of California, Santa Barbara, in 2006. She is an affiliate of the University of Notre Dame’s Center for the Study of Religion and Society and Director of Springtide Research Institute, a nonprofit founded in 2019 under the Minnesota-based Lasallian Educational and Research Initiatives to study young people ages 13-25. Springtide has published four annual reports on the state of religion and young people.
She has written on personal parishes and diversity, the emergence of the Voice of the Faithful organization in response to clergy sexual abuse, and American attitudes about abortion. She also has co-edited books on polarization in the U.S. Catholic Church and the forces shaping American parishes.
