[4][3] She held a variety of jobs including teaching at the DeSales School of Theology and as a producer for public television.
[5] Dolores and Thomas Leckey were for many decades part of a prayer group that was an outgrowth of the Christian Family Movement.
In 1986, they and three other couples began studying the Pastoral Letter on Economic Justice issued by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.
In October 1977, Dolores R. Leckey was hired as the founding director of the Secretariat for Family, Laity, Women, and Youth.
[8] Mercy Sister Sharon Euart, the first woman to serve as associate general secretary of the USCCB, described Leckey as feeling "called to help the bishops -- to help the bishops understand what the role of laity, family and women were in the Church," noting that, while this was challenging, Leckey did it in a way "that was grounded in the Gospel, and grounded in faith.
[1] In 1991, Dolores Leckey gave the Madeleva Lecture at St. Mary's College in Notre Dame, Indiana.
[8] Edward P. Hahnenberg, the Breen Chair in Catholic theology at John Carroll University, eulogized Dolores Leckey as a great unsung hero of American Catholicism, saying that he doubted that "there is anyone who played a greater role in helping the hierarchy hear the voices of the laity in the decades that followed Vatican II.
'[13] On June 25, 2004, Dolores Leckey was presented with the Cardinal Joseph Bernardin Award by the Catholic Common Ground Initiative.
[14] In 2012, Dolores Leckey received the St. Elizabeth Seton Medal from Mount St. Joseph University, an award established to recognize distinguished women in theology.