Patricia Fresen (born 1940 7 December) is a South African writer and catholic theologian.
Her parents were from Germany and Ireland. After school Fresen became a member of Dominican order. Fresen studied theology, pedagogic and languages and became after university studies a teacher. Fresen studied later in Rome Catholic theology and worked then in Pretoria in a Catholic seminary as teacher in Homiletics, Systematic theology and Spirituality. Later she taught at the private university St Augustine's College in Johannesburg.
Fresen claimed to have been ordained as a catholic priest in a simulated ordination in Barcelona in 2003 after leaving the Dominican Order. By doing so, she excommunicated herself from the Roman Catholic Church. Together with German writers and theologians Gisela Forster and Ida Raming Fresen is head of the international organisation „Roman catholic Womenpriests International“, which promotes the ordination of women as Catholic priests, which currently is not allowed within the Catholic Church.[1]