Dagmar Braun Celeste

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Dagmar Ingrid Braun Celeste (born in 1941, Krems, Austria), the former first lady of Ohio, was married to former Ohio governor (1983 - 1991) and U.S. ambassador Richard F. Celeste, whom she met while attending Oxford University in England. She holds a B.A. in Women's Studies and Public Policy from Capitol University and a Master's Degree in Alcoholism and Drug Abuse Ministry from the Methodist Theological School of Ohio, and is a licensed Polarity practitioner. She was an Ohio delegate to the Democratic Convention in 1980.^[1]

Achievements of special note 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. Since 1992, she has continued to remain politically active through such organizations as the National Peace Institute, Women's Action for Nuclear Disarmament, the Council for Ethics and Economics, and the Women's Community Fund in Cleveland.^[2]

In 2002, she announced that she had secretly been ordained a "priest" of the Roman Catholic Church under the pseudonym Angela White. She was one of seven women ordained by Argentinian Independent Catholic Bishop Romolo Braschi on a boat in 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 such an "ordination." .^[3]^[4]

Celeste's controversies in relation to the Catholic Church go beyond her ordination. She serves as the Executive Director of the TYRIAN network, "an intentional learning community founded in the year 2000 on Kelley's Island, Ohio and dedicated to Brigid, both the Goddess and the Saint"^[5]. She has also participated in productions of the Vagina Monologues ^[6]. She is a long standing professional Life Balance Coach who developed an individualized three-month coaching process designed to empower one to discover a life worth living by embracing the life one is truly called to.

Dagmar and Richard Celeste, who have six grown children, were divorced in 1995.