“I was looking for a degree in Christian spirituality. I started with the certificate program in spiritual direction, and then I ran out of classes and I was still interested,” he said with a smile.

He pursued a master’s degree at GRE, still not planning on going for a doctorate. But the opportunity to dive deeper into areas such as practical theology and spiritual direction was appealing to him.

“I was able to explore interests I had without feeling too constrained,” he said. “The great surprise for me was all the work we did around the field of practical theology.”

A ‘Transformative’ Practical Theology Class

Suriano said that the practical theology class he took, taught by religion professor Thomas Beaudoin, Ph.D., was transformational.

“He, in his own gentle and persistent way, got all of us to think differently about our ministry,” he said. “I can’t really say enough about how that semester changed my ministry here at the church and my ideas around it.”

Beaudoin said he teaches students to use practical theology to examine and understand their own lives and spiritualities.

“The ultimate curriculum is the student’s life, and so theology matters in part because we need to learn how to reckon with our lives—our lives individually and our lives together,” he said.

Beaudoin said that as a part of the program, Suriano was able to reckon with his unique spiritual background. He came to Fordham after decades in church ministry, which started when he was ordained a Catholic priest before he joined the United Church of Christ in 1993.

“He was interested from the beginning in using the language of Christian spirituality, to hold together his Protestant and his Catholic heritage and commitments,” Beaudoin said.

A Queer Vocation

Beaudoin said that one way Suriano did this was through his study of queer theology and his eventual thesis, “A Queer Vocation: Growing into Power.”

Suriano said that studying queer theology helped him develop a sense of “how I as a queer person have a voice in the church, that I may speak to the church in a way that is powerful and meaningful,” he said.

He called his thesis a “great intersection between some personal work and also some work about the church itself, including the congregation I serve.”

“I began to explore, just briefly, in my thesis about how for queer people in the church there is this connection with Christian spirituality and how to find our place in the church that isn’t centered around the debate over whether or if we should be there,” he said, but instead centered around some of the unique gifts that queer people can bring.

Past, Present, and Future

Beaudoin said when Suriano was able to “engage wholeheartedly in queer theories and queer spirituality,” it “really opened him up to a new horizon.”

“There was something noble and challenging and nourishing about this idea of queer vocation, and he really claimed that in three ways: as a way to make sense of his heritage; and then queer vocation as a way to understand what he’s about intellectually and spiritually now; but then also as a hopeful path to and through retirement in ministry.”

Beaudoin said that it was rewarding to see Suriano, who had already accomplished so much before coming to the program, “say an even deeper yes” to his life, vocation, and intellectual project.

“He’s so thoughtful, and he’s so reflective,” he said. “Also it’s humbling—it puts me in the role of perpetual student to be in the presence of students like that. I get to learn from his example as he goes deeper.”

“His mother’s love opened him up again … and gave his life meaning, purpose, and hope, which I think is probably the best task that churches can do for anybody who lives with a highly stigmatized condition—to offer love and friendship,” said Swinton, in an online lecture on April 8. 

Swinton, the chair of divinity and religious studies and professor of practical theology and pastoral care at the University of Aberdeen in Scotland, was the keynote speaker at Fordham’s Spirituality & Disability Symposium, which took place on April 8 and 9. The forum featured scholars who discussed how spirituality and disability intersect in our daily lives. 

Swinton’s research and teaching are largely inspired by his eclectic background in health care and religion. For 16 years, he worked as a nurse for people with mental health challenges and learning disabilities; he also worked as a hospital chaplain. He currently serves as an ordained minister of the Church of Scotland. 

In his presentation “Spirituality and Disability: What Do We Mean and Why Does It Matter?” Swinton explained how society can use spirituality as a lens for a better life, especially people who live with disabilities. 

A Reimagined Jesus With Down Syndrome

Everyone has their own idea of what God looks like. Our imagination is deeply influenced by the culture in which we live, Swinton said, citing the work of theologian Karl Barth. He showed the audience a modern version of the Last Supper painting, where Jesus and his disciples all have Down syndrome. It’s a powerful image because it reminds us that both God and our society are diverse, he said.  

“Paul talks about the body of Christ … the place where we see, feel, live out that image. And the thing that marks the body of Christ is not homogeneity, but diversity … And so when we recognize all the different aspects of the image of God as it’s revealed in all of the different bodily and psychological conditions that we go through, we begin to understand what it means to be in God’s image,” said Swinton. “It’s together that we live in the image of God.”

Finding Strength in Meaning and Connection

Another important aspect of spirituality is our need for connection, Swinton said. Humans evolved to become spiritual beings because of their deep desire to relate to something beyond themselves, he said, citing a theory from David Hay, a zoologist who wrote a book about spirituality. 

“The one thread that runs through all definitions of spirituality is this idea of relationality—that somehow we need to be in a relationship,” Swinton said. “Spirituality has to do with being in a relationship. Maybe with God … with others … with your community, but it’s always there.” 

However, people with disabilities are often shunned by society, he said. 

“The problem is that we have a pathogenic culture—an individual culture that tends to stigmatize and alienate people who are different,” Swinton said. “Stigma is a deeply spiritual problem. It shrinks your world, takes away the possibilities. And unless somebody can rescue you, that can be your life—stuck in that meaningless place, where your diagnosis takes away everything.”

Swinton said that excluding people with disabilities is the opposite of what God calls us to do—“to respect diversity, to recognize the image of God in each one of us, and to come together.” 

“We need to shift and change and take spirituality seriously if we’re going to have the kind of community where each one of us has a space, place, and voice,” Swinton said.  

A Q&A session following Swinton’s presentation was moderated by Francis X. McAloon, S.J., Ph.D., associate professor of Christian spirituality and Ignatian studies at the Graduate School of Religion and Religious Education. The symposium was co-sponsored by GRE and Fordham’s Research Consortium on Disability. 

Alexander Hendra Dwi Asmara, S.J., lives in Indonesia, the world’s most populous Muslim-majority country. But the homogenous society, he said, has bred intolerance, discrimination, and even violence against religious minorities. 

“People are very afraid that there will be war in the name of God. I believe religious education is one way to [defuse situations],” said Father Asmara, who will graduate this year from the Graduate School of Religion and Religious Education with his Ph.D. in religious education. “I want to make a religious education model that unites people from other religions.”

‘Education Is in My Blood’ 

Father Asmara was born and raised in Ambarawa, a small town in Indonesia. His parents, an elementary school teacher and a junior high English teacher, inspired him to pursue a career in higher education. But he also wanted to become a priest, like the ones who led services at the Catholic church beside his childhood home. 

Father Asmara earned his bachelor’s degree in philosophy from the Driyarkara School of Philosophy in Indonesia in 2008. Five years later, he received his master’s degree in theological studies from Ateneo de Manila University in the Philippines. In 2014, he was ordained a priest.  

“As a Jesuit priest, I could fulfill my dream of being a person who works in education,” Father Asmara said. “And education is in my blood.” 

His Jesuit supervisors assigned him to Sanata Dharma University in Yogyakarta, Indonesia, where he taught Catholic religious education for two years. Then they asked him to earn a doctorate in religious education. 

Finding A Fordham ‘Family’ in America 

Father Asmara found Fordham, a Jesuit school that aligned with his values and offered courses in a city unlike any other in Indonesia—the biggest, most diverse city in the world, he said. In 2016, he moved to New York, where he learned about the Black Lives Matter movement and, for the first time in his life, visited neighborhoods that overflowed with diversity. 

“I went to Queens and saw every kind of Asian—Chinese, Korean, Indonesian, Indian … I went to Brooklyn, where there were many different cultures, and the Bronx, with many Latinos,” Father Asmara said. “I was so happy [to be here].”

He lived in Fordham’s Jesuit community at Spellman Hall, where he was welcomed by priests who helped him adjust to life in America.  

“I found a family here,” Father Asmara said. “I made the right choice to come to Fordham.” 

A New Education Model to Address A Nationwide Problem

Over the next four years, he said, his classes taught him how to think critically and analyze situations from multiple perspectives—as a Catholic, as a priest, and as a human being. His professors also helped him develop a dissertation on a topic close to his heart: the deescalation of religious conflict in his native country.

“In the U.S., people are divided by race,” Father Asmara said. “In Indonesia, we are divided by religion.” 

His dissertation, “Educating for Unity in Diversity: Religious Education for Transformation in the Context of Everyday Religious Conflict in Post-Authoritarian Indonesia,” proposes a “live-in” religious education curriculum where students live in a home with people from a religious community different from their own.

“Live-in provides students with an opportunity to have an experience of living in another religious community. It guides students to become deeply rooted in their own religious tradition, while being open to learning from and collaborating with people of other religious traditions,” said Asmara’s dissertation mentor, Harold D. Horell, Ph.D., associate professor of religious education. “Hendra further develops the model of live-in education currently used in some Jesuit schools for young people in his country. The model of interreligious education he has developed could inform religious educational efforts in other contexts about how to address religious conflict by nurturing interreligious understanding and solidarity.” 

Last fall, Father Asmara returned to his job as a lecturer in Catholic religious education at Sanata Dharma University. He said he sees himself serving as a bridge between different faiths for the rest of his life. 

“As a religious teacher, I teach my students to have an inclusive way of thinking through the Catholic tradition,” Father Asmara said, speaking over Zoom from his home in Indonesia. “I want to make sure that my students have an open mind, the spirit of dialogue, and a way of thinking that doesn’t claim one religion is the only right religion.”

“Today’s events are designed for recognition, celebration, and appreciation of the numerous contributors to Fordham’s research accomplishments in the past two years,” said George Hong, Ph.D., chief research officer and associate vice president for academic affairs.

Hong said that Fordham has received about $16 million in faculty grants over the past nine months, which is an increase of 50.3% compared to the same period last year.

“As a research university, Fordham is committed to excellence in the creation of knowledge and is in constant pursuit of new lines of inquiry,” said Joseph McShane, S.J., president of Fordham, said during the virtual celebration. “Our faculty continue to distinguish themselves in this area. Today, today we highlight the truly extraordinary breadth and depth of their work.”

Earning Honors

Ten faculty members, representing two years of winners due to cancellations last year from the COVID-19 pandemic, were recognized with distinguished research awards.

“The distinguished research awards provide us with an opportunity to shine a spotlight on some of our most prolific colleagues, give visibility to the research achievements, and inspire others to follow in their footsteps,” Provost Dennis Jacobs said.

Recipients included Yuko Miki, associate professor of history and associate director of Latin American and Latinx Studies (LALSI), whose work focuses on Black and indigenous people in Brazil and the wider Atlantic world in the 19th century; David Budescu, Ph.D., Anne Anastasi Professor of Psychometrics and Quantitative Psychology, whose work has been on quantifying, judging, and communicating uncertainty; and, in the junior faculty category, Santiago Mejia, Ph.D., assistant professor of law and ethics in the Gabelli School of Business, whose work examines shareholder primacy and Socratic ignorance and its implications to applied ethics. (See below for a full list of recipients).

Diving Deeper

Eleven other faculty members presented in their recently published work in the humanities, social sciences, and interdisciplinary studies.

Jews and New York: ‘Virtually Identical’

Images of Jewish people and New York are inextricably tied together, according to Daniel Soyer, Ph.D., professor of history and co-author of Jewish New York: The Remarkable Story of a City and a People (NYU Press, 2017).

“The popular imagination associated Jews with New York—food names like deli and bagels … attitudes and manner, like speed, brusqueness, irony, and sarcasm; with certain industries—the garment industry, banking, or entertainment,” he said. “

Soyer quoted comedian Lenny Bruce, who joked, “the Jewish and New York essences are virtually identical, right?”

Soyer’s book examines the history of Jewish people in New York and their relationship to the city from 1654 to the current day. Other presentations included S. Elizabeth Penry, Ph.D., associate professor of history, on her book The People Are King: The Making of an Indigenous Andean Politics (Oxford University Press, 2019), and Kirk Bingaman, Ph.D., professor of pastoral mental health counseling in the Graduate School of Religion and Religious Education, on his book Pastoral and Spiritual Care in a Digital Age: The Future Is Now (Lexington Books, 2018).

Focus on Cities: The Reality Beyond the Politics

Annika Hinze, Ph.D, associate professor of political science and director of the Urban Studies Program, talked about her most recent work on the 10th and 11th editions of City Politics: The Political Economy of Urban America (Routledge, 11th edition forthcoming). She focused on how cities were portrayed by the Trump Administration versus what was happening on the ground.

“The realities of cities are really quite different—we’re not really talking about inner cities anymore,” she said. “Cities are, in many ways, mosaics of rich and poor. And yes, there are stark wealth discrepancies, growing pockets of poverty in cities, but there are also enormous oases of wealth in cities.”

When the COVID-19 pandemic hit, Hinze’s latest edition will show how urban density did not contribute to the spread of COVID-19, as many people thought, but rather it was overcrowding and concentrated poverty in cities that led to accelerated spread..

Other presentations included Nicholas Tampio, Ph.D., professor of political science, on his book Common Core: National Education Standards and the Threat to Democracy (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2018); Margo Jackson, Ph.D., professor and chair of the division of psychological and educational services in the Graduate School of Education on her book Career Development Interventions for Social Justice: Addressing Needs Across the Lifespan in Educational, Community, and Employment Contexts (Rowman and Littlefield, 2019); and Clara Rodriguez, Ph.D., professor of sociology on her book America, As Seen on TV: How Television Shapes Immigrant Expectations Around the Globe (NYU Press, 2018).

A Look into Migration

In her book Migration Crises and the Structure of International Cooperation (University of Georgia Press, 2019), Sarah Lockhart, Ph.D. assistant professor of political science, examined how countries often have agreements in place to manage the flow of trade, capital, and communication, but not people. While her work in this book specifically focused on voluntary migration, it also had implications for the impacts on forced migration and the lack of cooperation among nations .

“I actually have really serious concerns about the extent of cooperation … on measures of control, and what that means for the future, when states are better and better at controlling their borders, especially in the developing world,” she said. “And what does that mean for people when there are crises and there needs to be that kind of release valve of movement?”

Other presentations included: Tina Maschi, Ph.D., professor in the Graduate School of Social Service, on her book Forensic Social Work: A Psychosocial Legal Approach to Diverse Criminal Justice Populations and Settings (Springer Publishing Company, 2017), and Tanya Hernández, J.D., professor of law on her book Multiracials and Civil Rights: Mixed-Race Stories of Discrimination (NYU Press, 2018).

Sharing Reflections

The day’s keynote speakers—Daniel Alexander Jones, professor of theatre and 2019 Guggenheim Foundation Fellow, and Tony Award winner Clint Ramos, head of design and production and assistant professor of design—shared personal reflections on how the year’s events have shaped their lives, particularly their performance and creativity.

For Jones, breathing has always been an essential part of his work after one of his earliest teachers “initiated me into the work of aligning my breath to the cyclone of emotions I felt within.” However, seeing another Black man killed recently, he said, left him unable to “take a deep breath this morning without feeling the knot in my stomach at the killing of Daunte Wright by a police officer in Minnesota.”

Jones said the work of theatre teachers and performers is affected by their lived experiences and it’s up to them to share genuine stories for their audience.

“Our concern, as theater educators, encompasses whether or not in our real-time lived experiences, we are able to enact our wholeness as human beings, whether or not we are able to breathe fully and freely as independent beings in community and as citizens in a broad and complex society,” he said.

Ramos said that he feels his ability to be fully free has been constrained by his own desire to be accepted and understood, and that’s in addition to feeling like an outsider since he immigrated here.

“I actually don’t know who I am if I don’t anchor my self-identity with being an outsider,” he said. “There isn’t a day where I am not hyper-conscious of my existence in a space that contains me. And what that container looks like. These thoughts preface every single process that informs my actions and my decisions in this country.”

Interdisciplinary Future

Both keynote speakers said that their work is often interdisciplinary, bringing other fields into theatre education. Jones said he brings history into his teaching when he makes his students study the origins of words and phrases, and that they incorporate biology when they talk about emotions and rushes of feelings, like adrenaline.

That message of interdisciplinary connections summed up the day, according to Jonathan Crystal, vice provost.

“Another important purpose was really to hear what one another is working on and what they’re doing research on,” he said. “And it’s really great to have a place to come listen to colleagues talk about their research and find out that there are these points of overlap, and hopefully, it will result in some interdisciplinary activity over the next year.”

Distinguished Research Award Recipients

Humanities
2020: Kathryn Reklis, Ph.D., associate professor of theology, whose work included a project sponsored by the Henry Luce Foundation on Shaker art, design, and religion.
2021: Yuko Miki, Ph.D., associate professor of history and associate director of Latin American and Latinx Studies (LALSI), whose work is on Black and indigenous people in Brazil and the wider Atlantic world in the 19th century.

Interdisciplinary Studies
2020: Yi Ding, Ph.D., professor of school psychology in the Graduate School of Education, who received a $1.2 million grant from the U.S. Department of Education for a training program for school psychologists and early childhood special education teachers.
2021: Sophie Mitra, Ph.D., professor of Economics and co-director of the Disability Studies Minor, whose recent work includes documenting and understanding economic insecurity and identifying policies that combat it.

Sciences and Mathematics
2020: Thaier Hayajneh, Ph.D., professor of computer and information sciences and founder director of Fordham Center of Cybersecurity, whose $3 million grant from the National Security Agency will allow Fordham to help Historically Black Colleges and Universities and Minority-Serving Institutions build their own cybersecurity programs.
2021: Joshua Schrier, Ph.D., Kim B. and Stephen E. Bepler Chair and professor of chemistry, who highlighted his $7.4 million project funded by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency on perovskites.

Social Sciences
2020: Iftekhar Hasan, Ph.D., university professor and E. Gerald Corrigan Chair in International Business and Finance, whose recent work has included the examination of the role of female leadership in mayoral positions and resilience of local societies to crises.
2021: David Budescu, Ph.D., Anne Anastasi Professor of Psychometrics and Quantitative Psychology, whose work has been on quantifying, judging, and communicating uncertainty.

Junior Faculty
2020: Asato Ikeda, Ph.D., associate professor of art history, who published The Politics of Painting, Facism, and Japanese Art During WWII.
2021: Santiago Mejia, Ph.D., assistant professor of law and ethics in the Gabelli School of Business, whose work focuses on shareholder primacy and Socratic ignorance and its implications to applied ethics.

“My dream is to help ground justice movements through spirituality,” said Arellano, an online student in GRE’s master’s program in Christian spirituality and the daughter of immigrant blue-collar workers. “When organizers aren’t spiritually grounded, it can easily lead to burnout. The more that we can center [spirituality]… the more that people can see their work as an extension of their love for God, the Earth, and people.”

Reimagining the Catholic Church

Arellano is a first-generation Mexican American from Little Village or “La Villita,” a Mexican neighborhood in Chicago. Her mother, a former public school cafeteria worker, often took Arellano and her three sisters to labor union protests and marches, where Arellano learned how to advocate for social justice. 

“My mom modeled what it means to fight oppression with your community. That planted so many seeds about how I see the world,” Arellano said in a Zoom call from her home in Chicago, where she attends her Fordham classes remotely. 

Over the next decade, Arellano combined her Catholic spirituality with her passion for workers’ rights at several organizations, where she coordinated communication efforts and managed funding. Among them was the Archdiocese of Chicago. 

“Seeing both the light and the shadow of the church helped me form connections with like-minded people. We reimagined a church where we center the voices and experiences of Catholic people of color, launch campaigns to improve neighborhoods, hold people in power accountable, and talk openly about the systems of oppression that affect us,” Arellano said. 

She was inspired to co-found the Coalition for Spiritual and Public Leadership, a nonprofit that teaches faith leaders how to engage in local social justice campaigns related to gender, class, racism, and the environment through the lens of Catholic spiritual and theological traditions. 

While developing CSPL’s curriculum, Arellano considered what she learned from Fordham. 

“In our CSPL training programs and workshops, we use a lot of Ignatian spirituality and contemplative imagination, including works that I’ve read about in class,” said Arellano. “I’m also going to lead a program that looks at mystical texts and see how we can apply and ground them through a racial, gender, and class analysis. I attribute and credit all of that to Fordham.”

Her Fordham studies have also helped her with her full-time job as a press strategist for the National Domestic Workers Alliance, where she assists affiliates with their strategic communication and teaches domestic workers how to share their stories with the media. Arellano said it was a Fordham pastoral counseling course that strengthened her skills in deeply listening to the domestic workers that the alliance serves. 

“When they share their stories and vulnerable moments, you really need to discern how you move that conversation along and also help people who feel like they’re stuck in a repetitive trauma story cycle. The skills that I learned [from Fordham]helped me deepen how intentionally I listen during my spokesperson prep sessions with leaders,” Arellano said. “My mom was one of the spokespeople for her union, and I knew how transformative it was for her to share her experience in the media, especially when it’s tied to a call to action and to demand change. I’ve seen the transformation of working with domestic workers who felt really shy about sharing their story, but then through building trust and working with them, I’ve heard members say, ‘You can put me in front of 10,000 people, and I still want to share my story.’” 

Dear Catholic Women of Color

Arellano enrolled in GRE in 2018 to strengthen her spiritual life and identity as a Catholic woman. Her thesis paper will examine how Mexican-American Catholic women can fuel their faith by drawing from indigenous practices. 

“I come from a Mexican family and a line of women who worked closely with herbs and had a great reverence for the Earth and the elements, and I want to honor the indigenous lineage that I carry. But we’re also Catholic,” Arellano said. “My thesis will focus on how we can deepen our relationship with our [faith]and our ascended ancestors while thinking about the gifts that Mother Earth offers us through plants and the elements.” 

Arellano, who is aiming to graduate in February 2022, says she’s grateful for her time at Fordham. 

“I never imagined I would be in a theology program that is so prestigious, warm, and welcoming, where it’s constantly challenged me to be better … where I feel like the dean is actively recruiting more women of color to be theologians, more professors who are people of color,” Arellano said. “I wish I had a megaphone and could say to any other Catholic woman of color, ‘If your heart desires theological training and formation, your first thought should be Fordham.’”

“My family wanted to make sure I received higher education, especially as a medical doctor, because no one would look down on me. But I’m now a different doctor—in theology,” said Bang, who will earn her doctor of ministry from Fordham’s Graduate School of Religion and Religious Education this May. 

Bang is a pastor in the United Methodist Church. She was born and raised in South Korea, where she grew up attending church with her family and realized she wanted to “serve the Lord” as a clergy member. She earned her bachelor’s and master’s degrees in theology in Seoul. At the time, she decided it would be wise to obtain her Ph.D. in the U.S. and then return home, where she would teach in a seminary school. But she secretly hoped to become a pastor.

“There was a rare chance of being ordained in Korea because I’m a woman and I have polio. Don’t get me wrong—there are many women pastors. But they are more likely invited to be an associate pastor or youth pastor, not a senior pastor. There was definitely gender discrimination there. And on top of that, I didn’t see any disabled pastors at that time [about 30 years ago],” said Bang. 

But when she moved to the U.S. in 1992, she said she realized her dream of becoming a pastor was possible. Bang earned her master of divinity from the Drew Theological School in Madison, New Jersey, and became an ordained minister in 1997. Over the next three decades, she served as a pastor at seven churches across Pennsylvania and New Jersey. 

In those years, she befriended many parishioners who confided in her, including a couple whose son struggled with depression and drug addiction. 

“They trusted me and came to me with many problems. But I really didn’t have a background in pastoral counseling. All I learned from seminary was spiritual formation and a little bit of pastoral care,” Bang said. “Also, there are many Christians silently suffering from depression and other mental illnesses because of stigma.” As a pastor, she wondered, how could she help people spiritually when they are struggling?

Bang found her answer at Fordham. In 2008, she enrolled in GRE’s doctor of ministry program and specialized in pastoral counseling and pastoral care. 

“Fordham helped me to know about myself as a pastor and a person so I can be more compassionate and caring for others,” said Bang.

This past January, Bang defended her dissertation, “Clergy Self-Care for Cross-Racially/Cross-Culturally Appointed Pastors in the United Methodist Church,” which explores self-care for pastors like herself—pastors from a racial or cultural group who are appointed to serve in congregations where the race and culture of most parishioners are different from the pastor’s own background. The goal of these appointments is to create a more inclusive church, but pastors still experience subtle and overt forms of racism from their own parishioners, said Bang. In her thesis, she identifies strategies for self-care for these clergy, including the “broaden-and-build theory” and a detailed itinerary for a three-day retreat. 

“The thesis makes clear that Sunday worship is still, as Dr. King has said famously, ‘the most segregated hour of Christian America.’ Moreover, given the recent surge in racially motivated violence, Dr. Bang’s project could not come at a better time,” said her mentor Kirk A. Bingaman, Ph.D., professor of pastoral mental health counseling at GRE. 

Bang recalled good and bad experiences from American churches, including one of the first places where she served as a pastor: the Doylestown United Methodist Church in Pennsylvania, where the majority of the population is white. 

“On the first Sunday, I was surprised and they were surprised to have a Korean female pastor. I knew they were all white Anglo parishioners, but I was surprised by the size of the church,” Bang said. “Twenty-four years ago, my English wasn’t that great. But they embraced me and were willing to work with me.” 

Today, Bang is the pastor at the Ackermanville United Methodist Church in Bangor, Pennsylvania, where she has served since 2018. Sometimes Bang feels the effects of her childhood polio. Although she no longer suffers from any pain, she still walks with a slight limp in her right leg. But she says her disability hasn’t prevented her from following her calling.

“Being a pastor is a very special vocation,” said Bang, who is now 68 years old. “People invite you to their personal space when they have joy and sorrow, through baptisms, funerals, and weddings. It’s a responsibility, but at the same time, a privilege to be a part of their lives.” 

“A congregation can go through that same kind of movement of being afraid,” said Gaventa, a longtime expert in disabilities and spirituality, who spoke at the Fordham symposium “Tikkun Olam: Spirituality, Intellectual Disabilities, and Wholeness” on March 17. “What you will hear from me this afternoon are some reflections that come from years of trying to be a bridge between the world of spirituality and faith, on the one hand, and the worlds of secular and public services, private services, and advocacy on the other—trying to find ways for those two communities to talk with each other and to work together for the sake of people with disabilities and the quality of their lives.”

Spirituality can be an essential part of a person’s identity. This is the realm where people try to discover and make meaning for their lives and learn to cope with personal crises, including the diagnosis of a disability, said Gaventa. 

Many people in the disabled community are spiritual, but their spiritual needs are often mishandled by the professionals who are responsible for their well-being, he said. A person’s spirituality is often viewed as a private matter, and the people surrounding them—disability service providers and faith communities, including churches, synagogues, mosques, and temples—frequently don’t know how to communicate to each other about their clients’ spiritual needs, Gaventa explained.  

People with disabilities and their families want congregations to offer a welcoming and positive attitude, to create an accessible environment, and to give them opportunities to serve their community, according to research Gaventa cited from longtime expert Erik W. Carter, a professor of special education at Vanderbilt University.

In order for this to happen, there needs to be education and training for staff and parishioners, said Gaventa, who founded a summer institute that provides spiritual support for people with disabilities and their families. Perhaps most importantly, people from both parties need to listen to each other’s needs and develop authentic relationships, said Gaventa. 

“At the heart of this, it’s about not programs or worship service … it’s about relationships,” Gaventa said. “How do we help people build relationships beyond the circle of relationships that they [already]have?” 

People with disabilities and their congregations can teach and learn from each other, said Gaventa, including families with children who have autism. 

“If somebody [with autism]has grown up in that faith community, and people have gotten to know them and got to know the person behind those behaviors and what people are trying to do both at school and at the faith community, then you can work on ways [to help them],” Gaventa said. “One, help the individual learn the kinds of things that are typical to learn and show them how to do it and provide multiple opportunities for them to practice. And on the other hand, help the community learn that [there are]some things people can change, and some things they cannot.”

One good example is the Archdiocese of Newark, which collaborated with Caldwell College to teach children with autism and other disabilities to attend Mass, Gaventa said. 

“If you told me 20 years ago that we were going to marry applied behavioral analysis with CCD [religious education classes], I would have said there was no way because they don’t talk the same language,” Gaventa said. “People can begin to change.” 

Gaventa recalled a story from a Methodist church in South Jersey, where a visiting clergy member asked a mother with a disruptive child with disabilities to leave. 

“The mother was just heartbroken by that and really hurt. The regular pastor found out about that, and finally said to the mom, ‘Come back, come back.’ Her son started to [become disruptive]again, and the mom started to get up and leave. And the pastor said from the pulpit, ‘Stop right there—he is part of our community. We’ll figure this out.’” 

The virtual symposium was co-sponsored by Fordham’s Graduate School of Religion and Religious Education and the Fordham Research Consortium on Disability. A full recording of the event will be posted here.

Earlier this year, the school established its first named endowed scholarship in honor of Michael Fukuchi, a recently deceased alumnus who made a generous planned gift to support students at his alma mater. And in August, GRE created its first named gift fund, thanks to support from Jack Knight, a Gabelli School of Business graduate who received his MBA in 1984. The fund will support GRE’s work in the community.

“GRE is built on grace and gift. To the Ignatian vision of teaching and learning for solidarity, service, and justice, I must add gratitude. Michael Fukuchi, Jack Knight, all our benefactors for the past 50 years, as well as our colleagues at DAUR have empowered us to live our school’s vision passionately. To them, we give thanks,” said Faustino “Tito” Cruz, S.M., dean of GRE. “And now, we must give as gift the gifts we have received by becoming resonant leaders in community-engaged partnerships and transformative education.”

Fukuchi graduated from GRE in 1970 with a master’s degree in religious education. He spent nearly 40 years working at Barton College, a private liberal arts college in North Carolina, where he taught classes in freshman composition, world literature, Asian literature, Chaucer, Middle English literature, science fiction/fantasy literature and film, and more. When he passed away this past winter, he left behind a generous donation to help fund the studies of students at his alma mater, with preference given to those with ties to North Carolina or his native Hawaii. 

The Sarah and Jack Knight Fund for Pastoral Innovation and Practice, established with an initial gift from Jack Knight, will support the school’s 50th-anniversary initiative to nurture a close relationship with the University’s neighbors in the Bronx. 

“‘Pastoral’ is a faith-based response to a human need—the needs of a community. ‘Innovation’ means we’re going to address the needs of a community by directly listening to them and what they need,” said Dean Cruz, explaining the meaning behind the new fund’s name. “And ‘Practice’ because it is an invitation for the community to transform itself into a community of leaders. We’re not walking into a community to change them—we want to change them with them so they themselves become active agents of change within the community and beyond, continuing to help their neighbors and others.” 

Though Knight is not a GRE graduate, he said he was inspired by a recent discussion with Dean Cruz in which they spoke about what it means to live your faith in the community. 

“If you’re going to live the gospel, you need to do it in the community, and you need to do it through your actions—not just by speaking and spouting quotations from scripture,” Knight said by phone. 

Knight has served in various leadership roles in financial services, including senior vice president and division manager at Wells Fargo Bank and national director at First Republic Bank, since 1978. His wife, Sarah, who passed away in 2016, worked in the same industry as her husband, in addition to airline services in Los Angeles and New York. 

When the couple moved to Southern California, they taught religious education in their local parish. Knight, who earned a master’s degree in religious studies from Mount Saint Mary’s University and now serves as a board member on the school’s regents’ council, taught eighth-graders; his wife taught second graders preparing for Holy Communion. 

While teaching, Knight began to think more critically about what it means to teach religion. He said he had grown up with the Baltimore Catechism, a standard Catholic school text steeped in memorization, but as an adult, he didn’t think that was an appropriate way to communicate faith. He went to Mount Saint Mary’s to find answers. It was there that he learned the importance of going out and living the gospel. 

These days, he lives his faith in the best way he can—by giving back to the community, he said. 

“In my life, it’s the Jesuit tenet that I’ve come to appreciate more and more, the older I get,” Knight said. “To be women and men for others.”

“[Prayer] builds hope. People feel connected to a loving force in the universe, and that can help them feel hopeful and held when life puts them into difficult circumstances,” said Rebecca Randall, GRE ’14, a licensed mental health counselor in New York City. 

With so many people turning to pastoral counselors for solace during the pandemic, these mental health professionals have had to wrestle with tough questions and adapt to caring for their clients from afar. In phone interviews, Randall and her fellow alumni and faculty from the Graduate School of Religion and Religious Education’s pastoral mental health counseling program described the impact of the pandemic on their clients and how COVID-19 has changed the nature of spiritual care. 

‘Where is God in All of This?’

For years, many of Cynthia Wicker Williams’s clients came to her with anxieties concerning their everyday lives. But when the pandemic arrived in March, the reasons for their anxiety changed significantly, Williams said. Many older folks in church communities are now experiencing loneliness and fear of dying alone from COVID-19. Other clients are on the brink of an existential crisis. 

“What’s going on? Is the world falling apart? How am I to live in this chaotic world?” said Williams, GRE ’09, a licensed mental health counselor and pastoral psychotherapist in Connecticut, recanting some of the questions her clients are grappling with. “It’s an existential kind of anxiety that people are presenting right now.”  

Two months later, another bombshell hit the nation: the murder of George Floyd. Williams said her clients became more anxious about race relations in the U.S. How did I not know that people were being treated so badly, they wondered? What do I do now that I know this? And how can I live a more meaningful and moral life? 

“The existential questions people are asking right now are exactly the reason why we need pastoral psychotherapists,” Williams said. “We are trained to lean into the question of, what does it mean? Where is God in all of this? Why is God not fixing this? Why did God let this happen?”

Living with Ambiguity

Williams said she helps her clients find those answers within. She might explore the teachings and holy writings of their religion with them and see if those lead to answers. Sometimes she explores a client’s strengths and what gives meaning to their life. 

Randall, a pastoral counselor at the St. Francis Counseling Center in Manhattan, said that there’s power in prayer, too. 

“An active prayer life can anchor people, give them hope, and connect them to a larger [faith]community,” Randall said. “They feel less alone and isolated, even if they’re praying alone.”

Another way to deal with pandemic-related anxiety at home is to use “contemplative spiritual practices” that calm the stress and anxiety regions of the brain, said Kirk Bingaman, Ph.D., associate professor of pastoral mental health counseling and pastoral psychotherapist at the Lutheran Counseling Center in New York. 

Life hasn’t been easy for counselors, either. Bingaman said his students who are pastoral care providers are no longer able to provide care in person to clients with the coronavirus. They can speak over the phone, but it’s not the same. 

“Historically, it’s always been the bedside thing of being there in person, praying for the person. We have the technology to still do that [from afar], but this is such a shift, and I don’t know if it’s going to change anytime soon,” Bingaman said. “We all hope a vaccine comes our way sooner than later, but this is kind of the way of the future, even if we get to the other side of this.” 

‘We’re in the Same World as Our Patients Now’

But people have also shown incredible resilience and adaptability, said Lisa Cataldo, Ph.D., assistant professor of pastoral counseling and a licensed psychoanalyst in private practice. In a matter of days, her clients transitioned to working from home and being with their families in a different light. Cataldo herself figured out how to conduct virtual therapy in both an efficient and ethical manner—how to properly light herself on camera, how to create an environment as safe and comfortable for her clients as her physical office once was. 

When the pandemic is over, our society is going to feel the collective impact of hundreds of thousands of people who have died, said Cataldo. But she’s also inspired by many of her long-term patients who have shown a tremendous amount of growth over the past few months. In the midst of a pandemic, they’re slowly finding their center, she said. 

“In a crisis situation, people’s priorities have shifted. They realize life is short and precarious. So not a lot of time to just spin your wheels about stuff you’ve been struggling with for a long time,” said Cataldo. “That’s inspiring to me. That helps me, because clinicians are struggling too. We’re in the same world as our patients now.” 

The interdisciplinary initiative, called “Taking Responsibility,” is a partnership between the Francis and Ann Curran Center for American Catholic Studies and the Department of Theology. Bradford Hinze, Ph.D., the Karl Rahner Professor of Theology, directs the project with leadership assistance from Patrick Hornbeck, Ph.D., special faculty advisor to the provost for strategic planning; Theology Department Chair Christine Firer Hinze, Ph.D.; Michael E. Lee, Ph.D., director of the Curran Center for American Catholic Studies; and Catherine Osborne, Ph.D., GSAS ’13, as coordinator for the program.

“The projects and studies being supported by the Taking Responsibility initiative reflect current trends in interdisciplinary research,” said Hinze. “By focusing on Jesuit educational institutions in the U.S., these efforts will make an important contribution to our understanding of the phenomenon of clergy sexual abuse in this particular setting. The Taking Responsibility website will provide an active center for those interested in the current state of research and practical resources on these issues”.

The effort has been collaborative from the start, said the project staff. The steering committee was composed of various Fordham faculty truly invested in taking responsibility and faced the painful issue head-on internally. Members did not shy away from exposing abuse, but many also believed that institution and its structures were ultimately about faith and personal responsibility.

“The project acknowledges that not only is there a need for a multidisciplinary approach, but also and especially the victim-survivors of abuse, must be at the table to help Jesuit schools, colleges, and universities become safer, more transparent institutions,” said Hornbeck.

While the project’s website has been launched, the real activity begins this fall when announcements will be made about upcoming panels, webinars, reading groups, and a variety of events that will highlight the interdisciplinary nature of the grantees’ research.

Some of the funding tied to the four partner-institution projects will go toward established research, such as Georgetown University’s work with survivors that will “inform, educate, and foster institutional change” through the university’s Initiative on Catholic Thought and Public Life and the Berkley Center for Religion, Peace and World Affairs.

Gonzaga University will use its funding to create an inaugural conference for researchers to be held during the 2021-2022 academic year. That project will home in on cutting-edge research that exposes sexual abuse in the Jesuit West Province, where Native American and Alaskan Native communities were disproportionately abused. Though the conference highlights abuse in a specific region and on a particular population, the Gonzaga conversation will likely widen to explore why the abuse often affects under-recognized communities nationwide, including, but not limited to Black, Latinx, and working-class populations.

Other partnering universities include Santa Clara University and Xavier University in Cincinnati.

Those outcomes will include creating literature reviews and other resources intended for administrators, staff, faculty, alumni, and students at Jesuit institutions. Another expansive goal is to create a Jesuit partner network dedicated to confronting the causes and legacy of clergy sexual abuse.

“Equally important, the initiative is an occasion for the formation of a network of Jesuit universities and high schools that can promote among participants in these institutions open discussion, deeper understanding, and shared practical wisdom about how these issues can be addressed by all those involved,” said Hinze.   

A quick glance at the Fordham research projects reflects participants’ deep and varied understanding of the Society of Jesus as well as organizational structures. One study’s cross-disciplinary investigators include C. Colt Anderson, Ph.D., professor of Christian spirituality at the Graduate School of Religion and Religious Education; Henry Schwalbenberg Ph.D., professor of economics and director of the graduate program in International Political Economy and Development; and Michael Pirson, Ph.D., associate professor of humanistic management at the Gabelli School of Business. Their exploration is unflinchingly titled “Identifying and Reforming Institutions in Jesuit Schools and Universities That Foster Sexual Abuse and Its Concealment.”

“The causes of the Catholic sexual abuse crises are multiple and intersecting.  Understanding the pathologies that motivated both abusers and those who concealed their crimes requires us to draw insights from the study of religion, psychology, civil and criminal law, organizational theory, communications, and many other fields,” said Hornbeck.

Scholarship has long had the ability to help expose structural inequities and abuse. Project staff noted that the academy took on structural racism many years before the nation began to seriously examine its role through the Black Lives Matter movement. Likewise, scholarship can help expose structural sex abuse within the Jesuit order and beyond. Not only will the project take on how clericalism may have fostered the abuse, but it will also examine how that same culture could spill over to create an environment of abuse among lay faculty and staff.

“We need to look at the patterns of behavior that may make bad behaviors seem OK; this is about power,” said Osborne. “It’s also about the Catholic Church, our religious orders, procedures, and structures. Not every instance of sexual abuse at Jesuit institutions is committed by priests, so in the Jesuit tradition of taking care of the whole person, we need to deal with this sinful part of us is in the same way.”

“After a decade of teaching yoga and philosophy at my studio, I realized that I wanted to help people in a more direct way by becoming a mental health professional as well as a yogi,” Robles, GRE ’21, said. “I believe that spirituality—sometimes, but not always in the form of religion—is a central concern for many people.”

‘Throwing Gasoline Onto A Fire, But With Meditation’

As a child, Robles scoffed at the notion of yoga. 

“When I was a kid, I turned my nose up at the asana stuff,” Robles said. “It was like glorified gymnastics. I was like, how does that help you be spiritual?”

As he grew older, he became intrigued by meditation and philosophy. When he met his wife Adrea in his late twenties, she introduced him to yoga. In 2004, he took his first yoga class. He was hooked. 

“It was like throwing gasoline onto a fire, but with meditation,” Robles said. “I knew this philosophically, but I didn’t experience it [until then].”

He became a certified yoga teacher and in 2008, opened a small, suburban yoga studio with his wife in Mahopac, New York. At the time, it was a big risk. The 2008 financial crisis had just surfaced, but it was too late to back out of their new business venture—by that point, they had already signed the building lease. But their new studio, Liberation Yoga & Wellness Center, made it through the crisis. This September will mark 12 years that they’ve been open.

Now the studio faces new challenges, thanks to the COVID-19 pandemic. Since it closed on March 16, the Liberation Yoga & Wellness Center has pivoted to online offerings, but Robles and his wife said they plan to open in a limited capacity around July 4.

“Many studios in the Hudson Valley have already closed their doors permanently, but so far, Liberation’s tight-knit community has supported us. While we remain anxious about our future, we hope to be able to continue to serve the area for a long time to come,” he said.

Teaching a Future Generation of Yogis 

Throughout the years, Robles said he noticed that some of his clients were mulling over their personal problems at the studio. They approached him after class and asked him for advice on multiple issues: marital drama, questions about spirituality and finding meaning in life, even domestic abuse. But Robles had neither the training nor the certification to answer their questions. 

Those encounters helped inspire him to become a mental health professional in addition to being a yogi. In 2018, he became a full-time student at Fordham’s Graduate School of Religion and Religious Education in the pastoral mental health counseling program. 

“I wasn’t aware of just how much of a connection there was [between yoga practice and mental health]until I started this program and started talking to a lot of the priests and nuns here … A lot of people end up going to a church not entirely for spiritual guidance, but also for mental health reasons. They’re much more comfortable talking to a priest than to a doctor, psychologist or therapist, sometimes. And I realized that that’s exactly what’s happening in my yoga studio,” Robles said. “It gathers people who are looking for healing, and frequently, what they’re needing is more than a yoga teacher or priest.” 

He said his Fordham lessons—in particular, an ethics course and a trauma elective—have changed the way he views yoga. 

For years, it was a commonplace practice—not only in his studio, but places worldwide—for teachers to touch a client’s body and correct their posture without asking for permission. After becoming more aware of trauma and how physical touch can trigger a traumatic reaction, Robles introduced a new method for clients to communicate whether they wanted a “physical assist” or vocal directions: wooden chips that say “Yes, assist” on one side and “Please refrain” on the other. 

“It’s something that I’m only even now, through this program, becoming more aware of—just the sheer prevalence of trauma in the yoga room. Once you start to see it, and you’re trained to look for it, it’s everywhere,” said Robles, who introduced the new technique to his clients this past winter. “With COVID-19, the issues of touch may be a moot point for a long time, but the shift of thinking to being more mindful and respectful of differences in how touch and personal space is experienced will remain. In fact, such considerations may become even more important in the long run due to the pandemic.”

Ultimately, Robles wants to become a full-time mental health counselor, while continuing to work with clients at the Liberation Yoga & Wellness Center with his wife.

“I believe my experiences as a yoga teacher will greatly inform my counseling, and I hope that once I’m fully licensed, I will be able to offer some expertise to the community of yoga teachers in the form of workshops or continuing education,” he said.

That includes teaching yogis-in-training about trauma-informed yoga practices—something he himself wasn’t trained on, he said. 

“The real thing that’s going to benefit my yoga community is additional training for my staff and teachers on how to handle those situations when they arise with more grace and certainty … really knowing what the resources are and learning how to recognize certain things,” said Robles, who will intern at a trauma-specialized counseling center next year.

In the future, he said, he sees yoga teachers taking spirituality to a new level. 

“As a friend of mine who’s a Unitarian minister says,” said Robles, “Yoga teachers are the new clergy.”