“We need to change from thinking that we are masters of the universe to realizing that we are siblings, or kin, with all other beings in the community of creation, loved by God,” she said.

Sister Johnson’s talk, “Theology & the Earth: Human Beings in the Community of Creation” helped launch a new initiative, the Elizabeth A. Johnson, C.S.J., Endowed Fund for Theology & the Earth. The fund, which has received initial donations from Margaret Sharkey, PCS ’15, will go to advance the study of theology and our responsibility to the Earth.

Sister Johnson was joined by respondents Jason Morris, Ph.D., professor of biology, and Michael Pirson, Ph.D., the James A. F. Stoner Endowed Chair in Global Sustainability at the Gabelli School of Business.

Creation is Ongoing

The need for change has become apparent: A report issued on Monday by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change found that the planet is likely to cross a critical threshold for global warming within the next decade.

To spur action, Sister Johnson said humans need to feel a greater connection with living things. That means casting aside old ways of thinking about the world, such as the idea that the creation of the world ceased entirely once it was done.

“One striking metaphor from a British philosopher puts it this way: the Creator ‘makes all things and keeps them in existence from moment to moment, not like a sculptor who makes a statue and leaves it alone, but like a singer who keeps her song in existence at all times,’” she said.

Once we realize we’re part of that same journey, she said, it’s easier to see the intrinsic value in all living things. Pope Francis addressed this in his encyclical Laudato Si, when he wrote, “Creation is a gift in which every creature has its own value and significance.”

“As creatures, we have more in common with other species than what separates us. We are kin to the bear, the raven, and the bugs,” Sister Johnson said.

Obstacles to Overcome

Sister Johnson said we need to stop thinking that humans stand apart from the natural world. She blamed this thinking on the “hierarchy of being,” a concept that ranks beings according to their “spirit.” In it, rocks are at the bottom, followed by plants, animals, humans, and angels.

“Instead of a circle of kinship, this structures the world as a pyramid,” she said, noting that in the European world, this also led white men to rank women and minorities below them.

Who Needs Who?

One way to shake off the idea that humans are superior to all else is to engage in a thought experiment.

“Take away trees, and humans would suffocate. Take away humans, and trees would do just fine,” she said. “So who needs who more?”

Ultimately, human hubris about our place in the world needs to be addressed through what Sister Johnson called a “robust creation theology.” She conceded that to some religious ears, it might seem strange to be “converted to the Earth,” but noted that in Laudato Si, Pope Francis provided guidance with his words:

“Eternal life will be a shared experience of wonder, in which each creature resplendently transfigured will take its rightful place.”

“You know that famous question’ Will I see my dog in heaven?’ The answer is right here,” Sister Johnson said.

Anna Nowalk, a senior at Fordham College at Lincoln Center majoring in theology, was eager to see Johnson speak after reading her book She Who Is (Crossroads Publishing, 2002).

“The idea that God is lovingly willing us into existence constantly is one of my favorite theological concepts,” she said.

“I’m also really glad that they had someone from the Gabelli School there. If you’re talking about the need to have a sense of conversion to the environment, I think it’s very important to include business in there.”

Christian Ramirez, a senior at Fordham College at Rose Hill also majoring in theology, said She Who Is radically changed the way he thinks about faith and brought his copy for her to sign.

“I love this idea of the circle of the kinship of creation, rather than a pyramidal hierarchy of being. I was really interested in how she was going to incorporate feminist theology into ecological theology,” he said.

“When we create a circle of kinship where the man is displaced from the top and becomes part of the circle, that elevates all creatures.”

From the Golden Rams Soiree to the family-friendly picnic on Martyrs’ Lawn to the Saturday night gala under the big tent on Edwards Parade, alumni relished the opportunity to be together and see how Rose Hill has both stayed the same and changed for the better.

The attendees spanned eight decades—from a 1944 graduate and World War II veteran who had just celebrated his 100th birthday to those marking their five-year Fordham reunion. Some brought their spouses and young children to campus for the first time. More than a few came to pay tribute to Joseph M. McShane, S.J., who is stepping down this month after 19 years as president of the University. And all were rewarded with idyllic early June weather in the Bronx.

‘A Place of Great Value’

On Saturday morning, alumni filled the Great Hall of the Joseph M. McShane, S.J. Campus Center to hear from the new building’s namesake.

Sheryl Dellapina, FCRH ’87, who traveled from the U.K. to attend her 35-year reunion, introduced Father McShane, calling him “Fordham’s most effective ambassador.” She said she first met him at an alumni gathering in London about four years ago, and “it just felt like family.”

“I came away from that thinking, ‘Wow, [Fordham] has so evolved since I had been here that I wanted to be part of this again.’” Her son is now a member of the Class of 2024, and Dellapina is one of the leaders of Cura Personalis | For Every Fordham Student, the University’s $350 million fundraising campaign to reinvest in all aspects of the student experience.

“I had a choice between [attending] this Jubilee” and staying in London for the Platinum Jubilee celebrations honoring Queen Elizabeth II. “I came to this one,” she said to laughter and applause from the audience.

In his address, Father McShane described the new four-story campus center as a place where “the rich diversity of our student body is very evident—commuters, resident students, students from all over the country, all over the world, all ethnicities are [here], and everyone is interacting. It is spectacular.”

He detailed some of the strategic decisions that primed Fordham’s decades-long evolution from highly regarded regional institution to national and international university. And he emphasized how Fordham has met the fiscal, enrollment, and public safety challenges of the pandemic and emerged, in the opinion of a former editor of The Chronicle of Higher Education, as one of the elite universities “that are really secure, really prestigious, and therefore desirable.”

“We are now, in a certain sense, a place of great value,” Father McShane said. “I’ve known this all my life. You’ve known it all your life. Now the world more broadly knows it.”

In closing, he urged alumni to “be proud of Fordham,” to “continue to be contributors to the life of the University,” and to “take the place by storm” this weekend.

Fun, Food, and Face Painting on the Lawn

Jubilarians did just that at the all-classes picnic on Martyrs’ Lawn. The family-friendly event featured food, drinks, a DJ, games, face painting, and a caricature artist—along with plenty of grads reminiscing and making new connections.

One of the liveliest sections belonged to the Golden Rams, those celebrating 50 or more years since their Fordham graduation. At one table, Richard Calabrese and Tom McDonald, who got paired as Fordham roommates in fall 1968 and have been friends ever since, reflected on what made them so compatible. “We were both not high-maintenance people,” McDonald said with a smile.

At a neighboring table, Maurice Harris—who was careful to clarify that he graduated in January 1973—talked about the way Fordham helped him turn his life around. After growing up in public housing in Brooklyn’s Fort Greene neighborhood, he enrolled at Fordham College at Rose Hill in 1968 and, shortly afterward, started working as a nurse’s aide at the nearby Fordham Hospital.

Although he had trouble balancing classwork and the job at first, a doctor at the hospital convinced him that he should apply to medical school. Despite thinking that he didn’t stand a chance of getting in, he was accepted to SUNY Downstate Medical School in Brooklyn and, three years later, to the Emory School of Medicine in Atlanta, where he eventually became an assistant professor of medicine and practiced cardiology for more than four decades.

“I come up [to Jubilee] every five years. Fordham changed me,” Harris said, adding that for those like him who grew up in tough circumstances, “when you came and ran into the Jesuits, they set you straight.”

One 25th-reunion table featured a group of friends from the Class of 1997—several of whom drove down together from Boston.

“Being on this campus this time of year is second to none,” said Lisa Bell, FCRH ’97, who majored in communication and media studies and works as a public relations professional in the Boston area. “It’s gorgeous, and it’s so great to see all the new developments.”

Looking around at the group of friends sitting around her, she added, “Fordham has been so beneficial—not only the education but our network, the friendships.”

For Michelle and Regis Zamudio, Harlem residents who met during their senior year in 2010, got married in the University Church, and recently welcomed their third child together, getting the chance to bring their kids to campus and to see friends felt particularly special after missing out on the chance to celebrate their 10th reunion in 2020.

“We went to our five-year Jubilee in 2015, and we keep in touch with a lot of our classmates from freshman year,” said Regis, a Gabelli School of Business graduate who majored in finance and works as a vice president of operations for Elara Caring. “When our reunion was canceled two years ago, we were really bummed out that we wouldn’t have the experience to bring the kids to.”

Michelle, who majored in communication and media studies and is a writer and producer for A&E Networks, echoed her husband’s sentiments.

“We were really looking forward to seeing all our friends from Fordham,” she said. “So now, being able to come back, it just feels good to bring our kids and show them where we met, where we fell in love, where we got married. It’s really special to be here.”

Cherishing Lifelong Connections at the Golden Rams Soiree

Like the Zamudio family, Jack Walton, FCRH ’72, was eager to catch up with old friends. He did just that at Friday evening’s Golden Rams Dinner and Soiree. This year’s event officially welcomed the Classes of 1970, 1971, and 1972.

Although Walton has stayed in touch with many of his classmates by coming to past Jubilees and participating in a Facebook group dedicated to the Class of 1972, seeing folks in person as Golden Rams was different, he said.

“It’s fulfilling to have gotten this far and to see so many of the guys and gals that I grew up with in the late ‘60s and very early ‘70s,” he said.

For Gabe Vitalone, FCRH ’44, this year marked 28 years since he became a Golden Ram. On May 31, just three days before the dinner, he celebrated his 100th birthday. A World War II veteran and a longtime fixture at Jubilee, Vitalone has continued to accomplish extraordinary things well into his 90s, even singing the national anthem for the New York Yankees in 2020.

It was slightly bittersweet for him and his wife, Evelyn, to return to Jubilee after a two-year absence, he said, because for the past three decades, they were joined by his best friend, Matteo “Matty” Roselli, FCRH ’44, who died in 2020. “Don’t get me wrong, I’m happy to be here. But I almost said, ‘Look, that’s enough, now’s the time [to stop coming], now that Matty passed away. And then I thought of Father McShane,” he said. “I wanted to say goodbye.”

Toni DiMarie Potenza, TMC ’72, GSE ’73, and Alice Dostal-Higgins, TMC ’72, GSAS ’84, became fast friends early on in their time at Thomas More College, Fordham’s undergraduate school for women from 1964 to 1974. They met by virtue of alphabetical seating that placed them next to each other and went on to become roommates and fellow psychology majors. They also each earned a master’s degree from Fordham and, upon graduation, entered the teaching field.

Potenza, who had flown in from Chicago, said she found herself surprised to be in the ranks of the Golden Rams.

“I think as you get older, the person that you are, even when you were in your 20s, is still there and you don’t really see that you have changed,” she said. “So, it’s very surprising to realize that 50 years have gone by.”

Higgins said it was tough to pin down a few memorable moments of their time as undergrads.

“You know, it was every moment together,” she said. “It was having coffee in the morning before going to classes and then having to run out the door to get to classes on time. It was talking about the classes that we took together and experiences that we laugh about that we won’t talk about now,” she added laughing.

The Brave Women of TMC 

More of Thomas More College’s trailblazing women reunited for a luncheon in the McShane Center on Saturday afternoon. Linda LoSchiavo, TMC ’72, director of the Fordham University Libraries, called TMC the University’s “great experiment” and described its earliest students as “the bravest of us all.”

“TMC was born on the cusp of societal changes and upheavals—the fight for women’s equality, civil rights, gay rights: They were all raging while we were studying for finals,” she said.

Introducing Maura Mast, Ph.D., dean of Fordham College at Rose Hill, LoSchiavo noted just how far Fordham women have come. Today, “four of the nine deans of schools are women and, in less than one month, Fordham will have its first layperson and first woman as president,” she said, referring to Tania Tetlow, J.D., whose tenure begins on July 1.

Mast, the first woman to serve as dean of Fordham College at Rose Hill, thanked the TMC alumnae for paving the way, whether they meant to or not. “You may have come to Fordham saying, ‘I’m going to be a trailblazer.’ You may not have. But either way, you were.”

For Marie-Suzanne Niedzielska, Ph.D., TMC ’69, GSAS ’79, the prospect of reconnecting with women from other class years is what drew her to Jubilee this year.

A retired IT professional who splits her time between Central Florida and Glastonbury, Connecticut, Niedzielska remembers having a wonderful academic experience amid the tumult of the Vietnam War and social unrest. “It really colored the whole thing,” she said, before noting that each generation has its challenges, and perhaps attending college during tumultuous times is “not as unusual as it seems.”

Unusual or not, she said she is impressed by what Fordham students are accomplishing these days.

“I just went to the Student Managed Investment Fund presentation,” she said, referring to the Gabelli School of Business program that gives junior and senior finance students an opportunity to invest $2 million of the University’s endowment. “I’m just really impressed with the way that’s set up, with the lab, with what the students did, and what a leg up they get.

“In our time, an internship was just sort of a part-time job. It wasn’t a launchpad, and that’s a big difference.”

—Video shot by Taylor Ha and Tom Stoelker and edited by Lisa-Anna Maust.

Growing Up Fordham

Elsewhere in the McShane Center, about 50 graduates from the Class of 1972 met for an interactive chat titled “Growing Up Fordham: Risks and Challenges That Paid Off.” Psychologists John Clabby Jr., FCRH ’72, and Mary Byrne, TMC ’72, helped facilitate the discussion, and Bob Daleo, GABELLI ’72, chair of Fordham’s Board of Trustees, was also in attendance.

Daleo talked about the many changes that have taken place at Fordham over the years, from the additional buildings on campus and the much more diverse student body to the fact that all students are now “natives of a digital world.” He added that, while the University has seen much change in the past 50 years, “Fordham is still a place in which cura personalis is practiced every day by every member of the faculty and staff.”

Urging his classmates to remain engaged in both small and large ways, Daleo drew their attention to campus greenery of all things.

“The beautiful elms on this campus are hundreds of years old,” he said. “They were planted by people who knew they would never see the trees in their full grandeur. Fellow classmates, I believe that is our calling: to nurture an institution [that] will continue to flower long after we’re gone.”

Celebrating Alumni Achievement

One of the ways in which the University flourishes is through the lives and accomplishments of alumni. And on Saturday afternoon, three Marymount College graduates were recognized by their peers.

Maryann Barry, MC ’82, the CEO at Girls Scouts of Citrus in Florida, received the Alumna of Achievement Award, which recognizes a woman who has excelled in her profession and is a recognized leader in her field.

The Golden Dome Award went to Maryjo Lanzillotta, MC ’85, a biosafety officer at Yale University, in recognition of her commitment to advancing Marymount College, which was part of Fordham from 2002 to 2007, when it closed.

Lanzillotta spoke to her former classmates about the satisfaction of giving to the Marymount Legacy Fund (an endowed scholarship fund that supports Fordham students who carry on the Marymount tradition), and of witnessing the joy on a recipient’s face when they receive the award.

Lastly, Mary Anne Clark, MC ’77, accepted the Gloria Gaines Memorial Award, Marymount’s highest alumnae honor, which is given to a graduate for service to one’s church, community, and the college. Knowles said she was genuinely surprised to receive the award.

“It just shows that sometimes it’s enough to be kind to others and always give back whatever way you can,” she said. “You don’t have to build big libraries; you can go feed someone at the homeless shelter.”

At Hall of Honor Induction Ceremony, a Tribute to Seven Fordham Luminaries

Celebrating alumni achievement is par for the Jubilee course, but this year, for the first time since 2011, the festivities included a Hall of Honor induction ceremony.

Three Fordham graduates were inducted posthumously: Reginald T. Brewster, LAW ’50, a Tuskegee Airman who fought against racism and inequality; Jim Dwyer, FCRH ’79, a journalist and author who earned two Pulitzer Prizes; and Herb Granath, FCRH ’54, GSAS ’55, an Emmy Award-winning TV executive who was chairman emeritus of ESPN.

Also among the honorees were two beloved Fordham educators—Elizabeth A. Johnson, C.S.J., distinguished professor emerita of theology; and Peter B. Vaughan, former dean of the Graduate School of Social Service.

They were honored at the ceremony alongside Jack Keane, GABELLI ’66, a retired four-star general and former vice chief of staff of the U.S. Army; and Joe Moglia, FCRH ’71, former CEO and chairman of TD Ameritrade, and former head football coach and current executive director for football at Coastal Carolina University.

“Here you have on display the greatness of Fordham,” Father McShane said at the Saturday evening ceremony, held outside Cunniffe House, the Rose Hill home of the Hall of Honor. “The thread, I think, that joins all of our recipients today is character—men and women of character—and this is something that Fordham rejoices in.” Turning to the inductees, he added: “We will point to you when we want to tell students who we want them to imitate, what we want them to become.”

Ringing in the Gala

After a full day of mini-reunions, luncheons, and fun on the lawn, Jubilarians of all ages united Saturday evening under a big tent on Eddies Parade for the Jubilee Gala.

Phil Cicione, FCRH ’87, PAR ’18, president of the Fordham Alumni Chapter of Long Island, had the honor of kicking off the evening’s celebration with something new: the ringing the Victory Bell. Typically rung by students to celebrate athletic victories and signal the start of the annual commencement ceremony, on Saturday night, it doubled as a dinner bell.

The gala also served as an opportunity to celebrate the generosity of the Fordham alumni community: This year’s reunion classes raised more than $11.2 million in the past year; an additional $1.8 million and $1.1 million were raised in 2021 and 2020, respectively, by the reunion classes who missed their in-person gatherings due to the pandemic. All of the money raised supports the University’s Cura Personalis campaign.

A Fitting Jubilee Mass

Shortly before the gala, Father McShane, who was presiding over his final Jubilee Mass as Fordham’s president, told the alumni gathered in the University Church that it was “fitting” for Jubilee to coincide with Pentecost.

“All weekend, we’ve been celebrating in quiet and also boisterous ways the many gifts that God has given to us, as a result of him sending his spirit to be among us and filling our hearts with deep love and great gratitude,” he said.

Alumni participated in the Mass in a variety of ways, including carrying banners representing their class year and serving as lectors, Eucharistic ministers, and gift bearers. For one alumnus, Dennis Baker, S.J., FCRH ’02, GSAS ’09, participating in Mass meant giving the homily.

Father Baker, who was celebrating his 20-year reunion, said that after Father McShane asked him to deliver the homily, he told his group of Fordham friends, and they provided a “flood of advice” on what he should say. “At least they considered it advice, I think,” he said with a laugh.

After gathering suggestions that included taking part of a homily from a friend’s wedding, sharing stories of trips up Fordham Road, or using an old sign from a local hangout as a prop, Father Baker said he began thinking about the celebration of Pentecost and how it relates to his time at Fordham with his friends.

“This weekend, the worldwide church celebrates Pentecost, the celebration of the descent of the Holy Spirit upon the apostles,” he said. “And I think it’s not too much of a stretch to suggest that the same dynamic happened to my friends and to me during our time at Fordham. I think the same is true of you and your classmates as well.”

Father Baker said that Fordham “helped him better understand the gifts of the Holy Spirit in my life. Maybe that’s true for you too.” Those gifts include wisdom, understanding, counsel, fortitude, knowledge, piety, and awe, he said.

“The love of God is so powerful, and so real. I think we got to see a glimpse of it when we were young men and women here.”

The induction ceremony will be held at Cunniffe House at 5:30 p.m. on Saturday, June 4, just prior to the Jubilee gala.

Established in 2008, the Hall of Honor recognizes members of the Fordham community who have exemplified the ideals to which the University is devoted. This year’s inductees include a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, a world-renowned theologian, and a retired four-star general and recipient of the Medal of Freedom.

Reginald T. Brewster served as a Tuskegee Airman during World War II, a group that included the first Black military aviators in the U.S. Armed Forces. In many ways, the Airmen were fighting two wars, he told Fordham News in 2018: one abroad and one at home. “The discrimination [in the United States] was sharp,” he said. “It was very critical and sometimes it was even hurtful.”

Upon returning to the U.S., he studied government and math at Fordham College before earning a J.D. from Fordham Law School in 1950 and embarking on a five-decade career as an attorney. When he died in 2020 at the age of 103, the Black Law Students Association at Fordham Law School said that through “his groundbreaking efforts,” he “served as a trailblazer for all Black students who attend Fordham today.”

Sister Elizabeth A. Johnson, C.S.J., who retired in 2018 after 27 years as a distinguished professor at Fordham, is a beloved teacher and one of the most influential Catholic theologians in the world, internationally known for her work in systematic, feminist, and ecological theology, among other fields.

In her particularly influential 2007 book, Quest for the Living God: Mapping Frontiers in the Theology of God, she examined how God is understood differently by men, women, poor and oppressed people, Holocaust victims, and people of a variety of faiths. “Faith,” she once said, “is hope that the world is good and that our efforts can make a difference.”

Jim Dwyer, who died in October 2020 at the age of 63, chronicled the life of New York City with conscience and compassion in a four-decade career as a journalist and author. A 1979 graduate of Fordham College at Rose Hill, he sought to tell the stories of everyday New Yorkers and give voice to those on society’s margins, including working-class immigrants, racial and ethnic minorities, and people convicted of crimes they did not commit.

Through his reporting and writing—for New York Newsday, the Daily News, and The New York Times—he worked to help the public understand the impact of major issues and events, most notably 9/11, as well as the inner workings of government agencies and how their decisions affect people’s lives. He won two Pulitzer Prizes for his work and was widely regarded as a generous colleague, friend, and mentor.

Herb Granath, a two-time Fordham graduate and trustee emeritus, was a pioneering force in cable television. A former president of the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences, he started his career as an NBC page while he studying physics at Fordham. After graduating in 1954, he enrolled at the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, earning a master’s degree in communication arts one year later. He steadily climbed the ranks of entertainment juggernauts, moving from NBC to ABC to ESPN and the Broadway stage. He became chairman of the board of ESPN after ABC purchased the cable channel in 1984, and he was responsible for the creation of several channels that are now household names, including A&E, the History Channel, Lifetime, and the Hallmark Channel.

Granath, who died in November 2019 at the age of 91, earned numerous awards, including two Tonys, an Emmy for lifetime achievement in international TV, and an Emmy for lifetime achievement in sports. He often spoke about the value of his Fordham education, noting that a course in logic was among the most influential he ever took. “It is amazing to me in American business how little a role logic plays,” he told Fordham Magazine in 2007. “It has been a hallmark of the way I approach business.”

Jack Keane, a retired four-star general and former vice chief of staff of the U.S. Army, grew up in a housing project on Manhattan’s Lower East Side and was the first member of his family to attend college. He began his military career at Fordham as a cadet in the University’s ROTC program. After graduating in 1966 with a bachelor’s degree in accounting, he served as a platoon leader and company commander during the Vietnam War, where he was decorated for valor. A career paratrooper, he rose to command the 101st Airborne Division and the 18th Airborne Corps before he was named vice chief of staff of the Army in 1999.

Since retiring from the military in 2003, Keane has been an influential adviser, often testifying before Congress on matters of foreign policy and national security. He was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2020, becoming the sixth Fordham graduate to receive the nation’s highest civilian honor. In a 2017 interview with Fordham Magazine, he described the Jesuit education he received at Fordham as a transformational experience. “The whole learning process was about your own growth and development as a human being—not just intellectually but also morally and emotionally. I don’t think I would have been as successful as a military officer if my path didn’t go through Fordham University.”

Joe Moglia coached both high school and college football after graduating from Fordham College at Rose Hill in 1971, but in 1984, the New York native made a career change to finance, blazing a trail of ascent at Merrill Lynch and then at the helm of TD Ameritrade over 24 years. He returned to coaching in 2009, finishing his career with six seasons as the head coach at Coastal Carolina University, where he led the team to a 56-22 cumulative record and three Big South Conference titles before stepping down in 2019.

He is currently executive director for football and executive advisor to the president at Coastal Carolina and is chairman of Fundamental Global and Capital Wealth Advisors. Last year, he was inducted into the Fordham Athletic Hall of Fame, and in November, he was honored with a Fordham Founder’s Award. His career is the subject of the 2012 book by Monte Burke titled 4th & Goal: One Man’s Quest to Recapture His Dream. And Moglia has authored books on both coaching and investing—The Perimeter Attack Offense: The Key to Winning Football in 1982 and Coach Yourself to Success: Winning the Investment Game in 2005.

Peter B. Vaughan, Ph.D., served as dean of Fordham’s Graduate School of Social Service for 13 years. When he stepped down in 2013, he received the President’s Medal for “his collaborative and visionary leadership as an educator, and for his lasting impact on the University’s ability to lead well and serve wisely in the years ahead.”

Vaughan’s distinguished social work career is rooted in his undergraduate days at Temple University, when during the civil rights movement he was involved in court watching and voter registration efforts. He later served in the U.S. Army during the Vietnam War and found himself tending to the mental health needs of soldiers on the front lines. For much of his career, Vaughan worked with communities of color, focusing especially on the health of African American boys. He was a professor at Wayne State University in Detroit and later became acting dean of the University of Pennsylvania School of Social Work before he came to Fordham.

In 2012, the National Association of Social Workers presented him with its Knee/Wittman Lifetime Achievement Award. “Ours is a profession of hope, and I never miss a chance to pass it on to students when I am able to,” Vaughan told Fordham graduates at the Graduate School of Social Service diploma ceremony in 2013. “As you leave today to begin meaningful and illustrious careers, I hope you will live every day to make the world a better place—and keep hope alive.”

Jubilee 2022 will be held on the Rose Hill campus from June 3 to 5. Learn more and register today.

In a wide-ranging, occasionally raucous interview, Sister Johnson, a distinguished professor of theology who joined the Fordham faculty in 1991 and is retiring this year, talked with James Martin, S.J., editor at large of America magazine.

Father Martin credited Johnson’s scholarship with changing his life.

“On behalf of all of us nonprofessional theologians, and non-academics like myself, thank you for doing so much for making contemporary theology, feminist theology, and especially Christology so accessible to the general reader,” he said.

Their conversation revolved primarily around Creation and the Cross, (Orbis, 2018), Sister Johnson’s 11th book, which she recently discussed for a Fordham News podcast.

Bidding Adieu to Satisfaction Theory

Sister Johnson explained how the goal of the book is to help ease the satisfaction theory of atonement into retirement. The idea, which was promoted by St. Anselm, Archbishop of Canterbury, in the 11th century, in a tome titled Cur Deus Homo, was an attempt to answer a fundamental question for Christians: Why did God take the form of a human being, in Jesus Christ, and then die?

“The answer was, in order to pay back to God a certain satisfaction for the dishonor that human sin has caused,” she said.

“[According to Anselm], sin dishonors God, and we owe a debt. We human beings can’t repay that debt because the person we have offended is infinite, and therefore God became a human being and took on the debt and paid it back through death.”

Over time, however, others used this theory to explain how God is angry and vengeful, and “needed the bloody death of an innocent person in order to forgive us,” Sister Johnson said.

“That sounds very bold and bald, but that is what it has come down to over the centuries,” she said, noting that contrary to traditional ministry, Jesus was not born to die. His death, she said, was a result of his dogged, uncompromising preaching and the difficulties he created for the Roman Empire.

A Powerful Alternative

The solution, she said, is accompaniment theory.

“In Jesus, we have God with us, who has gone into the worst kind of death, in order to be with every single creature that dies, with the hope for something more. With that, we open up into the rest of creation,” she said.

Father Martin offered his own view of St. Anselm’s text. “Having read Cur Deus Homo way back in philosophy, [satisfaction theory]really bothered me, he said. “To have a professional theologian put it in its place and as you say, ‘give it a well-deserved retirement,’ was a relief for me, because I think it’s a burden for a lot of people.”

Sister Johnson noted that the idea has been questioned before. St. Thomas Aquinas first pointed out the absurdity of human kind’s salvation being contingent upon the death of an innocent man, and even Pope Benedict wrote disapprovingly of it when he was a Cardinal.

She said the key to “accompaniment theory” is the idea of deep incarnation, and a closer examination of the word “flesh,” as featured in the Gospel of John 1:14: “The Word became flesh and made His dwelling among us,” the scripture says.

According to Sister Johnson’s research, she said, the word flesh refers not to human beings, but to “what is vulnerable, finite, transient, and subject to death and pain.” She noted that the first appearance of the word goes all the way back the book of Genesis, in the story of Noah and the Great Flood.

“If you track this through the Bible, it become a very powerful tradition that we’ve missed,” she said.

Love the Cockroach

Sister Johnson said that embracing accompaniment theory means one should look to all creatures as kin, and not consider yourself as yourself as the pinnacle of a pyramid of life. This led to the most humorous moment of the evening, as an audience member wondered in the Q&A session, how could they possibly look at cockroaches as kin?

“Truthfully, you have to admire the cockroach. It has tremendous staying power, and it has the power to adapt to all kinds of place, including your kitchen,” she said, adding that loving them does not mean letting you run roughshod over you.

“Pope Francis writes at the end of Laudato si that ‘Every creature will be resplendently transfigured and with us, enjoying the beauty of God.’ So I think the cockroaches will be there too.”

Joseph M. McShane, S.J., president of Fordham, called Sister Johnson a source of great inspiration, challenge, and a great love of God. And like God, he said, she is hard to categorize.

“It is for the benefit of the church that you’re hard to nail down, hard to categorize. You dance with the questions, and therefore you play with God, and God plays with your heart, and that allows you to do all you have done to become the iconic feminist theologian of American theological history,” he said. “for which we are deeply grateful.”

Proceeds from a reception earlier in the evening reception supported the Elizabeth Johnson endowed scholarship, which supports female Ph.D. candidates on the verge of finishing their dissertations.

]]> 89092 https://now.fordham.edu/university-news/fordham-joins-call-address-climate-change/ Fri, 17 Nov 2017 17:41:19 +0000 https://news.fordham.sitecare.pro/?p=80359

The letter, which was made public on November 16, was written by Catholic Climate Covenant and signed by the leaders of over 150 Catholic colleges and universities, religious congregations, national organizations, and health care providers.

“As leaders of Catholic organizations in the United States, we write with one voice to urge you to reassert U.S. leadership in the global effort to address climate change. On behalf of people who are poor and vulnerable and future generations, we especially ask that you act based upon the best available climate science; fund the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change; honor U.S. commitments to the Green Climate Fund; and meaningfully participate in the deliberations of the UNFCCC,” it says.

The letter is the latest in a series of statements that Fordham has issued on climate change. In June, the University joined 180 colleges and universities in pledging its support to the Paris Climate Agreement, and in May, it signaled support for carbon pricing.

Last year, Fordham also joined Catholic Climate Covenant in filing an amicus (“friend of the court”) brief in support of the Clean Power Plan, the first-ever federal standards on carbon pollution from power plants.

Elizabeth Johnson, CSJ, distinguished professor of theology at Fordham and author of Ask the Beasts: Darwin and the God of Love (Bloomsbury, 2015), said the letter shows a willingness of the University be a voice for the earth in a time of crisis, to join with people of good will who are trying to affect policy, and to carry forward Catholic teaching with regard to the issue of the earth.

“I would also say it’s common sense. If the house is on fire, you try to put out the fire. That’s what this is about in terms of climate change,” she said.

“If you believe in a God who created this world, then certainly that carries with it the sense that you need to care for this earth in all its greatness and beauty, which we’re destroying with our behavior.”

The letter was inspired in part by a November 3rd National Climate Assessment from thirteen federal agencies that concludes:

“[B]ased on extensive evidence, that it is extremely likely that human activities, especially emissions of greenhouse gases, are the dominant cause of the observed warming since the mid-20th century. For the warming over the last century, there is no convincing alternative explanation supported by the extent of the observational evidence.”

The letter requests that the President and Congress:

1. Fund the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)

2. Meaningfully participate in the deliberations of the UNFCCC

3. Honor U.S. Commitments to the Green Climate Fund

“We heed the call of our Church, which implores, ‘As individuals, as institutions, as a people we need a change of heart to preserve and protect the planet for our children and for generations yet unborn.’ We hope that you will accept our appeal, so that we may continue to dialogue and work together to manifest this change of heart,” it ends.

J. Alan Clark, Ph.D., associate professor of biological sciences, noted that he and many of his colleagues have had to factor climate change into their own research. Conducting that research at a Jesuit institution that embraces an ethos of cura personalis (care for the whole person) also helps focus efforts on environmental issues that affect humans and non-humans alike, he said.

“The focus is not just on the academic side of intellectual inquiry, but also the persons’ place in the world,” he said.

It’s also in line with Pope Francis’ 2015 Encyclical Ladauto Si,  which called for greater efforts to become familiar with the problem of climate change and the solutions to it.

“The action being called for in this letter are not large; it’s actually small. But it’s important, because it raises an awareness and it places the signatories in a place where they say, ‘We care about this, and we want you to know this.’ Those things matter.”

Read the full letter here.

“I was very saddened to hear about Dr. Tilley’s death,” said Joseph M. McShane, SJ, president of Fordham. “First and foremost, my heart goes out to Terry [her husband]and to their family. Many people can—and will—speak of Maureen’s exceptional scholarship and service to Fordham, but for my part, I will miss her as a friend, a colleague, and a woman of enormous decency and integrity. I know the University community joins me in keeping the Tilley family in our hearts and prayers today.”

Visitation will be held Monday, April 11 from 4:30 – 8 p.m. at St. Paul the Apostle Church, 405 W 59th St., New York, New York. A funeral mass will be held Tuesday, April 12, at 10 a.m. at St. Paul the Apostle Church.

Tilley came to Fordham in 2006 with her husband Terrence, Fordham’s Avery Cardinal Dulles, SJ, Professor of Catholic Theology and the former department chair.  She had taught previously at Florida State University (1989-1998) and the University of Dayton (1998-2006). She was an internationally respected scholar of late ancient North African Christianity, between roughly the timespan of 180 A.D. to 700 A.D.

Martyrdom, the roles for women, ecclesiastical art, the veneration of saints, and the reception of biblical texts were all part of her studies. Of particular interest to her was the relationship between two prominent Christian communities of the era, the Catholics and the Donatists.

After a semester away from Fordham as the Thomas F. Martin St. Augustine Fellow at Villanova University, Tilley was promoted to full professor in 2011. In a 2012 profile in Inside Fordham, Tilley explained the significance of St. Augustine of Hippo, who worked to heal the rift between the Donatists, a group that advocated a smaller, purer, holier church.

“What Augustine is famous for is constructing a sacramental theology of baptism and penance that continues to the present,” Tilley said. “[This involves] finding a welcome for repentant sinners—not holding them at arm’s distance, but enfolding them—and having a greater tolerance for evil members of the church.”

J. Patrick Hornbeck II, DPhil, chair of the theology department, said that by illuminating the world of Augustine, Tilley helped people understand better what it meant for an early Christian to be called a saint, and what it means when people, especially women, are called saints today.

“She brought to her scholarship a tremendous care for detail and accuracy, an eagerness to delve into challenging texts, and a desire to leave scholarly tools for generations of church historians to come,” he said.

“Maureen was a distinguished colleague, a fellow student of the history of Christianity, but most of all, an exceptional and fiercely loyal friend.  I will miss her wry sense of humor and her knack for not allowing our department or any of us to settle for second best,” Hornbeck said.

Tilley’s colleague, Distinguished Professor of Theology Elizabeth Johnson, PhD, said Tilley was part of the first generation of women scholars who brought a contemporary perspective to issues of systematic theology.

Sister Johnson said she uses Tilley’s “The Passion of Perpetua and Felicity,” from Searching the Scriptures: A Feminist Commentary, Vol. 2, (Crossroad Pub, 1994), in her classes to illustrate that women who were martyred for their refusal to marry wealthy men were not, as had been widely believed, concerned with preserving their virginity.

“What Maureen figured out from reading the texts was, they were rejecting patriarchal marriage; they wanted to have a life of their own, and Christ gave them that possibility,” she said.

Sister Johnson noted that even though Tilley was ill, she finished one last paper, “Class Conflict in the Convent: St. Caesarius of Arles and Unruly Nuns,” the subject of one of her earlier lectures. The paper details how Caesarius, a sixth-century bishop, dealt with a conflict between rich and poor nuns by issuing elaborate rules for stitching; the rule was designed to restrict the wealthier nuns’ ability to flaunt their class privilege. Sister Johnson said it exemplifies how Tilley saw value in areas that others might pass over.

“She had an eye for what doesn’t fit the standard judgment of what’s important or not important, and by pursuing those little ideas that are in the texts but overlooked by virtually everyone, she shed new light on the spirituality, theology, and the actual practiced religious life of people long gone,” she said.

Tilley was born in 1948 to Joe and Betty Molloy and raised in California, where she attended Catholic grammar and high schools in San Pedro. She earned a bachelor’s degree from the University of San Francisco in 1970, a master’s degree from St. Michael’s College in Vermont in 1985, and a doctorate degree in the history of Christianity from Duke University in 1989. She wrote more than 70 articles, 50 reviews, an influential monograph, The Bible in Christian North Africa (1997), two books of translations, and co-edited a volume of essays. She served on the editorial boards of Theological Studies and Horizons. She served as president of the North American Patristics Society (2005-06). She also had an interest in needlework; one of her projects hangs in the Holy Cross Church sanctuary in Durham, North Carolina.

Tilley is survived by her husband Terrence, daughters Elena DeStefano and Christine Dyer, granddaughter Jacqueline Dyer, and sisters Noelle Gervais and Josette Molloy.

In lieu of flowers, a donation to Mary’s Pence or a “peace and justice” charity is encouraged.

The voice that Ellsberg had in mind is that of internationally renowned theologian Elizabeth Johnson, CSJ, whose new book Abounding in Kindness: Writings for the People of God (Orbis Books, 2015) re-envisions central themes of Christianity from the oft-neglected perspective of women.

The book is a collection of articles and lectures that Sister Johnson, Distinguished Professor of Theology, has produced over her long career. The chapters cover an array of topics, such as the question of the historical Jesus; atheism and faith; the meaning of creation in light of ecological devastation; torture; and issues relating to women and the Church.

At the heart of the book, Sister Johnson said, is the idea of a compassionate “living God” who is actively engaged with the suffering world. Counter to the image of a white-bearded man in the sky, the living God refers to “the wild, mysterious God, way beyond human ability to comprehend or control.”

“Rather than a distant monarch, the living God is found to be present and active in the midst of the world’s struggles with a compassion that awakens hope,” Sister Johnson said. “This galvanizes human efforts to resist evil and care for the poor and brokenhearted.”

The feminist perspective that inspires Abounding in Kindness is not a stance that is explicitly argued for, Sister Johnson said; rather, feminism serves as the lens through which each theological and religious issue is considered. Such an approach is meant not only to amplify women’s voices, but also to unearth fresh ways of thinking about God and Catholic doctrine.

“I opt for a liberation perspective which endorses the full human dignity of women, made in the image and likeness of God equally as are men. Since this equality has still not been realized in history, one must criticize and reimagine religious meanings to release their liberating effects,” she said.

For this reason, she said, the theology offered by Abounding in Kindness is not just for women—it is for “all the People of God.”

“The U2 singer Bono once said that once you see something, you can’t un-see it,” Sister Johnson said.

“Once I discovered through social analysis that women of all races and classes have been systematically subordinated in every institution in religious and civil society, a feminist view shaped my theological work.”

Sister Johnson is one of the most influential Catholic theologians in the world, having published widely and won some of the highest awards and distinctions available to scholars. She is known particularly for the feminist perspective that she both brings to and extracts from Catholic doctrine.

At a lecture sponsored by the Graduate School of Religion and Religious Education (GRE) on April 14—at which GRE Dean Colt Anderson, PhD referred to her as “the most significant theologian in the English-speaking world today”—Sister Johnson discussed how the person of Mary Magdalene could help reclaim the role of women in the Catholic Church.

Sister Johnson will give the lecture a second time on Tuesday, April 21 at 6 p.m. in Tognino Hall, Rose Hill campus.

Who is the audience for this book?
This book sets up a dialogue between science and religion. It has a dual audience: primarily the academy, and also the educated reading public. My hope is that many folks will find it interesting, at least in some aspects.

Why have we neglected this planet and the other creatures?
For centuries theology worked with the idea that in order to be close to God we have to turn our backs on the Earth. Life on Earth is just something to get through because the real goal is to get to heaven.

How did we end up here?
When early Christian thought encountered Hellenistic philosophy around the second or third century, it absorbed a dualistic view of spirit and matter. The two began to split. The Eastern part of the church, the Orthodox, did not follow that split as rigorously as the West. We can find beautiful writings in the Eastern tradition that treat creation as part of what’s good and what is taken up in glory with us at the end of time. But in the Latin West, this view disappears as the church developed a more Roman pattern, which was juridical, legal, and concentrated on human sin. Then theology made a huge shift toward a focus on wrongdoing and forgiveness.

Does your book address any of those legal arguments?
It names them as part of the problem, but does not linger over them. We’ve been-there-done-that for centuries. The need now is to envision something more holistic. So the bulk of the book looks into the Christian tradition, trying to make an ecological case for the 1.2 billion Catholics. We need to bring forward resources in our own tradition.

What are your sources?
I spend the first four chapters parsing Darwin’s view. As a dialogue partner I then bring in the Nicene Creed as shorthand of what Catholics believe about God. It’s a narrative like Darwin’s narrative of life. It tells of God and God’s acts in relation to the Earth. The book puts these two in dialogue and moves toward an ethic at the end. Of course a primary source would be scripture, but Thomas Aquinas plays an important role, as do various other theologians and philosophers. I use the Jesuit theologian Karl Rahner and a great number of feminist theorists such as Rosemary Ruether, Heather Eaton, and Karen Warren.

What’s do the feminists have to say about this?
There’s a whole range of analysis showing how the Western mindset, crafted by men, equated women with nature. In the dualistic framework of spirit over matter, men were allied with spirit while women and nature were connected with matter. Men were considered rational and independent, while women and nature were bodily and dependent on the underside of that dualism. Much of this analysis is called ecofeminism; it parses out or deconstructs prejudice against women, drawing out the links with a dim view of nature.

For example, Carolyn Merchant found that Sir Francis Bacon, the father of the scientific method, compared the right of men to investigate nature to the right of the Inquisition judges to interrogate women under sexual torture. Men may enter the holes of both women and nature and make them give up their secrets; men may pull them by the hair to master and overcome them. The analogies of rape and dominance stand at the dawn of the modern era of scientific investigation.

These are some tough facts for even the most educated to contemplate. Does it in a way explain religious resistance to evolution?
Not directly. Fundamentalisms of all kinds are born in resistance to the modern world: you need to have secure borders; you know what you know on good authority; you are secure in how you live; and you’re not bothered by the ambiguity of life—especially in our modern age when life is getting so confusing. Biblical fundamentalism, which reads the opening chapters of Genesis literally, secures your world based on the central idea that God is a male monarch ruling over everything. The theory of evolution, which explains that all living creatures developed by a natural process, obviously threatens that view of God. Thus it needs to be rejected.

My book works to develop the idea of the God of Love who dwells within, empowers, suffers with, and moves in company with the evolving Earth. Then evolution is not a threat.

What still needs to be done?
Parents and teachers need to educate their children to love the world. Business has a huge responsibility to do business with an eye on the bottom line that’s green as well as black or red. Every person has something to contribute. If every believer in God lived their life in an ecologically responsible way, including how they vote and how they shop, it would make a huge difference for this planet.

There is a consciousness that’s growing, especially among younger scholars—I can’t think of a single profession that isn’t affected. In my field I see more and more attention given to the Earth. Fifty years ago there was little attention given to social justice; now it is a core concern. In a parallel way, ecological awareness presses us to change our behaviors that are depleting the Earth and its creatures.

In my view this challenge is profoundly connected with the love of God.

Then Adam, some say, took things a little too far.

At some point, mankind moved from “having dominion” to dominating totally, and the catastrophic consequences of this attitude are bearing out in the environment, said a scholar of systematic theology on Oct. 28.

Delivering the ninth annual Rita Cassella Jones lecture, “So Much is in Bud,” Elizabeth Johnson, C.S.J., Distinguished Professor of Theology and internationally known scholar and lecturer, laid out the contributions that Catholic women are making to the emerging field of ecological theology. The new field takes the view that God is immanent in nature and, therefore, that humankind should seek to right ecological and social injustices.

Many Catholic women scholars have attributed the apparent transformation from “dominion” to “domination” over the natural world to the philosophy of hierarchical dualism that Christian theology inherited from ancient Greece, said Sister Johnson. Such dualism splits the world into two realities: spirit and matter. And spirit (for example, the mind, reason, and the soul) is more valued than matter (the body, emotions, and passivity) because of spirit’s association with the divine.

“[This is] also a story of the rule of men over women,” Sister Johnson said. “Hellenistic philosophy identified men with eternal spirit, and relegated both woman and nature to the opposite pole of matter marked by messy bodily change, lack of intelligence, and natural subservience… The physically fertile powers of both women and earth served men’s needs for progeny and life-maintaining skills.”

This dualistic worldview pervades church history, given that “its doctrinal and moral teaching, laws, rituals, and governing offices are all crafted, decided upon, and led by men,” Sister Johnson said.

As a result, women theologians have called for an end to theologies of domination—particularly the brand of male domination that keeps men in power and women and nature in service.

“Until we untangle the threads that weave the subordination of women and domination of nature together… the pillar of gender dualism will continue to hold in place nature’s inferiority and man’s right to rule,” Sister Johnson said.

In place of dualism, Catholic women theologians are calling for an ethos of mutual interdependence and kinship that pivots on the “sacramental imagination.”

According to this view, the natural world “reflects the One who created it.” It is sacred, because God, its creator, is not outside of or above the natural world—God is immanent, dwelling within the world.

This philosophy requires a greater focus on the Holy Spirit—an image of God that Scripture often portrays in feminine terms, for example, as a hovering mother bird.

“If we had this theology of the Holy Spirit active, we’d see that, rather than being divorced from what is scared, nature is imbued with spiritual radiance…and the Spirit moves in these every bit as vigorously as in souls, minds, ideas,” Sister Johnson said. “Catholic women are growing this doctrine forward.”

Embracing a theology that views nature as sacred would benefit not only the environment, but also the world’s poorest populations, who often bear the burden of environmental crises, she said.

“Poor people suffer disproportionately from environmental damage inflicted in pursuit of corporate profit,” Sister Johnson said. “And the plight of the poor becomes intensified in poor women, whose own biological abilities to give birth and nurture children are compromised by depleted environments, and whose daily workload is increased exponentially by lack of clean water, food, and fuel.”

Co-sponsored by the Francis and Ann Curran Center for American Catholic Studies and the family of Rita Cassella Jones, the lecture series highlights women’s concerns in the U.S. Catholic community.

On the sixth day, God created Adam and Eve, and said unto them, “Have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the heavens, and over every living thing that moves upon the earth.”

Then Adam, some say, took things a little too far.

At some point, mankind moved from “having dominion” to dominating totally, and the catastrophic consequences of this attitude are bearing out in the environment, said a scholar of systematic theology on Oct. 28.

Delivering the ninth annual Rita Cassella Jones lecture, “So Much is in Bud,” Elizabeth Johnson, C.S.J., Distinguished Professor of Theology and internationally known scholar and lecturer, laid out the contributions that Catholic women are making to ecological theology—an emerging field that views God as immanent in nature, and, as a result, seeks to right ecological and social injustices.

Many Catholic women scholars have attributed the apparent transformation from “dominion” to “domination” over the natural world to the philosophy of hierarchical dualism that Christian theology inherited from ancient Greece, said Sister Johnson. Such dualism splits the world into two realities: spirit and matter. And spirit (for example, the mind, reason, and the soul) is more valued than matter (the body, emotions, and passivity) because of spirit’s association with the divine.

This is also “a story of the rule of men over women,” Sister Johnson said.

“Hellenistic philosophy identified men with eternal spirit, and relegated both woman and nature to the opposite pole of matter marked by messy bodily change, lack of intelligence, and natural subservience,” she said. “The physically fertile powers of both women and earth served men’s needs for progeny and life-maintaining skills.”

This dualistic worldview pervades church history, given that “its doctrinal and moral teaching, laws, rituals, and governing offices are all crafted, decided upon, and led by men,” Sister Johnson said.

As a result, women theologians have called for an end to theologies of domination—particularly the brand of male domination that keeps men in power and women and nature in service.

“Until we untangle the threads that weave the subordination of women and domination of nature together… the pillar of gender dualism will continue to hold in place nature’s inferiority and man’s right to rule,” Sister Johnson said.

In place of dualism, Catholic women theologians are calling for an ethos of mutual interdependence and kinship that pivots on the “sacramental imagination.” According to this view, the natural world “reflects the One who created it.” It is sacred, because God, its creator, is not outside of or above the natural world—God is immanent, dwelling within the world.

This philosophy requires a greater focus on the Holy Spirit—an image of God that Scripture often portrays in feminine terms, for example, as a hovering mother bird.

“If we had this theology of the Holy Spirit active, we’d see that, rather than being divorced from what is scared, nature is imbued with spiritual radiance… The Spirit moves in these every bit as vigorously as in souls, minds, ideas,” Sister Johnson said. “Catholic women are growing this doctrine forward.”

Embracing a theology that views nature as sacred would benefit not only the environment, but also the world’s poorest populations, who often bear the burden of environmental crises, she said.

“Poor people suffer disproportionately from environmental damage inflicted in pursuit of corporate profit,” Sister Johnson said. “And the plight of the poor becomes intensified in poor women, whose own biological abilities to give birth and nurture children are compromised by depleted environments, and whose daily workload is increased exponentially by lack of clean water, food, and fuel.”

Co-sponsored by the Francis and Ann Curran Center for American Catholic Studies and the family of Rita Cassella Jones, the annual lecture series highlights concerns around women in the U.S. Catholic community.

Elizabeth A. Johnson, C.S.J., Distinguished Professor of Theology, will deliver the annual Rita Casella Jones lecture on Oct. 28 at 6 p.m. in the Duane Library of Tognino Hall on the Rose Hill Campus.

The internationally known scholar, teacher, and lecturer will offer “So Much is in Bud,” an exploration of women’s theology and the Catholic sacramental imagination that treasures the natural world as kin, values the sacredness of the body, and rethinks the spirit dwelling within ecological processes.

The event is sponsored by the Francis and Ann Curran Center for American Catholic Studies. For more information visit www.fordham.edu/cs