Environmental themes can clearly be seen in scripture, and not just in an incidental way, said Elizabeth Johnson, C.S.J., professor emerita of theology. That’s the message of her new book, Come, Have Breakfast: Meditations on God and the Earth, published earlier this year by Orbis Books.

“This isn’t just [one] point in the Bible,” Sister Johnson said, “it runs through everything—Genesis and the Psalms and the prophets and the Wisdom literature and … into the very last book of the New Testament. You could trace this theme all the way through.” Her book is replete with examples, including these four:

Having Dominion over Nature Doesn’t Mean What You Think.

The biblical passage about God giving humans “dominion … over all the wild animals of the earth” has been taken to justify domination and exploitation of nature, which is “not even remotely” correct, Johnson writes. Rather, in biblical contexts, dominion means good governance—as practiced, for instance, by a stand-in who oversees part of a king’s realm and carries out his will. In Genesis, God is entrusting humanity with wise stewardship of nature, “a responsible service of protection and care,” according to Johnson.

Animals belong to God, and “the Creator is not a throwaway God,” she said. “It’s like anyone who creates anything. You don’t want it to be ruined.”

The Bible Puts Humans in Their Place.

Christian thought and prayer have often treated nature as a “stage set” for the story of God’s relationship with humanity, Johnson writes. But the Bible often paints a different picture, as in Psalm 104, a lengthy paean to the greatness of God’s creation. It glorifies everything from the sun and the moon to Earth’s landscapes and its variety of life, including humanity in the mix. “We’re in the middle, and we’re part of this community,” rather than being at the apex, Johnson said. But “in no way does this deny human distinctiveness” and our special capacities and obligations, she writes.

Animals Have God’s Ear Too.

“Scripture is threaded with verses that depict animals giving glory to God,” Johnson writes. As St. Augustine described it, she said, animals “are giving praise because they’re reflecting the goodness of the Creator.”

Indeed, during the Great Flood in the Book of Genesis, God establishes a covenant with not only Noah but also “every living creature” aboard his ark. “It precedes the covenants with Abraham, Moses, David, and the one established by Jesus,” Johnson writes. “It is never revoked.”

Jesus Valued Nature.

Raised as an observant Jew, Jesus was steeped in the creation theology of the Jewish religious tradition, Johnson writes. He viewed nature with fondness and wonder and speaks of its intrinsic value: In the Gospel of Matthew he speaks of “the lilies of the field” that “neither toil nor spin” yet are clothed in glory, as well as “birds of the air” who “neither sow nor reap” yet are cared for by God nonetheless.

“Pope Francis calls it the gaze of Jesus—like, how did Jesus look on the natural world?” Johnson said. “That gaze is what we should be trying to emulate.”

What it was, for her, was a profound experience—a course that conveyed “a deep awareness of God’s love surrounding us in nature,” said Sharkey, who earned a bachelor’s degree at Fordham’s School of Professional and Continuing Studies in 2015 after a decades-long business career.

Her experience during that 2018 graduate class moved her to make a gift to Fordham that will amplify the study of theology and its intersections with environmental themes for years to come.

In a bequest last August, Sharkey set up the Elizabeth A. Johnson, C.S.J., Endowed Fund for Theology & the Earth, which is already receiving gifts from other donors. It will support programs and research that bring theology together with other fields—the sciences, business, the arts—to explore the ethical and religious dimensions of environmental protection.

On March 21, Fordham kicked off this initiative with a lecture by renowned theologian Elizabeth Johnson, C.S.J., now professor emerita, who taught the ecological theology class that Sharkey took in 2018.

The fund propels the theology department in a direction it had wanted to pursue, “which is to do theology in dialogue with other fields of expertise [on]ecological or environmental issues,” said theology department chair Christine Firer Hinze, Ph.D. “This is going to energize theology and religion faculty but also faculty in other departments who want to reach out and say, ‘How do we work together here?’”

Hinze also expressed the hope that people with differing views on topics like climate action could be brought together by the kind of inviting, positive, inclusive tone that Sister Johnson struck at the March 21 event.

God’s Presence in Nature

Before taking the graduate class in 2018, Sharkey had lunch with Patrick Hornbeck, D.Phil., of Fordham’s theology faculty. Explaining the difference between religious studies and theology, he told her theology “was the study of people’s relationship with God”—a powerful idea that stayed with her.

“That’s why I feel that theology is for everyone—even if you are an atheist, you think about the concept of God,” she said.

In the graduate course, she found that studying theology gave her a renewed awareness of God’s presence in the natural world and how Earth is the common home for all—atheists and believers alike.

The course also helped her cope with a personal loss. “As the semester evolved, I found myself coming back to life,” she said. “I was finally able to hear once again the trees whisper and the birds sing. It was a gift, a moment of grace, as Sister Beth would say.”

“I believe that understanding the concept of God in such a tender, loving way is too precious to be kept for only a select few,” she said.

She’s inspired by the idea that her gift will make it possible for future young people to take a Theology and the Earth class at Fordham. “Planting this tree,” she said, “has been very fulfilling for me personally.”

To inquire about giving to any area of the University, please contact Michael Boyd, senior associate vice president for development and university relations, at 212-636-6525 or [email protected]. Learn more about Cura Personalis | For Every Fordham Student, a campaign to reinvest in every aspect of the Fordham student experience.

“Monsignor Shelley was a beloved and important member of the Fordham community.  I was personally so grateful for his history of the University, which will forever help me continue the work of my predecessors,” said Tania Tetlow, president of Fordham. “My heart goes out to Father McShane and all of Monsignor Shelley’s family and friends.”

Monsignor Shelley’s role at Fordham went beyond his official title, thanks to the monumental task he took on in telling the University’s story. His book Fordham, A History of the Jesuit University of New York: 1841–2003 (Fordham University Press, 2016), is seen by many as the go-to source on matters of Fordham’s founding and first 175 years.

He was also a first cousin of Joseph M. McShane., S.J., president emeritus of Fordham, who called him a “master of tale and story” and a compassionate priest whose serious scholarship was balanced by an avuncular personality that endeared him to students, and a concern for the poor.

“You see in the history of the University, the history of the archdiocese, and in the parish histories he wrote, the people that he was most drawn to were people who were most authentic, who were true to mission, who watched out for the poor, were not flatterers, nor were they flattered,” he said.

“He was drawn to the hardworking people in the parishes, hardworking priests who didn’t spend a lot of time in the rectory but were out walking through the parish, seeing what was going on and so on.”

Although Monsignor Shelley was 12 years older than Father McShane and lived four miles away in the neighborhood of Melrose, he loomed large in the life of the McShane family. He was the first on the Shelley side of the family to attend college and was among the first to join “the family business,” said Father McShane, who stepped down as Fordham’s president in June.

When then-Deacon Shelley was assigned to Midnight Mass at Our Lady of Mount Carmel on a snowy Christmas Eve, Father McShane recalled, it was a big deal when he stayed the night across the street with his grandmother rather than return to the seminary.

“I can remember his ordination, I can remember his first Mass, and I can remember the dinner following his first Mass, which was at the Concourse Plaza Hotel,” he said.

“I also remember the menu at that dinner. So that will tell you something about the place he had in our family.”

Thomas Joseph Shelley was born in 1937 to Thomas Shelley and Helen Walsh Shelley. He was the oldest of three children; his twin sisters Helen and Mary were born seven years later. He attended Cathedral College high school in Manhattan received a B.A. in philosophy in 1958 and an M.A. in theology in 1962 from St. Joseph’s Seminary and College, and was ordained a priest in 1962. He served as a parish priest for the Saint Thomas More Church, and after retiring, he served at Sunday Masses at Church of the Ascension, both in Manhattan. In 1966, he earned an M.A. in history from Fordham’s Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. He earned a doctorate in church history at Catholic University in 1987.

After 30 years of teaching history and religion at both the high school and seminary levels—including Stepinac High School, Cardinal Spellman High School, and Cathedral College—he joined Fordham’s theology department in 1996. He taught courses such as 19th-Century Catholicism, The Church in Controversy, and Faith and Critical Reason for 16 years, and in 2012, he retired, and was awarded the title of Professor Emeritus at Fordham.

He specialized in 19th- and 20th-century American Catholicism, particularly in New York City. In 1993, he published Dunwoodie: The history of St. Joseph’s Seminary, Yonkers, New York (Christian Classics), and in 2007, as a part of the Archdiocese of New York’s commemoration of its 200th anniversary, he was commissioned to write The Bicentennial History of the Archdiocese of New York: 1808-2008. (Editions Du Signe, 2007).

He was also a prolific contributor to America, which honored him with a tribute on Nov. 15.

In 2008, Father McShane asked him to write a history of the University from its founding to 2003, the year that Father McShane succeeded Joseph A. O’Hare, S.J. as president.

Father McShane said he knew from Monsignor Shelley’s prior work that he could trust him to do a “warts and all” exploration of the University.

“Tom took his work very seriously, he took his students very seriously, he took his colleagues very seriously. He took being a priest very seriously. The only thing he didn’t take seriously was himself,” he said.

Eight years later, Monsignor Shelley completed the 536-page history, complete with black and white and color photos, just in time for the University’s 175th-anniversary celebration. Among the conclusions he came to was that Fordham Founder Archbishop John Hughes “anticipated the work of the Second Vatican Council by a whole century.”

In 2016, he spoke to Fordham Magazine about taking on such a huge task.

“The Jesuits made my work easy because they carefully preserved so much of Fordham’s history in their archives, both here in New York City and also in Rome. Prior to 1907, Fordham (which was still called St. John’s College at the time) is the story of a small liberal arts college in the rural Bronx. After 1907, with the establishment of the first graduate schools (and the transition from college to university), the plot thickens. Each of the graduate schools has its own distinct identity and history, so the story becomes more complicated,” he said.

Monsignor Shelley was an active part of the 175th-anniversary celebration, delivering the homily at a Mass at St. Patrick’s Cathedral and participating in a panel discussion about the University’s history. Although he himself was not a Jesuit, he attributed the University’s success, even through its roughest years, to the Society of Jesus.

“The popularity of Jesuit education for the last four centuries has been due in large measure to one factor: the fact that it’s rooted in the Christian humanism of the Renaissance and the positive aspects of the Catholic reformation,” he said.

Shelley continued to work on behalf of the University and the Church. In 2019, he published Upper West Side Catholics: Liberal Catholicism in a Conservative Archdiocese (Fordham University Press), and last April he delivered the homily at a Mass celebrating the opening of the Joseph M. McShane S.J. Campus Center. In June, at Father McShane’s request, he completed a final chapter of Fordham’s history that tackles Father McShane’s own time in office. Next spring, his book John Tracy Ellis: An American Catholic Reformer will be published by Catholic University Press.

Elizabeth Johnson, C.S.J., distinguished professor of theology, said Monsignor Shelley’s focus on “smart institutional history” was invaluable.

In his history of the Archdiocese of New York, for example, Johnson noted that Monsignor Shelley dispelled the notion that the church was always associated with immigrants. In fact, in the years before the American Revolution, it was a church of the elite, dominated by figures such as Cecil Calvert, 2nd Baron of Baltimore, an English nobleman who was the first proprietor of the Province of Maryland.

“He kept bringing up these sorts of discoveries and insights that would otherwise go untold. It wasn’t hagiography. It was very clear-eyed,” she said.

That volume also brought to mind one of Johnson’s favorite memories of Monsignor Shelley. While working in Fordham’s archives, he discovered correspondence between Archbishop Hughes and nuns working in Greenwich Village. They had been caring for non-Catholics, and Archbishop Hughes demanded they cease and desist. They informed him that after reading the Gospels, they concluded that Jesus would side with them, not him.

“He said, ‘What do you think?’ I said ‘Tom, this has to go into the book. And it did!’ Johnson said.

“He had the eye for what was really going on, and his deep allegiance was always to Christ and the gospels. I could see someone else writing a history of the Archdiocese who would just want to bury that.”

Christine Firer Hinze, Ph.D. chair of the theology department, said that it was beneficial to the theology department to have a diocesan priest on staff who taught seminarians, as he did at St. Joseph’s Seminary, where he was also named professor emeritus.

“He had his foot in both worlds, and that was incredibly helpful and enriching for us,” she said.

“The Archdiocese of New York is our home, but it can feel a little distant because of the stand-alone nature of a university.”

When the pandemic hit, Shelley moved back to the house in Long Island that his parents moved to in 1956, to be with his surviving sister, Mary Shelley. She said he was worried about her because of the Covid tally on Long Island and wanted to ensure she was not alone. 

It was a blessing to have him back during that time, said Mary just after Monsignor Shelley died. She noted that as a night owl, he took full advantage of an open schedule, staying up until 3 a.m. to write his last book. He knew when he was an altar boy that he wanted to be a priest, she said. In June, he celebrated his 60th anniversary as a priest.

“His heart and soul, body and mind, were focused on the priesthood,” she said.

In addition to his being a lifelong Montreal Canadians fan and a lover of animals, Mary said she would always remember her brother for his compassion. When Helen died in 2013, he helped her with her grief, as he had many times before.

“We lost our parents very young, and I asked him why it hurts so much. He said ‘That’s the price you pay for love,’ and it’s true,” she said.

“He would help anyone, and he was honest. If things were bad, he would tell you. He was a composite of everything you’d want to have in a person.”

Father McShane said that several recent moments will stand out to him, including the many family funerals they were both called to serve at. At one point, Monsignor Shelley offered to take on the job of preaching, while letting Father McShane be the celebrant. It’s a more difficult job, but he offered to do it, because he had more time to write. On Friday, Father McShane will be the one at the pulpit, at his cousins’ funeral, and he said he’ll always be grateful for the way Monsignor Shelley helped him with the grief he felt at his mother’s funeral.

“When we were lining up for the procession, he walked by, patted me on the shoulder, and said, ‘You’ll be okay. You’ll be okay.’ And I looked at him and said, ‘Are you sure?’ He said, ‘I’m sure you’ll be just fine.’”

Shelley is survived by his sister Mary Shelley. He is preceded in death by his parents and his sister Helen.

A wake will be held Thursday, Nov 18, from 1 to 3 p.m. at the Main Chapel of the John Cardinal O’Connor Pavilion, 5655 Arlington Avenue, Riverdale, N.Y.

A funeral will be held at 10 a.m. on Friday, Nov. 18, at Church of the Ascension, 221 W 107th St. A wake will also be held in the church from 9 a.m. to 10 a.m. before the funeral.

Notes of condolences can be sent to Mary Shelley at 2408 Eighth Street, East Meadow, NY 11554.

“Here you have on display the greatness of Fordham,” Father McShane said at the June 4 induction ceremony, part of the 2022 Jubilee reunion festivities. “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.”

Established in 2008, the Hall of Honor recognizes members of the Fordham community who have exemplified and brought recognition to the ideals to which the University is devoted. The 2022 inductees are

• Reginald Brewster, LAW ’50, a Tuskegee Airman and World War II veteran who fought against racism and inequality, earning a Fordham Law degree after the war and practicing civil law for six decades
• Elizabeth A. Johnson, C.S.J., one of the world’s most prominent and influential Catholic theologians, who served as a distinguished professor of theology at Fordham for 27 years and is a former president of the Catholic Theological Society of America
• Jim Dwyer, FCRH ’79, a two-time Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist who through his writing was both a critical conscience of New York City and a passionate celebrant of its residents, skilled at drawing public attention to wrongful convictions and the mistreatment of society’s most marginalized people
• Herb Granath, FCRH ’54, GSAS ’55, a former Fordham trustee and an Emmy Award-winning ABC executive who helped guide the television network’s expansion, developing flagship stations including ESPN and the History Channel
• Jack Keane, GABELLI ’66, a retired four-star general, former vice chief of staff of the U.S. Army, and 2020 recipient of the Presidential Medal of Freedom, who began his military career as an ROTC cadet at Fordham
• Joe Moglia, FCRH ’71, who has excelled in business and football, as CEO and chairman of TD Ameritrade and as head football coach at Coastal Carolina University, where he currently serves as the executive director for football and executive advisor to the president
• Peter Vaughan, Ph.D., a decorated Vietnam War veteran and pioneer in the field of social work who served for 13 years, from 2000 to 2013, as dean of Fordham’s Graduate School of Social Service

“This year’s class, each person that has been inducted, represents really the best about Fordham, and they enrich Fordham,” Father McShane said. “Think about it. Very, very diverse backgrounds, very diverse interests. Excellence in all things.”

Three of the inductees—Brewster, Dwyer, and Granath—were honored posthumously at the ceremony, which took place on the lawn outside of Cunniffe House, the Rose Hill home of the Hall of Honor.

Sister Johnson, who retired from the Fordham faculty in 2018, said returning to Rose Hill to be honored at Jubilee felt “awesome, humbling, and beyond imagination.”

Father McShane called her the “most important feminist pioneer theologian in the United States.”

“She changed the way in which we thought about God, and therefore the way we can encounter God,” he said. “I said years ago, when she was honored before, that she dances with questions and she delights in the dance, and she teaches her students to do the same.”

Father McShane described Moglia as someone who “takes great delight in shattering expectations and stereotypes.”

“He is as much at home on the gridiron as he is in the boardroom, and that says a lot,” he said, calling him “a natural-born leader” who “leads with authority.”

The honor put Moglia in an especially select group: He is now only the fourth person in Fordham history—after Wellington Mara, William D. Walsh, and Joseph A. O’Hare, S.J.—to have received the Founder’s Award and been inducted into both the Fordham University Athletics Hall of Fame and the Hall of Honor.

“I give Fordham a lot of credit for any of the things that I’ve done in my life—whether it’s my personal life or professional life, whether as a football coach or in the business world—and so to be ultimately inducted into the Hall of Honor is something that’s very, very special to me,” Moglia said.

Peter Vaughan is “one of my greatest heroes,” Father McShane told the audience, describing him as “ an extraordinarily effective dean” and “a recognized authority that everyone in the profession looked to for wisdom—not only wisdom but heartfelt wisdom, as Peter is somebody who has always balanced heart and mind.”

Speaking of General Keane, Father McShane said that one of his greatest qualities is the care and understanding he has demonstrated for members of the military.

“This man, who was a Fordham ROTC cadet, is looked up to—wisely and rightly—by graduates of West Point, who recognized his wisdom, his courage,” he said.

Father McShane called Dwyer, who died in October 2020 at the age of 63, “the master of the written word” and “the master of his craft.”

“His great gift was seeing the grace and glory and goodness in the moment—the sacrament of the moment and the saint of the moment,” he said. “His last, last columns, they were simply extraordinary because they took the people of the city seriously and raised them to heroic heights, because in Jim’s heart, that’s what they deserved.”

Two of Dwyer’s three brothers, Patrick and Phil, attended the ceremony. For a time in the 1970s, each of them was enrolled at Fordham: Patrick graduated from Fordham College at Rose Hill in 1975 and went on to earn a master’s degree from the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences two years later and a Fordham Law degree in 1980. Phil graduated from Fordham College at Rose Hill in 1980, one year after Jim, who was editor-in-chief of The Fordham Ram.

“Fordham was a great experience for all of us—and for Jim especially,” Phil said. “He did so well here, and he continued on to help a lot of people in a lot of different ways, so it’s nice to see that recognized.”

The event at the Lincoln Center campus brought Elizabeth Johnson, C.S.J., distinguished professor of theology, together in conversation with the prominent author James Martin, S.J.

During the buoyant conversation focused on her then-new book, Creation and the Cross: The Mercy of God for a Planet in Peril (her 11th), Father Martin credited her writings with changing his life. “Thank you,” he said, “for doing so much for making contemporary theology, feminist theology, and especially Christology so accessible to the general reader.”

Admission to the event was free, but attendees were asked to consider donating to a fund for women following in Sister Johnson’s footsteps.

Many were happy to oblige. Their gifts helped to grow the Elizabeth A. Johnson Endowed Scholarship Fund, which helps to bring more women’s voices and experiences into theological teaching and scholarship. With the field of theology—and particularly Catholic theology—dominated by men for so long, “having women involved in the whole field of thinking about religion is a great benefit,” said Christine Firer Hinze, Ph.D., theology department chair at the University.

Every year, the scholarship financially supports a woman who is finishing her doctoral dissertation, allowing her to focus full-time on her research. “When a student has a concentrated period of time to really dig in and get the dissertation done, not only does that produce a better dissertation, but it also produces more professional opportunities for the student,” said Patrick Hornbeck, D.Phil., theology professor and interim dean of the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences.

Providing such academic support is one goal of the University’s current fundraising campaign, Cura Personalis | For Every Fordham Student. Recent gifts have moved the scholarship toward providing a full year of financial support, but fundraising continues.

A Pathbreaking Career

Fordham’s graduate program in theology is highly selective, admitting only a few students per year and providing each with five years’ worth of financial support, Firer Hinze said. Students often need a sixth year to complete their dissertations, though, which is where the Elizabeth Johnson Scholarship comes in.

The scholarship was established in 2007 with a gift from Valerie Vincent, GSAS ’99, whom Sister Johnson had mentored. More than 100 other donors have contributed to it since then, often out of deep respect for her gifts as a teacher and her pathbreaking career.

A 27-year member of the Fordham faculty, Professor Johnson is internationally known for her work in Catholic systematic theology, feminist theology, ecological theology, and other fields. One of the most influential Catholic theologians in the world, she has received 15 honorary doctorates, many book prizes, and thousands of messages of thanks from believers inspired and heartened by her work.

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, the poor and oppressed, Holocaust victims, and people of a variety of faiths. Writing in The American Catholic, Joseph Cunneen called it “one of the most important and provocative books on theology to have appeared in the U.S. since Vatican II,” and religion students at universities everywhere commonly find it on the syllabus.

Her career has inspired women everywhere, Hornbeck said. In the decades following the Second Vatican Council, Sister Johnson and some of her colleagues “were the first women who really established themselves in the Catholic theological academy,” he said. “Beth, being one of the first women in that group, made it a special point throughout her career to nurture and to mentor and invest in the women theologians who were coming along behind her.”

He noted that she was the first woman to achieve tenure in the theology department at the Catholic University of America and one of the first women to serve as president of the Catholic Theological Society of America.

Inspired Teaching

Among those who attended Sister Johnson’s public talk in 2018 were Thomas M. Lamberti, FCRH ’52, and his wife, Eileen Lamberti, a former member of the Congregation of the Sisters of St. Joseph who met Sister Johnson in 1959, just after they both joined the religious order.

After getting reacquainted with Sister Johnson at a Fordham event a few decades ago, she and Thomas started attending more of her appearances. “My husband and I are great believers in her role in theology and promoting women, so Tom and I were very interested in supporting her,” she said.

Sister Johnson has won praise for presenting complex ideas in an engaging way and stimulating students’ interest and interaction in class. Eileen Lamberti sat in on one of Sister Johnson’s courses and saw that when a question was posed, “many, many hands went up”—the kind of strong response that shows a great teacher at work, she said.

Another supporter of the scholarship fund, Margaret Sharkey, PCS ’15, a former student of Sister Johnson’s, found her to be a “a natural storyteller” and a thoughtful listener.

Thomas Lamberti noted that as a retired labor lawyer, he found the scholarship’s equity aspect appealing. “Women theologians play a particular role, I think, of importance to the church, as they have a different view than men about many things,” he said.

In an interview, Sister Johnson said “it’s a whole new thing” to have women coming into the theology profession after nearly 2,000 years of men’s predominance.

“Those who contribute to this scholarship are supporting that—that women’s voice be heard in religious matters,” she said.

She said that St. Thomas Aquinas’ definition of women as “deficient men,” the governing idea in Catholicism and other traditions for centuries, needs to be countered with an “anthropology of equal giftedness” that opens theology to the experiences of women of color, the LGBTQ+ community, the poor, and others.

Diverse schools of thought, methods, and interpretations are springing up among women who are theologians, “so it’s very, very vibrant and lively,” she said. “It’s very difficult to keep up in the field now, because so much is being done on so many fronts.”

A Young Scholar Strikes Gold

Meg Stapleton Smith, the current recipient of the Elizabeth Johnson Scholarship, is in formation to be an Episcopal priest. She said the scholarship made a pivotal difference in her dissertation research focused on Mary Daly, the self-described “radical lesbian feminist” and key figure in modern feminist theology. It gave her the financial latitude to explore Daly’s archives at Smith College, where she found an unpublished manuscript—“the young scholar’s dream,” she said—that Daly wrote between the publication of her books The Church and the Second Sex in 1968 and Beyond God the Father in 1973.

The unfinished manuscript offers insight into Daly’s seemingly sudden decision to leave the Catholic Church, Smith said, and it also offers insight into other works of someone who is often dismissed by many Catholic thinkers because of her departure, Smith said. She has a contract with Cambridge University Press to publish the manuscript in an edited volume containing several feminist scholars’ reflections on it.

“This is somebody who really knew the tradition, and really knew it well—somebody who went to Switzerland to get a doctoral degree in theology when women weren’t even allowed to get Ph.D.s in theology in the United States,” she said.

“Mary Daly had this very robust understanding of the virtues,” Smith said. “One of the things that she said is the way that virtues operate, at least in Catholic moral theology, they tend to not break open our imagination. So she wanted people to understand the virtues as these tools that can help bring about societal transformation and personal liberation.”

In her dissertation, she draws upon Daly’s ideas in juxtaposing the virtue of courage with Catholic sexual ethics and seeing it as a way to counteract sexual shame. In the dissertation, she said, she argues that “when we act courageously, these are actually actions that bring us closer to God.”

Sister Johnson called it humbling and amazing to see the scholarship’s growth.

“It’s like a gift to your life that says, ‘Something that I was passionate about, and devoted all my energy to, is going to go forward in these students, these women who get the scholarship,’” she said. “It’s wonderful.”

To inquire about giving in support of the Elizabeth A. Johnson Endowed Scholarship Fund or another area of the University, please contact Michael Boyd, senior associate vice president for development and university relations, at 212-636-6525 or [email protected]. Learn more about Cura Personalis | For Every Fordham Student, our campaign to reinvest in every aspect of the Fordham student experience.

The words of renowned theologian Avery Cardinal Dulles, S.J., continue to inspire a generation of religion scholars. And it was conflict and dialogue among theologians that resulted in some of his important work.

Elizabeth Johnson, C.S.J., a long-time colleague to Dulles, the first American Jesuit ever to be named a cardinal, delivered a keynote on the “fluency of interpretation” of his thought at Dulles at 100, a recent celebration of his work and legacy at Fordham.

She began with Models of the Church, a book Cardinal Dulles wrote in 1974, after the Second Vatican Council, when conflict began to swirl among theologians as they debated different understandings of the church.

“Avery took this as a sign of vitality,” said Johnson, distinguished professor of theology emerita at Fordham. “His systematic mind created a way forward.”

In the book, Cardinal Dulles studied the writings of contemporary Protestant and Catholic ecclesiologists and laid out six major approaches, or “models,” through which the church’s can be understood: as institution, mystical communion, sacrament, herald, servant, and, in a recent addition to the book, as community of disciples.

“In this book, he showed how each these models had its own strengths, and how each also had its weaknesses. No one is sufficient to do justice to the full living reality of the church. So better to set up the dialogue among them and develop a theology that draws from the major affirmations of each,” she said.

It was not an ‘anything goes’ kind of approach,” Johnson said, but “it helped to wean ecclesiology from a one-horse sleigh way of traveling. The fluency of his way of thinking made theology even beyond ecclesiology more comfortable with pluralism, more at peace with diversity.

“To quote Avery, ‘We are as different from our medieval ancestors of the faith as the computer is different from the abacus.’ And that was written in the ’70s! ‘Thus, the religious language of one period needs to be revised for another,” Sister Johnson said.

Cardinal Dulles applied this approach not only to set topics in theology like ecclesiology, but to the teaching of the magisterium, she said, calling attention to his essay, “The Hermeneutics of Dogmatic Statements.”

The 15-page essay contained Cardinal Dulles’ six principles for interpreting doctrinal statements and a call for theologians to “refocus the message so that it speaks directly to the deepest concerns of people today.”

Johnson quoted the essay, calling attention to a great image he paints: “‘We cannot nourish people today with the stale fragments of a meal prepared for believers of the 13th, or 14th, or 16th century. We must articulate new theology with new doctrinal insights that will orient people to Christ in our day and relay the Christian message to ages yet to come.’”

She said she first read and discussed this essay under Avery’s tutelage in a graduate seminar, noting that it was something that influenced her own work and that she would go on to teach and discuss with new generations of graduate students.

“The fluency of his approach to interpreting theological differences and limitations of church teaching, an approach he later characterized in a different essay … as one of creative fidelity, opens a way to think deeply and critically about faith, and thus enables younger people to carry out the theological vocation with integrity,” she said. “Avery himself used this fluency broadly as some of his books made clear. He didn’t always carry it out. Avery was a complicated person. But this fluency, I think, is a rich part of his legacy.”

During the question and answer portion, Johnson was asked how “the Avery Dulles of later years” would look back on that essay. She said it was something the pair had discussed in his later years at Fordham.

“He never withdrew from these principles. They’re too deeply rooted in his own assessment of things. The practical way it would work out, though, is where we would differ; there would be differences.”. So if were interpreting a controversial issue, she said, he would feel he was still doing so using the principles laid out in the essay, “but with different assumptions about some people’s experiences that would lead him to a different conclusion. But, no, he never retracted. It was an interesting conversation. It was actually a painful conversation because I was writing things with which he would disagree, and so I’d say, ‘But you taught me how to do this.’ It does not change what he wrote and he stood by it.”

The daylong symposium, Dulles at 100, celebrated the late cardinal’s birth centennial and kicked off a yearlong reflection of his distinguished life and career.

Cardinal Dulles lived and worked on Fordham’s campus—first as a Jesuit scholastic from 1951 to 1953—and later as the Lawrence M. McGinley Professor of Religion and Society from 1988 until his death in 2008 at the age of 90.

“He was one of the giants of our intellectual and Jesuit communities. One of the finest theologians that the American church ever produced,” said Joseph M. McShane, S.J., president of Fordham. “He was an ambassador who built bridges. He was a gift to us.”

Raised in the Presbyterian Church and educated in Switzerland, at Choate, and at Harvard, Dulles converted to Catholicism and went on to become the first American who was not a bishop to be named a cardinal.

Of her storied teacher and longtime colleague, Sister Elizabeth Johnson, C.S.J., distinguished professor emerita of theology, said “a narrative genre has grown that we might call Avery stories.”

“There are many that I could tell of his endearing, informal interactions with students,” said Sister Johnson, who gave a keynote at the event. “Of his gracious presence as a dinner guest, of his game participation in liturgical dance, of his sense of humor at the most unexpected times, of his ecumenical passion, of his interventions and conferences or faculty meetings that occasioned laughter, frustration, or insight.”

Joseph Komonchak, Ph.D., professor emeritus of theology and religious studies at Catholic University of America, recalled a colleague who drove a car which was rumored to be handed down from his uncle, former CIA Director Allen Dulles.

“He drove that big whale of a car, that probably got nine miles a gallon, with a sticker that said, ‘Fly Dulles,’” he said.

The Elusive ‘Supermodel’

Father Komonchak said though he and Cardinal Dulles diverged theologically, Dulles always responded to an argument by complimenting the strengths of his opponent’s point of view before proceeding to dissect their thesis.

In his seminal 1974 book Models of the Church, Cardinal Dulles laid out six major approaches, or models, through which the church could be explained: as institution, mystical communion, sacrament, herald, servant, and, in a later addition to the book, as community of disciples, which attempted to encompasses the other five. The book became a standard text for many ecclesiology courses.

“He had a very modest view of systematic theology. You will recall that in Models of the Church, he used a somewhat disparaging term, supermodel, for a view that would try to combine the virtues of each of the five other models without suffering their limitations. And he expressed his skepticism that one could find any one model that would be truly adequate, for the church is essentially a mystery. Then, he said, we are therefore condemned to work with models that are inadequate to the realities to which they point,” he said. “I have long disagreed with that view of systematic theology.”

He said that the two exchanged lengthy letters on subject, until Cardinal Dulles came to believe the differences between the two to be so narrow that they were not worth debating.

“I think he also got tired of reading five page single-spaced small print letters from me,” he said.

The Migrant Church

Inspired by Dulles’ models, Peter Phan, Ph.D., Ellacuria Chair of Catholic Social Thought at Georgetown University, argued in his closing keynote remarks that the historical church as we know it would not exist without migrants, though global migration was barely on “Cardinal Dulles’ theological radar.”

In his talk, “Imagining the Church in the Age of Migration,” Phan ultimately concluded that “outside migration there is no salvation.” Riffing on the cardinal’s six criteria, Phan developed his own model by focusing on three points:

One: A good model of theology has to be both explanatory and exploratory (explanatory, meaning that a model can summarize what we know, and exploratory, meaning the model must discover new aspects of the problem). Two: A good model must incorporate experience of the church (“If it doesn’t resonate don’t do it”). And three: The model must somehow impact the spiritual mind; it has to inspire a spiritual awakening.

In his lecture about migration Phan hit all of those points. He began with shockingly raw numbers about migrants, which he counts separately from the 68.5 million refugees forced to leave their county because of war and violence last year. In 2010, there were 200 million people migrating for a variety of reasons, from floods to food shortages and violence, he said. But mass migration didn’t begin in the 21st century, he said.

“It has happened throughout history, just look at the slave trade in 19th century, 11 million Africans [faced]a form of forced migration,” he said. “Again, in the 19th century, the Great Migration from Europe brought 200 million people who voluntary moved to the U.S.”

He took issue with President Donald Trump’s assessment that United States is currently “infected” by migration. Eighty-five percent of refugees, not migrants, he said, have settled in the world’s developing nations, such as Turkey, Pakistan, or Uganda—not in Europe and not in the U.S, which recently limited the number of refugees it will accept to 30,000 for next year.

“We are not overrun,” he said.

He added that Western nations also need to remember that they are the primary cause of the crisis.

“Most of this is caused by the wars initiated by the U.S. It’s not just a social-economic issue, it’s a deeply theological and spiritual issue.”

Scholars Needed: Viewing Church History Through the Migrant Lens

He encouraged students in the room to consider writing the dozens of dissertations necessary to rewrite the history of the church through the lens of migration.

“Each of these migrations produces a new face of the church,” he said.

He noted that in the Archdiocese of Los Angeles, Mass is celebrated in 42 languages and that a parish in the Bronx celebrates Mass in five languages. In Louisiana, the Catholic priests are mostly Vietnamese, he said.

Any decent history of the church, he said, examines the church through an immigrant’s lens, whether that be through the Irish, German, and Italian migrations of the 19th century or through the Central/South American and Asian immigrations of the 20th century.

He qualified that he was speaking of the church historically, not theologically, and of catholicity in the universal sense of the word, before concluding that “Outside of migration there is no American Catholic church, period! Outside of migration there is no catholic church at all,” he said.

“Without migration, the church as a whole would not exist as catholic. No migration, no catholicity.”

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/living-the-mission/new-book-professor-makes-case-universal-redemption/ Tue, 27 Mar 2018 14:14:45 +0000 https://news.fordham.sitecare.pro/?p=87367 In her new book Creation and the Cross (Orbis, 2018), Distinguished Professor of Theology Elizabeth Johnson, CSJ, challenges us to reconsider cosmic redemption. It’s an ancient concept that fell out of favor in the 11th century, but is needed more than ever in a time of advancing ecological devastation.
Listen here:

And in a bonus track, Sister Johnson reflects on the recent death of renowned theoretical physicist Stephen Hawking, an avowed atheist.

Full transcript below:

Patrick Verel: For Christians, Jesus’ death on the cross atoned for the sins of humans, and his suffering is directly connected to our salvation. But what if there were a way to extend that belief in salvation beyond humans to all created beings? I’m Patrick Verel, and today my guest is Elizabeth Johnson, CSJ, a Distinguished Professor of Theology and author of Creation and the Cross, which was published last month by Orbis Press. Now, cosmic redemption is a big part of this book. What is it, and why has it fallen out of favor in recent centuries?

Elizabeth Johnson: Cosmic redemption is the idea that all of creation will be saved, every last galaxy, every last earthworm, every portion of the great world that God has created has a future with us in glory with God. It dropped out of awareness in churches’ consciousness pretty much around the 16th century, with the Reformation, Martin Luther and John Calvin and others focused their question on salvation of humans. The question was, how can I find a gracious God? The answer was through the death of Jesus on the cross.

The issue was, therefore, very focused on human beings and our sinfulness and our need to be redeemed. That tremendous focus on human beings blocked out the whole rest of creation. Once the Protestant reformists began asking that question, the Catholic church began responding. The debate really, the Protestants said, “We are saved by faith alone in Jesus Christ on the cross, and the grace alone.” Catholics answered back, “Yes, but we also need to do good works.” That became an internal squabble among Christians, and that diffuseness of that blocked out the rest of creation.

Patrick Verel: Why is Saint Anselm such an important figure when it comes to this story?

Elizabeth Johnson: Okay, Anselm was a 10th and 11th century theologian, a monk, and ultimately the Archbishop of Canterbury. He wrote a wonderful book in Latin called Cur Deus Homo, or in English, Why the God Man. He asked the question, why did God become human and died to save us when He could have done it some other way? He could have shed a tear or done one act of kindness, and that would have solved it.

His answer became enormously influential. His answer was, God became human and died to save us because sin offended the honor of God, and humans had to make satisfaction. Since we are just human creatures and finite, we cannot make satisfaction equal to the glory and honor of God we’ve offended, so an infinite person had to come and do it.

The only way to make satisfaction was to die, because Jesus was sinless and death was understood as a punishment for sin, a result of sin. As the sinless one, he did not have to die, so when he died, he paid back more than was owed to the honor of God. Since he didn’t need any blessing, he shares it all with his brothers and sisters.

Patrick Verel: Okay.

Elizabeth Johnson: The last line of that book Anselm writes, “And so you see, God’s mercy is greater than we could have imagined.” Now, the problem with that is for Anselm’s time, that was an argument that made sense to people because he was living in feudalism, and the lord of the manor, his word was law. There were no police forces, no armies, et cetera.

If you offended the lord, you were breaking up civil orders as well as his own honor. You had to pay it back in a visible way. What Anselm did was take that political arrangement and made it the image of God. That made it cosmic. What has developed is out of that theory is a notion of God as a supreme Lord whose honor is more important to God than God’s mercy. Jesus told parable after parable where God’s mercy violates the norms or the expectations. You think of the Prodigal Son, and so on, that you don’t have to pay back, you see.

God’s mercy comes and saves you regardless. You don’t need to pay, but it became tit for tat, like we had to earn our salvation. We have to pay back and Jesus was the one who paid it back. The cross became a prerequisite for God to be merciful, and that has done terrible damage to the image of God.

Patrick Verel: Creation and the Cross has been constructed in a dialogue form, which is similar to the way that Saint Anselm wrote many of his works. Why did you do that?

Elizabeth Johnson: I did that because Anselm has been so influential, whether you realize it or not, right? I wanted to have like an alternative to Anselm, in the same vein. So, he chose a monk named Boso, seriously B-O-S-O it’s spelled, who used to ask him a lot of questions about things, and set him up as a dialogue partner in this book.

I invented an interlocutor to myself whom I named Clara from the Latin word for light, and I said that she’s an amalgamation of all the very smart, insightful young men and women whom I have taught over the course of my teaching life. It becomes a conversation between a teacher and students in a way, that is easier to follow rather than whole paragraphs of argument.

Patrick Verel: Then the main argument of the book is that cross represents more than just salvation from sin. It’s, and I quote, “An icon of how God is present with all creatures in their suffering and death.” Now, is this a new argument?

Elizabeth Johnson: It’s a very ancient argument, but it’s one that we haven’t paid attention to, right? You can find this, again, in the Bible, in the New Testament, understandings of the death and resurrection of Christ, is that, in Jesus Christ, God became one with us in the flesh, to quote John’s gospel, right?

The flesh was human flesh, but our human flesh, we realize today, is part of the whole flesh of the community of life on earth. I mean, we take in food and air, it keeps us alive. We have evolved out of the whole community of life on earth. I’m using the expression, “Community of life,” which is a key expression in Pope Francis’ encyclical Laudato si’.

To try to make ourselves realize we’re not the only ones prancing around on this planet, but as humans, we are part of a wonderful community of life and that what we say about God, we need to bring that community of life mainstream into our dogmatic teaching and our preaching and our liturgies. The idea in scripture that when the word became flesh and dwelled among us, it was God becoming bonded personally with human beings, but also with all flesh on the earth, with matter.

His genes, Jesus’ genes were of the Hebrew line of the human race, the cells in his body were made of gases and materials that had exploded in the stars billions of years ago, just like our own. Part of God became bonded to the universe humanly, physically as a cosmic event. So, in his death, God is with all creatures who die, not just with humans, but with the pelican chick, and the deer being chased by the lion and so on.

Also, then in the resurrection of the body of Jesus Christ, it’s the beginning of the future of all flesh. If the resurrection means anything is that there’s a future for creation, that everything doesn’t end up in annihilation, but the love of God that created it all is powerful enough to redeem it all. At the end of Laudato si’, Pope Francis writes that, “At the end of history, we will all be together enjoying the beauty of God,” that’s his view of heaven, “and all creatures be splendidly transfigured,” and I’m quoting here, “Will share with us in that joy.”

Patrick Verel: So, if people took this notion to heart, how do you think that will change their outlook on life?

Elizabeth Johnson: I think it would do two things. It would expand our consciousness as human beings on this planet that we are not the king of the hill, so to speak, that we have neighbors and relatives of different species than ourselves. To put us in a context, when God spoke to Job in the book of Job, the first question God says to him is, “And where were you when I created the world?” As if you think you can rule everything. Put us back in a humble position.

The second thing that flows from that is a tremendously powerful impetus for ethics, for ecological care of the earth, for responsibility for the lives of all these others in the air, in the sea, on the land, that we are basically wiping out, making species go extinct as Pope Francis says in Laudato si’, that should be for us a cause of personal suffering to see all this death. Many people in the church are still merrily going on their way as if this is not a religious matter.

Patrick Verel: This notion that Christians have a duty to protect the environment, it’s gotten a lot of attention and obviously you delved into it in great detail in your 2014 book called Ask the Beasts, that one, and the God of Love, and as you mentioned Pope Francis had his encyclical Laudato si’. What’s the common thread between all of these?

Elizabeth Johnson: We live on a marvelous Blue Planet, and we’re destroying it, so wake up.

Bonus track

Patrick Verel: It’s so funny that we’re talking about this now, and Stephen Hawking, of all people, just died.

Elizabeth Johnson: Yes.

Patrick Verel: What was your take on him?

Elizabeth Johnson: He was fabulous. Now, he was an atheist, avowed atheist.

Patrick Verel: Yeah.

Elizabeth Johnson: And so, A Brief History of Time, you know his famous book, at the end of it he’s talking about all the ways equations can explain galaxies and this and that, black holes, everything, and he says, “What is the power that created these equations that makes the universe run this way”, and when I talk about this I always say, “In the integrity of his own atheism, he leaves that question hanging, he leaves it unanswered”, which I honor that. I mean that’s what he … He didn’t know where it all … But, as Christians, we can say, well we think we have an answer. We think this came from the love of God.

Patrick Verel: That’s interesting. It makes him seem more like an agnostic.

Elizabeth Johnson: He’s not like Richard Dawkins or those other idiots. They know nothing about religion and they dis … I mean they’re as bad as the fundamentalists, who just dismiss science.

Patrick Verel: Yeah.

Elizabeth Johnson: I mean the two of them, I wanna say a plague on both your houses, no don’t. Really, but-

Patrick Verel: We’ll edit that out.

Elizabeth Johnson: No, leave it in. No, but Dawkins, yeah, no, I mean I would say he was a rigorous atheist. He really didn’t believe there was anything remotely that he could name God anyway, but he wasn’t damning those who thought, not saying we’re all idiots if we thought otherwise, but I think having that question lined up that way, after all his study, is a beautiful in road to say, someone who lives with faith doesn’t have anymore data than the scientists do in terms of the material world, the physical world evolution and all of that. It has a different interpretation of it. It has a different take on it, sees it with different lens, and the lens says we push it to the ultimate. It comes from the infinite generosity of a loving God. And that makes my life meaningful.

So, I can’t force you to believe this and I can’t prove it either, and that’s why faith is faith. We walk by faith not by sight. It’s not proved, but you have a lot of reasons that can back it up. You have the community that’s trying to live this out, and so on and so forth.

]]> 87367 https://now.fordham.edu/living-the-mission/theologians-new-book-amplifies-voices-of-women-scholars-around-the-world/ Thu, 01 Sep 2016 15:01:56 +0000 http://news.fordham.sitecare.pro/?p=56038 A year after publishing a book that re-envisions central Christian themes from the oft-neglected perspective of women, internationally renowned theologian Elizabeth Johnson, C.S.J. has published a second book expanding the conversation to women around the world.

On the heels of Abounding in Kindness: Writings for the People of God (Orbis Books, 2015), comes Johnson’s new book, The Strength of Her Witness: Jesus Christ in the Global Voices of Women (Orbis Books, 2016), an anthology of essays by women theologians.

“The 25 authors in this book speak out boldly about the significance of Jesus, but from very different perspectives,” said Johnson, Distinguished Professor of Theology. “The point brought to the fore is that women in different cultures have their own faith experiences, and when Jesus is seen with the female gaze, powerful new insights break forth.”

While Johnson has long called for a greater inclusion of women’s voices in theological discourse, the book was inspired by pragmatic reasons, as well.

“When teaching courses on ‘Christ in World Cultures,’ I became frustrated by the fact that the good standard books were written almost exclusively by men scholars,” she said. “Using the library reserve system I was forever supplementing these materials with essays written by women in various countries.”

The title of the book is an allusion to chapter four of John’s gospel, which tells the story of the Samaritan woman at the well. In the story, the woman has a lengthy conversation with Jesus and is moved so deeply that she leaves her jug at the well and returns to town to tell everyone about her encounter. Her testimony leads many people to believe that Jesus is the messiah.

Like the Samaritan woman, the authors featured in The Strength of Her Witness testify to the significance of Jesus, Johnson said, offering diverse perspectives on critical contemporary issues, such as racism, sexism, poverty, and the exclusion of LGBT persons.

The authors have clear recommendations for these issues: amidst racism, Christ’s message includes a “profound endorsement” of black women’s human dignity; amidst sexism, Christ’s first appearance to Mary Magdalene and his instruction to “Go and tell” provides grounds for women’s public leadership today; amidst poverty, working for justice provides a liberating force.

“The authors in this book signal the dawn of a new historical era,” Johnson said. “Their work, by turn challenging, comforting, and creative, makes clear the rich contributions that flow when women are empowered, both personally and structurally. It also demonstrates how much poorer church and society remain when only one gender speaks and decides.”

In addition to prioritizing women’s voices, the book is intentional in its inclusion of authors from around the world, Johnson said. This geographic diversity illustrates that the significance of Christ is not limited to American theology or to the Western world, but arises in and belongs to all cultures and nations.

“To bring women’s voices into a long-standing male conversation is one important effort of this book. To emphasize different cultural circumstances adds even more complexity,” she said.

Both the content of the book and its editorial arrangement have a clear implication: The message, though delivered by women, is meant for all people.

“The Samaritan woman of this book’s title did not address her words to women only, but to the whole town… women and men alike,” Johnson said. “Everyone can benefit from listening to wisdom, whatever the source. The riches in this book are not for women only, but for all who seek to immerse themselves more deeply into the meaning of Jesus Christ.”

Each year Fordham faculty, students, alumni, and friends make significant achievements that bring attention to the University and its mission of educating men and women for others. The Fordham stories that were viewed most often this year were no exception. Whether the subject was a Hollywood movie of espionage and intrigue, a Jesuit dedicated to bringing laughs to his students, or an alumnus inventing his life’s gift to humanity, the stories below touched our readers’ hearts and minds, inspiring “shares” and “likes” far beyond the University community. Thanks to all who visited Fordham News this year.

Starting with No. 10, here are the most viewed stories of 2015.

10. Pope Francis: Video Messages from the Fordham Community (By News and Marketing Staff)

In recognition of Pope Francis’ historic visit to New York City, Fordham created videos of welcome, and members of its faculty and Jesuit community offered extensive commentary in the media about the visit. Pope Francis’ addresses to the U.S. Congress and to the United Nations were streamed live on campus, Fordham staff covered his public events, and students offered their questions for the pope via Fordham Instagrams.

9 . University President Joseph M. McShane, SJ, on University Culture and Bias Incidents (By Joseph M. McShane, SJ)

In a strongly worded statement, Father McShane made clear that those in the University community who commit acts of racism, sexism, homophobia, or bigotry “will face the appropriate disciplinary proceedings, in addition to whatever criminal charges are brought, when appropriate.” Father McShane’s comments were in response to two incidents in which students reported being subjected to mistreatment or the use of racist language.

8. Law Alumna Gives Backstage Scoop on Hamilton (By Tom Stoelker)

Vanessa Nadal, LAW ’10, the wife of Hamilton playwright and actor Lin-Manuel Miranda, gave a group of lucky theatergoers an insider’s view of the Broadway hit show, as part of the Fordham Alumni Culture and Entertainment (FACE) series. Nadal said she encouraged her husband to make sure that a female lead character got a rap of her own in the smash hip-hop musical. “Lin is attuned to the female roles, but I did push him a little bit,” she said.

7. Truth about Mary Magdalene Could Open Doors to Women in Church (By Joanna Mercuri)

In a lecture, Elizabeth Johnson, CSJ, Distinguished Professor of Theology, said that Mary Magdalene’s important apostolic acts have been overshadowed by Pope Gregory’s mistaken characterization of her, in 591 a.d., as a repentant prostitute. Mary of Magdala, likely a well-off independent woman, was one of Jesus’ most influential apostles, whose true story can reclaim the role of women in the church, said Sister Johnson. Today, theologians are returning to scripture to uncover more evidence of women’s contributions to Christianity.

6. Apparel Designed by Gabelli Student Makes Life Easier for Diabetics (By Joanna Mercuri)

Lacrosse player Corinne Logan, a junior in the Gabelli School of Business, found that using an insulin pump to manage her Type 1 diabetes offered her lots of freedom to move, but that it was bulky. The athlete-entrepreneur founded Pumpstash, LLC, a company which creates spandex shorts for active diabetics who use an insulin pump and a glucose monitor. Ten percent of the profits from the sale of of each pair go to support the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation.

5. This Tremendously Popular Quiz Show Host has Endowed a Million-Dollar Scholarship (By Bob Howe)

Alex Trebek, host of Jeopardy!, said that attending Fordham proved to be a transformative experience for his son Matthew, FCRH ’13. To make a Fordham education possible for others, especially students from underrepresented populations, Trebek created a $1 million scholarship for students from Harlem. The first Trebek Scholar, Estefania Cruz, is a history major who plans to become a social worker.

4. Fordham’s Funniest Jesuit Bids Adieu (By Patrick Verel)

Longtime communications professor Michael V. Tueth, SJ, retired from Fordham this year, but not without having earned a reputation as “master of mirth and the sultan of sass” among students he taught over the course of two decades. His firm belief that religion makes things funnier, coupled with his own brand of humor, led one well-known Jesuit, James Martin, SJ, to describe him as “one of the funniest people I know.”

3. Cancer Survivor Invents T-Shirts With a Purpose (By Nicole LaRosa)

In the final year of his life, entrepreneur Alex Niles, GABELLI ’11, (1983-2015), devoted his energies to founding CureWear, an apparel brand for cancer patients and their families, featuring a signature T-shirt that patients can wear during chemotherapy treatments. Although Niles succumbed to cancer in April, his spirit lives on in his family, friends, and in CureWear, which is still going strong and has given back a portion of its profits to cancer patients.

2.  2015 Commencement (By Fordham News Staff)

For the first time, Fordham created a dedicated web page for this year’s graduation and highlighted a drone video of the May 16 ceremony, Commencement 2015 From Above. Also featured on the page was coverage of the commencement speech, delivered this year by Nana Lordina Dramani Mahama, First Lady of the Republic of Ghana.

1. Metadiplomat: The Real Life Story of Bridge of Spies Hero James B. Donovan (By Ryan Stellabotte)

A FORDHAM Magazine cover story on alumnus and Cold-War-era lawyer James B. Donovan, FCRH ’37, was published on the same day that a Steven Spielberg movie about Donovan (who is portrayed by Tom Hanks) was released in theaters. The espionage thriller, in which Donovan is asked to defend a Russian agent in court and undertake a risky “spy swap,” is still playing on the big screen and looks likely to be among the Oscar-nominated films of 2015.