Q: Seven years ago you left your position as rector at Fordham to take over leadership of the newly combined USA Northeast Province of the Society of Jesus. What did you learn from your time that you’ll be bringing back to the University?

A: A large part of bringing together the New York and the New England provinces was to focus on the core features that united us. The different missions are all rooted in a common appreciation of how God labors in the world and through each of us, and our response is one of gratitude, love, and generosity.

Having been at Fordham for 15 years, I have a special interest in Jesuit higher education. What is unique about Jesuit higher education is that same spiritual foundation we’re focused on in the province. We’re in the business of not only preparing people for careers, but also informing how they see the world, how they orient themselves toward God and other people. No matter what profession they pursue, they put those gifts at the service of others, and especially the poor, the marginalized, and those members of society who are ignored or overlooked.

I think sometimes we forget to articulate that we’re not here only to introduce people to great ideas, but also to make them “men and women with and for others.” My role is to work with others in the University to keep our focus on why we are engaged in the business of Jesuit education here.

Q: What will be some of your biggest priorities?

A: One of my biggest priorities is working with the Board of Trustees. In 2013, I was asked to coordinate a meeting of the board chairs of 28 Jesuit colleges and universities with Father General Adolfo Nicolás, S.J. He said to them, ‘You are the leaders of the colleges and universities.’ In a legal sense, that’s absolutely true, but it’s also true in a mission sense. The board allocates finances and makes decisions that help people like me and others with overseeing and implementing the mission.

Another is faculty. I was a full-time member of the faculty for 15 years, so I know that faculty are very busy. The challenge is to help faculty have some time to reflect on that key question, ‘Why am I doing this in the context of a Jesuit university?’ That’s going to be through a series of talks and presentations, and through personal reflection and exploration. I’m working closely with Jim McCartin in creating initiatives that will include seminars and retreats.

We also want to expand the work that Lito Salazar, S.J.,  and campus ministry does. We want to serve the Catholic students and those who are interested in explicit religious practices, but there are others who I’m sure would benefit from programs designed to open them up to a spiritual worldview.

We also have the Center for Community Engaged Learning, which Dr. Julie Gafney just took over last year. They’ve increased the number of courses that are offered where faculty engage with students who participate in community engagement projects and integrate that work with academic work. It’s a wonderful opportunity to be of service to the poor and marginalized right here in the Bronx community.

David Gibson has been doing some wonderful talks, discussions, lectures, and seminars with the Center on Religion and Culture. I’m going to be working with him to expand that programming to include topics that would be of particular interest to younger people.

Q: Talk to me about life trap theory, which is your area of expertise in psychology. Is that going to play a part in how you approach your new role?

A: What gets in the way of productively focusing on mission are our personal, and you might say institutional, life traps. One of the life traps is overdependence. So for example, students or faculty might say, ‘Well, mission is the work of others and, I’ll let them do it.’ That’s kind of a trap because it’s shirking a responsibility that is really incumbent on all of us to participate in.

Q: This year is the Ignatian Year, which celebrates the 500th anniversary of the “cannonball moment” of St. Ignatius, the founder of the Jesuits. Why is Jesuit spirituality so important even after five centuries?

A: It was May 20 of this year that was the 500th anniversary of St. Ignatius being hit by a cannonball when he was a soldier. It was a turning point in his life because that wound literally laid him on his back, and during his convalescence, he started to read Lives of the Saints and started to think, ‘Maybe this whole ambition of worldly success is not that important—what’s really important is following Jesus Christ.’

What you might call the “cannonball moment” is what Jesuit education is all about. We’re not going to shoot students with cannonballs, but hopefully in the course of their time in a Jesuit school, their worldview gets shaken, maybe shattered, certainly rocked, and they get opportunities to radically rethink who they are, what they are, and what their purpose in life is, just as Ignatius did. So this year, we’re celebrating a focus on conversion and higher education. That’s the core mission.

Q: Does it feel more relevant given what a tumultuous time this is?

A: Pope Francis [who is a Jesuit]had something to say about that. He did a series of interviews recently and they were published in a book called Let Us Dream (Simon & Schuster, 2020). He says the pandemic is just like the cannonball for the whole world, and he hopes that the new normal will be a more radically transformed world, where we come out of it with a heightened awareness of the needs of others. He sees it as a fertile, if extraordinarily painful, moment for us.

When I went to the University Church this morning to pray, I stopped to pray before the stained-glass windows in the East Transept.

The window on the left is a rendering of the vision that St. Ignatius had at LaStorta, in which God the Father asked Jesus (who is bearing the cross) to take Ignatius as his companion. (This is where the Society’s name came from: Companions of Jesus. The vision at LaStorta also became the source of our understanding that we Jesuits are called to follow the Lord in bearing the cross.)

The window at the right shows St. Aloysius Gonzaga receiving his First Communion from St. Charles Borromeo. Aloysius, the son of an Italian Renaissance noble (whose family gave the Medicis a run for their money in corruption) entered the recently founded Society. He died ministering to plague victims in Rome. Known as one of the “boy saints,” he has been for many years the patron saint of all who minister to victims of plagues.

The juxtaposition of the windows hammered home to me how right it is for us to stand with and minister to the victims of the coronavirus pandemic.

Joseph M. McShane, S.J.

Richard J. Regan, S.J., a member of Fordham’s department of political science for 44 years, died on Feb. 21 at Montefiore Hospital at the age of 89.

Born in Morgantown, N.J., in 1930, Father Regan attended Jersey City’s St. Peter’s Prep and St. Peter’s College, where he graduated in 1948. Upon graduation, he studied for a year at Harvard University Law School. He entered into the Society of Jesus in August 1953 at St. Andrew-on-Hudson novitiate.

After completing his novitiate, he earned a degree in philosophy at Loyola Seminary in Shrub Oak, New York. He taught logic and metaphysics from 1957 to 1960 at St. Peter’s University and followed with four years of theology studies at Woodstock College in Maryland. He was ordained to the priesthood at University Church on Fordham’s Rose Hill campus on June 20, 1963. He completed his final year of study, or tertianship, at the Institute of St. Robert Bellarmine in Wépion, Belgium, in 1965 and two years later, earned a doctorate in political science at the University of Chicago.

He joined Fordham’s political science faculty in 1968, and would stay for 44 years. In addition to introductory courses on politics, he taught elective courses centered on constitutional law.

“Father Regan was a distinguished scholar of constitutional law, but equally important to his identity was his love of running and the daily long runs he completed around the Bronx botanical garden, said John Entelis, Ph.D., a professor of political science and former chair of the department.

“As a fellow runner, he and I would share the exalting experience of being outdoors, running long distances when often he would ponder the ideas for his next book. He was the embodiment of a vibrant mind fueled by a runner’s high that he maintained until he literally could no longer walk.”

During his tenure at Fordham, he also served as a visiting professor at the Rome Center of Loyola University of Chicago from 1986 to 1987 and a visiting professor at Blackfriars College, Oxford, in 1996.

In addition to serving as editor of Law and Justice: The Christian Law Review, from 1985 to 1990, Regan was a prolific writer who continued to explore the intersections of law, politics, philosophy, and religion after he stepped away from teaching duties in 2012.

In his retirement, Father Regan lived at Murray-Weigel Hall, an assisted-living facility for Jesuits near Fordham’s Rose Hill campus.

Just five years ago, he published A Constitutional History of the U.S. Supreme Court (Catholic University of America Press, 2015); before that he completed Just War: Principles and Cases, (Catholic University of America Press, 2013) and The American Constitution and Religion (Catholic University of America Press, 2013).

Father Regan devoted a great deal of scholarship to the works of Saint Thomas Aquinas, in books such as Aquinas: A Summary of Philosophy (Hackett, 2003), Aquinas: The Cardinal Virtues, (Hackett, 2005) , and Aquinas: Commentary on Aristotle’s Poetics (Hackett, 2017), which he edited.

He also penned works such as American Pluralism and the Catholic Conscience; Private Conscience and Public Law (Macmillan, 1993) and The Moral Dimensions of Politics (Oxford University Press, 1986).

Catholic University of America Press Director Trevor Lipscombe, Ph.D., said he was always touched that Father Regan would end their correspondence with a script “R,” as shorthand for the Latin word for king or queen.

“I am English, and so he thought I’d like it, as the kings and queens of England end their signatures with a script R for rex or regina,” he said.

“He would call the press often, mostly when there was some late-breaking news about the British royals that he wanted either to ask my opinion about, or share his own. The same, too, for Brexit. A Thomist who read the tabloids!” he said, referring to the school of thought revolving around Saint Thomas Aquinas.

“He invariably asked about my daughter with cystic fibrosis and—the very essence of Father Regan—he would let me know when he found something in the news about potential new treatments. Everyone who worked with him at the press had a soft spot for Father Regan, and there was much sadness when we learned of his passing. He was a phenomenal scholar, someone who loved learning, but he remained, to his core, a caring priest.”

Since 1914, the church has been celebrating the World Day of Migrants and Refugees. As I am sure you know, the plight of migrants, refugees, and asylum seekers worldwide is increasingly dire. This year, the Jesuit Conference President and Provincial Superiors of the United States and Canada have invited everyone in the Jesuit community to expand our advocacy efforts on behalf of our migrant brothers and sisters in advance of the World Day of Migrants and Refugees on September 29.

The University and its students, faculty, and staff already do much in this area, but in accordance with the letter from the President and Provincials (link below) I will be asking our cabinet and our deans to be mindful of opportunities to support migrants and refugees wherever possible, in addition to the many laudable efforts you in the campus community already make as individuals.

Thank you, as always, for everything you do in service to the human family.

Sincerely,

Joseph M. McShane, S.J.

Read the full Document: President and Provincials Letter on Migration

Jesuits begin that journey as novices, where they focus on spirituality, study the Jesuit Constitutions, and work with community—to name but a few of their responsibilities. On completion, they take their first vows and begin their scholastic stage, which is when they arrive here at Fordham, said Brendan Coffey, S.J., a scholastic in his second year of study. They arrive at Fordham having completed a bachelor’s and are seeking to complete their master’s degree.

Last week, Coffey led 10 new scholastics on a tour of the Rose Hill campus, which included a welcome from Joseph M. McShane, S.J., president of Fordham. As he has with many a new student, Father McShane advised the new Jesuits to “major in New York City” regardless of their area of interest.

Coffey graduated from Fordham College at Rose Hill in 2008, where he majored in philosophy, which is what most of the newly arrived scholastics will study during their time here. Since he completed the required coursework in philosophy during his bachelor’s studies, he is getting his master’s in theology.

“In addition to philosophy, guys will do a mix of things. There are some in the MBA program, some are getting a master’s in education,” he said. “Many Jesuits have multiple master’s degrees, some as many as three or four.”

This year’s group hails from Denver; Sacramento, California; Tampa, Florida; and several other cities across the nation, he said. They are living across Fordham Road in a residence on Belmont Avenue. Everyone in this year’s cohort is enrolled in the master’s in philosophical resources, which is open to any student, but is designed specifically for the Jesuits.

Coffey said that he got to know a few of the scholastics during his undergrad years at Fordham. It helped shaped his perception of the community and solidified his calling.

“I love New York and I wanted to have these guys feel connected, welcomed, and to own the mission of the university,” he said.

In addition to welcoming the scholastics and helping them become acquainted with Fordham, Coffey said he and his scholastic colleagues want to make their fellow Rams aware of their presence on campus and their efforts off campus in Bronx.

“We’re trying to let everybody know we’re here to study and we do apostolic work in the community,” he said. “A lot of our students think of Jesuits as old men, but there are 26 young men that live across the street and are studying with them.”

Jason C. LaLonde, S.J.,  a Florida State University graduate, worked in arts administration and  in marketing before entering the Society of Jesus in 2007. As a novice, he served in a village in El Salvador, assisting in the Jesuit parish and teaching English in an elementary school, before being missioned to Fordham, where he earned a master’s degree in philosophical resources in 2012.

For his experiential formation, Father LaLonde taught English, Latin, and Greek at Jesuit High School in New Orleans before earning a Master of Divinity degree at the Boston College School of Theology and Ministry, where he is working toward a Licentiate in Sacred Theology. He served as a deacon at the South Boston-Seaport Catholic Collaborative, ministering at three churches, and his first assignment as a priest is at Immaculate Conception Church in Albuquerque, New Mexico.

David C. Paternostro, S.J., graduated from Strake Jesuit College Preparatory in Houston and attended Texas A&M University for one year before entering the Jesuit novitiate in Grand Coteau, Louisiana, in 2005. As a novice, he taught remedial reading to second and third graders in Belize City, Belize, and enrolled at Fordham in 2007, where he earned a bachelor’s degree in psychology and a master’s degree in philosophical resources.

Father Paternostro taught and served as an assistant theater director at Jesuit High School in Tampa, Florida, before completing a Master of Divinity and a Licentiate in Sacred Theology at the Jesuit School of Theology of Santa Clara University. Ordained a deacon in October 2016, he served at Saint Mary Magdalen Parish in Berkeley, California. During his Jesuit formation, he studied Spanish in Nicaragua, learned French in Paris, and traveled with students to World Youth Day in Rio de Janeiro. He is assigned to Immaculate Conception Parish in New Orleans.

Michael J. Wegenka, S.J., attended Strake Jesuit College Preparatory in Houston and entered the novitiate in Grand Coteau, Louisiana, in 2005, working with the Franciscan Sisters at a community center and shelter in Tijuana, Mexico. After the novitiate, he earned a bachelor’s degree at Fordham and also taught confirmation classes at St. Martin of Tours Parish in the Bronx. For the next three years, he taught theology and literature at Regis Jesuit High School in Aurora, Colorado, where he also coached cross-country, took part in the vocations club, and helped lead retreats.

Father Wegenka earned a Master of Divinity degree at the Boston College School of Theology and Ministry and worked as a deacon at Boston University’s Catholic Center. He expects to earn a Licentiate in Sacred Theology from the Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C., this winter. He has studied Spanish in Peru, attended World Youth Day in Poland, and worked with the Jesuits in Kyrgyzstan. Father Wegenka is assigned to St. Charles Borromeo Parish in Grand Coteau, Louisiana.

A total of more than $72 million was raised in this five-year Jubilee cycle in time for the University’s Dondransbicentennial year, and alumni spanned multiple generations of Rams—including the Class of 1942, represented by 97-year-old Lionel Weinstein, PHA ’42.

The event also celebrated the close of the 175th year—in which several events have honored Fordham’s efforts to “break the circle of poverty” for 19th-century Irish immigrants, said Joseph M. McShane, S.J., president of Fordham.

In a welcoming speech in Duane Library’s Tognino Hall, Father McShane said Fordham continues to be a “factory of hope” for the nation and the world. He spoke with pride of a diverse array of alumni that has included several pro athletes, broadcasters, writers, scientists, Fulbright scholars, and five Medal of Honor recipients, all of whom were “called on by God to be great.”
“Lou Gehrig wasn’t the luckiest man in the world; I am,” he said of his 14-year tenure as University president.

He quoted his father, a first-generation college graduate, as having said that when he graduated from Fordham “his whole family graduated” with him.

“It’s our duty to make sure that others have the same opportunity that he had, that you had, and I had,” said Father McShane.

At events across campus, alumni recalled hardscrabble journeys echoing those of their 19th-century peers.

A Step Up

At a CSTEP reunion, Renee Hernandez, M.D., FCRH ’94, celebrated with his wife Madeline Hernandez, FCRH ’94. The two met and married on campus, and continue to bring their children back. Born and raised in the borough, Dr. Hernandez said that as a student he thought of Fordham as a “paradise in the Bronx.” Today, he invites high school and college students to intern at this private practice.

“A lot of it is about exposure, so for the high school students it’s an eye opener that anything is possible,” he said, “and for college then its opening their eyes to other things that are possible, like going to med school, getting a Ph.D., or going into law.”

Jason Atano, FCRH ’01, LAW ’04, said it was clear that Fordham has invested in the program, creating a growing community that comes back to campus each year.

“We come from communities that don’t have a high level of human capital, and this type of program provides us with access to mentorship. Now we’re able to pass along the lessons that we learn while navigating the professional world,” said Atano. “I always try to come back. You know who the students are because you were them 10 years ago.”

The two were recognized by CSTEP for professional achievement and for continued contributions to the program. Also honored were: Ada Aponte, M.D., FRCH ’99; Rev. Ransford S. Clarke, FCRH ’99; Edwardo J. Rodriguez, Ph.D., FCRH ’99; and Joy B. Tolliver, FCRH ’04.

The Sanctum Sanctorum

As Pierre Lehmuller, UGE ’57, GSE ’59, joined other alumni at Loyola Hall for “Mix and Mingle with the Jesuits,” he recalled a time when lay people were rarely granted admittance to the former Jesuit residence.

“When I had to meet a Jesuit on campus, we had to meet out on the (Loyola) porch—even if it was cold,” he said.

He said that he was finally granted admittance after he joined what was once known as the Alumni Federation.

“It is an impressive building, so being admitted into the building was a fulfillment of a dream, like I’d been admitted into the Sanctum Sanctorum. I expected St. Peter to be lurking about, saying, ‘Come in young man.’”

From Broadway to the Bronx

Mary Guardiani, UGE ’62, GSE ’92, reveled in memories at the reception for students who attended Fordham at 302 Broadway. Guardiani recalled taking a class on research methods once at Rose Hill, in which she was one of only two women; it contrasted starkly with the co-ed atmosphere of her base campus in downtown Manhattan.

“It was a very interesting experience because I learned the Jesuits weren’t interested in anything but developing your abilities,” she said. “[But] the [male]students had more problems with women in the class.

“The Jesuits’ . . . message was picked up quickly, that you had to focus on this very difficult course and that was it.”

She recalled that 302 Broadway had a large contingent of commuters from her home borough of Staten Island. “You had a community of people on the ferry boat, where you’d meet and talk for a few minutes, and then study,” she said.

Marymount Memories

At the Marymount Awards Ceremony, alumnae celebrated the announcement that the Marymount Legacy Fund broke the $1 million mark. The fund supports scholarships for young women attending Fordham.

Alumnae from the women’s college, which closed 10 years ago, gathered in Butler Commons to share a few tearful moments and memories from the Tarrytown campus.

Mary Randolph Carter, MC ‘67, an executive at Ralph Lauren, received the Alumna of Achievement award and gave a moving speech in which she quoted appreciations of the college from fellow alumni. But it was her story that most moved the crowd.

Carter shared an anecdote of having to miss the Marymount graduation for an honor at Mademoiselle Magazine, but that her mother had shown up at Marymount to “clap loudly” when her name was read anyway. The Marymount alumni surprised a tearful Carter by presenting her with her her diploma. She said she planned to share the diploma with her 95-year-old mother.

“’Mom,’ I’ll say, ‘I think I finally made it to my Marymount graduation!’”

A GSAS Centennial

At the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences (GSAS) reunion, Dean Eva Badowska, Ph.D., encouraged alumni to explore the 100-year-old history of the school. She said GSAS prides itself on having been “open to a diverse group of students and faculty” over the years, including those fleeing from Nazi persecution, such as Nobel-prize-winning physicist Victor Hess.

Sharon Dietz-Dubois and Ellen Clark, both 1986 graduates, recalled the efforts of Gerald Quinn, the late dean, to make their education at Fordham possible. Clark said Dean Quinn let her postpone, rather than forfeit, her scholarship for a year for personal reasons. Dietz-Dubois said a conversation with Dean Quinn, in which she told him she’d run out of tuition money, changed her trajectory for good.

“I came to Fordham on a wing and a prayer,” said Dietz-Dubois. “He told me ‘I’m giving you a graduate assistantship. You are going to work in my office.’ I felt like I was saved. Because of that conversation, I was able to continue my Fordham education.”

Tumultuous Times

Members of the Class of 1972 viewed a documentary about tumultuous times on campus, including a student takeover of the President’s office led by the Students for a Democratic Society. The film featured 16mm black-and white-footage of student protests, demonstrations, and arguments about the war. Contemporary interviews balanced the narrative with the perspective and wisdom that comes with age.

This was not the peace and love portrayal often associated with movies and documentaries about campus life from the period, but rather “the gritty struggles against capitalism and the Vietnam War waged by blue-collar kids in commuter schools,” said the film’s producers.

Together with Michael Bryce, FCRH ’72, and Mary Colonna, TMC’72, Robert J. Reilly, FCRH ’72, LAW ‘75, assistant dean of the Feerick Center for Social Justice, moderated a discussion that revealed how their participation in the confrontations altered the course of the alumni’s lives.

Participants recalled the very real life and death consequences that the war brought to campus. More than one alumnus recalled the screams emanating from dorm rooms when draft numbers were called. And yet not all students were against the war or having ROTC on campus, alumni said.

Gabelli Students on Investing

At the Gabelli School, a team of students talked about its strategy and choice of asset allocations used to invest a $1 million portion of the University’s endowment, through a two-semester course titled Student Managed Investment Fund. The team produced a 5.44 percent return for the semester, outperforming their benchmark.

Clarissa Cartledge, rising senior, said that part of the students’ success rested on the choice of a pharmaceutical company, Acorn, that had a merger and rose 52 percent.

“That was a really nice investment,” she said.

The course was also invaluable for its real-world aspect, said Cartledge.

“Because it’s real money you feel it is a real job, even though it’s a four-credit class. Everyone is motivated to improve the fund’s performance. We watch the news, we follow the companies and challenge each other to make correct decisions.

“We’re grateful for the opportunity to invest the endowment, and to have the confidence of Fordham behind us as well as the learning experience they are giving us.”

Bensalem’s Back

In the Walsh Library, a small contingent of alumni from Fordham’s Bensalem, an experimental college which opened in 1967 at a residence on East 191st street, gathered to reminisce. Rita Charon, M.D., a 1970 graduate, said it was a time when “the world was exploding” with the Vietnam war and a thriving counterculture.
“I was a Catholic girl from Providence, Rhode Island, and my parents let me come to New York only if I studied with the Jesuits,” she said.

Bensalem’s theme was how best to learn outside of a rigid classroom structure and an enforced ideology, and to cultivate an open mind, she said.

“Those of us who were there from the beginning . . . we’ve never given it up. We’ve been against the grain,” said Dr. Charon, founder and director of the Program in Narrative Medicine at Columbia University. “That’s why we were attracted to it.”

Janet Sassi contributed to this article.

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When members of the Society of Jesus gathered in Rome to chose a new leader last month at its 36th General Congregation, it did not take long to arrive at a consensus on October 14: Father Arturo Sosa Abascal, S.J., of the Venezuelan Province.

With his choice, the order, whose members have led Fordham since 1846, followed in the steps of the Catholic Church by selecting their first leader from Latin America.

Michael C. McCarthy, S.J., Vice President for Mission Integration and Planning, said this was unsurprising, given the fact that the region is one of the most populous areas of the world for Catholicism.

“My guess is that it’s not just a coincidence that you have a Latin American general at the same time you have a Latin American pope. We can read into that a desire to provide support for the Pope’s vision of what the church should be,” he said.

Father Arturo, a native of Caracas, Venezuela, was previously a delegate of the General for the Interprovincial Houses and Works of the Society of Jesus in Rome. A doctor in political sciences from the Universidad Central de Venezuela, he has a license in philosophy from the Andrés Bello Catholic University, peaks Spanish, Italian, and English and understands French.

Father McCarthy said the new Father General, who succeeds Adolfo Nicolas, S.J., has indicated that he would really like to collaborate with others on a global scale, but otherwise he has not indicated additional priorities. This is prudent, Father McCarthy said, and he said he hopes the new general will approach the position with care, patience, and understanding.

If asked for his advice, Father McCarthy said he would ask Father Arturo to help Jesuits in the United States set apostolic priorities. “In light of increasing demands for fewer Jesuits, we don’t have any clear sense of priority as to what we should be most invested and committed to in the longer term,” he said.

“Generals have been very good at being inspirational, and giving a philosophical, moral vision. I think we may also need more organizational vision.”

“We have lost one of the great ones today,” said Joseph M. McShane, S.J., president of Fordham. “He was so many things: a thoughtful and highly effective member of the Board of Trustees, a generous benefactor, and a dear friend. He was a man of great love and great integrity, and was singularly devoted to his family and the University. I know the Fordham family joins me in keeping his loved ones in their thoughts and prayers.”

Born in New York City on July 21, 1942, Bepler first encountered the Jesuits after his family moved to Seattle, Washington and joined a Jesuit parish, where he became an altar boy. That spiritual introduction grew into a lifelong intellectual relationship with the Jesuits that began at Seattle Preparatory School and culminated in a return to New York and enrollment at Fordham.

Two uncles and an elder brother, Peter, preceded him at the Rose Hill campus.

“They ask why on the important questions,” he once said of the Jesuits. “They’re willing to ask why, even if they don’t get the answers they want.”

At Fordham, Bepler worked six days a week, played intramural sports, and sang in the glee club, all while studying Greek and Latin. He graduated with a bachelor’s degree in classics.

He also held positions as an equity portfolio manager at American Funds Washington Mutual Investors Fund, Capital World Growth and Income Fund, and EuroPacific Growth Fund. He and his EuroPacific Growth team were twice (1999 and 2009) recognized by Morningstar’s “Fund Manager of the Year” Awards in the international stock arena. In addition to his financial work, Bepler taught a course at Stanford University for more than a decade.

“Throughout his 40-plus year career at Capital Group, Steve embodied our core values. He operated with the highest integrity, was a collaborative partner with his colleagues, and made all decisions with the investor in mind. I speak on behalf of many of our long-tenured colleagues and retirees, when I say that he will be missed,” said Tim Armour, chairman and chief executive officer of Capital Group.

“Steve Bepler was a trusted colleague and a very astute businessman,” said Robert Daleo, GABELLI ’72, chairman of the Fordham Board of Trustees. “My heart goes out to Kim and his family on their great loss. Steve was generous with his time and gifts, and both genial and straightforward in his relations with his colleagues on the Board. I will miss his wisdom and his good company.”

Bepler and his wife, Kim, were married 14 years ago. The couple gave generously to a variety of educational institutions and causes, including the Archdiocese of New York, New York Nativity Schools, and Cristo Rey New York High School in Harlem. Bepler was also a benefactor and board member of the Forman School in Litchfield, Connecticut, Barnard College, the Inner-City Foundation, the Washington Theological Union in Washington, D.C., and Fairfield University in Connecticut. Bepler had struck up a friendship with Fairfield’s president, Jeffrey von Arx, S.J., when Father von Arx was the dean of Fordham College at Rose Hill.

Bepler held several leadership positions during his tenure on Fordham’s Board of Trustees, including chair of the Student Affairs Committee, vice chair of the Mission and Identity Committee, and member of the Executive Committee. He also served as a trustee of Barnard College.

At Fordham, the couple created several scholarships, supported science education, and gave generously to the Fordham Fund. Their generosity also had an impact on several Rose Hill buildings, including the University Church, where the couple contributed toward its restoration. Two years ago, their philanthropy was recognized with the naming of Bepler Commons at Faber Hall. The Beplers are among the three largest donors to the University.

“Steve was a quiet and generous philanthropist,” said James Buckman, FCRH ’66, a member of the Fordham Board of Trustees. “While a leading benefactor of Fordham University and other Jesuit apostolic enterprises, one would rarely find his name associated with them. He preferred to endow a university chair in the name of a favorite Jesuit teacher than his own. He will be sorely missed.”

When the University honored the couple with the Fordham Founder’s Award in 2007, Kim, a successful businesswoman in her own right, spoke of her husband’s affinity for, and devotion to, his alma mater.

“I love my husband and his love of all things Fordham,” she said.

At the 2014 commencement ceremony, Bepler received the University’s highest honor: a Doctor of Humane Letters.

Throughout his life, Bepler credited the Jesuits with laying the groundwork for his success in life. He specifically honored the educators so dear to his heart by endowing two Fordham faculty chairs: the John D. Boyd, S.J., Chair in Poetic Imagination and the Karl Rahner, S.J., Memorial Chair in Theology.

Father Boyd, one of Bepler’s professors, was a distinguished scholar whose work focused on the poetic imagination and its relationship to life.

“His was the third class I ever took at Fordham,” Bepler said in 2009, speaking at an inaugural ceremony to launch the chair. “He loved to teach. He made everything interesting, which is such an important and rare quality in an educator.”

“His love of poetry was apparent both in our conversations and in his endowing a chair with the splendid tile, ‘Chair in the Poetic Imagination,’” said Heather Dubrow, Ph.D., the holder of the John D. Boyd, S.J. Chair in the Poetic Imagination at Fordham. “I will always be grateful to Stephen and Kim Bepler for enabling me to come to Fordham.”

As avid art and antique collectors, the couple traveled extensively throughout Europe and Asia.

In addition to his loving wife, Kim, Bepler is survived by three children from a previous marriage, Bettina, Peter, and Galen; his brother Peter, and sister, Cathy; and two grandchildren. He also leaves behind three dogs, to which he was devoted. 

“We all come to this end point in our lives. But I have known preciously few who have spent willingly their entire lives in full conscious preparation for this moment,” said John Kehoe, FCRH ’60, FCLC ’85, a Fordham trustee. “Steve was such a rare person. His generosity of spirit in all things was as effusive as the quickness of his wry wit and humor. He treasured the gift of his early Jesuit education and, as a true disciple, labored to extend it to as many young people as he could in as many ways as he could find to do so, right to the end of his life. Because of that, and of his wife, Kim, having shared fully in that journey, his work and spirit will continue to live and be remembered long into the future.”

It was no ordinary first edition of the book.

Earlier this year, DeLillo spent several days revisiting the novel. He made handwritten notes on nearly half of the book’s 800-plus pages, commenting on characters and themes and his creative process.

The auction, hosted by Christie’s New York, featured 74 other well-known books annotated by their authors.

Called “First Editions/Second Thoughts,” the benefit raised $1 million for PEN American Center, the largest branch of PEN International, which promotes literature and freedom of expression.

DeLillo’s copy of Underworld—with its original cover featuring Andre Kertész’s iconic image of the Twin Towers, a church in the foreground and a lone bird flying near the buildings—brought in the second-highest bid of the evening. (Only one other work, Phillip Roth’s American Pastoral, with a winning bid of $80,000, raised more money for PEN.)

For years, DeLillo has participated in PEN-sponsored public readings to raise awareness of human rights abuses and help persecuted writers throughout the world speak truth to power.

“Writers who are subjected to state censorship, threatened with imprisonment, or menaced by violent forces in their society,” he said in a 2010 interview, “clearly merit the support of those of us who enjoy freedom of expression.”

The Shots Heard Round the World

DeLillo’s magnum opus opens with a bang—two bangs, actually, both based on actual events.

At the Polo Grounds in Manhattan on Oct. 3, 1951, Bobby Thomson hits a home run to help the New York Giants win the National League pennant. The game-winning blast is dubbed the Shot Heard Round the World.

Meanwhile, on the same October day, the U.S. government learns that the Soviet Union has successfully tested an atomic bomb.

The two events are fused in the novel through a fictionalized version of J. Edgar Hoover, real-life director of the FBI, who was at the Polo Grounds that day.

In one of his notes on the book, DeLillo describes the front page of the October 4, 1951, edition of The New York Times, which featured matching headlines about the dramatic game and the atomic bomb test, each headline the same size, in the same typeface.

“I discovered this coupling at a local library—on the microfilm device—while reading a news story in Oct. 1991 on the 40th anniversary of a famous ballgame,” DeLillo writes.

The juxtaposition fired his imagination. He once told an interviewer that he felt the events marked a “transitional moment” in American history, a change in the tenor of the times.

“The ballgame was a unifying and largely joyous event, the kind of event in which people come out of their houses in order to share their feelings with others. … With the onset of the bomb, the communal spirit becomes associated with danger and loss rather than celebration,” he said.

“And the sense of catastrophic events, framed and defined by TV, grows ever stronger: assassinations, terrorist acts, even natural disasters.”

An Underground History, Five Years in the Making

In a note on the book’s title page, DeLillo explains why he called the novel Underworld. “Title applies to a number of events and themes ranging from J. Edgar Hoover’s presence in the Prologue to an underground nuclear explosion in the Epilogue,” he writes, “from subway graffiti to a (fictional) movie directed by Sergei Eisenstein (etc.).”

After the prologue, the novel jumps to Arizona in the early 1990s and introduces one of the book’s central characters, middle-aged Nick Shay, a waste-management executive with a deeply troubled past.

When Nick was 11 years old, growing up in the Bronx, his father went out to buy Lucky Strike cigarettes and never returned home. Nick imagines that his dad, a small-time bookie, was whacked by the mob. And his young life becomes defined by his father’s absence and an ever-present sense of violence.

The narrative of Underworld moves backward in time, from the 1990s toward a reckoning with the day—Oct. 4, 1951—when a 17-year-old Nick kills someone. He serves time in a juvenile correctional facility and is later sent to a Jesuit reform school before establishing a more stable, middle-class life for himself.

Throughout the novel, Nick and various other characters reckon with historical events and cultural forces that shaped the second half of the 20th century: the rise of the Internet and global capitalism, nuclear proliferation and waste, the construction of the Twin Towers, the Vietnam War, rock and roll, the ’60s counterculture, and the Cuban Missile Crisis, among others.

DeLillo’s Bronx, Jesuit Roots

Like the fictional Nick Shay, DeLillo grew up in the Belmont section of the Bronx, a stone’s throw from Fordham’s Rose Hill campus.

In some of his notes on the book, he calls attention to the parts of Underworld that were drawn from his own experiences.

“I didn’t realize until now,” he writes on one page, “that there was so much of the Bronx in this novel.”

DeLillo, who earned a bachelor’s degree at Fordham in 1958, recently told an interviewer that he felt he was “the only guy in America who walked to college.” On another occasion, years ago, he said that at Fordham “the Jesuits taught me to be a failed ascetic.”

The University is mentioned a few times in Underworld, and there’s even a fictional Jesuit, Andrew Paulus, S.J., who holds “a chair in the humanities at Fordham” and later instructs Nick at a Jesuit reform school in Minnesota.

In one scene, a Bronx high school teacher tries to persuade Father Paulus to talk with Nick, then a 16-year-old boy he describes as bright “‘but lazy and unmotivated.’”

“‘I’m speaking on behalf of the mother now,’” the teacher says to the priest. “‘She wondered if you’d be willing to spend an hour with him. Tell him about Fordham. What college might offer such a boy. What the Jesuits offer.”

At the reform school, Father Paulus introduces Nick to the word quotidian, calling it “an extraordinary word that suggests the depth and reach of the commonplace.”

As an adult, Nick reflects on the education he received and how it shaped his life and career. “The Jesuits,” he says, “taught me to examine things for second meanings and deeper connections.”

“He speaks in your voice, American … ”

The first sentence of Underworld was the last one that DeLillo wrote for the novel. In his notes, he refers to it as “a final addition to what I’d previously considered a complete manuscript.”

The reference to an American voice calls to mind the title of DeLillo’s first novel, Americana, and his stature as one of the country’s most celebrated literary voices.

In September 2013, more than 40 years after he published his first novel, he received the inaugural Library of Congress Prize for American Fiction.

The award “seeks to commend strong, unique, enduring voices that—throughout long, consistently accomplished careers—have told us something about the American experience.”

Outside, more than three dozen Salvadoran soldiers had surrounded the University of Central America’s (UCA) Pastoral Center, where the six priests lived. Forcing their way into the quiet residence, the soldiers dragged the Jesuits outside and ordered them to lie facedown on the ground.

That morning, the world awakened to news of the most gruesome attack in El Salvador since the 1980 assassination of Archbishop Oscar Romero. The six Jesuits had been executed in their front garden, while their cook Julia Elba Ramos and her 15-year-old daughter Celina—who had taken refuge at the residence after fleeing violence near their own home—had been shot to death in the bed they shared.

A Commitment to Justice

November marks 25 years since the killings, which have become emblematic of the civil war that ravaged El Salvador in the 1980s. An estimated 75,000 Salvadorans were killed in the decade-long war between a people’s movement and a U.S.-backed military government.

Father Ellacuría and his fellow Jesuits had responded to the violence by transforming UCA into a source of information about the political, economic, and social problems plaguing El Salvador. They documented the kidnappings, torture, and mass killings committed by military “death squads” and offered UCA as a venue for open debate.

“Father Ellacuría envisioned a new kind of university, one that focused all of its resources on what he called the ‘national reality,’” said Charles Currie, S.J., former president of Wheeling College and Xavier University. “He said the university had to be committed to teaching, doing research, and engaging in social outreach.”

Justice has always been at the heart of the Jesuit ethos, Father Currie said, but the dire situation in Latin America called for something radical. In 1975, Pedro Arrupe, S.J., Superior General of the Society of Jesus, called for the Jesuits to be “men for others” and implored them to embrace a “faith that does justice.”

“Our mission to proclaim the Gospel [demands]of us a commitment to promote justice and enter into solidarity with the voiceless and the powerless,” he wrote in the fourth decree of the 32nd General Congregation.

He also issued a caution: “If we work for justice, we will end up paying a price.”

Coming to UCA’s Aid

Following the murders, Father Currie traveled to El Salvador as a representative of Georgetown University. Many American Jesuits were coming to UCA’s aid, including the late Dean Brackley, S.J., who at the time was on the Fordham faculty. They found the capital, San Salvador, still embroiled in violence.

“We would go to meetings and would have to walk through gauntlets of soldiers, who would hit us with the butts of their rifles,” Father Currie said. “There was a lot of fear. You never knew what was going to happen when you opened the door—who would be out there and what they were going to do.”

At UCA, signs of the massacre were still evident.

“We went down there in early January, just over a month after the killings,” Father Currie said. “Blood was still on the ground. Everything had been left just as it was that night.”

And yet, there were also signs of what UCA had been a part of before it bore witness to the events of Nov. 16. The campus was alive with students walking to class or stretched out on the grass talking with classmates. Despite the trauma it suffered, UCA had refused to allow its spirit to be violated.

Justice and the Jesuit Campus

In the 25 years since the murders, Jesuit institutions have kept social justice at the core of their mission. A number of national initiatives evolved in direct response to El Salvador. Two of these are the Ignatian Family Teach-In for Justice, a yearly gathering to advocate for social justice issues, and the Ignatian Solidarity Network, which promotes leadership and advocacy among students and alumni.

Individual Jesuit institutions have responded on the local level withthe same ardor. Many Jesuit schools have centers dedicated to social justice, such as Fordham’s Dorothy Day Center for Service and Justice. Grounded in the philosophy of “men and women for others,” the center connects Fordham with the local community to promote service and solidarity.

“Our aim is to invite faculty and students into local partnerships that can place our hearts, research, and resources within the wider community,” said Jeannine Hill-Fletcher, Ph.D., faculty director of Fordham’s service-learning program. “We are inspired by Ignacio Ellacuría’s vision that the university is a social force and its heart must reside outside its gates.”

“I think it’s fair to say that no Jesuit campus today was the same after the killings in El Salvador,” Father Currie said. “Fordham has responded very generously to this vision, along with all of the Jesuit schools, by consciously committing to serving their local communities. I think that can trace back to what happened in El Salvador.”

To mark the 25th anniversary of the murders, presidents of Jesuit colleges and universities, advocates, U.S. politicians, and many others will travel to El Salvador. The delegation will meet with the nation’s leaders about urgent issues in the aftermath of the war, as well as visit sites related to the Jesuit martyrs.

The hope, Father Currie said, is to ensure for the Salvadoran people the justice that the Jesuits and their companions were denied.

“Peace without justice is not enough,” he said. “That doesn’t mean we should seek vengeance. But it is very important that we name the injustice so that we get to the root of the problem. Otherwise, peace becomes very fragile.

“The killing of the Jesuits represents a challenge to do just that,” he continued. “This 25th anniversary commemoration is the opportunity to recommit ourselves to a faith that does justice.”

The Westchester campus will celebrate a special liturgyThursday, Nov. 13.

Also on Thursday, Nov. 13 there will be a lecture at the Lincoln Center campus on the Jesuit martyrs and how they have influenced Jesuit institutions in the United States.

Twenty students will be attending the Ignatian Family Teach-In from Nov. 15 to Nov. 17, where Fordham theology professor Michael Lee will also speak.

At Rose Hill, there will be a prayer vigil on Sunday, Nov. 16 at 7:30 p.m., followed by an 8 p.m. Mass in the University Church, celebrated by Claudio Burgaleta, S.J. A meal of pupusas, a traditional Salvadoran dish, will be served after Mass.