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.

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.

For Christians, the week allows the faithful to commemorate the events of Jesus’ Passion, to mourn his death on Good Friday, and to celebrate his rising from the dead on Easter Sunday. Passover brings Jewish families together to share in the Seder, the ritual dinner that consists of storytelling, prayers, and symbolic food items.

But this year, with the COVID-19 pandemic forcing people to stay apart, families will miss out on these traditions.

“Normally, I would enter the Week in the company of a great throng of other believers and be buoyed up, consoled, and strengthened by their faith,” Joseph M. McShane, S.J., president of Fordham wrote in his April 5 pastoral message. “Normally, I would enter with holy dread holding a bit of the upper hand over eager longing. Normally I would pause before plunging into the Week to ask for the grace to walk with the Lord Jesus with unflinching courage. Normally. But this year and this Holy Week are anything but normal. We will not find ourselves in the company of large throngs. We will enter it and walk through it in a solitary way. We will all of us enter it with more longing than usual.”

This solitude is in contrast with the instinct people of faith have during times like these, said J. Patrick Hornbeck, II, Ph.D., chair and professor of theology.

“Think about the last major set of crises in New York City—9/11, the financial crisis of [2008 to 2009], people in these moments reported coming together,” he said. “Folks came together in their houses of worship, whether those be churches, synagogues, mosques, or whatever it might be, and that of course parallels trends throughout history. People, when faced with life and death catastrophes, very often turn to their religious leaders for solace or guidance or comfort. I think it’s been particularly painful for believers, and for clergy too.”

Feeling the Absence

For Anne Golomb Hoffman, a professor of English and comparative literature at Fordham, this means moving her family’s ritual into a “Zoom Seder.”

While this will still allow them, and many other families who decide to celebrate virtually, to gather and participate in some of the songs and storytelling that goes along with the evening, it will be shorter and will lack the physical connection they are used to.

“We’ll acknowledge the difference and at the same time acknowledge the bonds that tie us together,” she said.

Around Passover, there’s always extra room at the table for people who might not have somewhere to go, Hoffman said, so that piece will be missing this year.

“This is so deeply a time when people gather together, and within my own synagogue community, there’s always an awareness of who might need a place at the Seder table,” she said. “There’s always that opening to a larger bringing of people together so I think there’s a terrible awareness of social isolation, social distancing, and our efforts to connect and to affirm.”

For Christians, the days leading up to Easter Sunday often incorporate many physical traditions that the church community participates in.

“Think of the foot washing on Holy Thursday, remembering how Jesus knelt before his disciples, like a lowly servant, to wash their feet,” said Thomas J. Scirghi, S.J., associate professor of theology. “On Good Friday, we will miss the veneration of the cross, when we individually express our gratitude for Christ’s suffering and accept the truth, that through the cross we have been saved. On Saturday night, at the Easter Vigil, we will miss seeing the new fire symbolizing Christ as the light of the world, leading us out of the darkness of sin to the light of eternal life.”

A Deeper, Personal Connection

But despite the absence of being physically present, both Scirghi and Hoffman said that these holy days, with the readings that come with them, are well suited to help believers get through these uncertain and challenging times.

Scirghi said that even during normal times, many Christians around the world don’t often have access to a priest or local church. For those who usually do have a local congregation, this experience of self-prayer and isolation can allow them to connect to those who usually don’t, as well as make their own connections with Jesus.

“It is a way to identify with Christ even more,” he said. “Your own experience of feeling isolated may give you an idea of what Jesus experienced. And, as we believe, he accepted all of this out of obedience to his Father, and for love of humanity. “

He also said that the Lenten season in general often has a feeling that “something is missing,” whether it’s the Gloria or the Alleluia that are removed from the liturgy for the entire 40 days, or how the altar is stripped on Holy Thursday and crucifixes and statues are covered throughout the week.

“We are living in the “absence,” that is, the awareness that something is missing, and we need to wait for it to be filled again,” Scrighi said. “Catholics do not fear absence. The Lenten liturgy is “filled with” the absence … all this time we live in the absence. How countercultural. The popular culture would have us fill up whenever we feel empty. But now we wait, aware of what is missing, praying patiently for the day when the Lord will return in glory.”

Hoffman said for Passover, the story of how the Jewish people escaped bondage in Egypt also offers a chance to reflect on current events.

“An amazing facet of this retelling is the commandment that each person should experience this coming out of bondage, this liberation, as if it’s happening to you,” she said. “In the modern era, the Haggadah, this text that sort of guides your prayers and retelling, is open to contemporary (issues)—to the Holocaust, to the birth of the state of Israel, to the refugee crisis—it is a text that opens up to acknowledging a particular historical moment that people are in.”

For this moment, in the midst of a pandemic, Hoffman said people can look to the Passover story and see how a collective group can get through a struggle together.

“There’s a collective affirmation of ‘we come through this together’ and it’s really open toward the larger human community—I think that’s really a facet of the Seder in the modern era,” she said. “It’s very Jewish and very historically Jewish and at the same time, it incorporates a recognition that the narratives of liberation, of bondage, are something shared with the larger human community.”

Connecting Virtually

The COVID-19 pandemic has required many faith leaders to get creative with how they can provide virtual offerings to their communities, Hornbeck said.

“The starter version of this for religious communities seems to be live streaming services that they previously did not livestream,” he said. “There’s obviously advantages to that—people who are looking for something like “normal” in their lives, they can pull up a video and they can see something like their ordinary service. The downside though, is a unidirectional experience—you watch passively while someone somewhere else does something.”

Some communities, such as the Church of Heavenly Rest, an Episcopal church in New York City, have taken to adding new offerings to connect people during this time, such as a daily prayer group with an active live chat, Hornbeck said.

“The chat function there has proven to be really valuable because folks can write out their prayers and everyone can see them,” he said. “You can have the official service going on and then also individual reflections going on.”

Scirghi said that he believes there’s something for the clergy and participants to learn from this period of virtual worship.

“Perhaps this new experience will provide a new perspective on our regular worship, so that we may come to see and hear in a new way,” he said. “We may notice our prayers and rituals anew. If nothing else, the virtual worship may leave us longing for ‘the real thing,’ that is, to get back inside the church alongside the people of God.”

WFUV 90.7 FM and wfuv.org will air Fordham’s Good Friday service at 8 p.m. on April 10 and Easter Sunday Mass at 11 a.m. on April 12. Easter Sunday’s Mass will also be live streamed.

For more information, visit fordham.edu/info/20094/campus_ministry.

In “Pope Francis Goes to Washington… and Philadelphia… and New York,” theology professor Patrick Hornbeck, PhD, asked author James Martin, SJ, to weigh in on Pope Francis’ meeting with Kim Davis, the county clerk who refused to issue same sex marriage licenses.

“I was really upset,” said Father Martin, sitting in front of a split-screen image of the pope and Davis. “It made it difficult for people to reflect on the visit.”

Father Martin refused to join the growing chorus of blame aimed at Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò, the Apostolic Nuncio to the United States who is reported to have permitted the encounter in the Washington D.C. Vatican mission. However, he criticized Davis’ lawyer, Mat Staver, for turning a private meeting into a “publicity stunt.”

“That’s the thing I found very craven,” he said.

The Davis distraction shifted the focus from other issues and from the pope’s values, which Father Martin said were on display from the moment he got into his tiny Fiat at the airport and not a limousine.

A frequent guest commentator in the media, Father Martin was on hand to do commentary for TV during the pope’s speech to the U.S. Congress. He said he received an embargoed copy of the papal speech, and was moved by what he found.

“It was four words: Dorothy Day, Thomas Merton,” he said. “I started to cry when I saw their names.”

Catholic Church hierarchy, he said, had shabbily treated the two. He noted that Francis Joseph Cardinal Spellman once told Dorothy Day that she couldn’t use the word “Catholic” in her Catholic Worker organization. And the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops had excised the writings of Thomas Merton from the Adult Catechism, he said.

“I was moved to see these two people raised up and rehabilitated in front of Congress and the whole country,” he said. “He reminded us of our heritage by saying, ‘Look at who you are and look at who you can be,’” said Father Martin.

Pope Francis showed up at Fordham tonight, wearing his Fordham gear. He told me to tell everyone, “Don’t forget to pray for me…And go Rams!” #Repost @mtrer @jamesmartinsj says hi, @jakebraith and Jonathan! #Fordham4Francis #jesuiteducated #blessed   A photo posted by James Martin SJ (@jamesmartinsj) on Oct 6, 2015 at 6:05pm PDT

He said that church leadership here in the United States generally fell in to three camps: the group that supported the pope from the beginning, a group that doesn’t understand him but is open minded, and a third group that does not care for his message.

“The buzzword among Catholic critics is that he’s ‘confusing’ people,” he said. “But whenever you have a new boss in any organization it takes a while to get used to them, so for the some of the [resistant]bishops you can’t blame them.”

Father Martin noted that Pope John Paul II and Pope Benedict appointed many of the bishops. They were encouraged to administer in a certain way, so its not surprising that they would chafe at new directives, he said.

However, now that many had met the pope in person during his visit, a new trust might develop.

Even though there was a “shocking lack of women in his visit,” Father Martin said the pope went out of his way to praise women religious.

“Women may not have been present on the altar, but they were certainly present in his mind.”

Hornbeck also shared a series of projected images that prompted a variety of responses from Father Martin, including  an image of an inmate’s tattooed hand shaking the pope’s hand.

“Saints are real people,” he said. “I think we have a saint alive and among us. He has an unerring pastoral sense, because he’s been a pastor. You can’t fake that stuff.”

The event was sponsored by the Department of Theology.