Traina delivered her talk, “This Year’s Model: Updating Dulles,” after being installed as the second Avery Cardinal Dulles, S.J., Chair in Catholic Theology. The chair was established in 2009 in honor of Avery Cardinal Dulles, S.J., who was the Laurence J. McGinley Professor of Religion and Society at Fordham from 1988 until his death in 2008. The first holder of the chair, Terrence Tilley, Ph.D., professor emeritus of theology, was also present.

Traina began by noting that Cardinal Dulles’ groundbreaking book, Models of the Church, (Penguin Random House, 1973) was a perfect example of his “creative approach to ecclesiology,” because its use of models instead of strict definitions offered a path forward.

“His vocation was to help ordinary Christians understand and be inspired by the church so that we could embody it. Divided over gender and sexuality, abortion, racism, war, economics, and even sacraments, we need his wisdom now more than ever,” she said.

Dulles’ book described the church in terms of different models: an institution, a mystical communion, a sacrament, a herald, a servant, and a community of disciples. It was published right after the conclusion of Vatican Council II, which, Traina said, “let a thousand ecclesiological flowers bloom,” and encouraged Catholics to think about different ways of communing with God.

To the many ideas put forth about the church during Vatican II, she said, “Dulles replied that we should run toward multiplicity, not away from it. Because the church is a mystery—a graced reality beyond our full experience or knowledge in this life—only by embracing many simultaneously true visions of the church could we even begin to capture the church’s full reality,” she said.

The Woman by the Well

Traina said that during his life, Dulles knew that his own ideas—groundbreaking as they were at the time—would need to evolve. Building on his work, she suggested that an image of a Samaritan woman meeting Jesus in the Gospel of John, when seen through the lens of queer and feminist theology, inspires a vision of inclusiveness that the church aspires to but fails to live up to.

In the story, the woman was Jewish, as Jesus was, but as a resident of Samaria, she would have been eyed with suspicion by residents of Jerusalem. In the story, Jesus stops in the town and encounters the woman who, by virtue of being alone at noon, must be someone of “ill-repute.” 

He offers her “living water,” in exchange for a drink from the well, but it is not until he tells her that he knows about her five husbands and her lover that she recognizes him as a prophet. Traina noted that womanist scripture scholar Wil Gafney has said that this is where “Jesus shows up in the place where private lives become public fodder…. where those who have been stigmatized and isolated because of who they loved and how they loved, thirst.” 

“Jesus welcomes all whose loves the world shames,” Traina said.

What’s also relevant is that for a time, Samarians had worshiped the gods of five foreign tribes, even though, as the woman explains to Jesus, they firmly expected the Messiah. His knowledge of her “five husbands” is what lets him pass her test, proving he is the messiah.

“The question is not whether the Samaritan woman is worthy of Jesus, but whether he is worthy of her,” Traina said.  

In addition to showing that a person who is “only a lay person” can be theologically sophisticated, Traina also noted that the woman points out that Samaritans worship on a mountain, and not in Jerusalem, as the Orthodox Jews do.

“Jesus could have responded by saying, ‘That’s OK, we’re inclusive, from now on you can worship with us in Jerusalem; we welcome you to join us there.’” she said.

“Instead, he says, ‘Woman, believe me, the hour is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. … the hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshippers will worship the Father in spirit and truth.’”

John’s message, she said, is that Jesus preserves diversity:  Samaria does not have to follow the style of Jerusalem to be faithful, but neither does Jerusalem have to follow the style of Samaria. The same goes for Christians of all varieties today.

She noted that the time is right to reexamine Dulles’ models, because in recent years, American Catholics have given into a temptation that Dulles himself emphatically condemned, “sliding from acknowledging the church’s institutional dimension to equating church with “institution”—at the expense of its other essential characters.”

This has led to clericalism, which places all power in the hands of clergy; juridicism, which leads to excessive policing of who is “in” and therefore eligible for the benefit of the sacraments; and triumphalism, which Dulles wrote “dramatizes the Church as an army set in array against Satan and the powers of evil,” Traina said. 

Catholics can look to the example of the woman at the well as they wrestle with the ways that race and sexuality get in the way of true inclusivity, she said.

“With respect to God, the distinction between Jerusalem and the mountain, between Israel and Samaria, has dissolved, for the Samaritans but also for the Jews in Jerusalem.  There is no inside, no outside. Rather, there is just “spirit and truth.”

But thanks to a recently created named research fund, Chandra, an economics Ph.D. student in the Graduate School Arts and Sciences (GSAS), will be able to continue the research for her dissertation, which focuses on the causes of education gaps in her native India.

Good Motivation

Speaking from her hometown near New Delhi, Chandra said the Donna Smolens Summer Research Fellowship in Economics, of which she is the second recipient, will help her manage her living expenses so she can continue to pursue her research without getting a paid job.

“I was checking my email almost every day since I came home, and it was really exciting to get some good news,” she said, noting that she has all the data she needs to work on what will be a chapter in her dissertation.

“It’s good motivation to get it done.”

Summer Funding Is Critical

Chandra’s is a story that is becoming more common, as GSAS has expanded its summer funding opportunities with the help of generous benefactors like Smolens. Melissa Labonte, Ph.D., interim dean of the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, said that because most Ph.D.-level programs are only funded in nine-month intervals, summer fellowships are critical. GSAS currently has 24 endowed scholarships and fellowships that benefit students enrolled across 35 doctoral and master’s degree programs.

“Every single internship or opportunity a student might otherwise avail themselves this time of year is drying up very quickly because of the pandemic, so right now we’re in the midst of enhancing the support we provide students in the summer,” she said.

“We want to them be able to continue to make progress on their research, and we also want them to get mentoring support.”

‘It Made My Career’

Smolens said she funded the fellowship because the help she received as a Fordham student was instrumental in her success. After graduating from Fordham College at Rose Hill in 1979 and GSAS in 1981, she embarked on what would become a long and thriving career in finance. She retired in 2020 as a senior adviser with Insight Partners, a leading global private equity and venture capital firm.

Her undergraduate studies at Fordham were made possible with a partial scholarship and she attended graduate school with aid from William Hogan, S.J., the founder of the Fordham Industrial Economics Research Institute. Father Hogan hired her to be his research assistant, and when it came time to look for a job, career services arranged for her to interview with the bank Manufacturers Hanover Trust.

“I think I was the only Fordham person to get an offer, and it made my career, no question,” she said.

“How did I do that? The maturity and experience I got from working with Father Hogan those years allowed me to stand out against other students. Fordham really prepared me really well, and this is why I wanted to give back.”

Investigating Bitcoin

In addition to the Smolens fellowship that was first offered last year, this spring GSAS offered for the first time a Dominick Salvatore Summer Research Fellowship in Economics, named for Dominick Salvatore, Ph.D., currently a Distinguished Professor of Economics. It was funded by Sherif Assef, FCRH ’81, GSAS ’82, ’94, Luca Bonardi, GSAS ’99, and Selena Schneider, GSAS ’01.

While Chandra’s research is focused on analyzing a unique dataset from India on factors affecting education, such as family and school inputs, Janhavi Tripathi, the recipient of the Salvatore Fellowship, is training his sights on global cryptocurrency markets. Because currencies such as Bitcoin are still relatively new, there are still questions about whether market prices for the cost of individual units of the currencies reflect all publicly available relevant information and would be considered “efficient.”

In addition to measuring whether markets are efficient, Tripathi also researches how Blockchain technology can be used to make global remittances fast and more reliable. The movement of money from wealthy nations such as the United States to developing countries like India is expected to increase to $1.03 trillion by 2022, he said.

“Financial inclusion is one of the big gains from this. If Blockchain technology can be used to help global remittances, a lot of time that can be saved and a real gap can be bridged,” said Tripathi, who is also using his grant to cover living expenses.

Retired Professor Gives Back

Bridging gaps is something that Terrence Tilley, Ph.D., understands as well. Tilley, a professor emeritus and retired chair of Fordham’s Theology Department, has for the past year funded the Theology Graduate Student Development Fund. Rather than fund summer research, it funds travel for graduate students to either conduct research or present findings at academic conferences, such as the annual Leuven Encounters in Systematic Theology conference in Belgium that Fordham theology students have traveled to over the years.

Tilley has first-hand knowledge of the value that travel adds to research. In 1974, he traveled to England to do archival research and interviews as part of his doctoral dissertation, while his wife, the late Maureen Tilley, Ph.D., stayed at home with their daughter.

“Maureen and I were very poor grad students, but we scraped together as much money as we had, and I flew to England, where I found a manuscript that supposedly never existed, or had been lost,” he said.

The manuscript, an essay titled “On Revelation,” was written by Ian T. Ramsey, who was Bishop of Durham from 1966 to 1972. Tilley was able to cite it in his well-received dissertation and would go on to publish 10 books and nearly 100 academic papers over a career spanning four decades. But he noted that on one occasion while he was away, Maureen and their daughter had to settle for popcorn dusted with parmesan cheese for dinner until payday came the next day.

“I hadn’t thought of that adventure in terms of funding this graduate fellowship, but it may have been in my subconscious,” he said, laughing.

“Ramsey’s widow not only let me interview her for 10 hours but put me up overnight. I encountered such generosity on this trip, not only from her, but from other people. It was a remarkable experience, and to be in a position to be able to contribute to others being able to travel and doing research, it makes me feel good,” he said.

Labonte noted that all the donors who funded the fellowships did so before the COVID-19 outbreak.

“I don’t know if they even understood how incredibly impactful their gifts were going to be, especially this summer,” she said.

“It brings into stark relief the value of having engaged philanthropic leaders for your school in good times and bad. Certainly in times like these, students really need that support more than ever.”

Terrence Tilley, Ph.D.

Tilley was recognized at the society’s 67th annual convention in St. Louis, MO. He received the award from John Thiel, Ph.D., professor of religious studies at Fairfield University and the society’s current president.

“I can think of no one more deserving of the John Courtney Murray Award than Terry Tilley,” said Joseph M. McShane, S.J., president of Fordham. “In his sober scholarship, collegiality, and measured analysis of matters theological, Dr. Tilley sets the standard for academic theologians. I know I speak for the Fordham community when I say we are lucky to have him as a colleague.”

In presenting the award, Thiel praised Tilley for his administrative work, his teaching, and his scholarly contributions, which include ten books and more than 60 articles.

“Ever concerned about the theological encounter between the epistemological question of how reason knows and the ecclesial question of how faith believes and acts, his career-long work continues to make an important contribution to theology’s traditional task of faith seeking understanding.,” said Thiel.

Tilley, in accepting the award, acknowledged his fond belief that theology is a “team sport.”

“That’s a crucial thing, because it’s not merely that if we don’t hang together, we shall surely hang separately. It’s because as theologians, we are teachers, but we are first learners. We are people who speak, but first we have to listen.”

“I have learned from so many in this room from whom I am so grateful,” said Tilley.

The CTSA is the principal association of Catholic theologians in North America. With a membership of more than 1300, the CTSA is the largest professional society of theologians in the world.

Tilley is the 41st theologian to be honored with the award, which is named after the great American theologian known for his work on religious liberty.

Among previous recipients are the late Canadian theologian, Bernard Lonergan, S.J., Margaret Farley, R.S.M, the Gilbert L. Stark Professor Emerita of Christian Ethics at Yale Divinity School, Virgilio Elizondo S.T.D., Professor of Pastoral and Hispanic Theology at the University of Notre Dame and a noted Liberation theologist, and Fordham’s own Elizabeth Johnson, C.S.J., Distinguished Professor of theology.

For more on Tilley and his research, read the INSIDE FORDHAM interview.

Several members of the University community were on hand for the Cardinal’s elevation, including trustees, faculty and administrators.

(L to R) John N. Tognino (FCLS ’75), chairman, Fordham University Board of Trustees; Cardinal Designate Timothy M. Dolan; Norma Tognino; Barbara Costantino; and John R. Costantino (FCRH ’67, LAW ’70), Fordham trustee emeritus.

Monsignor Joseph G. Quinn, vice president for University mission and ministry, and Patrick J. Ryan, S.J., the Laurence J. McGinley, S.J. Professor of Religion and Society at Fordham, both in Rome for Cardinal Dolan’s elevation, and were an on-air expert for WABC and other news outlets.

(L to R) Henry Schwalbenbeg, Ph. D., director of Fordham’s graduate program in International Political Economy and Development; the newly-elevated Timothy Cardinal Dolan; and Alma Schwalbenberg (GSAS ’93)

In New York, Terrence Tilley, Ph.D., the Avery Cardinal Dulles Professor of Theology and chair of the Department of Theology at Fordham, said “[Cardinal Dolan] smiles, he laughs, he has a good time. He will present being a Catholic as being simply joyous. As someone who is a sinner who is a redeemed sinner, like a recovering alcoholic who is enjoying the new status.”

Maureen A. Tilley, Ph.D., professor of theology at Fordham, said the Cardinal’s impact could be considerable. “Between his personality and his record, he has the potential…and I say the potential, to be the most influential Cardinal from New York since Cardinal Spellman.”

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Photos Courtesy of Henry Schwalbenberg