“‘Father D’ was a dedicated, gregarious teacher renowned for his wit and his sense of joy, as well as an academic adviser and mentor known for the pastoral care and concern he generously gave to so many students,” said Joseph M. McShane, S.J., president of Fordham.

Father Denniston was raised in Westbury, New York, and was ordained a priest in 1979. He served at St. Mary’s in Manhasset, St. Anne’s in Garden City, Notre Dame in New Hyde Park, and as pastor of St. Patrick’s Church in Huntington.

He began his teaching career in 1984 as a member of the faculty at the Seminary of the Immaculate Conception in Huntington, New York. In 1991, he earned his Ph.D. in theology at Fordham’s Graduate School of Arts and Sciences with a dissertation titled “An examination of Calvin’s Theory of Knowledge in His Theology and Exegesis.” He joined the theology department as an adjunct assistant professor in 1996 and was an integral part of the teaching staff until his accident last year. He was the author of Give Them What You Have: Interpreting the New Testament for Today (Ligouri, 2008).

Beloved in the Classroom

Though he was an accomplished scholar and author, Father Denniston was best known for the classes he taught.

Faith and Critical Reason, a required course for all incoming first-year students, was his specialty. He taught three to four classes of 30 students per semester, a course load that never ceased to amaze J. Patrick Hornbeck, Ph.D., who was the chair of the department from 2013 to 2020.

“The amount of energy that he must have had to be able to do a high level of teaching multiple times in a row was always very impressive to me,” he said.

“You couldn’t know John and not know that he was a humorous, tongue-in-cheek, delightful man who really enjoyed life, and I think that he got a tremendous amount of energy out of his interactions with students.”

Brenna Moore, Ph.D., an associate professor of theology who served as associate chair of undergraduate studies in theology, said what was even more remarkable about this workload—he also taught classes about the Book of Revelations and apocalyptic themes in film—was how he managed to pay so much attention to individual students. They were not, he often reminded her, simply passive recipients of theology research.

“It was very transformative and very healing for me to start thinking about what I was doing in a very different way. He helped me just by telling me stories about his students, and asking me about my stories about students,” she said. “He also had hilarious stories about things students would say.”

Joseph T. Lienhard, S.J., a professor of theology who was on the faculty when Father Denniston defended his dissertation in 1991, said that calling him the “pied piper” of the department would be no exaggeration.

“His courses, even one as recondite as Eschatology, would fill up minutes after enrollment opened,” he said.

James Burris, a first-year student at Fordham College at Rose Hill who took Faith and Critical Reason with Father Denniston last fall, said even an 8:30 a.m. start time didn’t dull the experience.

“Father D loved to joke around and incorporate a lighthearted environment into his classes but I always walked away feeling like I had learned something from his lectures. He was an example of the Jesuit values of the magis and cura personalis through his devotion to his students and his University,” he said.

Making Connections Around Campus

Father Denniston split his time between residences at the Rose Hill campus and in Long Island, and as such, was a presence in many lives outside of the academic setting.

He served as chaplain for the men’s football team; former coach Joseph Moorhead, FCRH ’96, called him “a tremendous man of God whose intelligence, sense of humor, empathetic nature, and true care for the students of Fordham and Bronx Community will always resonate with me.”

Anne-Marie Sweeney, who was the theology department’s secretary from 2003 to 2020, said one of her fondest memories will always be when Father Denniston presided over her son’s wedding in 2016.

“I told him a few times that he not only taught the students about religious faiths but also gave them the tools that would help them through life’s journey, wherever it would take them. He was kind, humble, and had a great sense of humor and always had a smile on his face,” she said.

He made connections as well with his fellow priests at Rose Hill. He lived at the Salice-Conley residence hall, but Associate Professor of Theology Thomas Scirghi, S.J., said he joined the Jesuit community for dinner once a week.

“He’s a gregarious fellow. He walks into a room, he’s kind of like a Jay Leno smile that lights up a room, and he really enjoys meeting people and being with people,” he said.

“He was just one of the guys. He’s a diocesan priest but he fit in here so well, and so he’s remembered well by the Jesuit community here.”

Father Scirghi concelebrated a wedding in Stony Brook with Father Denniston in late September, and he said Father Denniston was determined to bring joy to the setting, even in the midst of a pandemic.

“The couple originally had a guest list of 250 and now it was whittled down to 50. So it was kind of sad, a little somber, but he helped raise the tone there to help make it a joyful occasion,” he said.

Father Denniston is survived by his nieces Melissa Paladino and Erin Crosby; nephew John Denniston; great-nephews James Wallace, Joseph Wallace, Ethan Paladino, and William Crosby; and great-niece Sophia Paladino.

Gifts in honor of Father Denniston may be made to the Rev. John J. Denniston, Ph.D., GSAS ’91 Memorial Fund.

Information on services can be found here.

—Chris Gosier contributed reporting.

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.

“Before Vatican II, priests didn’t get training in preaching; it was presumed that if you knew the Bible you could preach it,” said Father Scirghi, associate professor of theology.

Father Scirghi has taught a generation of priests, deacons, and ministers in the art of preaching. He said that before Vatican II, congregations relied on priests’ homilies for interpreting the readings and the gospel.

“There was a time when Catholics were not that well educated but knew a phony when they heard one, and they could appreciate a good homily because they wanted to learn and be inspired,” he said. “Today, many Catholics are well educated, but lack an understanding of our traditions.”

Father Scirghi said that he got the title for the book from the Book of Psalms 24, which reads, “Lord, these are the people who long to see your face.” He said that in many traditions, including Catholic, Jewish, and Protestant, the preacher mediates the presence of God.

“In a secular age, we shouldn’t presume that we no longer live in a religious society,” he said. “There are many who are seeking the Lord.”

In an age when many say they’re “spiritual but not religious,” he said that preachers should meet their listeners where they are. When St. Paul preached in Athens, Father Scirghi said, he didn’t criticize their worship of idols; instead he found common ground in their deep sense of faith. Preachers should be aware of the “language of tradition and culture” of their listeners.

“Be aware of the idea of [different]cultural expressions,” he said. “In some churches you may preach on Sunday for eight to 10 minutes, but if you’re in a black church and you preach eight to 10 minutes, you’re just getting started.”

He said that the word “homily” means conversation, so it falls upon the preacher to listen, too.

“I’m always listening while preaching. Hopefully there’s not a lot of coughing and shuffling, but good feedback sounds, like an understanding grunt,” he said.

“What I don’t want to do is water down the [Catholic] message, but preach in a way that everybody can understand regardless of whether or not they’re Catholic—the word “catholic” means universal,” he said.

Listening and awareness become particularly important at weddings and funerals where many in the congregation are not of the same faith, he said. Some may be very devout, while others have never been to church.

In every case the most important thing the preacher can do is do their research. He said that writing a homily is a weeklong process. At Spellman Hall, the Rose Hill Jesuit residence, the priests start talking about the Sunday readings early in the week.

“We read and discuss, and on Thursday I’ll go to the sources and see what the greats say about it,” he said.

By Saturday morning, Father Scirghi said, he pulls out his yellow legal pad and begins to write out the homily. He has it typed by the end of the day Sometimes he pulls from current events. (He paraphrased the German theologian Karl Barth, who said, “A good preacher has a bible in one hand and newspaper in the other.”)

When he delivers the homily on Sunday, he says he’s not anchored to the lectern.

“I use gestures like words—but being an Italian I sometimes have to reign that in,” he said. “Ultimately, we don’t have to sacrifice content for charisma.”