Paul E. Carrier, S.J., to leave Campus Ministry post

A recent visit to the Fairfield Jesuit Community by the Rev. Thomas Regan, S.J., New England provincial, resulted in startling news for the University community. During that visit, Fr. Regan informed longtime University Chaplain Paul Carrier, S.J., that at the end of the current academic year, Fr. Carrier would begin a yearlong sabbatical in anticipation of a new assignment.

Fr. Carrier has served Fairfield University and its extended family for 20 years, first as an instructor in religious studies (1977-1979) and then through a long and distinguished tenure as University Chaplain and Director of Campus Ministry (1988-2006). His gifts as a liturgist and homilist inspired many to think beyond themselves, to reflect with compassion on the forgotten of our world, and to connect a newly informed conscience to an appropriate form of advocacy. For some students, that advocacy began with community service in nearby Bridgeport; for others, it included participation in the Mission (now Arrupe) Volunteer Program, which has enabled hundreds of students - in the company of faculty and staff - to experience, face-to-face, the dreadful conditions in which the poor of the world live. These trips took hundreds of students to Mexico, Jamaica, Belize, Nicaragua, Ecuador, and Haiti.

Early in his tenure, Fr. Carrier provided important input into the design and function of the Egan Chapel of St. Ignatius of Loyola, which opened at the heart of campus in 1990 along with the Pedro Arrupe, S.J., Campus Ministry Center.

Upon learning the news of Fr. Carrier's reassignment, Fr. von Arx reflected on the many blessings his presence has brought the University and local community. "While at Fairfield," said Fr. von Arx, "Paul has advocated for and helped create, as he calls it, 'a strategy for an education for compassion' - the elements of which he describes as 'awareness, empathetic imagination, and, finally, action.' It is an approach to life full of mercy and compassion - one he not only wanted for our students, but also one that he himself embraces with extraordinary passion. This community has been blessed by his presence."