Cardinals McCarrick and Dulles help celebrate the opening of Fairfield University's new Center for Faith and Public Life

Cardinals McCarrick and Dulles help celebrate the opening of Fairfield University's new Center for Faith and Public Life

With two U.S. Cardinals lending their support, Fairfield University on Nov. 7 kicked off its new Center for Faith and Public Life. Cardinal Theodore McCarrick, Archbishop of Washington, D.C., and Cardinal Avery Dulles, S.J., from Fordham University, took to the Kelley Theatre stage to endorse the Center and its new director, Rev. Richard Ryscavage, S.J. A former director of the Jesuit Refugee Service USA, Fr. Ryscavage was praised by Cardinal McCarrick for being "hands on with migration, refugee, and international policy concerns."

In his address to some 300 people in attendance, Fr. Ryscavage, talked about a Center that would dare to address the issues of religion and politics and how they impact one another. "Across the globe from China to Europe, from the Middle East to America, the role of religion in politics has seized the attention of decision-makers. But leaders and analysts are so often ill-prepared intellectually and experientially to deal with this phenomenon. Too many people consider faith divisive and try to steer clear of it at all costs."

Image: Center for Faith and Public Life
On stage for the ceremony were (L-R): Mary Frances Malone, associate academic vice president; British Robinson, national director of Social and International Ministries for the Jesuit Conference; Rev. Richard Ryscavage, S.J., director of the Center for Faith and Public Life; Richard Boucher, U.S. Dept. of Education liaison to the White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives; Cardinal Theodore McCarrick, Archbishop of Washington, D.C.; Cardinal Avery Dulles, S.J., from Fordham University; and Rev. Jeffrey von Arx, S.J., president of Fairfield University. In the background is the University Glee Club.

Not long ago, he said, secularization theorists predicted "that the importance of religion would diminish in public life and eventually even disappear from the public square." And yet in the United States, "there has been a major re-emergence of religion in public affairs."

Faith can be "a powerful way to mobilize people away from themselves and toward the common good," he said. "If we do experience an anti-religious back-lash in this country it will be because religious groups have failed to engage the whole of our society and not just the 'circle of believers.'"

Image: McCarrick

His Eminence Theodore Cardinal McCarrick, Archbishop of Washington, D.C., offered his congratulations and best wishes to the new center.

Among the initiatives Fr. Ryscavage outlined for the Center were: an interdisciplinary structure of support for faculty research and teaching as they relate to various social priorities; expanding faculty and student engagement in civic life, including what is commonly called service learning; developing strategic ways of assisting the local community and regions address some of their most pressing social issues; and offering a public forum for balanced and intelligent reflections on the role of religion in local national and international political life. He said he will be seeking support for a program series where prominent politicians and public leaders talk to students and to the public on the record about the role of faith in their personal and political life and careers.

Father Ryscavage said work has already begun in the area of migration, an explicit Jesuit priority. "Fairfield has taken the lead in creating an academic research network on migration linking 21 different Jesuit universities in the United States, Mexico and Central America. The University has also entered into an unusual research practitioner partnership with the Jesuit Refugee Service and with the social and international office of the Jesuit Conference in Washington."

Fr. Ryscavage said that students have asked him whether the Center will align itself with one political party or another. "The answer of course is no. But I do think that the Center can help political parties frame the questions they need to answer about the role of faith."

Rev. Jeffrey P. von Arx, Fairfield University president, said the event was a celebration of the University's commitment "to be of service to the Church and the wider community as we begin a series of programs, studies, and initiatives that link the teachings of the Catholic social tradition to issues prominent in the public square." He said as a university community, "we have a responsibility to engage intellectually with society and we have every hope that the Center for the study of Faith and Public life will become a focal point for this engagement. This Center, we hope, will serve as a one of the public faces of the University on important issues both nationally and internationally."

Also lending their support and good wishes to the Center were Richard Boucher, U.S. Department of Education liaison to the White House Office for Faith-Based and Community Initiatives, and British Robinson, National Director of Social and International Ministries for the Jesuit Conference. The Most Rev. William E. Lori, Bishop of Bridgeport was to take part in the ceremony, but was unable to be attend because of illness.

Posted On: 11-09-2005 10:11 AM

Volume: 38 Number: 102