Bellarmine Lecture at Fairfield University presents "The Church in the 21st Century: Evangelical and Catholic" | Press Releases

Mark Massa, S.J., Th.D., the Karl Rahner Distinguished Professor of Theology at Fordham University, where he also serves a co-director of the Francis & Ann Curran Center for American Catholic Studies, will deliver the annual Bellarmine Lecture at Fairfield University on Tuesday, Feb. 19, at 8 p.m. in the Dolan School of Business Dining Room. Admission is free.

Fr. Massa's research during the past ten years has focused on the Catholic experience in the United States since World War II. In his latest book, "Anti-Catholicism: The Last Acceptable Prejudice?" New York: Crossroad Press, 2003, he seeks to explain how and why Catholics and other Americans see the world differently. He uses the term, "prejudice," in its more neutral sense, he says, meaning "prejudgment," and not in the "more usual pejorative" meaning.

He is also the author of "Catholics and American Culture: Fulton Sheen, Dorothy Day, and the Notre Dame Football Team," New York: Crossroad, 1999, and winner of the AJCU/Alpha Sigma Nu Award for Outstanding Work in Theology for 1999-2001. He is currently working on a history of Catholic theology in the United States since the Second Vatican Council.

A summa cum laude graduate of the University of Detroit, Fr. Massa holds a Master’s degree in history from the University of Chicago, a Master of Divinity degree from the Weston School of Theology, and a Doctorate in Theology from Harvard University.