“He said to us ‘My dream for the center is to make it the No. 1 center for American Catholics studies in—’ and he hesitated, then said, ‘in the world!’” Curran recalled.

“We just looked at him, and he said, ‘Maybe that’s a little ambitious.’”

Ten years later, Curran told the dozens of students, alumni, faculty, and benefactors who gathered at the Rose Hill campus to honor that very center, “I think that his vision has become a reality.”

The May 21 gala commemorated the 10th anniversary of the naming of the Francis and Ann Curran Center for American Catholic Studies (CACS) and honored the center’s benefactors, John Curran, PhD, PHA ’66, and Constance Curran. The Currans were awarded with Fordham’s highest honor, the Presidential Medal, which has only been given 30 times in the history of the University.

“Ten years ago no one could have predicted the success and the growth of the Curran Center,” said Father Massa, who is now professor of church history and dean of the School of Theology and Ministry at Boston College.

Father Massa had originally established a center for Catholic study at Fordham in 2001, which opened one week after the tragedies of September 11. It remained a small program until 2004 when the Currans, inspired by their close friendship with Father Massa, endowed the center.

Since then, the Francis and Ann Curran Center—named in honor of John Curran’s parents—has grown to become a premier hub of Catholic studies. It offers numerous lectures and public conferences that explore diverse topics in Catholicism, including Catholic education, Catholic literature, black Catholic culture, and Latino/a spirituality.

The center also offers an undergraduate concentration in American Catholic studies and various faculty programs.

“The CACS community was my family at Fordham,” said Colleen Taylor, FCRH ’12, a graduate of the American Catholic studies program. “It encouraged me to think harder, work harder, and strive more. It was also my rock when my mother was diagnosed with cancer during my senior year.

“Most importantly, it was my family each and every week, when I sat down with my classmates and professor, broke Bronx Italian bread, and discussed what it meant to be Catholic and American both then and now,” she said.

The center is currently in the midst of a three-year series examining Catholic social teaching and the economy. The series will conclude with a major conference in 2016, marking the 125th anniversary of the first papal social encyclical in 1891. As part of the series, the center is also inaugurating its first Visiting Chair in American Catholic Studies.

Read more about the center here.

The Catholic Studies Reader (Fordham University Press, 2011), edited by James T. Fisher, Ph.D., professor of theology, and Margaret McGuinness, Ph.D., professor of theology at LaSalle University, won first place in the history category of the 2012 Catholic Press Awards.

A comprehensive book on Catholic Studies, The Catholic Studies Reader provides colleges and universities with a basis for the prevalent yet sundry discipline.

“Catholic Studies programs exist at dozens, perhaps over a hundred campuses nationwide, and they vary so widely and there is so little interaction between programs,” Fisher said. “We thought it would be a good idea to provide some models of what Catholic Studies is and what it does.”

The collection of 17 essays covers five central themes— “Sources and Contexts,” “Traditions and Methods,” “Pedagogy and Practice,” “Ethnicity, Race, and Catholic Studies,” and “The Catholic Imagination”—that relate to Catholic Studies in particular and the life of the Catholic Church overall.

“It was envisioned as a part of the Curran Center’s initiative ‘Passing on the Faith,’ a project designed to address some of the challenges facing the Church,” Fisher said. “We thought it would be good to devote a volume to the field of Catholic Studies itself.”

The book also received praise in the latest issue of Conversations on Jesuit Higher Education magazine.

“What has been significantly lacking in this welcome if haphazard growth [of Catholic Studies programs]are resources that bring an informed historical perspective and critical evaluation of the sheer variety of resources available to scholars engaged in this relatively new discipline,” wrote Mark Massa, S.J., dean of the Boston College School of Theology and Ministry and founder of the Curran Center.

“Professors James Fisher and Margaret McGuinness have done all of us engaged in the Catholic Studies initiative significant service in their new reader,” he continued. “The Catholic Studies Reader promises to be of singular benefit to academics and programs that span the broad spectrum of ideology and mission, and will lend cohesion to a congeries of programs that are now united more in name than in purpose or structure.”

Other Fordham contributors to the reader include Jeannine Hill-Fletcher, Th.D., associate professor of theology; Maureen H. O’Connell, Ph.D., associate professor of theology; Angela Alaimo O’Donnell, associate director of the Curran Center; and Catherine Osborne, a doctoral candidate in the theology program.

“The recognition by the Catholic Press Association might find the book a wider audience, and—we hope—adoption as text in Catholic Studies courses nationwide,” Fisher said.

The reunion weekend also saw the unveiling of the new Ram sculpture on the lawn west of Edwards Parade, commissioned by Robert Brodner, M.D., FCRH ’68, and his son, John Brodner, D.D.S., FCRH ’94; and standing-room-only panel discussions on “The Real and Unreal Crisis in the Catholic Church,” with Mark Massa, S.J., and James T. Fisher, Ph.D., professors of theology and co-directors of the Curran Center for American Catholic Studies at Fordham, and “Challenges for the U.S. in the 21st Century,” led by retired U.S. Army Gen. Jack Keane, CBA ’66. More details and photographs are available on the Office of Alumni Relations’ Jubilee page.