Perched on a hill in the Bronx, the historic campus of Fordham University, recognizable by its Gothic architecture, seems very peaceful in mid-February. However, a small revolution is underway within the great Jesuit university in New York. For the first time, this institution founded in 1841 will be led by a woman and a laywoman.
Presented on February 10 during a virtual conference, Tania Tetlow will officially take office from 33e chairman of Fordham on July 1. «Everyone is very enthusiastic. We were still talking about it in class all the time!assures Ryan Torres, a student met near the Bronx campus. University leadership and Jesuit and Catholic culture as a whole are dominated by men. When the name of Tania Tetlow was revealed, we did not believe it! »
→ EXPLICATION. What place for women in the Church?
Fordham University is not the first Jesuit institution of higher education to give up appointing a priest as its head. Twenty others are led by lay people, and five others by women. The phenomenon reflects the continuous decline in vocations in recent decades. According to the Cara, a research center attached to Georgetown, which in 2001 became the first Jesuit university to be presided over by a layman with the selection of John DeGioia, the number of members of the Society of Jesus across the Atlantic fell by 4 823 in 1988 to just over 2,000 today.
“The most Jesuit of lay people”
Father Joseph McShane, current president of Fordham, highlighted this reality during the February 10 conference. “When the recruitment committee started looking for my replacement, they were determined to find a Jesuit candidate. But he came up against the problem of the moment: there are few Jesuits, and the average age is over 70,” observed the one who was in office for nineteen years.
However, a university employee privately argues that Tania Tetlow is “the most Jesuit of lay people”. His parents met in Fordham – his father, Louis, a psychologist, was a Jesuit priest. His uncle is none other than Joseph Tetlow, a recognized expert in Ignatian thought. “I think she heard at least 10,422 Jesuit homilies,” joked the latter in the review America.
Born in New York, moving to New Orleans when she was young, she began her career as an aide to Catholic Lindy Boggs, the first woman elected to the Louisiana House of Representatives and former U.S. Ambassador with the Vatican (1997 to 2001).
An establishment of 10,000 students
A graduate of the prestigious Harvard Law School with “magna cum laude” honors, Tania Tetlow became an assistant prosecutor in Louisiana in 2000, specializing in particular in violent crimes.
She also focuses on social works. President of a foundation in New Orleans, she raises 7 million dollars to rebuild the libraries flooded by the destructive passage of Hurricane Katrina in 2005. At the same time, she directs a program of legal advice dependent on Tulane University for victims of domestic violence.
→ MAINTENANCE. For the world leader of the Jesuits, “secularization is an opportunity”
In 2015, she became chief of staff to the president of this important Louisiana university, three years before being selected to lead Loyola University. A historic appointment: already at the time, she was the first woman and the first lay person to take the reins of the Jesuit establishment of 4,000 students. In debit of financial difficulties inherited from the past, it carries out a fundraising of 100 million dollars – essential quality for any president of private university in the United States – and increases the number of registrations.
At the head of Fordham, an establishment of 10,000 students focused on social justice, which has nearly half of Catholic students, she promises to uphold the values of Jesuit education. “This is an opportunity to show that the laity must take over this mission at a time when the number of priests is fallingshe said at a press conference. Otherwise, it will escape us. »
–
