Fresh out of college, without career direction, carefree about money, crazy in love and courting my spouse-to-be, infatuated with theology, concerned with the plight of the poor, left leaning in politics and religion, fascinated with radicals (Illich, Day, Ellul, Friere). but stable in my sacramental life. Teaching, evenings, ESL to Spanish-speaking in the south Bronx for Puerto Rican Community Development Project. Then part-time religion at the Jesuit Xavier H.S in lower Manhattan. Sharing apartments with a variety of other young men.
My best friend in NYC was George Lissandrello, roommate in Maryknoll College Seminary, then living in gay community of the East Village where I was welcomed with affection and lots of laughs. Also, Gilbert Davidowitz, roommate, pious Orthodox Jew; maverick and brilliant student of linguistics; neurotic in the extreme. We shared an admiration for each other's "thick" religions and a touching affection. Tony Petrosky, roommate and boss at PRCDP, a genuine pot-smoking, guitar-playing hippy. The real deal: a bright, luminous spirit. And lastly, Peter Murray, a Jesuit seminarian at Woodstock who welcomed me into that school and community. Very good friends!
In random fashion, I took courses that interested me at Union, Woodstock, Columbia, and later Teacher's College and Jewish Theological. Loved it! Happiness is: alone for hours in Union Theological Library!
Very non-Roman-Catholic, Union was delightfully (small c) catholic in its diversity of theological personalities. At the time Woodstock Jesuit Theologate was attempting a partnership that failed. There were solid RCs there: Renowned scripture scholar Raymond Brown. Ed Oates, S.J., of happy memory, worked on Balthasar whose aesthetics and studies in culture would resonate at high-culture Union. My friend Bill Toth, businessman-deacon-theologian, worked on Catholic social teaching, probably the dimension of Catholicism most palatable at Union. I was an outlier, But I enjoyed it.
Two Jesuit theologians, at Woodstock, deeply influenced me: Joe Whelan, himself a mystic and saint; Avery (later Cardinal) Dulles, who looked like my uncles, and was The Dean of American Catholic Theology. Marvelous mentors!
I was fascinated by the distinctive theological personalities such as:
Anne Ulanov, Jungian psychoanalyst, Anglican, fluent in literature and the Catholic mystical tradition, interested in "the feminine." She was herself quintessentially feminine in appearance, thought, manner. Listening to her lecture, I received what she delivered cognitively even as psychically I relaxed into a calm, euphoria, free of the discontent of lust or romantic yearning, reminiscent of my happy breast-feeding infancy.
Cyril Richardson: scholarly, distinguished, elderly, high Church Anglican taught on the Eucharist, using the classic Shape of the Liturgy by "papist" Anglican monk Gregory Dix.
Robert Handy taught the history of American Protestantism with encyclopedic authority in the moderate tone of mainstream American Protestantism.
Samuel Terrien taught a course on the prophets Amos and Hosea. Doing a paper on Amos I experienced writer's block and never completed the course. Large, vigorous, expansive, warm, fluent in all the ancient languages, he was a brilliant Old Testament scholar who developed a distinctive theology of the presence/absence of God as well as a biblical theology of the masculine/feminine. He had a mystical radiance about him. Long-timer at Union, he was colleague of Niebuhr, Tillich, Heshel and all the Morningside Heights theological giants. I recall an anecdote he shared in class: crossing Broadway he was confronted by a young couple requesting money and threatening to put a curse on him if he refused. He laughed heartily and gave them his blessing in return.
Hans Hoekendijk was a Dutch missiologist, raised in Indonesia, influential in the World Council of Churches, who developed a radical, secular theology of God's action in the world. He worked with Paolo Freire and appealed to the radical streak in me.
Philip Phoenix was a brilliant, distinguished philosopher of epistemology and education, a pillar at Columbia University for decades. He taught a marvelous course on The Ways of Knowing wherein he distinguished with precision and reverence the distinct ways of knowing, locating the scientific as on amidst aesthetic, moral, interpersonal, philosophical and especially the religious. He emanated a philosopher's awe before the complexities of the Real. He reminded me of the magisterial Degrees of Knowledge (by Jacques Maritain) I had read a few years earlier.
My favorite institution on Morningside Heights was Jewish Theological: the interior, the library, but especially the interchange between the contemporary and the traditional which most resembled my own "ressourcement" Catholic viewpoint.
Later, in the 90s, after a master's degree in education and religion at Seton Hall (studying under marvelous theologians Toth, Frizzel, Finkel and inhaling the air breathed by titans Ostereicher and Jaki who rival or surpass the titans of Morningside Heights) to the doctoral program between Union, Jewish and Teachers. Then I enjoyed:
Will Kennedy. Much like Hoekendijk, Will was a political radical, colleague of Friere, influential in the World Council of Churches and its turn leftward into politics, deeply concerned with the inequalities of class, race, gender and other. He was "woke" way ahead of his time. He was a charming, generous, expansive, and luminous personality. He seemed slightly puzzled by and interested in me with my radical sympathies and hardcore Catholicism. I recall in class a discussion about the memorable funeral of John F. Kennedy and he commented: Whatever you say about the Church, it does know how to bury people." He sounded Roman Catholic when he referred to THE Church.
Mary Boys, a feminist theologian and Roman Catholic nun was for me surprisingly Catholic in that ambience as she (like Ulanov) taught Theresa of Avila and argued for the necessity of some magisterium, a word hardly intelligible in that institution. She opened in class a conversation about the students' experience at Union, spiritually and academically. I was startled by the absolute consensus: the place was a desert spiritually, but a dazzling garden academically. She told me candidly that with my theological views I did not belong studying at Union. She was right of course.
Each of these seemed to live in his or her own personal theological universe. There was no shared world as one might find, say with the Balthasarians at the John Paul Institute in DC or the Thomists at a good Dominican institution. Each was fascinating, charming, energized, entertaining, brilliant, full of life and in a particular love affair with the Church (broadly understood) and some dimensions of our Tradition.
What a sweet gift that time was for me! I was like a pig in mud! A form of pure leisure! A sabbatical, before I had even worked to merit one. Entirely unburdened by financial stress and career ambitions, I lived worry-free like a bird. Delighted with my girlfriend back in NJ, enjoying my English students, comforted by sweet friendships, I was studying for the sheer joy of it, without any ulterior purpose. It was a taste of heaven!
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