CTU Annual Report 2009-2010

Every autumn Catholic Theological Union publishes its annual report. The 2009-2010 annual report is available for download by using the link below.

PDF Download: 2009-2010 CTU Annual Report

• ctu_annual_report_2009-10.pdf

President's Letter

The President's Letter serves as the introduction to the annual report. It is reproduced below. For the full contents of the annual report, please download the PDF using the link above.

The theme we have chosen for CTU’s Annual Report is “Keeping the Faith in Challenging Times.”

The theme implicitly acknowledges that, indeed, 2009-2010 has been a challenging year for so many people worldwide: e.g., the catastrophic earthquake in Haiti, the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, the troubled world economy and its impact on peoples’ jobs and economic security, the ongoing warfare and violence in Afghanistan and Iraq, anxiety about terrorism, etc. The list is long. At the same time, the Catholic Church itself has been back in the spotlight concerning the sexual abuse crisis — now engulfing Europe — rekindling anger and discouragement on the part of many in the Catholic community. And there is lingering concern about people drifting away from the Church and the lack of involvement on the part of younger generations of Catholics.

Despite all of these challenges, we at CTU are fully committed to “keeping the faith.” As a Catholic graduate school of theology and ministry, we want to recognize all of the good and beauty that are intrinsic to our Catholic faith and practice — goodness and beauty that are still strong despite setbacks: the beauty of our liturgy and sacraments; the depth of our spiritual traditions and the inspiration of our saints; and the vigor of our intellectual heritage. We are grateful for the incredible good work done for the human family on a daily basis by deeply committed Catholics worldwide — in schools, hospitals, clinics, social service agencies, retreat centers, parishes, and a multitude of other settings. We cannot let the drone of sin and failure blot out the ongoing goodness of the Church and its mission to the world. The “works of mercy” that have been a hallmark of the Church for centuries continue to be done in Christ’s name.

The Mission of CTU

We want to remember these things in a particular way at CTU because we are pre- paring a new generation of women and men who feel called to serve God’s people precisely in the context of the Church, in the best spirit of its life and mission. They will serve as priests and religious, as lay ministers, as chaplains and pastors, as teachers and social service workers, as leaders of communities and spiritual guides, and in a host of other roles. The impact of our mission is felt worldwide as we educate students from more than forty countries, and our more than 3,500 graduates serve on virtually every continent.

This year we completed a revision of our Mission Statement, with approval coming from students, staff, faculty, our Board of Trustees, and, finally, from the twenty-five religious communities that form the CTU Corporation. In many ways our mission has remained constant since the founding of the school more than forty years ago: we provide quality theological and pastoral training for religious order seminarians and lay women and men preparing to serve the Church. But over the past several years, other dimensions of our core mission have emerged. More than ever, we are engaged in interreligious dialogue and study through our Catholic-Jewish and Catholic-Muslim study programs and a host of interreligious public events sponsored by the Bernardin Center — a unique feature of CTU. With the help of the Lilly Endowment, Inc. we have also developed nationally recognized programs for youth, encouraging them to consider a life of service — reaching hundreds of top-notch high school students through our Peacebuilders Initiative and outstanding young adults from across the country dis- cerning their vocations through our Catholics on Call program. We are very proud to say that a significant number of “alums” of these two programs are now doing grad- uate study at CTU, preparing to serve the Church of the future.

We have also greatly expanded our programs for our wider circle of CTU friends: lectures and liturgies through our quarterly Sundays at CTU programs, our Shapiro Lecture series that brings outstanding Jewish scholars to CTU each year, and a host of other programs and lectures open to the public — extending CTU’s educational mission to friends seeking strong spiritual and intellectual nourishment. Our superb and highly computerized Paul Bechtold Library also makes an important educational contribution, not only serving our own students and faculty, but also, as part of a state- wide and even world-wide network, it brings the riches of our 150,000-volume library to readers all over the world.

Serving the wider public is not simply an “add-on” but a genuine extension of our mission as a Catholic educational resource on behalf of the Church. At the same time, the active presence of lay men and women on our campus also helps CTU keep in touch with the realities of the Church and the world. It is very important that an insti- tution preparing future religious leaders have its feet (and heart) firmly planted in the challenges, hopes, and dreams of our world.

The Resources of CTU

By far, the most precious and most important resources CTU has are its students, faculty, and staff. Our student body numbers more than five hundred graduate students, with exceptional diversity as one of its greatest strengths: men and women, religious and lay, of a great variety of ethnic, racial and generational backgrounds, with 40 per- cent of our student body coming from countries outside of the United States. According to the statistics of the Association of Theological Schools of the United States and Canada, no school is richer in diversity than CTU. This year, I am happy to report, our enrollment increased, enabling CTU to extend its mission even further.

This past year we suffered the loss of one of our most beloved faculty members, Sr. Barbara Bowe, RSCJ, a professor of New Testament and a scholar of international standing. Barbara had endured a short bout with brain cancer before her untimely death. The outpouring of love and appreciation from her former students at the time of her funeral reminded all of us of the beauty and importance of the teacher’s role. Throughout its history, CTU has been blessed with a superb faculty fully dedicated to teaching and to care for our students.

The economic pressures of this past year have also highlighted the loyalty and dedication of our staff. By tightening our collective belts and carefully controlling expenses, CTU was able to retain all of its staff at a time when many other institutions, including schools of theology, were undergoing layoffs.

As noted in the accompanying letter from our Vice President for Administration and Finance, the generous wisdom and guidance of our Board of Trustees also helped CTU maintain its fiscal health through an exceptionally difficult economic period for our country and, indeed, the world. CTU has consistently maintained a balanced oper- ating budget, and this past year was no exception. Without the guidance of our Board and the generous cooperation of faculty and staff, we would not be able to have the strong financial health we now enjoy.

There is one other resource essential to CTU’s life that has to be cited — and that is the incredible generosity of our friends and donors. At a time when there are intense financial pressures and so many appeals from good causes needing help, CTU is grate- ful that our fund-raising efforts this past year were very successful — not only matching but exceeding the amounts raised the previous year! A big part of our annual giving comes through the “Blessed are the Peacemakers” dinner sponsored by our Board of Trustees. This past year, under the leadership of two of our outstanding Trustees and their wives, James and Cate Denny, and Michael and Adele Murphy, we honored Dr. Miguel H. Díaz, the newly appointed U.S. Ambassador to the Vatican. The event drew a wide circle of CTU’s friends and was a great financial success.

Last November we also launched a new fund-raising initiative titled “Building the Church of the Future.” The goal is to quadruple our scholarship capacity for lay students. Many lay students work part-time and also have to assume some debt through govern- ment loans or family help to enable them to complete their studies. Upon graduation they will be doing work they love but not the kind of work that will offer generous compensation. Our goal is to be able to offer more scholarship support to these out- standing men and women, not only to help them financially, but also as a sign of moral support for their commitment. In launching this capital initiative we have officially concluded our Making a Place for Faith capital campaign and are particularly grateful to our twenty-five sponsoring men’s religious communities that compose our Corpo- ration for completing their $10 million pledge to Making a Place for Faith.

Milestones

This year we celebrated the founding anniversaries of two unique CTU programs. We marked the 20th anniversary of the Augustus Tolton Scholarship Program and were hon- ored to have Cardinal Francis George, OMI, celebrate the anniversary Mass for the Tolton community. This program, run collaboratively with the Archdiocese of Chicago, prepares African-American lay men and women for full-time ministry in the Church, offering them full tuition scholarships in exchange for a promise to work on behalf of the local church for three years. The graduates of this program have been outstand- ing and currently hold positions of responsibility in the Archdiocesan central offices as well as in parishes and schools.

We also celebrated the 15th anniversary of the Oscar Romero Scholars Program. This program is similar to the Augustus Tolton Program but is geared to Hispanic lay men and women who will serve in the Archdiocese of Chicago. As is well known, Latino Catholics will soon make up a majority of the overall Catholic population in the United States. To have well-prepared lay ministers working alongside priests and religious in the Hispanic community is crucial for the Church’s future.

The Catholic Common Ground Initiative is a program founded by Cardinal Joseph Bernardin shortly before his death and expressed his own profound commitment to a spirit of reconciliation and unity in the Church in order to offset the many divisions and polarities that impede the life of the Church and its mission. Since its founding in 1996, the Catholic Common Ground Initiative was located at the National Pastoral Life Center in New York City, under the leadership of Msgr. Phil Murnion. With Msgr. Murnion’s death and the phasing out of the National Pastoral Life Center, the Catholic Common Ground Initiative has found a new home in CTU’s Bernardin Center. Given the overall goals and spirit of the Bernardin Center itself, the Catholic Common Ground Initiative is a natural fit. As Cardinal George noted, the Initiative was “coming home to Chicago” where it began. We look forward to the vital work of this Initiative in the years ahead.

This year we also launched a historic joint effort with the Catholic Church Extension Society. Through a collaborative program with the Diocese of Salt Lake City, four lay ministers already involved in the life of that diocese will receive professional theological and pastoral training — through our new distance learning Master of Arts in Pastoral Studies Program. The tuition costs of the program will be shared by the Catholic Church Extension Society, the Diocese of Salt Lake City, and CTU itself. Students involved in the program will spend a week of intensive study at CTU each year. This is a fresh approach to preparing pastoral leaders for “mission” dioceses who would not have access to or otherwise could not afford graduate theological education.

Speaking of “extension,” CTU continues its programs in the lands of the Bible. Without interruption since 1979, members of our biblical faculty have conducted a semester pro- gram of Bible study and exploration of the Holyland for our students, with our head- quarters in Bethany — the very place where Jesus stayed with his friends when visiting Jerusalem. Although my job does not allow me to be absent from CTU for a semester, I am happy each year to be able to lead groups of friends of CTU to the Holyland — a labor of love!

Without You...

None of the vital activities described here or highlighted in our Annual Report could be sustained without the generosity of our donors, including individual friends, reli- gious sponsors, and several foundations. Through this report and every other means at our disposal, we want you to know that every cent of your donation is used responsibly for the sake of our sacred mission. We are truly grateful for everything you do to sup- port our efforts. I leave you with the words of the Apostle Paul to his dear friends at the Church of Philippi: I give thanks to my God at every remembrance of you, praying always with joy in my every prayer for all of you, because of your partnership for the Gospel from the first day until now (Philippians 1:3).