Fairfield-Based Sacred Heart University Remembers Pope Francis

News release from Sacred Heart University:

FAIRFIELD, CT — Jorge Mario Bergoglio, known throughout the world as Pope Francis, has been embraced and celebrated within the Sacred Heart University community since his ordination in 2013.

In, 2017, Sacred Heart University became the first Catholic university in the United States to name a building after Pope Francis with the dedication of Bergoglio Hall on its Park Avenue Campus in Fairfield. The residence hall was blessed by the pope’s longtime friend from Argentina, Rabbi Abraham Skorka, who returned to Sacred Heart in 2021 for the University’s annual Kristallnacht commemoration.

Inspired by the pope’s teachings, the University launched the Bergoglio Lecture Series, which features notable leaders in the Catholic intellectual tradition such as Cardinal Blase J. Cupich, Cardinal Seán Patrick O’Malley and Cardinal Wilton Gregory and Archbishop Bernardito Auza.

Sacred Heart University is proudly part of the Laudato Si’ network, a global coalition of Catholic institutions committed to the environmental and social teachings of Pope Francis’ 2015 encyclical Laudato Si’: On Care for Our Common Home.

Experts Michelle Loris and Dan Rober have spoken in the media about the pope’s legacy and what the future hold for the Catholic Church.

Loris founded and chaired the Department of Catholic Studies and directs the Center for Catholic Studies at Sacred Heart. She is a founding member of the National Consortium for Catholic Studies.

Rober, currently chairing the Catholic studies department, is a systematic theologian with specializations in theological developments around Vatican II as well as Catholicism in relation to culture and politics. He has published commentary for Commonweal and academic articles in Theological Studies, Logos: A Journal of Catholic Thought and Culture, Philosophy and Theology and Horizons.

Sacred Heart honored Pope Francis at a mass [Tuesday] afternoon in the Chapel of the Holy Spirit.