Paul Hanly Furfey
Priest, Scientist, Social Reformer
Publication Year: 2017
Published by: Fordham University Press
Cover
Half Title, Series Page, Title Page, Copyright
Introduction: Viewing Paul Hanly Furfey’s Contribution against a Wide Horizon
A small band of pilgrims made their way from church, to university, to community house. They were undaunted by the freezing temperature and the imposing snow banks, remnants from the historic snowstorm that had struck the nation’s capital just two weeks earlier. On this bright Saturday morning, February 22, 1936, they prayed together, studied together, and celebrated together as they officially opened Il Poverello House. ...
1. Coming of Age in the Archdiocese of Boston
In 1914, Paul Hanly Furfey, just eighteen years old, experienced an intellectual and spiritual awakening that he did not soon forget. In fact, he recounted it nearly sixty years later in a draft of his autobiography. “During my junior year at college,” he wrote, ...
2. Learning Constructive Civic Engagement at the Catholic University of America
When he began his coursework at the Catholic University of America (CUA), Paul Hanly Furfey encountered an intellectual environment remarkably different from what he knew under the Jesuits in Boston. If Cardinal O’Connell vigilantly monitored the intellectual life at Boston College to ensure orthodoxy, James Gibbons (1834–1921), ...
3. Engaging Debate Concerning Public Catholicism
As a doctoral student at the Catholic University of America in 1922, Paul Hanly Furfey did not know what course of studies to pursue. He had a facility and a passion for ancient and modern languages as well as for mathematics and the social sciences. His course schedule recorded the dilemma. In the academic year 1922–1923, he took a language course entitled “Assyro-Babylonian” ...
4. Pursuing Salvation on the Playground
William Kerby wasted no time in hiring Paul Hanly Furfey to teach in the department of sociology at the Catholic University of America. Kerby valued Furfey’s contribution to the department in a number of areas, emphasizing his protégé’s scientific endeavors and his influence in the area of childhood recreation. In a letter to a colleague, Kerby explained, ...
5. Reimagining Social Reform
During the academic years 1929–1930 and 1930–1931, Furfey was back in the classroom at CUA pursuing postdoctoral work in science. He studied organic chemistry, embryology, histology, and an introductory course in mathematical physics.1 These courses entailed many hours spent in the laboratory. He later explained to CUA’s rector Joseph M. Corrigan ...
6. Placing Social Justice at the Center of the Sociology Department
In light of the new social reality—economic collapse and impending global war—and his downgraded optimism that science alone could solve social problems, Furfey was convinced that more deliberate and concerted individual action joined with group effort was required to bring justice to the world. ...
7. Encouraging Coreligionists in the Academy: “Let’s Be Extremely Catholic and Extremely Scientific at Once”
Paul Hanly Furfey’s contribution to Il Poverello House and Fides House was an important part of his broader responsibilities as department chair. It was a critical source of material for his research and writing commitments and, of course, an important dimension of his teaching. Yet it represented only a fraction of his work. As Furfey explained to Joseph Moran Corrigan, the sixth rector (1936–1942) of the Catholic University of America, ...
8. Tending the Holy in Pursuit of Social Justice
In spite of the criticism he received from his colleagues who favored cooperation on the basis of reason and natural law, on the one hand, and radicals who insisted that he did not go far enough in living the Gospel, on the other hand, Furfey continued to articulate his vision of an ideal Christian society that somehow balanced these two perspectives. ...
9. Pursuing Social Justice in the Academy and Higher Education
Paul Hanly Furfey adapted his vision for the sociology department at CUA to make broader claims about the social justice mission for Catholic higher education, while continuing to model how to marshal university resources for the common good in his own department. Into the 1950s and 1960s, Furfey gradually shifted the emphasis in his writing and activism back to science and philosophy without abandoning his theological commitments. ...
10. Recapitulating the Just Society in a Word: “Love. Just Love.”
In the last two decades of his life, Furfey continued to promote social change through spirituality, scholarship, and activism. He performed empirical sociological research; reflected on his and his colleagues’ findings through the lens of Catholic social teaching and ethics; and, on that basis, personally advocated for peace, racial justice, and economic equality. ...
Epilogue: Identifying the Role of the Catholic Intellectual
Even as he set to the task of composing an autobiography, Paul Hanly Furfey, modestly, did not believe that his life, as such, would rouse much interest. This assessment is contrary to expectations, given his substantial involvement with major events in twentieth-century U.S. Catholicism. After all, Furfey participated in the inaugural tour of the Catholic Truth Guild; he was present at the debate over making permanent the National Catholic War Council; ...
Acknowledgments
The writing of this book would not have been possible without the help of many people. Joseph A. Komonchak, Christopher J. Kauffman, and William D. Dinges provided invaluable advice and expert guidance during the earliest explorations of this topic. Timothy Meagher, university archivist and museum curator, and the personnel at the American Catholic History Research Center and University Archives at the Catholic University of America ...
Further Series Titles
Photographs
E-ISBN-13: 9780823276790
E-ISBN-10: 0823276791
Page Count: 352
Publication Year: 2017
OCLC Number: 1002696026
MUSE Marc Record: Download for Paul Hanly Furfey
