Inaugural Week

The Church and Its Future

 

An Evening Lecture with Peter and Margaret Steinfels

To download the audio file click here (7.22mb)

  Peter Steinfels     Peggy Steinfels


Presenters: Peter Steinfels and Margaret O’Brien Steinfels are the founding co-directors of the Fordham University Center on Religion and Culture. The Center explores questions that arise when religious faith intersects with contemporary culture and fosters dialogue on the challenges posed to the culture. Peter and Margaret have two children and two grandchildren, all of whom live in New York City.


Peter is a university professor at Fordham as well as a religion columnist for The New York Times since 1988 . He served as editor of Commonweal. A two-time Pulitzer Prize nominee, he created and continues to pen his biweekly column “Beliefs,” dealing with religion and ethics. In 1997 he left his full-time position as senior religion correspondent to write A People Adrift: The Crisis of the Roman Catholic Church in America (Simon and Schuster, 2003).


He earned his bachelor’s degree from Loyola University and his Ph.D. in European history from Columbia University. In addition, he holds seven honorary doctorates. Peter was the recipient of the Laetare Medal from the University of Notre Dame for his service to the church and society in 2003.


Margaret is a writer, editor, commentator and Fordham’s journalist-in-residence. Before joining Fordham, Ms. Steinfels served for 15 years as the editor of Commonweal,an independent biweekly journal of political, religious and literary opinion edited by Catholic lay people. She also co-directed “American Catholics in the Public Square,” a three-year Commonweal Foundation project that was funded by the Pew Charitable Trusts. The project yielded two volumes of essays, American Catholics and Civic Engagement: A Distinctive Voice , (Sheed and Ward, 2003) and American Catholics and American Culture: Tradition and Resistance , (Sheed andWard, 2004), both of which she edited.


She holds a bachelor’s degree in history from Loyola University in Chicago and a master’s degree in history from NewYork University. Ms. Steinfels also holds seven honorary degrees and was awarded both the University of Notre Dame’s Laetare Medal and the Marianist Award from the University of Dayton in 2003.