Interview with Father Joseph Fessio, provost of Ave Maria University

By John Grasmeier
Angelqueen.org
November, 2006

Ave Maria University, which is currently under construction outside of Naples, Florida will be the first Catholic University founded in the United States in over 40 years.

Calling Ave Maria a "university" however would not properly convey the scope of this very ambitious undertaking. The completed project, will consist of far more than the buildings and facilities needed to educate and house the projected 6,000 or so students who will be living and learning at AMU.

Ave Maria will not only be a university but an entire town (aptly named "Ave Maria") that will eventually encompass 5,000 acres and have a population of around 30,000 residents. It will be self-sustaining and have its own infrastructure, including its own sewage system and water treatment plants capable of pumping out the millions of gallons of drinking water that will be needed. Plans also include11,000 residential housing units, shops, a town hall, two golf courses, a hotel, medical facilities and a football stadium, all centered around a 110 ft. tall, 1,100 seat Oratory.

Because I live in the area and own property literally down the road from the where AMU is being built, I had the opportunity to attend the very first inaugural Mass in March of 2004, celebrated on the feast of The Annunciation.

At the time, nothing existed at the proposed site, except for vast tomato and sod fields that went on literally as far as the eye could see. The Vatican choir (which I had seen in concert the night before at the Naples Philharmonic) sang the Mass. After Mass we marched in a Rosary procession through the cherry tomato plants to the future spot of the altar that will be located in the main oratory. There we said a prayers as father blessed the spot.

It was an extraordinarily windy day, one of the windiest I'd seen since moving to Florida, save for when hurricanes or tropical storms rolled through. The wind was intensified due to the open nature of the farm fields causing powerful gusts that were drowning out the choir and making it difficult to control personal items and equipment that had been brought to the scene. A glass encased altar candle was blown over and smashed during Mass.

The entire experience was truly surreal. Although His disposition was indiscernible, God was certainly present.

It was under these circumstances that I first came into contact with Father Fessio, who as the very first provost of AMU, was offering the very first Mass.

For most reading this, father Fessio is already well known. He has been a frequent face on media outlets from EWTN to CNN. He is the Founder of Ignatius Press, Founder of the Catholic Radio Network and the Founder of the Saint Ignatius Institute USF. He is also the Founder of Campion University, an endeavor that became the source of consternation between him and his more liberal Jesuit superiors, who retributively exiled Father Fessio into a position as a chaplain of a hospital. His current position as Provost and Professor of Theology of Ave Maria University is at the will of the Holy Father himself, who is personal friends with Father. Fessio. Father Fessio studied under then Father Ratzinger, eventually becoming one of his favorite students. They've since been on many retreats and yearly seminars, and have met many times over the years. At their most recent meeting occurring this past September in order to discuss matters of evolution, Father Fessio had a private audience with His Holiness where they discussed undisclosed "issues with the Church" that were unrelated to the theme of the meeting.

Father holds a Masters Degree in Philosophy from Gonzaga University, acquired his Masters Degree in Theology in Lyons France, then subsequently received his Doctorate in Theology at the University of Regensburg, where his thesis director was Joseph Ratzinger.

We are very blessed to have Father with us to answer some of the questions, mostly about AMU, that have been on our minds.

Enjoy.

The answer to the following question could fill volumes, and Holy Mother Church has spent the last two thousand years answering it, but if you had to be brief, what would you say to someone who asked; “Father, how do I best know, love and serve God?”

Make the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius and Loyola and you’ll find out. It begins with the “First Principle and Foundation” which is: Man is created to praise, reverence, and serve God our Lord, and by this means to save his soul. The rest shows you how.

Modern Jesuits have acquired a reputation for being liberals, at times to the point of heterodoxy. You seem to have avoided this fate. What happened?

Nothing happened. I was Catholic when I entered and I’m Catholic now. You have to ask them what happened.

You recently wrote that although you’ve celebrated Mass versus populum for most of your life as a priest, after further study and contemplation you now consider the Mass facing the people a “mistake”. This is quite a bold public statement. Could you expound more on it?

I could. Even from my first Mass, I was uneasy with Mass versus populum. It seemed to make the priest as a particular individual the center of attention rather than Christ in whom the priest should disappear. (That’s one of the symbolisms of vesting: after the amice, the alb as baptismal garment, the cincture as the strengthening of Confirmation, the stole as the sign of sacred orders, and the chasuble as sign of the High Priest.) It just took me a while (about 10,000 Masses versus populum) to figure out what was wrong. My own conclusions from prayer and study coincided with the publication, in 1999, of the original German edition of Cardinal Ratzinger’s The Spririt of the Liturgy, in my opinion the most sublime book on the Mass every written. All the reasons I have for considering the change of the direction of prayer detrimental can be found there, expressed more eloquently than I could express them. (Cf. Part II, Chaper 3: “The Altar and the Direction of Liturgical Prayer”)

In many of today’s Catholic venues and institutions - including but not limited to Catholic radio, television, contemporary literature, periodicals, web sites, Churches and schools - we get a great deal of exposure to the documents Second Vatican Council while previous councils such as Trent, Florence and Nicaea are all but ignored. Likewise many of these same venues and institutions laboriously disseminate the late Holy Father’s (God rest his soul) every encyclical and teaching, while giving little deference to the voluminous materials available from previous influential popes, many of them canonized saints. Do you think it healthy for Holy Mother Church that so many of us are drawing from a four-decade deep well when we have at our disposal a rich two-thousand year history? To what do you attribute this nearly institutionalized collective amnesia?

The central statement of Benedict XVI’s first address as Pope (22 minutes in Latin the morning after his election) contains the answer. Note my emphasis: “I too, as I begin the service that is proper to the Successor of Peter, wish to affirm with force my decided will to pursue the commitment to implement (exsecutionem) Vatican Council II, in the wake of my predecessors and in faithful continuity with the two thousand year old tradition of the Church.” Notice the clear implication: Vatican II, after 40 years, has still not been implemented, at least not fully or not correctly. It needs to be understood as a continuation of the Tradition, not a rupture from it.

When Ave Maria University was in its early stages of planning, there was little talk of the traditional Mass being celebrated. Now we hear of it being offered weekly at the temporary AMU location in Naples. According to available information (including the artist renderings and statements to the press), the main oratory seems as if it will be “Tridentine friendly”. For example it will be facing east, there will be nothing past the altar, the pews will be oriented straight forward, and the tabernacle will be front and center. Will the traditional Mass offered regularly at the main oratory?

First, a clarification. The indult Mass has never been celebrated here because the bishop has not permitted it. We do have Novus Ordo Latin Masses at least three times a week, and they are as close to the 1962 Missal as one can get in the Novus Ordo: ad orientem, altar rails, communion kneeling for those who desire (which is most of the communicants), Roman Canon, Gregorian chant, altar boys.

The oratory is indeed “Tridentine friendly”, which means that the Novus Ordo can also be celebrated traditionally. Whether the pre-Conciliar Mass is celebrated regularly will depend upon the expected motu proprio, the bishop, and the university administration.

What do you believe should be done about colleges and universities that claim to be Catholic, yet not only neglect the faith, but actively promote un-Catholic and even anti-Catholic ideals?

The real problem is masked by the form of the question. What “should be done” is passive. But who is the agent? The Pope can’t do much, if anything, directly. Even the local bishop has little real leverage. With the experience that comes with my advanced age, and having lived through the period of devastation, I think that the most likely successful path is to let the faithless institutions become more and more secularized, and to support new, faithful, institutions.

AMU will be to some extent infused with government funds, as with tuition assistance. Do you foresee any danger that this could lead to AVU having to compromise certain Catholic beliefs in order to comply with guidelines that exist now, or guidelines that may potentially be enacted in the future?

No. Government grants and loans go to students. There are probably some consequences for intercollegiate athletics (equal number of men’s and women’s teams, for example), but I know of no instance where hiring or curriculum have been endangered.

What tangible measures have been taken to ensure that once the founders of AMU have moved on, that future boards, faculties and VIPs will not do to AMU what has been done to other universities that have lost their way?

Only the Church has the guarantee of remaining until Christ comes. We’ve done the best we can to maintain Catholic integrity for as long as possible. We have a mission statement which can only be changed by a ¾ vote of the trustees. It specifically requires fidelity to the Magisterium. The board is self-perpetuating and new board members must serve first on the Board of Regents (so the trustees have a chance to get to know them better). I think it would be at least three generations before the board, in appointing new members, would risk deviating from our Catholic integrity. By that time we will have graduated many thousands of well-formed, competent men and women. Many will be successful in their professions. If, may God forbid, AMU were to “lose its savor”, these alumni would have the resources, spiritual, intellectual, and financial, to start a new Catholic university.

Can you offer any type of assurance to those parents whom will be reading this that their children will be able to maintain a fully traditional Catholic lifestyle at AMU if they should so desire? For example, will they be able to receive the traditional sacraments? Will they be able to maintain their fasting and abstinence standards in the cafeterias? Has there been much discussion about dress codes and regulating the interaction between students in the dorms as to avoid scandal?

I’m not sure what you mean by the traditional sacraments. They can attend the same Mass the Pope says daily, and receive absolution from their sins in the same way the Pope does, If we become a parish, they can baptize their children, get married (not in that order!), be confirmed and anointed. We don’t serve meat on Fridays. I don’t see how we could prevent fasting and abstinence if we wanted to, which we don’t. We’re in Florida, so they don’t dress here the way they do in Illinois, especially from October to April. I think modesty is exemplary here, as is interaction between students in the dorms. There are occasional infractions, but fraternal correction by fellow students and university staff has so far been successful.

Tell us more about the rumored football team. Can any of us reasonably expect to see a stadium in Ave Maria Town in our lifetimes?

That depends on how old you are. I think we’ll have a sports complex within 10 years. What level of competition one will find there remains to be seen.

Father's question/Father's answer (as is customary for AQ).

Neither question nor answer, just expression of joy. I have never experienced, nor even heard about, a Catholic college environment as extraordinary as what I live every day at Ave Maria. The intelligence, eagerness, spiritual maturity, zeal, talent—especially musical and dramatic talent— and cheerfulness of these students is close to unbelievable. It’s as encouraging as it is humbling to be blessed by their presence, to accompany them as they grow in their knowledge and love of the Lord and in their acquisition and growth of the intellectual and moral virtues to serve him. I can sing my Nunc Dimittis in serenity.

An Artist rendition of Ave Maria Town

The oratory and surrounding area

An interior rendering of the inside of the oratory.

The oratory under construction, topped
by the Celtic cross.