Church in the World

Ave Maria engulfed by row over Fessio

The controversial Catholic university founded by a United States pizza magnate was thrown into crisis last week as its influential provost was forced to resign and then was partially reinstated following student protests.

At a meeting with Tom Monaghan, founder and chancellor of the Florida-based Ave Maria University, the provost, Fr Joseph Fessio SJ, was "asked to resign" and leave its grounds immediately, according to an email sent to the nascent university's faculty and students.

Shortly afterwards, a group of around 100 students - half the body's total size - converged on the centre of the still-under-construction campus to pray the rosary. As Fr Fessio delivered an emotional farewell, some were in tears, and the arrival of photographers beamed the images to the internet, where they quickly reached the mobilised constituency for which the priest has long been a standard-bearer.

It was not the first time that the Californian Jesuit who studied under then Fr Joseph Ratzinger, now Pope Benedict XVI, at the University of Regensburg, had been moved in a reshuffle.

Both his tumultuous departure from the University of San Francisco in 1987 and his transfer to a hospital chaplaincy near Los Angeles in 2001 made him a hero to conservative Catholics, who regard him as an oft-persecuted defender of orthodoxy. Fr Fessio's Ignatius Press was long the sole publisher of then Cardinal Ratzinger's works in English, and the election of his Doktorvater to the papacy served only to heighten his profile.

Mr Monaghan's 2003 recruitment of Fr Fessio as Ave Maria's chief academic officer solidified the Florida venture - said to be the first Catholic university established in the United States for 40 years - as a cause célèbre for the Church's orthodox wing. The Jesuit's presence at its helm gave the burgeoning project added credibility, and Fr Fessio's advocacy won it prominence. The university's plan to build its own town on a stretch of swampland has garnered much attention (The Tablet, 1 July 2006), given its intent to enforce principles of Catholic morality in the community's daily life, including banning sales of pornographic materials and contraceptives.

Despite his request for the reasons behind his dismissal, Fr Fessio told a local newspaper that none was given. In a reference to University President Nicholas Healy and Fr Fessio's patron, however, one student held aloft a sign which read "Healy 1, Benedict 0."

Seemingly in response to the intense reactions the move incited, within 30 hours of Fr Fessio's resignation Ave Maria announced his restoration as a "theologian in residence". In a statement, the university said it "anticipated" that the former provost would resume teaching and other public duties there "in a non-administrative capacity".

Fr Fessio "will be designated a theologian in residence and maintain a room on campus. He will join us for the Commencement exercises. He will teach the planned summer programme for high school students. He will explore a semester abroad programme in Rome [and spend] a significant amount of time in Europe. It is anticipated that at the beginning of the spring semester Fr Fessio will assume teaching responsibilities at AMU," Nicholas Healy said in a statement.