Fordham's Religious Traditions Fordham University was established under Catholic auspices and has benefited from the services of hundreds of members of the Society of Jesus, a religious order of men who have devoted much of their energy to higher education. Fordham has found that its Catholic and Jesuit origins and traditions have provided valuable marks of its distinctiveness and a source of strength. As a consequence, these traditions, religious ideas, perspectives, and values hold an important place in the curriculum.
Theology is an important subject requiring serious intellectual study.
Students of all faiths and of no faith are given encouragement and opportunity to join in seminars and discussions of religious issues and to participate in religious liturgies. Priests, nuns, and lay persons on the faculty and staff are ready to assist students in the quest for their own religious commitment. A loving and respectful openness to people of all faiths is an integral part of Fordham's stance, as it should be in any university. The very nature of religious belief requires free, uncoerced consent, just as the nature of a university requires a respect for evidence, for investigation, for reason and enlightened assent. Graduate School of Religion and Religious Education Fordham University established the Graduate Institute of Religious Education in 1969, and raised it to the status of a Graduate School in 1975 with expanded goals and programming.