Christian Brothers University, a Catholic institution of higher education in Memphis, Tenn., plans to host Dr. Peter Steinfels for a campus lecture on September 29, 2009. The lecture is entitled, “The Future of the Catholic Faith: Surviving and Thriving in the 21st Century.” Steinfels is the Director of the Fordham Center on Religion and Culture at (Jesuit) Fordham University in New York. In a PBS interview in 2003, Steinfels argues for the ordination of women to the ministerial priesthood, despite official Church teaching that such ordination is impossible. Steinfels attacks the Catholic hierarchy in the interview, referring to bishops as “a vacuum of leadership” and criticizing those bishops who have looked to the Vatican for leadership. At the end of the interview, the interviewer says, “One remarkable change Steinfels thinks is possible: if Catholic women could be ordained deacons, he says -- even if they are not priests or bishops -- they might be eligible to be appointed cardinals, and help elect future popes.” The author of A People Adrift: The Crisis of the Roman Catholic Church in America, Steinfels will speak at Christian Brothers University about “the future of the Catholic Church in the coming decades” and “how we can reconcile such concepts as the recognition of human and divine mystery of Jesus.” Source: Christian Brothers University