Fordham Under Pressure

Cardinal Assails Fordham for Award to Justice Breyer

By PAUL VITELLO

Fordham University Law School’s plan to give an award to the Supreme Court justice Stephen G. Breyer on Wednesday night has drawn criticism from Cardinal Edward M. Egan and some students and alumni, because of the justice’s support for abortion rights Cardinal Egan rebuked administrators of the Jesuit-run university after learning last month that Justice Breyer would receive this year’s Fordham-Stein Ethics Prize, said Joseph Zwilling, spokesman for the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of New York.

“As a result of these discussions, the cardinal is confident that a mistake of this sort will not happen again,” he said.

Patrick J. Reilly, a Fordham graduate and president of the Cardinal Newman Society, a Virginia-based group dedicated to policing the borders of Catholic orthodoxy within Catholic colleges and universities, said Tuesday that the society had helped gather signatures from 1,100 alumni, students and others demanding that the award be rescinded. He called the decision to honor Justice Breyer “an affront” to church teachings against abortion.

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