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Jeff Morrow is Assistant Professor of Theology at Immaculate Conception Seminary School of Theology at Seton Hall University in South Orange, New Jersey. He also serves as a Senior Fellow of the St. Paul Center for Biblical Theology.
Jeff earned his Ph.D. (2007) in Theology at the University of Dayton, Dayton, Ohio, in the program on the U.S. Catholic Experience, where he focused on historical theology and the history of biblical exegesis. He earned his M.A. (2003) in Theological Studies, with a focus on Biblical Studies, also at the University of Dayton. He earned his B.A. (2001) at Miami University, Oxford, Ohio, where he double majored in Comparative Religion and Classical Greek, and minored in Jewish Studies.
Jeff originally comes from a Jewish background; he attended Hebrew school and had a bar mitzvah. In 1997 he became an evangelical Protestant and was heavily involved with para-church ministry as an undergraduate student. He entered the Catholic Church, Easter Vigil 1999.
Jeff is a popular speaker who speaks regularly at parishes and schools, as well as at larger events. He has made popular presentations at the Applied Biblical Studies and the Defending the Faith Conferences at Franciscan University of Steubenville, as well as with the Coming Home Network International. He has also published in popular periodicals including This Rock, The Catholic Answer and New Oxford Review.
Jeff's scholarly work is primarily in the history of biblical interpretation, but he has also presented academic papers, and published scholarly articles, on a variety of topics related to theology, religion and the Bible. He has published scholarly works in academic journals including New Blackfriars, Pro Ecclesia, Toronto Journal of Theology, and the Evangelical Review of Theology. He has also made scholarly presentations before a number of learned societies, including the American Academy of Religion, the Society of Biblical Literature and the College Theology Society.
He currently resides with his wife Maria (a doctoral candidate in Theology, specializing in Moral Theology) their four children Maia, Eva, Patrick, and Robert, in New Jersey.
Author Archives: Jeffrey L. Morrow
Pentecost, Pope Francis, and the New Evangelization
- Pope Francis
On Pentecost, Pope Francis delivered a terrific message on the New Evangelization, answering a set of questions that were provided him in advance. In the talk, Francis shares some very moving moments from his own life. He tells the world about his own inklings of a calling, of his vocation; that God was calling him. He tells of a moving experience of confession, where he felt drawn by God to confess his sins to a priest he ran across on the street, only to encounter the God Who had been waiting for him. His words reminded me of Pope Benedict XVI’s comments about two years ago to the effect that, “the new evangelization will pass through the confessional.”
Colloquium on Benedict XVI’s Legacy
Pope Benedict XVI
The day before Pope Benedict XVI resigned from his office, I was honored to participate in a colloquium on his legacy at Immaculate Conception Seminary School of Theology at Seton Hall University, where I teach. A portion of the colloquium was filmed and is available online here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=baZbrzLvzFA&feature=player_embedded
After some opening words by Msgr. Joseph Reilly and by Dr. Dianne Traflet, the first
Fr. Pablo Gadenz
presentation is by my dear friend and colleague, Fr. Pablo Gadenz. Fr. Pablo’s wonderful talk is entitled, “Pope Benedict: Leading Us to Jesus,” and deals with Benedict’s work on Scripture as it focuses on bringing us in contact with the living Jesus.
I give the second presentation, “Pope Benedict and the Interior Life,” where I discuss some
Jeff Morrow
points concerning the importance of the Eucharist, frequent Confession, personal prayer, and devout reading of Scripture, in the thought of Benedict XVI.
The Myth of Vatican Wealth–on Helping the Poor
St. Peter's Basilica
In light of all the media buzz about Pope Francis, I have encountered a surprising number of criticisms aimed both at Pope Francis and at the Catholic Church, specifically concerning the wealth of the Vatican and the lack of the Pope’s “real” concern for the poor. In response, I’ve hastily written this overly large post. Hopefully someone will find it beneficial.
John Allen explains, in his National Catholic Reporter article, “Challenges to vision of a ‘Poor Church for the Poor,’” available here, http://ncronline.org/blogs/ncr-today/challenges-vision-poor-church-poor, that “the legendary wealth of the Vatican is to some extent more myth than reality.” He then points out the often ignored fact that the yearly budget for operating the Vatican is less than $300 million. He contrasts this with Harvard University (which he labels as “the Vatican of elite secular opinion”) whose annual budget is $3.7 billion. Allen points out further that the patrimony (or endowment) of the Vatican is about $1 billion. Harvard, on the other hand, as a whopping $30.7 billion endowment. Allen concedes that the Vatican bank is in charge of the equivalent of over $6 billion, but then points out how the majority of that money is not actually the Vatican’s, and thus the Vatican would not be at liberty to use most of that amount for any purpose whatsoever.
Trials of the Children of God
Aslan
In light of the hurricane that we just experienced, and the difficulties that came along with it, I thought I would post on one implication of considering our divine filiation (our becoming children of God) with which the first paragraph of the Catechism opened. First, as Fr. Federico Suarez explains, absolutely everything
“that happens to us is foreseen by God, and is ordained to his glory and to the salvation of man. If what happens to us is good, God wants it for us. If it is bad, He does not want it for us, but allows it to happen because He respects man’s freedom and the order of nature; in such unlikely circumstances it is nonetheless in God’s power to obtain good and advantage for the soul—even bringing it out of evil itself.”1
This is not a simple “god-of-the-gaps,” but rather the providential workings of our loving Father in heaven acting on earth. As Fr. Francis Fernandez explains:
“Our sense of divine filiation should lead us to discover that we are in the hands of a Father who knows the past, the present and the future. He has ordered everything for our good, even though his plans may not coincide with our plans of the moment….No one could do a better job of watching out for us: God never makes mistakes.”2
What is the Meaning of Life?
Have you ever asked the question, “What is the meaning of life?” The very first paragraph of the Catechism provides the Catholic answer to this question: the reason for human existence, the reason for your existence, and the reason for my existence:
“God, infinitely perfect and blessed in himself, in a plan of sheer goodness freely created man to make him share in his own blessed life. For this reason, at every time and in every place, God draws close to man. He calls man to seek him, to know him, to love him with all his strength. He calls together all men, scattered and divided by sin, into the unity of his family, the Church. To accomplish this, when the fullness of time had come, God sent his Son as Redeemer and Saviour. In his Son and through him, he invites men to become, in the Holy Spirit, his adopted children and thus heirs of his blessed life” (no. 1).
Your One Stop to Find out What Catholicism Teaches
Catechism of the Catholic Church
During this Year of Faith, the Holy Father, Pope Benedict XVI, is encouraging everyone to read and study the Catechism of the Catholic Church. Even though I have read the Catechism cover-to-cover a number of times, and teach the Catechism, I will be trying to read a little bit each day during this year of faith. I’d encourage you to join me in this endeavor. If you already know the Catholic faith very well, I think you’ll find as I do that the most important truths in life are good to review again-and-again. If you don’t know your Catholic faith very well, then there’s no better place to begin learning it better than the Catechism. If you’re not Catholic but you’d like to know more about and better understand what Catholics believe and what Catholicism teaches, there’s no better source.
The Year of Faith
Pope Benedict XVI
Today marks the beginning of the Year of Faith proclaimed by Pope Benedict XVI. Today also marks the fiftieth anniversary of the beginning of the Second Vatican Council convened by Blessed Pope John XXIII, which opened on October 11th, 1962. The similar dates are not a coincidence. Only a few years after Pope Paul VI brought the Second Vatican Council to a close (in 1965), Paul VI proclaimed a Year of Faith which began in 1967 and ended on June 30, 1968, on the Feast of Sts. Peter and Paul—less than a month prior to releasing his controversial papal encyclical, Humanae Vitae (July 25, 1968). Paul VI’s Year of Faith was a commemoration the 19th hundred year anniversary of the martyrdoms of Sts. Peter and Paul, but it was also clearly an attempt to provide an opportunity for the Church to receive the teachings of the Second Vatican Council and implement them, particularly by the Catholic faithful spending the year deepening in their understanding of the Catholic faith. Few people I run into—including priests and professional theologians—have ever heard of the Year of Faith of 1967; and this is true even of those priests and theologians who were alive back then. A priest I know, Fr. Bob Connor, once told me that Fr. Sal Ferigle—an incredible priest by all accounts, who died in Boston in 1997—claimed that the reason Humanae Vitae was not received but was rejected by so many, was because the Year of Faith called by Paul VI was not lived. Benedict XVI has called a Year of Faith at a time when many of the teachings in Humanae Vitae are in the public mind again, at least in the U.S. because of the controversial HHS mandate among other things. Like Paul VI, Benedict hopes that this will be a year where the Catholic faithful spend some time learning more about the Catholic faith, and hopefully appropriating and receiving the teachings of the Second Vatican Council, which he thinks have not been really assimilated or understood. In his words from Porta Fidei:
One Lesson from Fatima: Things are Never as Inevitable as They May Appear to Be
Our Lady of Fatima and the Three Children
I want to begin with a personal anecdote that is not directly related to Fatima. In the academic year of 1996-1997 a junior at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio was running for student president, thinking that he would be able to have the most impact for good on campus by exercising that position his senior year. As a prominent member of the student senate he played a prominent and very public (both on national radio and outside of the U.S.) role in a number of significant changes that took place on campus. Notwithstanding his valiant efforts, he lost the presidential race. Unsure what to do, he turned to an older friend and mentor, and decided to become an R.A. in a dorm and lead a Bible study for freshmen in the dorm. This incoming senior would-be R.A. and Bible study leader, was a student leader in a very large para-church (primarily evangelical Protestant Christian) organization on campus, which, at least for the following two years (if I’m not mistaken), represented the largest para-church organization on any college campus in the world at that time, boasting about 1,000 members at their weekly meeting. His mentor, who happened to be Roman Catholic, was a staff member with that organization (at one point full-time, but by this point, part-time on a volunteer basis). That summer they decided to fast and pray for the future Bible study which together they would co-lead. They studied Scripture and church history together that summer, and they prayed and fasted that the future study would bear fruit for the kingdom of God.
Curtis Mitch on the Authorship of the 4 Gospels
Ignatius Catholic Study Bible: New Testament
I’m currently teaching a New Testament course and I have been re-reading a lot of great material dealing with all aspects of New Testament studies. I’m re-reading—among other things—Curtis Mitch’s work. I thought this was especially well-written, and a good synthesis of modern scholarship. The excerpt below comes from the Ignatius Catholic Study Bible: The New Testament, which Curtis Mitch co-edited with Scott Hahn. With regard to the traditional attributions of authorship of the four Gospels—i.e., that Matthew wrote Matthew, Mark wrote Mark, Luke wrote Luke, and John wrote John—Mitch writes the following:
Dr. Peter Williams on the Historical Accuracy of the 4 Gospels
Dr. Peter Williams of Tyndale House
This video is of Dr. Peter Williams of Tyndale House. He does a fantastic job in this 54 minute lecture, arguing for the historical reliability of the 4 canonical New Testament Gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John). He relies on old and more recent arguments (from scholars like Richard Bauckham and others). Williams is a cutting edge Protestant New Testament scholar who has done top notch scholarly work on the historical and linguistic background of the New Testament, and as well as work in Syriac (a dialect of Aramaic).
Thanks to Michael Bird for posting this on his blog.
I would recommend reading Richard Bauckham’s book, Jesus and the Eyewitnesses, on this topic.