A neighbor called Kathy and Ward Fitzgerald to ask a favor. The priest celebrating his daughter’s wedding needed a place to stay for a couple of nights.
“We thought we had room to put him up, but we don’t,” the neighbor explained.
Though the Fitzgeralds were away, they agreed to let the priest stay at their house in Haverford, Pennsylvania.
“Our home is like a hotel,” Kathy says. “Anything we have is for everyone because we understand they’re all blessings from God. We’re always saying, ‘Stay here.’”
So, it wasn’t until Ward and Kathy arrived home for the wedding that they met the priest, Father Dave Pivonka, TOR ’89, the president of Franciscan University of Steubenville.
“That’s how we providentially first learned of and became involved in Franciscan,” Ward says of that divine appointment. “People say to us, how do you know which path to follow? We just follow the breadcrumbs the Holy Spirit drops.”
Over the next two years, those crumbs led the Fitzgeralds and Father Dave to discover a mutual concern for spreading the Gospel—and for bringing more witnesses to Jesus into one of the most challenging mission territories in the world: public service in Washington, D.C.
“Working in the center of political power and influence can test the faith and temper the evangelistic zeal of even the strongest Christian,” says Father Dave, who saw both the great spiritual need and challenges of public service in D.C. during his years there as a seminarian and as director of Post-Novitiate Formation for the Franciscan TORs.
No matter the risk, however, Father Dave believes Catholics must strive to bring the Gospel to every corner of our culture just as St. Francis did.
“He brought Jesus to the leper on the street, to the pope in Rome, and to the sultan in Egypt—with unfailing love, gentleness, and courage,” Father Dave says. “Kathy and Ward share this very Franciscan passion for making Christ better known and better loved, and they have a vision for doing that in the heart of the nation they love so much.”
In his discussions with the couple, it quickly became not as much a question of if the University should have a presence in D.C., as of how to make that happen best. Happily, making things happen is Ward and Kathy’s specialty. They always start with the “why.”
Remaining in Him
“Arthur Brooks says if you know you have a purpose, a ‘why,’ you can always figure out a ‘how,’” Ward says. “When Kathy and I conceived of the business, we knew our purpose was to evangelize and to be witnesses to the community and the business world.”
“The business” they founded in 2006 was Exeter Property Group, now EQT Exeter, a global leader in real estate investment management with over 50 offices in 20 countries. Ward, who earned his bachelor’s in business administration from Notre Dame and his MBA from Harvard, served as the CEO, and Kathy, a Penn State graduate, accompanied him to almost every business meeting around the world. Together, they strove to use their positions for the greater glory of God.
With what Kathy calls “an unwavering, childlike faith,” they witnessed through everything from designing a monstrance-shaped logo to praying grace before business meals to prioritizing their employees’ faith and families higher than the work. Above all, they witnessed through their example of making decisions from hearts committed to Christ.
The faith on which they built Exeter flows from the sacraments, particularly a devotion to the Eucharist, for which Ward credits his years at Notre Dame. But also, the Sacrament of Marriage.
“The business doesn’t grow without us being in it together,” Ward says.
Teams of Our Lady, an international lay movement designed to enrich marriages, which the Fitzgeralds joined 27 years ago, “has been integral to our faith. It took our faith to another level,” Kathy says about the impact the apostolate has had on her, Ward, and their son and two daughters.
Together, Ward and Kathy strongly embrace John 15:5, in which Jesus says, “I am the vine, you are the branches. Whoever remains in me and I in him will bear much fruit, because without me you can do nothing.”
“A lot of people think that with the Lord, you can do more, and without the Lord, you can do less. But Jesus doesn’t say that. He says you’ll bear fruit if you remain in me. But if you don’t, you will bear nothing. So, our faith was everything in building the business because without it, it would be nothing,” Ward explains. “To be able to witness to so many people wasn’t part of the mission; it was the mission.”
Last fall, that commitment to missionary witness shared by the Fitzgeralds and Franciscan became the “why” of the new Ward and Kathy Fitzgerald Franciscan University Homeland Mission, founded with a $10 million gift from the couple.
“Kathy and Ward’s amazing generosity will enable Franciscan to form more students and others called to bring Jesus to the important arena of our nation’s capital,” says Father Dave. “Their special vision for reaching the spiritually poor in the corridors of power will benefit not only our students but also our country and, indeed, our world.”
Bearing Much Fruit
Father Dave, the Fitzgeralds, and Franciscan faculty and administrators developed the Homeland Mission’s “how.” The initiative includes programs and events that challenge students to work and witness for ongoing, systemic change in the federal government in every area from housing policy to foreign policy, with the sacred human dignity of all people at its center.
From the $3 million residential and learning facility on Massachusetts Avenue purchased with the Fitzgeralds’ gift, Franciscan will launch ongoing internships and job placement activities, initiate professional networking and personal development opportunities, and develop continuing education and Catholic faith formation. The facility and programming will provide Franciscan students with the access, support, and encouragement necessary to participate fully at the highest levels of the legislative process (see “Inspiring Public Service Vocations,” page 21).
Father Dave says, “The Franciscan charism of ongoing conversion, which invites everyone to continually and humbly draw closer to Christ, is key to carrying out this mission.”
Kathy agrees, “Jesus is what this country and this world needs, without a doubt.”
“What we see is the heart of Jesus in the youth at Franciscan,” Ward adds. “While we also see the heart of Jesus in youth on other campuses, it’s particularly well witnessed here.”
Ward says young people often only see missionary work as serving in countries such as Haiti or El Salvador, not knowing that “missionary work that relates to things like policy and legislation and administrative seats of power in the United States and in the world is as noble and self-sac – rificing as those missions.” Taking on this mission of public service, he also points out, can have a nationwide—even a worldwide—impact.
It is not an easy call to fulfill, but over the decades, many Franciscan University alumni have laid down their lives in public service in the D.C. area. The Franciscan University Homeland Mission will provide those alumni with more support, education, and formation to help them continue to positively impact the principles and policies guiding the United States government.
Kathy says they “have high hopes and big aspirations” for the Franciscan University Homeland Mission “to glorify God.”
Ward agrees, adding his hope it will be among the University’s most popular missions, so many students can be inspired to “do the Lord’s work to greater impact than they otherwise might.” He also hopes the mission can be avail – able to other students “so not only does this facility and its programming serve the missionary heart and inspire those at Franciscan but also those of other universities.”
As the Homeland Mission gets underway this spring, the Fitzgeralds will continue to partner with Franciscan University to help the program become all God wants it to be. They are also getting their “next venture in life,” Ex Corde Capital, underway. The business is still in develop – ment, but even as they figure out the “how,” one thing is certain: Kathy and Ward’s life-long “why”—to evangelize and witness to Jesus Christ from the heart—will guide them along the new path laid out for them by the Holy Spirit.
For more information about the Homeland Mission, email Stephen Catanzarite at [email protected].
INSPIRING
Public Service Vocations
What can we do to benefit the students?” Stephen Catanzarite MSE ’12, executive director of Franciscan University Encounter, has focused on that question as he leads programming and operations for the Ward and Kathy Fitzgerald Franciscan University Homeland Mission in Washington, D.C.
“We want our students to have both the opportunity and the encouragement necessary to thoughtfully engage the government and the legal and cultural landscape of our nation through moral principles that positively shape the character of their fellow citizens and of society,” he says.
Working from the Homeland Mission’s center at 908 Massachusetts Avenue NW, he is “actively making connections in D.C. and actively building the program, while leaving room for the Holy Spirit to guide it.”
That guidance has come through many “providential” meetings over the past five months, such as the one with veteran journalist Becket Adams of the Young America’s Foundation’s National Journalism Center. When he heard about the Homeland Mission from Catanzarite, Adams immediately offered to engage Franciscan and other students in internships that train young conservatives in responsible and balanced reporting.
Franciscan alum Father Rob Maro ’94 MA ’00 connected Catanzarite with Father Patrick Lewis, the pastor of nearby St. Patrick’s Parish. Father Lewis volunteered his church as “the students’ spiritual home away from home.”
George Weigel, distinguished senior fellow of the Ethics and Public Policy Center and New York Times bestselling author, has also offered encouragement and advice.
Catanzarite, University President Father Dave Pivonka, TOR ’89, and Vice President of Advancement Bob Hickey ’96 MBA ’01 also met with Terry Farrell, chancellor of the Archdiocese of Washington, D.C.; Dr. Kevin Roberts, president of the Heritage Foundation; Father Charles Trullols, director of the Catholic Information Center; and many others, seeking opportunities for students and support for the Homeland Mission.
Catanzarite also collaborates with Franciscan University colleagues Dr. Caleb Henry in the Political Science Department, Stephen Rasche, director of the Institute for Catholic Humanitarian Service, and others in Missionary Outreach and Alumni Relations.
Henry will bring his Foundations of Politics class, which includes students of various majors, to Washington this semester. This first group will spend a long weekend at the Homeland Mission, which accommodates up to 30 students and is ideally situated near the White House and other historical, governmental, and cultural sites. Students will have the chance to explore the Washington Metro area, but Henry says they will first hear from presenters offering vocational and career planning insights and connections.
“I want Franciscan students to discover how God may be calling them to serve the common good in D.C. and recognize that Franciscan now has a practical way of helping them in that mission,” Henry says. “We want all students, regardless of major, to consider whether God is calling them to serve their discipline in D.C. I hope the Franciscan University Homeland Mission will facilitate students living public service vocations in our nation’s capital.”
Later rotations and spring and fall break visits will be vocation oriented, though the longer breaks will allow for more spiritual and political content. Students can stay at the Homeland Mission with fellow Franciscan students and those from other universities as they pursue D.C. internships.
Senior theology major Spencer Lestrange is the first to live at the Homeland Mission this semester while he completes a research internship with the Heritage Foundation’s Simon Center for American Studies.
Lestrange wants to bring the truth, the “really deep answers only found in the revelation of Christ and the Church’s deeper answers to deep cultural issues,” into political dialogue. That’s why he majored in theology and why he plans to pursue a master’s in theology. When he learned of the Homeland Mission, it came as “a surprising realization that what I was being drawn toward was also very much a wider mission Franciscan shared.”
More students will make the Homeland Mission their home this summer as they pursue internships at institutes, think tanks, and government agencies.
“This is such an exciting and important opportunity for our students,” Hickey says. “We are so grateful to Ward and Kathy Fitzgerald for their wonderful support and their decision to help bring the Gospel message to those in the D.C. area, especially those seeking spiritual formation to serve our country in integrity and truth. May God bless them for their generosity and bless our work of evangelization in the heart of our beloved nation.”
