Harvard's First Humanist Chaplain to Retire

May 14, 2005

Source: The Boston Globe

http://www.boston.com/news/local/articles/2005/05/14/for_harvard_humanists_end_of_an_era/

On May 14, 2005 The Boston Globe reported, "Harvard humanists are preparing for a milestone this summer, the retirement of the man who started it all, chaplain Thomas Ferrick. A former priest, Ferrick lost his parents to tuberculosis as a child and found refuge from the loneliness of foster care in the idea of a loving God. But as an adult, he left Catholicism and the clergy after several disagreements. (His I'm-out-of-here moment came with the church's rejection of birth control.) Today, he says, he is one of only 10 or so humanist chaplains on American campuses. Harvard's chaplaincy is in particularly good shape, having been endowed both financially, by a wealthy alumnus 10 years ago, and communally, by what campus humanists call the warm embrace of the school's religious chaplains and students. Harvard officials knew they had many secular students requiring a guiding chaplain, Ferrick says. This is the Ivy League, not the Bible Belt... Still, acceptance isn't influence, and Greg Epstein, the assistant humanist chaplain and Ferrick's replacement to be, envisions a day when humanists will be able to construct their own center to complement Harvard's churches and other student religious centers."