Teresa Berger reflects on a life of spirituality and scholarship

On Sunday, June 29, a day before her official retirement as Professor of Liturgical Studies and Thomas E. Golden Jr. Professor of Catholic Theology at Yale Divinity School and the Yale Institute of Sacred Music, Teresa Berger posted a picture on Facebook of a keyring with two keys on a desktop. “On this Solemnity of St. Peter,” she wrote, “I handed over the keys to my YDS office.

The Solemnity of June 29 is a Roman Catholic feast day marking the martyrdom of Saints Paul and Peter. “Prince of the Apostles,” gatekeeper of heaven, and regarded by Catholics as the first pope, St. Peter is, as Berger’s post noted, “the one who holds the keys to the kingdom.” The holy day, she concluded, “seemed the right ritual moment for this act of dispossession.”

Read the full article about Professor Berger’s remarkable career in this article by Timothy Cahill ‘16 M.A.R.