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AMHERST, Mass. - On Saturday, Oct. 28, Amherst College dedicated the Cadigan Center for Religious Life to the Rt. Reverend George L. Cadigan of Topsham, Maine, who was the minister at the college from 1977 until 1984. Cadigan, Amherst College President Tom Gerety, and John Pemberton III, Amherst's Stanley Warfield Crosby Professor of Religion, Emeritus, all spoke at the dedication.
George L. Cadigan graduated from Amherst in 1933, and studied theology at the Episcopal Theological School in Cambridge, Mass., and at Cambridge University. Ordained in 1935, he began his ministry at Grace Episcopal Church in Amherst, Mass., and served as assistant chaplain at Amherst College from 1936 to 1937. He served at St. Paul's Church (Brunswick, Maine), Grace Church (Salem, Mass.) and St. Paul's Church (Rochester, NY) before his election as the seventh Bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Missouri in 1959, a position he held until he retired and returned to Amherst.
In 1998 the college converted a former faculty residence, built in a modern style in 1967, into the Center for Religious Life. It contains the offices of five religious advisors, a large living room, a conference room, and a kosher kitchen. Student religious groups use the center for meetings and fellowship: weekly Jewish Sabbath gatherings, coffeehouses with poetry and music, Bible study, faculty lectures and Zen meditation, among other activities.
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