Pamela Kirk Rappaport

Pamela Kirk Rappaport, retired professor of theology and religious studies at Saint John's University, died on September 16, 2022, of complications of ALS at Jamaica Hospital in Queens, New York. She was 75. Pamela Jeanne Kirk was born in Indianapolis, Indiana on August 31, 1947, to Mary Schlenck Kirk of Indiana and Robert Joseph Kirk of Rhode Island. Pamela lived in various parts of the United States and in Germany as her family followed her father's Army career. Pamela earned a BA in French from Rosary College (now Dominican University) in River Forest, Illinois. By then fluent in German, French and Spanish, she completed an MA in comparative literature in 1971 at Indiana University, Bloomington. She taught English at a German public high school as her interest in Catholic history and theology grew. Subsequently, as a doctoral candidate at the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich, she received a prestigious teaching position as an assistant to Professor (later Cardinal) Leo Scheffczyk. She completed her dissertation in 1986 and returned to the United States, where she worked as an adjunct professor at several colleges before taking a full-time position at St. Anselm's College in Manchester, New Hampshire. In 1991, she accepted a position at St. John's University, which allowed her the academic freedom to pursue her expanding scholarly interests. Pamela's early writings focused on systematic theology as developed by modern scholars. Later she became interested in faith as a force for social change as espoused by liberation theology. Her interest in the history of women in the Christian tradition also became a major focus. A visit to Mexico City gave rise to her interest in Sor Juana Ines de la Cruz, the 17th Century Mexican poet, playwright and nun. Pamela published two books on Sor Juana: one on religion, art and feminism in Sor Juana's works; the other, a translation of selected writings. Despite ravaging physical debilitation, before her death Pamela completed the draft of a literary biography that revealed the influence of Juana's hidden Jewish (converso) heritage on her works. While participating in a seminar on 17th Century women at the Folger Shakespeare Library, Pamela met Edward Rappaport, an economist at the nearby Library of Congress. They married in 2000. Edward took a keen interest in Pamela's work and traveled with her to conferences in Mexico, the United States and Israel. Pamela maintained warm friendships among her colleagues and students throughout her career and beyond her retirement in 2010. Choral music was a source of enduring friendships. In Munich, she joined the Madrigal Choir, which introduced her to a small Orthodox Uniate choir of soviet emigres with whom she sang for years. In New York she sang in the Ignatius Loyola Church Choir in Manhattan, the Queens College Chorale and the Forest Hills Choir. Language and literature also connected her to New York. She joined a group of women poets who valued her knowledge of biblical Hebrew and scripture in their study of Midrash. She and Edward joined a New York-based Proust reading group who found her knowledge of French Catholicism illuminating. She participated until her voice grew too weak. Pamela was known as a person of kindness and compassion. She bore her struggle with ALS with fortitude and grace. She was grateful for the kindness and dedication of her husband, siblings, nieces, friends and aides. Pamela is survived by her husband Edward Rappaport; her siblings, Robert Kirk, Susan Abeyta (both of Alexandria, Virginia), and Ellen Kirk (of Warwick, Rhode Island); and her nieces, Danielle Abeyta and Shanley Kirk.