Donald Trump’s Sister Makes $4M Donation to Fairfield University

FAIRFIELD, CT — Senior Judge Maryanne Trump Barry, the sister of Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump, has made a $4 million donation to Fairfield University, the school announced on Wednesday.

Barry, a senior judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, announced that she was making the donation in honor of Rev. Jeffrey P. von Arx, S. J., who is stepping down after 12 years as president of Fairfield University.

The gift will fund scholarships to enable deserving young people to pursue an education at Fairfield, and will permanently endow Fairfield’s Center for Ignatian Spirituality, according to a university press release.

Barry, a strong advocate of Jesuit education who received an honorary degree from Fairfield University in 2011, announced she made the gift to express gratitude to Father von Arx for all that he has accomplished during his 12 years as President. Father von Arx will be leaving Fairfield at the end of 2016 to become Superior of the Jesuit community at Lafarge House in Cambridge, Mass.

“I am sad for this loss to Fairfield,” Barry said in a statement. “And pray for the continuation of the Jesuit mission and the Jesuit identity, which Father von Arx has not only preserved, but has so successfully championed over these 12 years.”

“My gifts to causes in which I believe have almost always been anonymous. I make a rare exception here because I have been so moved by the difference that Father von Arx and his presidency have made in so many ways in the lives of so many young people, and because I believe that, in founding the Center for Ignatian Spirituality in 2014, Father von Arx has assured that Ignatian spirituality will guide those at Fairfield, and even worldwide, who seek the gift it so uniquely can provide, while it continues to inform and influence the environment of learning at Fairfield.”

von Arx said he was “truly honored and humbled by Judge Barry’s gift.”

“The scholarships make possible the dreams of many worthy young men and women,” he said in a statement. “And the Center will help meet the needs of today’s world, while renewing the formative prayer tradition at the heart of the mission of the Society of Jesus; indeed, the mission of the Center is to provide spiritual direction to the community, and to train spiritual directors – both lay and religious – in the tradition of Ignatian prayer.”

Image via Fairfield University