Three traditions dialogue on just war

NATIONAL JESUIT NEWS
DECEMBER 2003 / JANUARY 2004 ■ VOLUME 33, NUMBER 3
Three traditions dialogue on just war
By Julie Bourbon
The Jesuit Conference and the Woodstock
Theological Center jointly hosted a day long
Forum on Catholic Traditions on Peace and
War at Georgetown University. Prompted by
a request last year from the Jesuit provincials
of the United States to examine the just war
tradition in light of the changing nature of
post-Cold War warfare, the forum will result
in a publication on the Catholic tradition on
war and peace that will be geared toward high
schools, colleges and parish adult education.
About 100 people attended the forum, held
November 6. Presenters included Fr. J. Bryan
Hehir, president of Catholic Charities USA, Fr.
Gasper Lo Biondo (MAR), director of the
Woodstock Theological Center, Fr. Drew Christiansen (NYK), associate editor of America,
and Maryann Cusimano Love, associate professor of International Politics at Catholic University.
Fr. Rick Ryscavage (MAR), former secretary of Social and International Ministries at
the Jesuit Conference and the forum’s moderator, recalled that, in the wake of the recent
conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq, he has heard
from many quarters, “Why don’t the Jesuits
say something? Or, conversely, why don’t they
shut up?”
The forum was a partial response to those
cries for the Society of Jesus to “say something.” But, Ryscavage assured, this was not
intended to be “just another panel on Catholic
Just War Theory.” He outlined three primary
aims for the day’s events. The first was pedagogical, to dispel what he called a “sense of
confusion” as to what, exactly, is the Catholic
tradition. “Can we step back and introduce into
the public discourse … clarity?” he asked.
The second aim was to raise consciousness
that present day peacemakers are facing a new
world situation, unlike the one they have traditionally operated in throughout the 20th century. “The geopolitical landscape is shifting,”
Ryscavage said. “The way we wage war has
changed.” The traditional Catholic response
has long been based on government interaction, but how does that apply to non-state
actors?
The third aim was to begin the process of
integrating Catholic thought on war and peace
and bringing those strands to the service of
policy makers. Ryscavage called the forum’s
timing particularly appropriate, given the
recent 40th anniversary of the papal encyclical Pacem in Terris.
The morning session was taken up largely
with the presentation of three positions, which
were discussed throughout the afternoon, first
in small groups and then at an open microphone session. Position one covered the pacifist tradition on peace and peacemaking, as
presented by Fr. Michael Baxter, CSC, Sr. Joan
Chittister, OSB, and Jim Wallis, editor of
Sojourners magazine. Position two dealt with
the presumption against force and the just war
tradition, contemporary Catholic teaching on
peace and war, as presented by Christiansen,
Cusimano Love and George A. Lopez, director
of policy studies at Notre Dame’s Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies. Position
three addressed just war and U.S. responsibilities after 9/11; it was presented by Gregory
Reichberg of the International Peace Research
Institute in Oslo and Robert Royal, president
of the Faith and Reason Institute.
Noting “pacifism began with Jesus,” Baxter, speaking for the first position, asked what
the pacifist might have to offer this debate. He
recommended that policymakers consult with
Christians and with peacemaking groups in the
Middle East, to gain insights into political and
religious dynamics in the region. He also urged
that the rights of conscientious objectors be
restored, that monetary aid to Israel be contingent on military reforms, that NGOs working to ameliorate the living conditions of
Palestinians be funded, that the occupation of
Iraq be terminated and that any U.S. military
action against Iran or Syria first be approved
by the United Nations.
The second position argued for the continued, indeed, increased, relevance of the just
war tradition. Calling the modern Church’s
position “a composite one” of non-violence
and just war, Christiansen was critical of the
U.S. rationale for preventative war in Iraq, saying that “just wars are never wars of choice.”
Addressing the proliferation of non-state
actors in the Middle East, Cusimano Love said
that “terrorism, weapons of mass destruction
and non-state actors are not new … the global megaphone is new.”
While acknowledging the existence of a
“paradigmatic shift in international life, warfighting and the challenge to protect the innocent” post-September 11, the second group
argued for the compatibility of just war theory
in light of these new realities and the necessi-
“Just war” continued on page 15
Daniel S. Hendrickson (WIS), left, and D. Scott Hendrickson (MIS), right, twin brothers and Jesuits, were among the nearly 10,000
protesters marching at Fort Benning, Ga., Nov. 21-23 seeking the closure of the renewed School of the Americas. Fr. Tom Lankenau (ORE) writes
about the Ignatian Family Teach-In that highlighted the two-day event on pages 10 and 11. Daniel S. Hendrickson contributes a brief reflection on
the experience on page 12. (Photo by Tom Lankenau, SJ)
5 Feature
8 Feature
20 Jesuit Relations
Fr. Joe Tetlow wonders about
his father's prayer book.
Fr. Bob Fabing receives honors from Chinese friends.
Bro. Ed Sheehy brings an
apostolate of puppets to those in
need.
News
Jesuits and Interreligious Dialogue
Brueggeman Center and
interreligious dialogue
Making friends with real life
representatives of world religions
By Joseph A. Bracken SJ
For many years before my arrival at
Xavier University in 1982, the late
Edward B. Brueggeman SJ was co-host
of a popular Sunday morning television
program called “Dialogue,” which
involved a Roman Catholic priest, a
Protestant minister and a Jewish rabbi
in conversation on a variety of topics.
When the local network station cancelled the program, funds were raised
to establish a chair in interreligious dialogue at Xavier University. Initially, the
endowment for the chair only allowed
for visiting lecturers to give talks on
interreligious topics each semester. But
in due time the revenue from the endowment permitted us to invite a distinguished professor in interreligious
studies to give courses of his/her choice
for an entire semester.
Most recently, a house on campus
has been set aside both as living quarters for the visiting professor and for the
offices of the Brueggeman Center.
Within this context I have until
recently offered survey courses on the
undergraduate level dealing with various non-Christian religions, first, under
the title of “World Religions in Dialogue” and then under the heading of
“Far Eastern Religions.”
Being primarily a philosopher
rather than a historian of religion, I
tended to focus on the differences and
similarities between the different relig ions in terms of their respec t ive
worldviews.
I was likewise aided in my reflections
by regular conversations with an academic
colleague, Dr. Paul Knitter, who has been
even more active than I in interreligious
dialogue as a result of the extraordinary
success of his first major book “No Other
Name?” (Orbis, 1985).
My own book “The Divine Matrix: Creativity as Link between East and West
(Orbis, 1995) was the eventual fruit of this
extended line of thought.
The Brueggeman Center for Interreligious Dialogue at Xavier was commissioned to organize an interfaith
Millennium Peace Celebration involving the various religious communities
in the greater Cincinnati area (Protestant, Jew ish, Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist, Sik h, Jain, Nat ive American)
together with Dr. Knitter and the current chairperson of the theolog y
department, Dr. Brennan Hill.
Assist ing the three of us was a
remarkable young woman, Sheila
Speth, who, besides being the mother
of one young child and pregnant with
another, managed to coordinate all the
details of such a wide-ranging public
relat ions event. Subsequently she
ser ved as my assistant (prog ram
direc tor) of the Brueggeman Center
until this past spring (2003) when the
birth of her third child forced her to
give full attention to her growing family.
The Millennium Peace Celebration
was so successful that we for thw ith
decided that as director of the center I
should organize an annual symposium
on an interrelig ious topic as well as
secure the ser vices of a visiting professor in interreligious studies in the
fall semester of each year. Likewise,
given the numerous personal contacts
thus achieved in virtue of staging the
Millennium Peace Celebration, it was
fur ther decided to have a board of
adv isors for the Brueggeman Center
drawn from those same religious communit ies in the g reater Cincinnat i
area.
In this way, I gradually found myself
making friends with real-life representatives of the world religions, which I
had been teaching in a survey course for
“World religions” continued on page 14
Conversion to
interreligious dialogue:
a duty within the
Church’s mission
By James T. Bretzke SJ
Recently I came across some remarks
by a former acquaintance from my years
of teaching at the Pontifical Gregorian
University in Rome, Archbishop Michael
Fitzgerald, president of the Pontifical
Council for Interreligious Dialogue.
Fitzgerald, a former missionary in Africa,
was commenting on a forthcoming document from the Holy See on interreligious
dialogue. He strongly affirmed that dialogue with believers of other religions “is
not a hobby or an extra activity but a duty
within the mission of the Church.”
Dialogue, though, involves more than
merely conversational etiquette. Fitzgerald stated “the problem that arises is how
to reconcile dialogue as part of the mission of the Church with Jesus’ mandate to
go out and preach.”
Thus there is an intimate connection
between evangelization and dialogue.
Fitzgerald stated that the Church must do
both, noting the two tasks “are different
but not opposed,” since the ultimate judge
and animator of the Church’s mission,
including interreligious dialogue, is the
Holy Spirit.
Interreligious dialogue is a bit like
inculturation: everyone seems to be in
favor of it, but the precise roadmap to
reach these theological destinations
remains open to some considerable
debate.
At the time of Pope John Paul II’s 1990
Encyclical Redemptoris Missio (“On the
Permanent Validity of the Church’s Mis-
MOVING?
NATIONAL JESUIT NEWS
EDITOR: Thomas C. Widner SJ
PUBLICATIONS MANAGER: Marcus Bleech
PUBLICATIONS ASSOCIATE: Julie Bourbon
2
National Jesuit News
■
December 2003 / January 2004
“Church mission” continued on page 14
Send change of address to:
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Province Correspondents
Jerry Hayes SJ, California
George Kearney, Chicago
John Moriconi SJ, Detroit
Jackie Antkowiak, Maryland
Phil Steele SJ, Missouri
Richard Roos SJ, New England
Louis T. Garaventa SJ, New York
Kenneth J. Boller SJ, New York
Brad Reynolds SJ, Oregon
Donald Hawkins SJ, New Orleans
Patrick Dorsey SJ, Wisconsin
sionary Mandate”), one of my colleagues
at the Gregorian lamented that too many
of our international students wanted to
do their thesis research on topics related
to their native culture and contexts.
Qui si fa la teologia universale. “Here
we do universal theology” was his reply
to these requests and that remark reveals
the ongoing tension over the universal
and particular that any, and every, valid
theology must encompass.
The old Italian travel advisory, “All
roads lead to Rome,” would mark a danger indeed if these roads all turned out to
be one-way and/or dead-ends.
The road that led me personally to
Rome (and later on to California) started in Asia.
After ordination I went to Korea as a
missionary and my Korean superiors sent
me to Rome for my doctorate in moral
theology, with a view to teaching in a
future theologate back in Seoul (that still
has not quite opened).
Probably my encounters with the religious and philosophical traditions of Confucianism, Buddhism, Taoism, and
Shamanism in their native Asian contexts
convinced me that a “teologia universale
a la Romana” might not be the only, or
best response, to the twin task of mission
and dialogue that Archbishop Fitzgerald
underscores.
The year after my Roman arrival
(1987) the Federation of Asian Bishops
Conferences (FABC) with the Protestant
The articles published here reflect the opinions of
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the Society of Jesus.
Photos by Tom Lankeneau, SJ
Jesuit school students find
their way to Fort Benning
With God in Vietnam: giving the Exercises to
religious women
By Tony Sholander SJ
Despite the assurance that Vietnam is SARS-free, seeing airport officials with facial masks checking the temperature of passengers was unnerving for the California
scholastics who traveled to Vietnam during the summer
of 2003. “We were tired and anxious. What if things went
wrong?” A. Tran of JSTB remembered.
Four scholastics assisted local Jesuits in giving silent
retreats to religious women. They paired up and each team
gave several eight-day retreats in Central and South Vietnam. Based on the Spiritual Exercises, the retreats were
half-preached and half-directed.
The Spiritual Exercises has become influential in the
spiritual life of the Church in Vietnam. Not only that the
Exercises has been the favorite method of retreat among
religious women for the past 20 years, many bishops of
Vietnam now request the Society to give the Exercises for
candidates preparing for ordination and priestly renewal.
In addition, college students look to the yearly Ignatian
retreats to renew their faith commitment.
There are always more requests for the Exercises than
Jesuits to fill them. This year alone, the Jesuits had to turn
down nearly 100 retreatants because of a dearth of manpower. The California scholastics provided a small but significant help to this important apostolate of the Society in
Vietnam.
For the scholastics, the experience is more than just directing a
retreat; it is also an immersion in a third-world country where they
experienced faith and poverty in a very concrete way. From 5 a.m.
to 10 p.m. they were praying, preparing conferences, directing eight
to 10 people, meeting with other directors, and setting up liturgy
and prayer services.
The living conditions include 100-degree heat (without air-conditioning), mosquito net, open-air shower, and
little privacy. Several retreats took place in makeshift facilities with grade-school classrooms converted into bed space
and prayer halls.
What brings the scholastics deep satisfaction is the
opportunity to help many young religious sisters to reflect
on their vocations. Listening to the vast experiences of the
retreatants and sorting out the different spirits/movements
that affect them is grace-filled.
R. Pham of JSTB observed, “Sometimes they do not
have the answer [about their vocation], but they trust in
God and move ahead to the future with God’s grace. Listening to their pain and struggle reminds me of the
humanity of Jesus.” Pham’s teammate, M. Tran, agreed,
“Some retreatants carried with them deep wounds and
suspicions. It took us a while to gain their trust. Yet somehow God opened their hearts and they experienced healing.”
Working in Vietnam helps the scholastics be sensitive
to the needs of the people. They learn that faith is practiced in a concrete manner by real people in a struggle to
make sense of their milieu, which is often unsupportive.
Tran observed, “I was impressed with the retreatant’s dedication to and love for God in the midst of their struggles,
of not being able to support their family, of not having
their religious lifestyle understood by society.”
Another highlight is opportunities for collaboration.
Given the large number of retreatants, up to 40 at times,
they enlisted the local religious women to help with spiritual direction. Working with religious women in a traditional patriarchal setting and trying to treat them as
partners in Christ is humbling.
C. Nguyen, who gave a retreat in Vietnam before,
explained, “The sisters were ver y hesitant at first,
but we insisted that they should work with us
because we could not do it by ourselves. At the end,
they appreciated the opportunity to work with us,
and likewise, we appreciated working and learning
from them.”
Despite the hot and humid climate, lack of space
and privacy, and inadequacy of language at times,
the scholastics agreed that this was one of their best
summer experiences. “This experience,” exclaimed
Nguyen, “helped me want to be a Jesuit priest even
more so that I can help others to encounter God in
an intimate way.”
The experience also helped them to appreciate
what is available to them in the U.S.: education,
oppor tunit y, equalit y, suppor t, and freedom of
thought and speech, to name a few.
Before the trip, SARS in Vietnam caused some
hesitanc y. Both entering and exiting the countr y
could have health implications. But the concerns for
the spiritual needs of the retreatants prevailed.
A. Tran, Nguyen’s teammate, commented, “Looking back, I am glad we went. What I did was to give
myself an opportunit y to be present where things
were happening. I often reflect on the question: ‘Have
we made a difference because we showed up?’ I think
we have.”
Due to security concerns, only the last names of
the scholastics are given at their own request. If you
are interested in the possibility of directing retreats
in Vietnam, please contact Tony Sholander (CFN) at
[email protected].
National Jesuit News
■
December 2003 / January 2004
3
Commentary
How to fashion a new Middle East
By Joseph E. Mulligan SJ
Wouldn’t it be nice to be able to spend a
carefree vacation in the Middle East? Wouldn’t
it be fun to fly in the U.S. without having to
remove your shoes several times and without
the airport anxiety, which has become common after September 11, 2001?
But such pleasant tourist dreams will never
become a reality as long as the government,
which acts in our name, remains aggressively
interventionist and is feared and detested
around the world. A former intelligence chief
and the current top U.S. administrator in Iraq
express that aggressive U.S. stance.
Last April James Woolsey, former CIA
director and current member of the Defense
Policy Board, stated that the U.S. is now fighting World War IV and that it could last for
years. Before a group of college students,
Woolsey explained that the Cold War was the
Third World War and predicted that the fourth
could “last considerably longer than either
World Wars I or II--hopefully not the full fourplus decades of the Cold War” (CNN, April 3,
2003).
The new war is against three enemies: the
religious rulers of Iran, the “fascists” of Iraq
and Syria, and Islamic extremists like al Qaeda,
he noted. “As we move toward a new Middle
East,” Woolsey said, “over the years and, I
think, over the decades to come ... we will make
a lot of people very nervous.”
It will be America’s backing of democratic movements throughout the Middle East that
will bring about this sense of unease he said.
“Our response should be, ‘good!’” Woolsey
exclaimed.
Focusing on Egyptian President Hosni
Mubarak and the leaders of Saudi Arabia, he
said, “We want you nervous. We want you to
realize now, for the fourth time in a hundred
years, this country and its allies are on the
march and that we are on the side of those
whom you -- the Mubaraks, the Saudi Royal
family -- most fear: We’re on the side of your
own people.”
The key question, of course, is whether U.S.
interventionism, out to build “a new Middle
East,” is in favor of democratic movements or
in the service of American-based multinational
corporations. Has the U.S. invaded Iraq, for
instance, on the side of the people or for the
interests of Halliburton, Bechtel, the oil giants,
and a consumption-addicted U.S. economy?
Members of the Bush team often speak of
democracy in the same breath with free-market economics and free-trade areas; indeed,
the term “free-market democracy” is frequently used. And yet there is no necessary
connection between the political concept and
the economic model.
Paul Bremer, a U.S. ambassador during the
Reagan administration and the former chairman of the National Commission on Terrorism, was present at Woolsey’s talk. Now the top
U.S. administrator in Iraq, Bremer, in a May
26 news conference, said “the United States
would begin a ‘new phase’ of its occupation
focusing on reviving Iraq’s economy through
free trade and the eventual elimination of large
state subsidies that made food, gasoline and
other essentials affordable for many Iraqis,”
the Washington Post reported.
The article suggested that democracy in
Iraq will be severely limited: “his comments
today indicated that Iraqis would not be deciding for themselves what kind of economy will
replace the state-planned system that functioned under Hussein.”
Bremer practically defined freedom in
terms of economic liberty: “A free economy
and a free people go hand in hand. History tells
us that substantial and broadly held resources,
protected by private property, private rights,
are the best protection of political freedom.”
But freedom for whom – for the Iraqi people
or for American and British investors? (Bremer may exacerbate opposition in Iraq as he
implements one component of his “free economy” -- the elimination of state subsidies on
many basic items.)
If the U.S. continues to invade sovereign
countries, imposing upon them an economic
model which suits our corporate interests, then
American citizens, who in a democracy share
responsibility for such policies, will never be
at ease, either at home or traveling abroad.
(Fr. Mulligan [DET] works with grass-roots
communities in Nicaragua. He is the author of
“The Nicaraguan Church and the Revolution”
(1991) and “The Jesuit Martyrs of El SalvadorCelebrating the Anniversaries” (1994).
Resisting fear – and
moving on from here
By Thomas C. Widner SJ
Peter Hansen (CFN), first year theologian at JSTB, stands before the crosses that decorate the fence outside Fort Benning, Ga., during the Ignatian
Family Teach-In weekend there. (Photo by Tom Lankenau, SJ)
4
National Jesuit News
■
December 2003 / January 2004
On the server in the computer technician’s office
at the Jesuit Conference is a screensaver that scrolls a
simple message over and over – Resist the call to fear.
The film “Bowling for Columbine” opined that
Americans are a nation of people living in fear. We are
dominated by a political system and especially a commercial culture that preys on our fears.
A TV reality program – “Fear Factor” – serves up
curiously awkward situations in which people with a
lot of time on their hands can prove to viewers they
are not afraid of eating worms.
Franklin D. Roosevelt once told the American people the only thing we had to fear was fear itself. Now,
however, there is a market for fear. Someone in power
even floated the notion of investing in guessing when
and where terrorists might attack.
There are those who say terrorists have already
won because our fears are so exacerbated.
Certainly the gun industry and the NRA have benefited.
New Yorkers teach us to walk along the street side
of a sidewalk and not against buildings at night lest
someone with mischief in mind step out of a darkened entryway.
The modern world is a fearful place to live.
A district court in Australia has ruled that it is ok
to kick and stomp on a pregnant woman’s stomach to
procure a miscarriage if she wants to abort her pregnancy that way.
A woman in the United Kingdom recently
obtained an abortion because her fetus has a cleft
palate. Over the years a number of women in the UK
have obtained abortions for that reason.
Our culture encourages women to fear pregnancy.
The war in Iraq – the one that continues to this
day – instills fear of unknown terrorists in Americans.
James Dobbins, special U.S. envoy for Afghanistan,
believes the broader political strategy of the Bush
administration in Iraq is being undermined and has
limited options. The failure to anticipate the breakdown in order there, the failure to deploy sufficient
forces at the outset of the war and the failure to take a
more multinational approach are all to blame, he says.
Each failure increases fear at home.
How can one resist the call to fear?
Students from Jesuit colleges and universities
made an attempt this past month. Along with several thousand others, they gathered at Fort Benning,
Ga., to once again protest the School of the Americas.
The annual event though goes beyond protest.
Some critics say it is time to move beyond SOA.
Move on to Congress or some Federal agencies
because the protest is really seeking a change of
foreign policy and that won’t be accomplished at
Fort Benning.
The Jesuit students take part in what has come
to be known as the Ignatian Family Teach-in. Its
purpose is to broaden the students (and others)
in their awareness of social justice issues. It is a
time to listen and to learn. It carries on the spirit
of dialogue while an atmosphere of protest numbs
dialogue and closes all discussion.
The Ignatian Family Teach-In carries the spirit of dialogue back to campuses and into the larger community when its participants return home.
The spirit of protest, while at times useful, only
addresses an immediate moment. Fear remains.
Real dialogue strengthens relationships and
can heal.
May the Ignatian spirit take root and spread.
Defending and propagating the faith:
how will we do it?
By Joseph A. Tetlow SJ
When my father died in 1968, he left me a small
prayer book that had fit into his shir t pocket. I
used to see him use it at Sunday Mass, but he used
it every day of the week. He had it from the Jesuits
at the retreat house where he went every few years
to make a weekend retreat. My father’s solidly holy
life had been shaped by the Jesuits who taught him
to know God through the prayers in that book and
others like it.
Ordained in 1960, I had gone to give my first
preached retreat at that same house. It was, incidentally, the place where I had decided to become
a Jesuit – on a weekend retreat when I was a senior
in high school. I have given many retreats there
since my father died. But for a while during the
1970s, I felt that those weekends were not the
“real” Exercises, so I dropped that framework and
experimented with other approaches to “spirituality.”
During the 1980s, I spent most of my time
directing people one-to-one. I started giving Exercises in Daily Life and before long was forming lay
people to give them. The formation was aimed at
one-to-one guidance, based on Annotation 15’s
admonition that the guide remain at a balance during the Exercises. I thought with everyone else that
these Exercises in Daily Life were Annotation 19
Exercises.
The wall I had built to separate “spirituality” from
ordinary Christian life (which I have to admit I did
not honor very much) crashed about the same time
the Berlin Wall came down.
Gradually, I discovered Annotation 18. I realized
that Master Ignatius was creating a program of Christian living to give the ordinary exercitant, “so as to
retain what he has gained.” That program includes –
we all know this part – the examen, confession and
communion, and the simple ways of making mental
prayer. But what we have not been aware of is how
Master Ignatius and the early companions formed the
religious lives of ordinary people.
The Jesuits got to be known as the ones who
insisted on weekly confession and regular communion. They also taught ordinary people lessons from
the “rules” in the text of Exercises, four sets that
the one who gives Exercises has to interiorize and
then pass on what might be useful: rules for eating, style of living, dieting, and for living tranquilly
in the Church as it is right now.
We were doing none of that.
Instead, we were teaching discernment of spirits and finding God in all things – a fairly vague
spirituality. Further, we were doing this when “religion” was despised in the West and in much of the
rest of the world. We were infected with this distrust – this disdain – of “religion.”
Yet my father had lived a holy life by living his
religion. The families I grew up with remained in
the Church, receiving the sacraments, living faithful married lives – all by “religion.”
It has become very clear to me as I traveled the
world attending meetings and giving workshops
that the huge majority of Catholics will never have
a spiritual life, an interior life of prayer and
progress in asceticism. They will live and die as my
father did, knowing God intimately through the
Church. They are neither leftist nor far-right radicals. They are the millions in the middle.
The histor y of the early Jesuits brought home
the truth that the early Company spent much more
time and energy on these middle millions than on
the few to whom they gave one-to-one Exercises.
More than that, Master Ignatius had done that,
himself: he spent more time in the plaza than in the
conference room or confessional.
This is what he wrote into the Constitutions:
“The Spiritual Exercises should not be given in their
entirety except to a few persons ... But the exercises of the first week can be made available to large
numbers; and some examinations of conscience and
methods of prayer (especially the first of those
which are touched on in the Exercises) can also be
given far more widely; for anyone who has good will
seems to be capable of these exercises” [649].
And when it comes to choosing the “greater
good,” the Constitutions says in summar y “when
there are some occupations which are of more general use and extend to the aid of more of our fellow
men, such as preaching or lecturing, and others
which are concerned more with individuals, such
as hearing confessions or giving Exercises; and
when further it is impossible to accomplish both
sets of occupations simultaneously, preference
should be given to the first set” [623].
I know from long experience how valuable oneto-one Exercises can be. I still give people spiritual
direction, here in Rome. I bank on the authentic
Exercises as the Jesuit heritage.
But now Jesuits have committed ourselves to
parish work. We have committed ourselves to give
to the laity the help that they ask for – and the laity
are begging for help to live instructed, thoughtful,
holy lives within the real Church.
And now Jesuits in our retreat houses know that
they cannot just wait for retreatants to come make
one-to-one Exercises. All of us Jesuits are reaching
out. With what?
That is my question. What are we going to give
the “ordinary Catholic” that will be like my father’s
prayer book? What are we to do to remove the blemish from “religion”? The Formula Instituti lists some
things the companions found useful for “defending”
the faith: preaching, lecturing, doing other ministries of the Word, giving Exercises, instructing
children and adults in the faith, confessing, and conferring other sacraments.
“Defending” the faith seems meaningless today
unless you recognize that “defending” had very little to do with contentious theology. And “the faith,”
to the early companions, meant a comprehensive
Catholic way of life.
I hope that we will find in Ignatian spirituality
the means of composing such a comprehensive
Catholic way of life. The kind symbolized by my
father’s prayer book.
(Fr. Tetlow [NOR] is director of the Secretariat for
Ignatian Spirituality at the Jesuit Curia in Rome.)
National Jesuit News
■
December 2003 / January 2004
5
FEATURE
Discovering provident care
happens in this novice’s training
Men of 18 are adults and should be treated as such. The program in the novitiate should be one that will teach them to take
Thomas Acker’s article “Nurturing and Harvesting Vocations” responsibility for their lives. This is not easily done when the
(NJN, Nov. 2003) intrigued me as I am one of the two novices in novice director thinks of them as young men who “work best
under clear and precise rules and conditions” to quote Fr. Acker.
North America this year to enter right out of high school.
An extension of high school is not, in my mind, at all approHis proposal of drawing more vocations from the preparatory schools is one I would support. I would love to have more priate for one entering a complex religious life where there is not
company around my age up here in St. Paul. However, I would always someone to look after you and tell you what to do. In order
want to stay in St. Paul and not in a small town farmhouse away to discern a Jesuit life in this day and age, a man needs to sample
a Jesuit life in this day and age. One cannot take vows and be
from the rest of the Society.
I would disagree with Fr. Acker’s contention that the needs of thrown into a reality he has not experienced.
The major trials of the world need to be endured before somethe younger novices are not met in our present program.
In the “Old Society” this may have worked well. There were one vows poverty, chastity, and obedience – not after. Postponmany men who entered out of high school. So after first vows, ing the issues may not make them easier to deal with when they
come. Designate a time in which to
they all went off to their houses of
deal with them.
studies, regencies, and future misThe major trials of the world
I agree that the issue of low numsions with men their own age. In this
bers is a legitimate concern. I do think
day and age, that is no longer the case.
need to be endured before
it would be a worthy experiment to
How will these members of the “new
focus on recruiting young men from
novitiate” made up of 18 and 19-yearsomeone vows poverty, chastity,
high schools, but these recruits need
olds know how to live with older
and obedience – not after.
to be treated in the same way the other
men?
recruits are treated – like the men they
How can they acquire these valuare. A gap could result from separatable skills if they are kept away from
ing the age groups, which would lead to a division.
their other classmates?
Imaginethe29or30-year-oldnoviceslookingdownonthe19-year-olds
It seems like that should be learned before they take vows and
enter religious life. Keeping them from the reality of not having whowereinthe“kiddiehouse.”Thatisnowaytofosterunitywiththepeople
men their own age around all the time will cause some shocks wemustbeunitedwith.
Let them come to the novitiate and find provident care as I have. Comand discomforts that should be dealt with in the beginning.
At the Novitiate of the North American Martyrs, we have been munally, with their fellow novices, they will find the best bond for our life in
studying the Constitutions as a class. Part III deals with the men theSociety:loveofChristOurLord.
Theywillhaveatimetogrowanddealwiththehardissuesoflifeandself
in the first stage of probations. Therein, St. Ignatius designates
the novitiate as a place and time for spiritual progress under prov- so that those issues will not accumulate with the concerns that come in the
laterstagesofformation.
ident care (pgh. 243).
(Buehler[MIS]isafirstyearnoviceattheJesuitnovitiateinSt. Paul.)
I can only speak from my own experience, but I would say
that all of my needs have been met quite well in this program.
We have 22 novices who range in age from 19 to 38 with every age
in-between represented. I would like to have brothers here who
are my age, but is what I like necessarily what I need?
LETTER TO THE EDITOR
Is my comfort zone a place in which I can discover provident care? My emotional and spiritual growth here has been
rapid and extremely beneficial. I could not see the same taking
place in college or in a group of others who are my age.
After high school I carried an attitude that caused me to
think that I had something to prove. I was going to take this attitude with me no matter where I went. I did not even know I had
To the Editor:
it.
I came to the novitiate hoping to measure up to and
You can imagine with what interest I read the recent
connect with my brothers on their levels. This hope led
article by Ray Schroth on Villa Cutbacks, since I am
me to disappointment when I was not able to discuss
the pastor of Tonopah.
advanced philosophy or complex church issues at the
I was, however, distressed to note that Ray had mistable, go out to a bar on the weekends with a group of
spelled the name of our city. One advantage that he
my friends, or share wild stories from college and
failed to note was the practically complete immunity
beyond. It was the pain of not being able to be like them
to allergies at any time of the year. Few people are allerwhen I realized that God was calling me to be here. God
gic to sand or sagebrush.
was calling me.
I am preparing a presentation, together with the
I learned the all-powerful lesson of self-comfort and interChamber of Commerce, to attract more Jesuits into this
nal self-esteem, which happened perfectly in my present setlonely but hospitable area. My parish covers 20,000
ting. This setting is different from any other in my past, a worthy
square miles, and I'm sure you can find many places
probation in which I could grow in my spirituality and knowlsuitable for your recreation.
edge of self, which seems to be the ultimate goal of the novitiate
Please send me an address that I can send our
years. I would have had a much harder time dealing with this
information and invitation to.
issue amidst the final exams in philosophy or while I was teachWith thanks and eager anticipation,
ing freshmen during my regency.
How would I have learned this lesson as effectively in a setJames P. McCauley SJ
ting where I am with a group of people my age, with whom I am
St. Patrick’s Church
used to competing in academics, social settings, or sports’? How
Tonopah, Nev.
could I have been as humbled as I have been here’?
By Max D. Buehler nSJ
Tom Lankenau (ORE) photographed many of the pictures in
this issue of NJN of Jesuit institutions taking part in the Ignatian Family Teach-In. Daniel Hendrickson (WIS) captured
many others including this one of Lankenau himself. (Photo
by Daniel Hendrickson, SJ)
Society of Jesus, U.S.A.
http://www.jesuit.org
VisitJesuit.org for current news, back issues of
NJN in PDF format, upcoming vocation events,
and more.
Busted Halo
http://www.bustedhalo.com
This site, created by the Paulists, aims to explain
the Catholic faith in a way that is conversant with
US popular culture. Topics include spirituality,
human dimensions, life at work, and relationships.
6
National Jesuit News
■
December 2003 / January 2004
More suitable places for
recreation
Ongoing formation – mostly in retrospect
By Bob Hilbert SJ
Ongoing formation seems to be a common topic of talks and articles for priests these
days. Being at the upper end of life and ministry (60 years a Jesuit, 47 years a priest), I am
inclined to think that my ongoing formation
is mostly past, though I am sure some bits
may still be ahead.
In my early Jesuit years, initial formation
was standardized – 15 years from novitiate
through tertianship, with little in the way of
electives. I ended up with the requisite degrees
and, more importantly, with a pretty good
start on developing a relationship with God.
I had learned through the routine regency
period (three years of high school teaching)
to overcome my fear of standing before an
audience, and I found that I enjoyed teaching.
In tertianship I discovered I also liked giving
preached retreats.
So, after some additional graduate study
of mathematics, I embarked on a career as
priest, high school teacher and, in whatever
vacation time came along. retreat director.
Many of us, I am sure, find that our work
life doesn’t follow the lines of early expectation. I distinctly remember talking with Father
Kochanski, the prefect of studies, during theology about what kind of assignment I might
look toward after tertianship. I told him I
thought I was most suited for high school
teaching, but that I was open to any assignment superiors might wish except that I did
not think I was suited for Campion (our
boarding high school) and the Indian missions.
My first assignment was teaching at Marquette High, a job and community I most
thoroughly enjoyed for four years! Then came
seven years as rector at Campion and this is
now my 22nd year of ministry on an Indian
reservation.
Reading provided some continuing learning. In those early 1960s at Marquette High,
I particularly remember finding a book on
grace by Franzen a refreshing shift from the
rather cut and dried treatise we had had in
theology. Some works of Karl Rahner also
offered a fresh view and he became my favorite
theologian. It was also the period of the Second Vatican Council, and the documents and
various lectures and workshops on them
made for a quite lively period of theological
exploration.
Major movements in the world around us
made that period of the 1960s a time of
rethinking, clarifying. For some years, in addition to mathematics, I taught social ethics at
both high school and university level, based
on the Church’s social justice documents. The
civil rights movement and the Vietnam War,
the assassinations of the Kennedys and of
Martin Luther King, the drug scene and the
“Hippies” all sharply challenged the relatively placid world of the 1950s, and issues of
racism, poverty and war were hot topics as
well as textbook subjects.
I am aware that, in my own case at least,
the formation of the last 50 years has been a
combination of experience and study. I am
not a scholar, given to full time study and
teaching. My experience in ministry, however, has constantly pushed me to more and
more study and reflection.
During theology I spent two summers as
a plumber in a couple of buildings at St. Francis Mission, working under the direction of
an Indian man about my own age. This was
chosen simply as an alternative to the usual
summer at Lake Beulah, not because of any
previous interest in the mission or the Indian
people.
Getting to know Lloyd One Star, however, was a mind opener. Lloyd was from a
traditional family, and, with all his skill in
plumbing, it was quite apparent to me that
his cultural values, ways of thinking,
worldview were very different from mine.
It was for me a lived experience of profound cultural difference.
After the first summer of work at St.
Francis I helped with the Sunday liturgy
and catechetical work at the Pottawattomie
reservation near the theologate for the next
three years. I also read a bit of history of
white-Indian conflict, a neglected area of
education in my earlier years. That was a
shocking revelation of duplicity, arrogance,
greed, cruelty embodied in my nation and
people.
The civil rights movement soon after I
finished tertianship carried further my
understanding of cultural differences and
the societal incarnation of injustice not
only toward the original inhabitants of the
country but toward the slaves and their
descendants.
Through the 1960s I had some small
acquaintance with Blacks, mostly in Milwaukee. At Campion High School we began a summer program for junior high kids from inner
city Milwaukee schools. We also introduced
some Black students into the school itself. We
did this with a deliberate concern for their cultural identity and took measures as best we
could to give them some cultural support in
that formerly all-white school many miles
from any Black community. It also led me to
some small study of liberation theology and
of the nature and history of prejudice.
Altogether those years provided some
strenuous experiences. I found myself caught
in a very sharp and profound conversion experience, rooted in consciousness of my own
personal sharing in the arrogant sense of superiority and “Manifest Destiny” that pervades
centuries of Euro-American history.
My experience of God in my earlier spiritual development had led me to a sense that
my very being is an incarnation of love, that
I am God’s Love expressed in the creation of
me. This later experience of my being a member of the white Euro-American U. S. people
gave me also a sense that I am sin, I am personally an incarnation of the spirit that has
fostered centuries of rapine, slavery and massacres. I could feel as simply apt, not an exaggeration, that phrase of St. Ignatius in the
Second Exercise of the First Week, to see
myself as “utcus quoddam et aposterna, unde
pullularunt tot peccata et tot nequitiae ac
venenum tam turpissimum.”
In the 1960s individual direction became
a more common retreat style. I made a couple of my personal retreats that way, and soon
some Jesuits began asking me to direct their
retreats.
I went to a couple of workshops designed
to help directors in this method. The biggest
boost in this for me was in helping direct tertians in their 30-day Spiritual Exercises, which
I was privileged to do three times in the years
from 1972 to 1983.
Here at St. Stephens Mission I have generally had some opportunity to direct
retreatants, including some in the style of the
19th Annotation. In the mid 1980s I also spent
four years as partner with Sr. Mary Dingman,
SSSF, in the Emmaus spirituality center in Des
Moines. That, too, has led to considerable study
of spirituality, chiefly Ignatian, and of spiritual
direction.
My present ministry among the Arapaho and Shoshoni people of the Wind River
Reservation challenges me in many ways. In
a sabbatical semester at Weston in 1994, 1
took two very pertinent courses, “Cross and
Redemption” (the theology of suffering) and
“Theology of Mission.” Neither, of course.
offered final solutions, but both stimulated
study and reflection.
Currently, along with practical issues of
day-to-day ministry in a cross-cultural
oppressed situation, I am again trying to work
“For a reflective
person, knowledge and
experience form an
integrated organic
whole, a sort of general
worldview.”
further toward understanding something of
the call to inculturation of the Church.
In the college years of my youth I did a
paper on Newman’s “Idea of a University.”
Something from that sticks in my mind,
something I think very pertinent to the
notion of ongoing formation. For a reflective
person, knowledge and experience form an
integrated organic whole, a sort of general
worldview. As experience and study add
something new it is not just something
patched on, but becomes an integral part
affecting and changing the whole.
There is no end term to formation, nor is
there any universally applicable syllabus. In
all our encounters and experiences grace is
at work. No one will duplicate my path nor
will I be quite the same priest as anyone else.
For me something still to be discovered is
whether ongoing formation continues beyond
death.
(Fr. Hilbert [WIS] is associate pastor of St.
Stephens Mission in St. Stephens, Wyoming.)
National Jesuit News
■
December 2003 / January 2004
7
News
By Julie Bourbon
As a boy, Fr. Bob Fabing (CFN) listened
to missionary stories of China as told by his
dad’s best friend, the late Wilfred LeSage.
A Jesuit priest in mainland China, LeSage’s
visits back to the States were infrequent,
and dinnertime conversation often drifted
toward the East. “My father would say ‘Bill,
we need you in California. Why are you
spending your life in China?’” Fabing
recalled. “He would say ‘Joe, it’s the devotion of the Chinese people.’ And that sort of
stuck with me.”
Now grown, and a priest as well as an
author and liturgical composer, Fabing has
experienced for himself the devotion of the
Chinese people. And it has stuck with him.
Last month, Fabing and his works were
honored at the Ricci Institute for ChineseWestern Cultural History at the Center for
the Pacific Rim (University of San Francisco). Three of his books and two compilation CDs – “Come to Me” and “Shadow of
My Wings” – have been translated into
Mandarin Chinese. His publisher, Oregon
Catholic Press, co-sponsored the event,
called “Lift Your Hearts in Song – Celebrating Chinese-Western Cultural History
Today.” About 300 people attended and were
entertained by a 50-voice choir that performed some of Fabing’s compositions in
Chinese; the guest of honor sang in English.
“It was fabulous. It was just wonderful,”
said Fabing, 61, who first went to China in
1989. “They just sing it from their heart.
They did a great job.”
That initial visit was inspired, in part,
by another late Jesuit whose missionary
experience profoundly affected Fabing. Fr.
Ed Malatesta, who founded the Ricci Institute, convinced Fabing to go to Shanghai
and Beijing; once there, he taught liturgical theology and sang liturgical music at
the Sechan Seminary in Shanghai, where
the seminarians translated some of his
music into Chinese. It wasn’t until 10 years
later, though, that one of his books, “The
Eucharist of Jesus: A Spirituality for
Eucharistic Celebration” was formally printed at an old Jesuit compound in Shanghai
and distributed.
“They published 5,000 copies and gave
a copy to every seminarian on mainland
China as a text to study Eucharistic theology,” Fabing said. “Isn’t that fabulous? And
it was all a fluke. … This is all grace.”
Fabing dedicated his performance at the
Ricci Institute to both LeSage and Malatesta. The event marked the kickoff of a Ricci
Institute scholarship fundraising effort in
Malatesta’s name. The missionary influence
of the two men prompted Fabing to visit
Taiwan in 2001 and 2002, to speak at the
National Taiwanese Religious Education
Congress, a four-day conference for more
than 300 Chinese educators at which he was
the sole speaker. He also travels every
month, domestically or internationally, giving presentations on liturgical music.
Sr. Elaine Marie Peng, of the Society
Devoted to the Sacred Heart, is the director of religious education for the Archdiocese of Taipei, Taiwan, where a little over
two percent of the population is Catholic.
The two met at one of Fabing’s presentations in California. Peng worked on the song
translations with a team of five scholars
from Fu Jen University, the Jesuit universi-
A combined choir from Los Angeles and San Francisco sings Fabing’s music in Chinese.
8
National Jesuit News
■
December 2003 / January 2004
ty in Taiwan, and
National Taiwan University. Peng said
Fabing’s
translated
works are commonly
sung in Taipei.
“The people feel that
his music is quite Chinese … it speaks to the
Chinese soul,” she said.
“The music has an Oriental flavor.” Peng
recounted the story of a
Catholic woman whose
husband was so moved
by the music, he listened to one of Fabing’s
CDs more than 100
times. “The message we
give people they will
forget, but a song they
will remember for life.”
Fabing commended
Peng’s translations, saying, “It’s not just like
translating a book. In
order to sing, the syllabic quality has to
make sense on, for Fr. Bob Fabing presenting at the reception for his music, which has
instance, the downbeat been translated into Chinese.
or the most powerful
melodic part of the line. The word has give a series of talks on prayer to Mother Teresa and the Missionaries of Charito be coordinated” with the music.
The Chinese translations reflect the ty in Calcutta. Upon his return to
growth of that population in California, Minnesota, where he was chaplain of St.
said Dr. Xiaoxin Wu, director of the Ricci Paul’s Novitiate at the time, he composed
Institute. “There is a demand, need and three songs for Mother Teresa, including
interest in liturgical music and songs,” “Your Song of Love,” which became the
said Wu who, as a native Chinese speak- order’s signature song. Fabing returned
er, appreciated the beau- to India in 1997 to perform the piece at
ty of Peng’s work, which her funeral, and sang it again at her beatwas performed by the ification in Rome in October.
“That was a tremendous experience,”
choirs that day. “It’s like
he said of the chance to perform three songs
poetry.”
Fabing, who is also at the ceremonies, presided over by John
the founder and director Paul II as he celebrated the 25th anniverof the Jesuit Institute for sary of his papacy. “The highest point of my
Family Life Association, religious, artistic experience. … I have
grew up with musical never in my life sung better.”
After the beatification, he made it back
parents and began composing while still a to the U.S. just in time for the Ricci Institeenager. In 1960, he was tute event, which he said complemented
the first man allowed to nicely Fr. General’s statement this year citbring a musical instru- ing China and Africa as priorities for the
ment – his guitar – to Society and its works.
“This is really important. I’m just tryseminary. He began writing liturgical music in ing to figure this all out. This is a work of
1968, recording his first the Holy Spirit,” reflected Fabing. “God
album three years later. returning to the California Province the
He has recorded seven mission of mainland China.”
(Visit Oregon Catholic Press at
CDs.
His music has taken www.ocp.org and click on the Chinese lanhim to other mission guage icon to be taken directly to Fr. Fabing’s
countries, including a translated works, available for purchase.
fateful trip in 1983 to Also available at 1-800-LITURGY)
Photos by Fran Stiegeler, SJ
Jesuit composer Bob Fabing honored
by USF Chinese institute
Journey to the New Mexico
desert offers contrasts
By John Dear SJ
New Mexico has some of the most stunning, unusual, even mystical landscapes in
the nation. Orange deserts, rocky red hills,
snow covered mountains, river gorges, spectacular big skies, every variety of wild animal and the ever present sage brush
spreading out over wide open spaces combine to make it a magical place.
Out here, most people grow up with a
deep, innate spirituality that the rest of us
spend our lives pursuing. Living in deserted places, witnessing the grandeur of God’s
creation, dwelling in a natural peace far
from the rat race of the big cities, people
have cultivated a supernatural grace, a rare
peaceableness.
According to the most recent census statistics, New Mexico is the poorest state in
the nation. In 2001, the U.S. poverty rate
was 11.7 percent, with more than 32.9 million people suffering under poverty. New
Mexico’s official poverty rate is 17.7 percent. The numbers are deceptive. In the
desert, everyone is desperately poor.
On top of that, New Mexico leads the
nation in nuclear weapons spending. It is
the birthplace of the bomb, and the midwife
to every nuclear weapon since. It is the home
of the mininuke, post nuclear laser weapons,
Star Wars, radiation dumpsites and other
demonic inventions.
The nuclear age was born here, on July
16, 1945, amid the cholla and yucca cactus
of the Tularosa Basin in central New Mexico.
Since then, the Los Alamos National Laboratory, Sandia National Laboratories, and
the White Sands Missile Range work to
expand the profitable nuclear industry.
Today they employ over 19,000 of the world’s
best technicians in the art of annihilation.
Much of New Mexico has suffered from
nuclear fallout. Cancer and its related illnesses are widespread. In my parish town
of Cimarron, population 900, over 80 percent of the people have cancer or diabetes.
For years, Dr. Helen Caldicott, the longtime
antinuclear activist, has said that New Mexico along with Nevada should be permanently closed.
New Mexico then is a land of contrasts,
from grace to disgrace, from angelic spirits to the demons of war, from natural nonviolence to nuclear violence. It combines
the best and the worst of the United States.
It is the perfect place to practice the “preferential option for the poor,” to stand with,
serve, walk with and defend the poor on
the farthest margins, and also a good place
to practice the “preferential option for
peace,” to call for nuclear disarmament and
announce Jesus’ way of loving nonviolence.
The four parishes and five missions I
serve in the Archdiocese of Santa Fe are
in the northeastern corner of New Mexico, in the high desert plains, as well as
the Sangre de Cristo Mountains. The
churches are spread out over nearly 200
miles, far away from any major cities, so
I drive through the desert into rugged
canyons, up to various mountain villages
and back through the plains to small
desert oases for Mass, home visits, and
classes.
The Church of the Immaculate Conception in Cimarron is the oldest of my
parishes. It was built in the mid 1800s at
the foot of the Rockies along a row of
desert hills where the plains begin and
extend out through Texas. Though there
is a history of Wild West violence here,
beginning with Jesse James and Doc Hol-
liday, there is also a history of faith, hope
and love, and a deep understanding of the
spiritual life.
Though they have serious problems –
unemployment, poverty, lack of healthcare,
and boredom, and though life for some can
be a struggle simply to survive, the people
of New Mexico, in many ways, have an
innate understanding of the Gospel. For
most of them, Jesus’ words make sense. In
them, they come true: the poor in spirit are
blessed; the reign of God is theirs. The
meek are inheriting this beautiful earth.
The merciful are receiving mercy. The pure
in heart are seeing God.
But their most basic experience is grief.
Every day I witness the tears of the poor.
They weep over their sufferings; the death
of loved ones, and the powerlessness and
tragedy of their lives. The best I can do is
offer some consolation.
On August 6th, 75 Catholics came from
all over the state to Los Alamos to pray for
nuclear disarmament and the closing of the
nuclear weapons facilities. The vigil was
remarkably peaceful. At the teach-in the
night before, everyone agreed to a covenant
of nonviolence. Instead of targeting anger
at the employees or the police, they focused
their energy on God in a plea for disarmament and the closing of Los Alamos. The
police and the press reported that it was
the most nonviolent, peaceful protest they
could remember.
During the teach-in, Greg Mello, director of the Los Alamos Study Group, (see
www.lasg.org) explained the history of Los
Alamos. Since its birth in 1943, the U.S.
has spent about $54 billion in Los Alamos
alone, most of it building weapons of mass
destruction. The small town itself is sur-
Fr. John Dear (MAR) marches at left with parishioners in the annual Chimayo to Los Almos peace walk.
rounded by contaminated landfills. Today,
Los Alamos has been taken over by the
Pentagon, and is run by a retired admiral
who used to direct the Trident submarine
system. The Lab also spends billions annually lobbying Congress for further nuclear
weapons development.
In the late 1990s, the Los Alamos budget doubled. Between “stockpile stewardship” and new “earth penetrating
weapons,” business is booming. According
to the Brookings Institute, the U.S. now
spends about $30 billion a year on the
manufacture, deployment and control of
weapons for nuclear war. If we invested that
$30 billion annually for food and medicine
in the Third World, Mello observed, the
world would be much safer and we would
discover true security.
For the last three or four decades, lab
officials believed that nuclear weapons
would never be used. Today all the employees presume they will be used someday.
According to Mello, none of the thousands
of employees know exactly what the others
are doing or how the parts fit together.
They each work on different segments
of the system. In the end, Mello argues that
the best hope for change will be the resignation of individual scientists for reasons
of faith and conscience. That is why they
need our love and prayers and our public
presence, in the tradition of Mahatma
Gandhi and Dr. Martin Luther King. Some
Catholic scientists have written to me confidentially for advice as they struggle with
these questions.
Instead of cutting back, however, the
Bush Administration is expanding nuclear
weapons development at every level, most
notably with the proposed building of a
new “Modern Pit Facility,” either in Los
Alamos or in Carlsbad, N.M., where they
intend to build plutonium triggers to
replace the Rocky Flats, Col., plant which
closed in 1989. So the need to speak out for
nuclear disarmament is as important as
ever.
These days, I can see why the ancient
desert fathers and mothers stepped back
from the imperial culture to pursue the
Gospel of peace in the desert. Today the
desert still has much to offer those who
want the essential ingredients of Gospel living. It is still a place to wrestle with the
demons of violence, but it can also lead us
to the basics of faith, prayer, peace, poverty and nonviolence. It can be a training
ground for the spiritual life, as John the
Baptist and Jesus both knew so well.
(Fr. Dear [MAR] is the author of 20
books, including most recently “Mohandas
Gandhi: Essential Writings”; “Mary of
Nazareth, Prophet of Peace”; and “Living
Peace” (Doubleday).
National Jesuit News
■
December 2003 / January 2004
9
FEATURE
‘Lord, it’s good to be here.’
Over 1,000 participate in Ignatian Teach In
By Tom Lankenau, SJ
“Lord, it’s good to be here.” With
these cheerful words spoken by Peter on
the mountain of transfiguration, Fr.
Provincial Fred Kammer (NOR) welcomed over 1,000 students, teachers,
Jesuits, former Jesuits and friends of the
Society gathered in Columbus, Ga., Nov.
21–23 for the fifth Ignatian Family
Teach-In. “We have built a tent here
today,” Kammer boomed. “We have come
to see the Lord in a new way and to hear
the Lord in the voices of many speakers,
many witnesses, and many remembered
martyrs.”
Held in conjunction with the School
of the Americas (SOA) protest at nearby
Fort Benning, this pep rally for social
justice used the backdrop of the commemoration of the El Salvadoran martyrs to explore issues of faith and justice
in Latin America and throughout the
world.
“We are here this weekend to celebrate
life, to stand in solidarity against injustice,
to fight for the justice of the poor, to be a
voice for those who don’t have a voice and
to press one another uncomfortably to seek
the truth,” remarked Boston College senior
and student coordinator Sarah Berger at the
opening session.
Introduced to the SOA protest as an
eighth grader by her uncle and founder of
the teach-in, Bob Holstein, Sarah challenged
the crowd to let go of all “your expectations,
your worries, your concerns and your anxieties, and let the spirit be within you.”
Like other young people she too had
once questioned “what it meant to fight in
solidarity with the poor.”
“The idea of changing the world, or saving the world was absolutely foreign.”
But what Sarah had not realized at the
time was that this commitment to the vigil
of November 1996 would be a pivotal
moment in her life.
Others would reminisce about Holstein’s
influence throughout the sun-kissed weekend. He died this past year. “Bob is watching over us from his tent in heaven,”
recounted Fr. Charlie Currie (MAR), president of the Association of Jesuit Colleges
and Universities (AJCU).
“The presence of so many students provides great hope for Bob, the Society of
Jesus and the world.”
Many interests, one tent
It was impossible not to feel the hope
at this Jesuit jamboree. From the packed
restaurants to the sleepy tree-lined
downtown, all of Columbus would be
moved by the energy emanating from the
can-do attitude bursting the seams of the
packed tent.
As the revival-like atmosphere spilled
over to the informal gatherings on the
spacious lawn and into late-night reflection sessions in hotel rooms, friendships
made at previous teach-ins were renewed
while new connections were formed.
“The first year I felt so unprepared.
The issues were over my head,” recounted three-time participant Craig Montoya
of Spring Hill College. With each trip
Craig found himself growing in understanding of the importance of the teachin.
Others like his traveling companion
freshman John Bennett were newcomers.
Though not initially attracted to the trip,
he found that after researching the SOA that
there were still nagging questions.
“The problems kept coming back. I had
to see the SOA for myself.”
The teach-in also provided Bennett with
a sense of solidarity. “All too often kids
think they are too small to make a difference.”
First year student Char Jennings of University of Detroit Mercy knew she had to
attend when she watched a video on the
SOA in a philosophy class. Preparing for the
weekend has also inspired her to “think
more about justice and to educate others.”
Sponsored by the West Coast Companions, a group of former Jesuits, the Teach In
has grown from its humble roots in a hotel
lobby to its current location. This year representatives attended from every Jesuit college and university, more than 20 Jesuit high
schools, Jesuit Volunteer Corps regions, and
Jesuits from all 10 provinces, plus students
from numerous state and private universities.
“We gather as an Ignatian family in
peace and for peace, to be in touch with the
gritty reality of the world,” exhorted Fr. Currie.
“Our agenda is broader than closing the
SOA. Each of us is involved in the struggle
for the humanization of the world.”
Many routes, one destination
As the weekend progressed it was readily apparent that the color of that struggle
was just as diverse as the t-shirts and banners identifying the origins of the participants.
For Jorge Duarte of Loyola Academy,
Wilmette, Ill., it was his experience as the
son of a Colombian immigrant that brought
him to see God as not only his friend, but
as a God of justice.
10
National Jesuit News
■
December 2003 / January 2004
“Just as God loves us we have an obligation to love others.”
Anna Egoville of the University of
Scranton came to Columbus via her participation in an anti-war protest last February, while Loyola Marymount student Chris
Zepeda’s route brought him through contact with the campesinos in the fields of
Chiapas, Mexico.
Though Morgan Tribuno and Colin
Strickland arrived on the same bus from
Rhodes College in Memphis, the seeds of
activism were sewn 1,500 miles apart during high school when Colin attended Tampa
Jesuit while Morgan hailed from Cheverus
in Portland, Me.
Loyola University Chicago students
Alena Chanh and Cynthia Mazanigos found
a common bond through their involvement
in Students Against Sweatshops, while
Boston College freshman Casey Otto
became interested in the SOA when he
heard about it in high school.
“I came to learn more so that I can teach
others.”
For David Murray and Spencer Brown
of Creighton Prep the weekend was also a
chance to practice what they learned in the
classroom. “Coming here felt like this is
what you should do,” reflected David.
But the step from the campus to the
street is not always easy. “Protesting is a
scary word,” observed Creighton Prep Spanish teacher Bob Pearce.
Active in pro-life issues, he had reservations about attending in 2002. “Catholics
are easily mobilized on pro-life issues. But
we generally don’t talk about war, materialism, racism and sexism in the same
breath.”
Pearce sees the teach-in as a way to
form bridges between the different factions
of the social justice movement. “The tent
of activism is very large in the Catholic
Church.”
“ T h e S OA Watc h h a s e f fe c t ive
ways of present ing decept ive informat ion”
“We wa nt you to l o ok at b ot h
s i d e s of t h e i s su e a n d m a ke a n
informed decision.”
“We a sk t h at you com e h e re to
judge for yourself.”
“I b e l i e ve t h at b e c au s e you a re
here that you have already made the
decision.”
Many of the students in fac t had
come to a de c i sion . Up on b o ard i ng
the retur n bus, Pichon spoke of the
“s e n s e t h at s om e t h i n g i s n ot r i g ht
h e re .” O t h e rs sh a re d t h at t h ou g h
they were g lad to have v isited, they
fe lt “s n owe d ove r” by t h e p e r for mance.
One issue at a time
Thousands gather in protest – Marchers carried white crosses bearing the names of individuals killed in Central America in procession (opposite,
lower left) while more crosses hung on the fence outside Fort Benning surrounding a photo of Archbishop Oscar Romero who was murdered while celebrating Mass in 1980 (opposite, top left). Participants gathered at Fort Benning’s main gate during the protest (above). Fr. Dean Brackley (NYK),
(below) teaches at the University of Central America in San Salvador, El Salvador. He replaced one of the six Jesuits murdered there in 1989.
Moving from head to heart
Whatever the various motivations
for attending, the message to participants was one of empowerment. They
had been taken hold of by God and
were standing at the threshold of a
new journey of transformation.
“We have discovered something
impor tant,” reflec ted SOA Watch
founder, Fr. Roy Bourgeois, MM. “We
cannot go back to the person we were.”
“The spirit of God is in our hearts,
exhorted prominent peace activist Sister Helen Prejean, CSJ de Medaille.
“When we wake up to justice we wake
up to ever ything.”
Kate Pichon of the Jesuit School of
Theolog y at Berkeley brought the
crowd to its feet when she shared her
own struggle of being moved in a new
direction.
“I truly believe that God is most
present to us in and through our passions.”
After attending as a Jesuit Volunteer in 2002 Gonzaga University graduate Mar y Van Cura realized that she
too was ruined for life.
“The experience transformed me.”
Now involved in death penalt y
work in Nashville, where she regularly cor responds w ith an inmate on
death row and marches in rallies, Van
Cura has put the
“heady social just ice
talk into action.”
At a packed and
stirring closing liturgy
California Fr. Prov incial Tom Smolich
echoed this sense of
being called and plowing ahead to the 2000
clapping worshippers.
“Once our eyes have
been opened, we cannot turn back.”
“We walk together
to bring the reig n of
God to life – for this we
were born, for this we
came into the world.”
Touring SOA,
touching pain
Many would confront their first challenge to “dig deeply
w ithin this profound
experience” upon tour-
ing the SOA complex on Saturday
af ternoon. Renamed the Western
Hemisphere Inst itute for Securit y
Cooperat ion
( WHINSEC),
the
makeover included a commitment by
the school to public access.
But being welcomed w ith open
arms by openly armed soldiers in the
name of openness was as uncomfortable as it was ironic. Glimpsing the
world behind the war riors would
require submitting to irritating inconveniences as well as g ripping a profound sadness.
As a multitude of MPs ushered the
quiescent guests past guarded and
closed doors, through the Hall of Liberation and into a large auditorium, a
pall of unease spread throughout the
corridors. Aware that they walked in
the same footsteps of dic tators and
oppressors, even murderers, few managed a whisper above the haunt ing
hush.
Yet to the gauntlet of uniformed
greeters the tour would be a coup de
etat against the invectives of innuendo and falsit y spewed against the
school.
When challenged by JSTB student
Clare Foley to articulate “what is that
you understand why we are here,”
WHINSEC
commander
Colonel
Richard Downie defended its past and
current activities.
“I believe you are here because you
have been deceived.”
With no chance for follow up questions and a well-educated and smooth
talking WHINSEC staff volleying back
quest ions w ith ease, the polite but
captive audience of over 250 endured
a dialogue of denial.
“We don’t teach torture. We don’t
teach terror.”
Fou r te e n ye a rs a f te r s o l d i e rs
under orders by graduates of the SOA
entered the campus of the UCA and
mu rd e re d s i x Je su i t s , t h e i r h ou s e keeper and her daug hter, the Ig natian Family Teach-In still draws upon
i t s m e m or y to m o bi l i z e m i n i ons of
laborers in the vineyard of injustice.
Nu n c a m a s . No m ore . T h i s wa s
the v ision of Bob Holstein. This was
t h e c h a nt of t h e t h ou s a n d s w h o
marched to the lo cked gates of For t
Benning on Sunday morning.
But as the horizon for social just ice ex p an d s , to t he war i n Ir aq, to
an Amer ican-backed war in Colombia, to the continuing tragedy of mill ions p o or and star v i ng , and to the
i n hu m a n it y of c apit a l pu n i sh m e nt ,
t h e ro a r of nu n c a m a s on ly g rows
louder.
“Our challenge is not to be overw h e l m e d or e ve n p a r a ly z e d by t h e
sheer breadth and depth of the problems we see all around us,” exhor ted
Fr. Currie. “Choose one or a few and
t r y to m a ke a d i f fe re n ce , n ot ju s t
today or tomor row, but for the long
haul.”
“We are working as God’s collabor ators ,” of fe re d Fr. D e a n Br a ck l e y
( N Y K ) of t h e Un ive rs i t y of C e nt r a l
America. “If we cannot find the people in this tent and in Catholic universities, I don’t know where we will
find them.”
Al l tents are temporar y. By Sunday afternoon workers had pulled up
stakes on the big white tent. Within
a fe w we e k s on ly t h e t r a mp l e d
g rou n d w i l l h i nt of t h e e ve nt s t h at
o cc u r re d u nde r t he aw n i ng on t h at
sun kissed November weekend.
T h e s t u d e nt s a n d te a c h e rs a n d
friends of the Society gathered at the
Ig n at i a n Fa m i ly Te a c h - In h ave
m ove d on . But t he y do n ot j ou r n e y
alone.
They take w ith them the w it ness
of ot hers engage d i n t he i r ow n way
as companions of Christ in the strugg l e for t h e hu m a n i z at i on of t h e
world.
(Lankenau [ORE] is a third-year
theolog ian at JSTB.)
National Jesuit News
■
December 2003 / January 2004
11
province briefs
NEW ORLEANS
■ Fr. Provincial Tim McMahon
and Fr. Socius Phil Steele took their
show on the road during November.
In a series of “Town Hall” meetings
in Denver, Kansas City and St. Louis,
they discussed the province’s newly
revised “Policies for Responding to
Allegations of Abuse by a Jesuit” and
efforts to draw up another document
focusing on professional boundaries
and prevention of abuse, then
answered questions.
■ Fr. Jim Lambert, provincial
assistant for parishes and retreat
houses, attended the fall joint meeting of the Jesuit Conference Committees for Pastoral Ministries
(NJCPMN) and for Social and
International Ministries (JCSIM),
held at the Campion Renewal and
Retreat Center at Weston. Assistant for Social Ministries Mary Baudouin represented the province at
the JCSIM gathering.
■ Fr. John Padberg attended and
spoke at ceremonies marking the
200th anniversary of the restoration
of the English Province. From there
he journeyed to Capetown, South
Africa, for a weeklong series of lectures on the Society.
■ Mr. Michael Bouzigard, doctoral student of economic policy at
Oxford University, had the joy of
learning that his doctoral thesis had
been approved. Mr. Mark Mossa,
instructor in philosophy at Loyola
University of New Orleans, attended the Just War Forum in Washington, D.C.
■ The Rockhurst High School
Board of Trustees hosted a gala celebration, Ave Atque Vale, at which the
nearly 600 attendees thanked Fr.
Tom Pesci (MAR) for his nine outstanding years as the school’s president, and welcomed Fr. Terry Baum
(CHG), who takes over the post in
February.
■ Fr. Gary Seibert has been commissioned by Cross International to
travel one or two weekends a month
to preach in a U.S. parish and solicit
donations for the poor. Last summer
Seibert spent a week visiting the
orphanages and parishes in La Caye
and Port au Prince, Haiti, where the
money he raises is sent.
■ Fr. Bart Geger is spearheading
the still-infant Jesuit effort in
Colorado Springs. He is working to
bring together for both social and
spiritual events students from all the
local colleges, including the Air Force
Academy, where he regularly does
liturgies, weddings and
presentations for the cadets. Geger
was also asked by Rabbi Howard
Hirsch to join the board of the “Center for Jewish-Christian Dialogue.”
■ History buff Fr. Gerhardt
Lehmkuhl has been compiling a
long list of prominent graduates of
Jesuit secondary schools around the
world. Contributions may be sent to
Lehmkuhl at Jesuit Hall in St. Louis.
■ For the second time the DumkaRaiganj Province has contributed
two regents to the Missouri Province,
Augustine John Victor and Mariasusai Amalorpavnathan Loordu
Selvaraj Pakkiyam (Selva MALSP
for short). The Jesuit Community of
Belize and St. John’s College are the
beneficiaries , after weeks of visa
hassles.
■ Mr. T.J. Martinez, director of the
community service and social justice
program at Jesuit College Prep of
Dallas, organized the first ever
sophomore class community service
event to benefit the Race for the Cure
to raise money for the fight against
breast cancer. The volunteers
included the entire sophomore class
as well as their mothers, with a total
of 450 in attendance. This event followed the freshman class project in
which 231 freshmen, inspired by Fr.
Superior Raymond Fitzgerald,
dutifully cleaned a lake.
■ At Sacred Heart Church in El
Paso, the parish computer lab was
dedicated to Fr. Ed Schott, now a
member of the Ignatius Residence
community in New Orleans, who
spent many years in El Paso keeping
alive the ministry for children who
needed computer training.
■ Visitors to Strake Jesuit
Preparatory in Houston during the
last months of the first semester are
advised to bring hard hats! Renovations on the community house are
underway, and each board or strip of
molding that is removed brings a
fresh surprise to Br. Joe Martin,
who is overseeing the renovations.
■
A long, drawn out symphony of calling roosters
inaugurated each morning. Mangy dogs always seemed
to be the first to respond, set in motion looking for
food they couldn’t find the day before and fights with
each other that were fierce and unpleasant.
The young feet of the campo began to scamper
around, followed by more callused ones that carried
heavier loads of water. Small bonfires crackled in surrounding cinder-block kitchens. Mothers shouted commands and men sharpened machetes. By the time I
emerged on the scene the sun was well arced and
promising a lot of heat.
A whole new day had commenced and a woman
was again pushing her wheelbarrow.
I was moving throughout Central America that
summer, and this was the month that landed me, alone,
in a sugar-cane cooperative just beyond the towns of
El Paisnal and Aguilares. It was a difficult month, too.
El Salvador was only five years beyond the end of a civil
war. Some of its people had been able to piece their
lives together in hopes of something greater to come.
Others were grief-stricken, full of resentment, or just
plain numb and to them I was a do-good Jesuit, a
gringo touring their poverty, or a curious new face in
the midst of monotony, respectively.
But to each and all, I was a clumsy speaker, confused about a different dialect and yet another set of
idiomatic expressions. For the woman with the wheelbarrow at least, that was a great source of amusement.
She was the first person I saw each morning. I
guessed then that she was 45 or 50. She was probably
much younger. Her frame was stout and almost dumpy,
and her skin looked rough.
While she was forever barefoot, she daily wore a
red FMLN cap that was sun-bleached and sweatstained. Sometimes a young daughter tagged after her
and the wheelbarrow. I was never quite sure what she
was hauling, but it looked heavy and smelled. We would
exchange pleasantries. After awhile I found the nerve
and some words to ask about her daughter, inquire of
other children and family, or muse about her work at
the cooperative.
We would laugh about my questions and the
answers I had difficulty interpreting.
Whether we spoke much or not and whether it was
the start of my day or well into it, she was always smil-
ing. And after the first few days that month I didn’t
want her to smile anymore.
The whole place became too desperate. It lacked
plumbing. Electricity was sparse. The food wouldn’t
vary. Respite from the sun’s heat was minimal. The
entire area was dry and dusty or muddied, suddenly, by
a violent rainstorm. And as soon as it was over and
done mosquitoes bred.
I was convinced that her life was miserable, and
the wheelbarrow and the slop within it seemed to represent hardships she could never escape. In fact, the
wheelbarrow defined her.
The combined effect of her politically resistant cap,
the load she carried, and the smile that wouldn’t quit
impacted me well beyond my short stay in the sugarcane cooperative.
It certainly didn’t make the poverty better –
lighter and less smelly, for instance, or more comfortable; but as the image stayed with me, the wheelbarrow became less defining. The image exposed,
instead, dignity and the determination of a spirit at
work in her life and in the world around her.
That spirit was capped by an emblem that demanded change and still wants more. It daily showed an
enduring strength against the injustices of poverty
right in front of her. And the smile said, quite simply,
“This is who I am.”
It became less about being happy or amused and
more about a deeper kind of freedom and a bit of grace.
I was in Columbus, Ga., recently for a lot of reasons. I wanted to see the School of the Americas protest
and better understand it. I had heard great thing about
the Ignatian Teach-in and hoped to both pray with others and think critically.
I looked forward to connecting with Jesuit friends
from all over the country, and seeing students and colleagues from different Jesuit universities. I needed a
dose of that magic that thrives at Creighton University and made regency there as full of grace as I’d
dreamed for!
I’ve been to the UCA and have seen the pictures.
And I’ve met Salvadorans. They have fed me, sheltered me, nursed me (quite literally), and taught me.
But I went because of the woman who’s probably
still pushing that wheelbarrow.
(Hendrickson [WIS], a first-year theologian at
JSTB, contributed many of the photos on the SOA
protest.)
■ Fr. Paul Deutsch, assistant for
secondary education, and Mary Baudouin are making this year’s visitations to the province’s four high
schools together.
-- Donald A. Hawkins SJ
National Jesuit News
By Daniel Hendrickson, SJ
■ According to Fr. Marvin Kitten,
province vocation director, there
will be at least four provinces represented among the directors for the
two annual discernment retreats at
the Grand Coteau novitiate, one during the Thanksgiving holidays and
one just before Christmas.
-- Philip G. Steele SJ
12
A woman, a wheelbarrow,
and freedom
Photo by Tom Lankeneau, SJ
MISSOURI
December 2003 / January 2004
Daniel Hendrickson (center) and the contingent from the Jesuit School of Theology at Berkeley that attended the
Ignatian Family Teach-In in Columbus, Ga., in late November.
Oregon Jesuit has been in
the Society longer than
anyone else in U.S.
Father Francis A. Logan (ORE) celebrated his 101st birthday with relatives, friends, and members of the Jesuit communities at Gonzaga University on October 12. Logan has been in
the Society of Jesus in the U.S. Assistancy longer than any other
living Jesuit. He entered the Society at
Los Gatos on August 30, 1919.
James A. Martin (MAR) is the oldest living Jesuit in the U.S. He was born
more than a month before Logan. Martin entered the Society on August 14,
1921.
Logan taught at Seattle University
for more than 30 years prior to his
retirement in 1970. Since then he has
continued parochial ministry in Seattle area parishes. In 2000 he moved to
Francis A. Logan
the Jesuit infirmary at Spokane.
“Everybody tells me how good I look,” he wrote in his bimonthly newsletter to friends, “but I sometimes wonder. To
be honest, I have not found it hard to remain in the infirmary.
I have my daily walks and exercises.”
Known as “Coach,” Logan founded Seattle U.’s long running HiYu Coulees hiking club.
He continues to celebrate liturgy almost daily in the Jesuit
community chapel. He also preaches to the congregation at
these liturgies.
Logan credits his longevity to balancing work and play. Listening to baseball games and the World Series are his current
priorities.
Jesuit Old Boy wins Nobel Prize
(ICN) – A former pupil of two British Jesuit schools - Beaumont College in Windsor and Wimbledon College in south London - has been awarded the Nobel Prize for Physics.
Anthony Leggett shared the prize with two Russian scientists, Vitaly Ginzburg and Alexei Abrikosov. The three worked
separately on the same area - the nature of matter at extremely
low temperatures - and their theories led to the development of
magnetic imaging scanners which use magnetism and radio
waves to produce remarkably clear pictures of the human anatomy.
Born in London in 1938, Anthony J. Leggett spent two years
at Wimbledon before concluding his secondary education at
Beaumont. According to the headmaster of Wimbledon College,
Fr. Michael Holman SJ, Leggett was known as “AJ” during his
time there:
“AJ’s contemporaries remember him as a brilliant classicist
who started a chess club in Year 7, at the age of 11, advertising
it with a Latin poem which he’d written! His father was a Physics
teacher at Beaumont, and apparently Anthony was put off the
subject after attending one of his father’s lessons. So he carried
on with Latin and Greek,” said Holman.
However, once at Oxford, he obtained his Doctor’s Degree in
Physics at Balliol College; he is now MacArthur Professor at the
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Ill. His own main
research on superfluidity was done in England in the 1970s, and
scientists say the laureates’ work still has potentially revolutionary applications.
“Anthony Leggett’s contribution to the development of the
MRI (Magnetic Resonance Imaging) scan was considerable,”
said Holman. “Since it assists in the early diagnosis of cancer
and other medical conditions, it has benefited huge numbers of
people. We can all be proud of his achievements.”
OREGON
■ A String Quartet, composed by
Fr. Kevin Waters, was recorded
by the Nevsky Quartet of St.
Petersburg, Russia for release on
their upcoming CD. First
performed by the Kronos Quartet
in Seattle in 1973, the composition
includes avant-garde techniques
such as multiphonics and
controlled oscillations. Waters
composed the quartet while studying with Bruno Bartolozzi in Florence, Italy.
■ The Alaska Governor’s Awards
for the Arts and Humanities has
presented its Individual Artist
Award to Fr. Norm Pepin (NEN)
for his musical compositions. The
award was presented in Anchorage this fall. In addition to his
music, Fr. Pepin, 70, is chaplain
for both the Catholic grade school
and high school in Fairbanks,
director of the House of Prayer,
and a pastoral minister to the
city’s Hispanic community.
■ Five Oregonians were ordained
deacons in October. Craig
Hightower was ordained on Oct. 11
in Cambridge. The following week,
on Oct. 18, Jack Bentz, Viet Tran,
Tom Lankenau and Bryan Pham
were ordained in Berkeley. Pham,
completing his M.Div. degree at
Regis in Toronto, flew out to stand
in line with the West coast
ordinands.
■ Fr. Robert Araujo (NEN), a professor of law at Gonzaga University
and legal advisor to the Vatican,
delivered Gonzaga’s annual Jerry
Tucker Memorial Lecture on Nov.
17. He lectured on the university’s
mission in a speech entitled, “The
Jesuit University: An Instrument of
International Justice?”
■ The St. Leo’s Parish community
welcomed their new pastor, Fr.
Steve Lantry, at his official installation during a Sunday liturgy on Nov.
2. In addition to his pastoral
responsibilities, Lantry will continue his work as vocation director for
the province.
■ After chaining himself to the
front doors of Tacoma’s Federal
Building to protest the U.S. invasion
of Iraq last summer, Fr. Bill
Bichsel was found guilty in a trial
held last month. The judge
sentenced the 75-year-old priest to
five days in jail for the
misdemeanor. His case is currently
being appealed. Bischel has served
two long terms in federal prison for
his protests against the School of
Americas.
CALIFORNIA
WISCONSIN
■ “The happiest 35 of my 76 years
have been on this Hill of Peace in Los
Gatos.” Those are the words of Guy
Entriken, the California Province’s
only donné, who has served under
the past seven provincials, including
Fr. John Francis Xavier Connelly,
who brought him into our good company.
■ The wonders of Calgary, Alberta
persuaded Fr. Tacho Rivera to visit
his classmate and friend Fr. Max
Oliva who has been busy with retreat
ministry in the Canadian Rockies.
What’s more, the two were celebrating 40 years in the Society along with
10 other Californians.
■ Fr. Luis Proença (POR) has produced, directed and edited yet another prize-winning documentary
entitled Pukiki – The American Portuguese in Hawaii. The film reveals
the contribution to Hawaii made by
the Portuguese who first flooded the
islands after the Reciprocal Treaty of
1876 between Hawaii and the United
States.
■ Messrs. Piotr Twardecki (PMA),
Mirek Bozek (PME) and Fr. Robert
Wawer (PMA) set out on an adventure during the semester break by
scaling the highest peak in the lower
48, Mt. Whitney, only to drive themselves the next day to the lowest
point in the US at 282’ below sea
level: the Badwater Basin in Death
Valley, Calif.
■ Fr. Scott Santarosa is on hiatus
from the taping of episodes of “The
West Wing” to give more attention to
his new duties as vice president for
administration at Verbum Dei High
School in Compton. Freed from his
job as director of development this
year, Scott has also found the time to
fill in coaching (and running with)
the cross-country squad.
■ The eternally young Fr. Bob
Welch has not been slowed down by
a recent stroke. His concern for his
students’ grades and their papers
kept him on his regular rounds of
preaching and teaching at Loyola
Marymount University last month.
■ Bishop Gordon Bennett
preached and presided at the
anniversary Mass celebrating 75
years of the Society’s ministry to the
diocese of Phoenix, Ariz. and specifically St. Francis Xavier Parish. The
relationship between Brophy College Prep and St. Francis Xavier
Parish had its beginnings in the Brophy School Chapel at Christmas
1928.
■ Fr. Marty Hosking organized a
Latino Mass at Creighton Prep; Hispanic students played a prominent
role. As a part of the newly created
CPLatino Club, the “Misa” is well
received and the club has grown to
include students of Mexican, Puerto
Rican, Costa Rican, Cuban, Colombian, Guatemalan and even European
heritage. CPLatino club also sponsors
weekly tutoring for English as a second language in South Omaha, which
is heavily populated by Mexican
immigrants. Through the efforts of
the CPLatino club, Latino students
are discovering a voice and identity
and other youths are learning through
experience about Hispanic culture.
■ Fr. Peter Fink (NYK), who is
spending sabbatical time here from
Weston, spoke to the Creighton University Jesuit Community on the
sacrament of the sick. He gave a second presentation on another Sunday
on the sacrament of reconciliation.
■ The Creighton University Jesuit
Community hosted an open house
for students. Groups toured the
Ignatius House first, then moved to
the second floor of the Jesuit
Residence in the Administration
Building. Community members met
then along the route and explained
various aspects of Jesuit life. Pictures
of the original Creighton buildings
were of particular interest. Most of
the visitors were girls.
■ Fr. Bert Thelen and a committee
of lay people hosted Fr. Roy
Bourgeois on the Creighton University campus. He is a Maryknoll priest
and founder of the School of Americas Watch. After a social gathering and
dinner in the Jesuit Community, Fr.
Bourgeois spoke to an interested
audience in the student ballroom.
■ In recognition of the expert and
compassionate care given by their
health-care providers, Creighton’s
School of Medicine and the University of Nebraska Medical Center
together received the prestigious Outstanding Community Service Award
from the Association of American
Medical Colleges. Annually, 460,000
underserved and rural patients in
Nebraska and Iowa are served.
Creighton students receive clinical
training and experience in schools
and clinics in the area. Creighton is
the first Jesuit university to receive
this award. The two schools also
worked together with Nebraska officials to develop a bioterrorism preparedness plan for the state and to
help fund and staff a poison center.
-- Patrick Dorsey SJ
-- Jerry Hayes SJ
-- Brad Reynolds SJ
National Jesuit News
■
December 2003 / January 2004
13
PROVINCE BRIEFS
MARYLAND
NEW YORK
■ Fr. Gasper Lo Biondo addressed
the 2003 Annual Conference on Mission and Transformation in Milwaukee, Wis. in early November. His
topic was “Mission and Transformation: One Response to the Challenge of
Our Mission of Solidarity in a Globalized World.”
■ Fr. Jim Redington will take an
appointment at JSTB as an associate
professor of interreligious dialogue,
teaching courses in theology of religions, devotional Hinduism and wisdom Hinduism. Jim will remain a
senior fellow at The Woodstock Theological Center.
■ Fr. Brian McDermott spoke at the
opening night dinner of the Forum on
Catholic Traditions on Peace and War
sponsored by the Jesuit Conference
and Woodstock Theological Center
at Georgetown University. His presentation, “Discernment and Theological/Moral Reasoning about War
and Peace,” addressed Ignatian guidelines for discerning a course of action
an individual or group has a right to
make.
■ Fr. Joseph Hacala was a speaker
at the recent dedication of the diocesan Heritage Center in downtown
Wheeling. Most of the archives and
memorabilia of the WheelingCharleston diocese will be kept at the
center and be accessible there.
■ On Nov. 5, Kurt Denk and Fr. Dan
Ruff invited novices Kevin O’Donnell and James Dunn to meet a group
of Loyola College alumni and
students to talk about their life vocations. At a Mass afterward, O’Donnell
preached about following Jesus in his
ministry to the poor, the suffering and
the weak. Following Mass, the men
and seven Jesuit faculty enjoyed dinner and conversation at Ricci House.
■ Fr. J. Leon Hooper gave a lecture
on the philosophy of John Courtney
Murray to the Benedictine Community at St. Mary’s Abbey in Morristown,
New Jersey in early Nov.
■ Fr. Michael Braden is happy to
announce that one of his video
students, a 1995 graduate, has developed and produced a movie, “Bringing the Rain.” The movie was
screened on Nov. 4.
■ Fr. Donald Kirby was honored
for his long association with Le
Moyne College (Class of 1963; faculty since 1976). He received the Ignatian Service to Le Moyne Award for
his work as a teacher of excellence,
the director of the Values Program,
and his selfless service to the Le
Moyne Community in “promoting a
commitment to social justice with a
concern for each individual.”
■ The continued economic downturn has been especially felt by the
most marginalized. Fr. Ned
Murphy, the president of P.O.T.S.
(Part of the Solution) in the Bronx
reports an increasing demand for
meals, food packages and shelter.
■ Fr. Carsten Martensen and the
people of St. Anthony’s Church,
Oceanside, NY, will have a special
commemorative Mass in December
to mark the 20th anniversary of the
Jesuits’ ministry in the parish.
■ Mid-November marks
Homecoming Sunday at St. Aloysius
Parish in Harlem. This year, in addition to many former parishioners
and alumni of the parish school, Fr.
Ed Durkin returned from Buffalo to
preside and preach. It was an opportunity for the parish to acknowledge
his contributions to the people of St.
Aloysius for the past 13 years.
■ The New York Province celebrated its 60th anniversary at the annual
Jesuit Dinner at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel in Manhattan. The Xavier
Award was presented to Dr. Jasper
H. Kane, who received it on behalf of
all New York Province benefactors.
Each guest at the dinner received a
facsimile medal of the Xavier Award
as thanks from the members of the
province.
■ Fr. Joe McShane was inaugurated as the 32nd president of
Fordham University on Oct. 24.
The celebration was joyous and
included events for almost every
constituency of the university community, among them Cardinal
Avery Foster Dulles’s McGinley
Lecture in honor of Pope John Paul
II’s silver anniversary, a gallery
show, a conference on urbanism and
American religion, and student
receptions.
■ Loyola College hosted the first of
several area Maryland Province Sexual Misconduct Sessions on Saturday,
Nov. 1. Frs. J.A. Loftus, Jerry
McGlone and John Swope all made
professional presentations. These
gatherings will be held in all regions of
the province.
■ Fr. Jim Coughlin triumphantly
passed all three of his qualifying
examinations for the Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences at New
York University. Jim currently teaches at Xavier High School, New York.
-- Jackie Antkowiak
-- Louis T. Garaventa SJ
NEW ENGLAND
■ Fr. Julio Giulietti, director of
Boston College’s Center for Ignatian Spirituality, hosted Cardinal
Pham Minh Man, Cardinal Archbishop of Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam
from Nov. 3 to 7. While at B.C. Cardinal Man explored the possibility of
developing an educational partnership between his archdiocese and the
university.
■ Fr. Louis Grenier, 85, long-time
missionary in Jamaica, recently
spent a week in Nicaragua to
celebrate the centenary of the city of
Bluefields, where many decades ago
large numbers of Jamaicans migrated. Grenier was the guest of
Nicaraguan President Enrique
Bolanos, who 60 years ago was one of
Grenier’s high-school students at the
Colegio Centro America in Granada, Nicaragua, where Grenier taught
the first two years of his regency.
■ Fr. Jack Crabb of Gonzaga: Eastern Point Retreat House (EPRH)
recently was certified as an associate
supervisor by the examining board
of the Association of Clinical Pastoral
Education. This opens the way for
Crabb to become a full supervisor in
ACPE. He has already received his
degree as full supervisor with the
National Association of Catholic
Chaplains (NACC).
■ Fr. Bob Gilroy, also of EPRH,
returned to his beloved Rosebud
Reservation in South Dakota to teach
an art course at Sinte Gleska University, using art and art therapy in conjunction with his ministry of
spiritual direction.
■ Fr. Vincent Lapomarda’s book,
“The Catholic Church in the Land of
the Holy Cross: A History of the Diocese of Portland, Maine,” was published by Editions du Signe,
Strasbourg, France, in conjunction
with the sesquicentenary of the diocese.
■ Fr. Bill Mulligan celebrated his
golden jubilee in the Society by joining JRS and moving to Monrovia,
Liberia. He arrived Oct. 27, and has
already sent several long e-mails to
friends in Boston detailing his new
and strange experiences in a foreign
culture and environment.
■ Fr. Jim Hayes, director of vocations, through his Vocations Task
Force, successfully motivated and
inspired numerous events and activities around the province on Nov. 5,
the Feast of All Saints and Blessed of
the Society and National Jesuit Vocation Promotion Day.
-- Kenneth J. Boller SJ
-- Richard Roos SJ
14
National Jesuit News
■
December 2003 / January 2004
Continued from page 2
World religions
so many years. As Paul Knitter has often remarked in conversation, it is a totally different experience truly to become
friends with someone from another religious tradition than
to simply read about his/her religion in a college textbook.
One cannot but be impressed by the depth of faith and
commitment in the other person.
At present, I have ceded the directorship of the center to
another academic colleague, Dr. James Buchanan, who will
thus be in charge of making the move to the new Brueggeman Center residence. Likewise, with the recent arrival of
Dr. Jonathan Tan in the theolog y department, with his considerable background in Confucianism and Taoism, I have
g iven up teaching courses in Far Eastern Relig ions and
focused on my other major speculative interest, namely, the
dialogue between religion and science.
But the friendships thus gained with members of other
religious traditions have made an indelible impression upon
me and have convinced me that in the future Christian theology should regularly be done in an interreligious context.
For, as I see it, we Christians will never fully comprehend
our own religious identity except through careful comparison and contrast with the living traditions of the other world
religions.
Religiously oriented people have much to learn from one
another, preferably through conversation on an interpersonal basis.
(Bracken (CHG) is professor of theology at Xavier University.)
Continued from page 2
Church mission
Christian Conference of Asia (CCA) released a joint statement titled
“Working With Other Religions,” in which they spoke of dialogue as
being not “ primarily a matter of talking. It is, in the first instance
an attitude, an openness to the neighbor, a sharing of spiritual
resources as people stand before the great crisis of life and death,
as they struggle for justice and human dignity, ... In dialogue, Christians and their neighbors enter into a reciprocal relationship which
becomes a process of mutual learning and growth.”
Another colleague of my days in Berkeley, the well-known Protestant Taiwanese theologian C. S. Song, has written extensively in this
area, and argues that genuine interreligious dialogue is not so much
a communication technique as it is a multi-stage process of conversion for those involved.
An initial stage Song labels “bi-lateral cease-fire,” which requires
that those involved in the dialogue have to stop trying to conquer
the other side by converting them. If the parties agree to this theological armistice then they might reach the next crucial stage of
“blessed ignorance,” in which we recognize (or least entertain the
suspicion) that our own religious-cultural experience is not the sum
of all possible truth.
If we accept the possibility that the absolute fullness of complete
truth does not reside in our religious tradition or moment in history, then this may lead us to accept that our dialogue partners might
have something to contribute to the mutual search for the splendor
of the truth. Song calls this ignorance “blessed” because it is a graced
development, which allows real dialogue to begin.
This grace supposes a human nature of incompleteness, and
builds on and perfects it through the practice of epistemological
humility, leading to a real conversion to a new goal, a commitment
to entering into what the FABC calls the dialogue of life.
Like conversion from sin, dialogic conversion involves a
metanoia, turning away from using dialogue as a strategic means
to convert others and turning towards stepping more fully into the
richness of the lives of our dialogue partners.
Let the conversion begin.
(Fr. Bretzke (WIS) is associate professor of theology and religious
studies at the University of San Francisco and visiting professor of
moral theology at the Loyola School of Theology in Manila, Philippines.)
Continued from page 1
CHICAGO
ty of strengthening conflict
resolution methods “so that
the point of necessity and last
resort (war) is rarely
reached.”
The third position argued
to “apply the principles of
just war and international
law to the new realities of
asymmetrical warfare and
cross-border lawlessness.”
Saying that “sometimes, the
use of force is morally obligatory,” Reichberg said that a
full reading of the just war Fr. Michael Baxter, CSC, from the University of Notre Dame, presents a paper on
text allows the use of force the Catholic pacifist tradition.
not only for defense, but for
restorative, deterrent and punitive ends, as well. Unlike Resource and Research Center for Contemporary
the Cold War, which was characterized by the pre- Spirituality, is also a member of a new United
sumption against the use of force or force as a last Nations’ initiative, the UN Global Peace Unit for
resort, “the international terrorism of our time forces Women Spiritual and Religious Leaders. She spoke
us, whether we like it or not, to recuperate a neglected passionately about the victims who are “never
dimension of the just war tradition, the bellum offen- counted,” the women, children, the elderly. “We
sivum.”
count only the soldiers, and then only our own,”
“One of the nice things about being Catholic is you she said. She cautioned against theologizing war in
can suffer from multiple personality disorder,” joked the same way that slavery was once theologized.
Royal, adding that the proliferation of terrorism “truly
William Bole, a Woodstock Fellow whose task
raises the ante” in the debate about just war. The two it was to listen, observe and point out the topics
argued that the distinction between just and unjust that weren’t covered in the afternoon’s discussion,
war is not the same as the distinction between offensive noted two tracks: the just war question itself and
and defensive force, for a preemptive attack may be whether it is possible to fight a war with moral
justified. From there, they went on to consider the case means; and the issue of peace building – methods,
for war with Iran.
strategies, attitudes. The former dominated at the
A series of policy responses followed the presen- forum, yet the latter is true for the larger Church.
tations. Al Pierce, director of the Center for the Study “I would have to say that the Church has largely
of Professional Military Ethics at the U.S. Naval Acad- been on the peace building track for roughly 40
emy, critiqued the pacifist position for its silence on years since Pacem in Terris,” said Bole, trying to
the vital “national interest,” calling it the thing that recall when the current Pope last publicly discussed
matters most to policy makers. Pamela Quanrud of the the Just War principles.
State Department suggested that the Iraq situation
The conversation continued after the forum
might have played out differently had the Pope weighed officially drew to a close, only one part of an ongoin earlier in the debate. Quanrud also commented that ing conversation about just peacemaking and peace
justice, unlike peacemaking, is a relatively new field building. “It is good to say no,” said Wallis earlier
in the Just War debate.
in the day, at the open microphone. “It is better to
After breaking for lunch, the conference par- have an alternative.”
ticipants returned to hear reflections from both the
(For more information on the forum, contact
Judaic and Islamic traditions before the floor was John Kleiderer at the Jesuit Conference at jkleideropened up for general discussion. Chittister, exec- [email protected] or Dolores Leckey at Woodstock Theutive director and founder of Benetvision: A ological Center at [email protected].)
Photos by Julie Bourbon
Just war
DETROIT
■ Fr. Gerald C. Walling will play
Ebenezer Scrooge, a role he’s always
coveted, in “A Christmas Carol” at
the Metropolis Performing Arts Centre in Arlington Heights, Ill.
Walling’s previous theatrical credits
include the role of Fr. O’Reilly in “Do
Black Patent Leather Shoes Really
Shine Up?” and George Bernard
Shaw in “The Best of Friends.” He
also played prison guard number 2 in
the hit film “The Blues Brothers.”
■ Fr. Provincial Edward W.
Schmidt visited Bellarmine Jesuit
Retreat House in Barrington, Ill, on
Nov. 16 to bless the new Jesuit residence and expansive conference center. He was welcomed by
Bellarmine’s director Fr. John T.
Dillon, who spearheaded the expansion project.
■ Fr. Bob Scullin spent a month
visiting Jesuit Institutions in India
and Nepal. What impressed Bob the
most about his trip? The Society’s
commitment to the poor in those
countries.
■ Br. Jim Boynton, the new
Detroit Province vocation director,
is visiting each province community informing them about his
current and planned vocation promotion efforts. He stresses the
active role of each Jesuit in inviting
men to enter and keeping in contact with men interested in joining.
■ Frs. Bill Bichl and John Staudenmaier (WIS) are the provincial
assistants for higher education.
They replace Fr. Mark Henninger,
who will teach philosophy at the
Gregorian University in Rome
(after his sabbatical).
■ Fr. Albert J. Fritsch has been
busy. In the last year, he’s given talks
on renewable energy application,
ginseng research, off-road vehicles,
land stewardship and ecotourism to
various groups in the Midwest. His
paper, “Property Decision Making”
is being published by the National
Treasurers Association of Religious
Institutes. He’s also co-authored two
soon-to-be-released books:
“Ecotourism in Appalachia, Marketing the Mountains” (with Kristin
Johannsen), and “Critical Hour: 25
Years After Three Mile Island” (with
Mary Davis and Art Purcell).
■ Fr. John Langan presented a
paper entitled “The Present and
Future of Just War Thinking after
Iraq II” at the Carnegie Council on
Ethics and International Affairs in
New York, and a paper entitled
“Just War and Pacifism in Christian
Theology,” at the Université de
Québec à Montrèal, both in November.
■ With the shipment of three 20 ft.
containers this year, the total number of books Fr. Bob Dietrich has
sent to Africa is nearing the half
million mark. The latest container,
holding about 25,000 books, went
to Fr. Ted Walters at St. Augustine
University of Tanzania. Bob is now
collecting books for the new Jesuit
School of Theology in Abidjan,
Ivory Coast. If you have books to
contribute, you can contact him at
[email protected] or 216-2812305.
■ Fr. Steven F. Hurd has joined the
staff at the Milford Spiritual Center
and begun his service as coordinator
of conference retreats and treasurer
of the community.
■ As noted in last month’s column,
Jesuits from the province celebrated
the 100th anniversary of Jesuit service to the patients and staff at Cook
County Hospital. On October 24, the
Cook County Board of Commissioners passed a resolution commending
the Jesuits for their service as chaplains. The resolution also “further
resolved that the 100th anniversary
of the start of this service, Sunday,
October 26, 2003, is hereby
proclaimed ‘Jesuit Day’ in Cook
County, Illinois.” Fr. James E.
Chambers (PAT), one of the three
Jesuit chaplains at the hospital,
accepted the resolution at the
board’s meeting.
■ Fr. Tom Acker, working with
Senator Robert Byrd, is overseeing
the construction of a $10 million
educational center in Beckley, W.
Va. This 55,000 sq. ft center will
house six public colleges/universities with a special focus on health
and energy. It is scheduled to open
in the fall of 2005.
■ Acker, busily working in southern West Virginia, has supervised
the training of 400 math/science/
health teachers K-12 in the utilization of the computer as a
teaching/learning tool. An
additional focus is use of body
composition analyzers to address
obesity and lack of exercise in children. These new instruments are
then donated to the schools.
■ Fr. George A. Lane, president of
Loyola Press, led a group of young
adults from Charis Ministries on an
exploration of the architecture and
history of five churches in the Chicago area.
-- George Kearney
-- John Moriconi SJ
Dr. Gregory Reichberg (left) from the International Peace Research Institute in Oslo, Norway, and Dr. Robert Royal from
the Faith & Reason Institute in Washington present one of the just war positions.
National Jesuit News
■
December 2003 / January 2004
15
memorials
John P. O’Connor SJ
(Missouri) Father John Paul O’Connor, 80, died after
a long illness on August 14, 2003 in St. Louis, Missouri.
He was a Jesuit for 62 years and a priest for 50 years.
Born in Parsons, Kan., he
attended two years at Rockhurst
College before entering the Society at St. Stanislaus Seminary in
Florissant, Mo., in 1940. After
philosophy at Saint Louis University, regency at Marquette
High in Milwaukee, and theology
at St. Mary’s, J.P. was ordained in
1953.
After tertianship J.P. was sent
to Belize to teach history — a
subject in which he had little
background. To his credit, he tried to gather knowledge
and new ideas through taking summer classes in the
States; but ultimately the frustration of his teaching enterprise did much to undermine his sense of confidence and
self-worth.
Only slightly more satisfying was a period of service
as a traveling missionary around Orange Walk; the independence and loneliness of Jesuit life in Belize at the time
confused and frustrated him. So on to the library at St.
John’s College, where he worked hard to catalog and organize a library that desperately needed the attention of
someone as dogged as J.P.
There followed a variety of pastoral assignments,
mostly in parishes and hospitals. One suspects he was at
his best at the bedside of a sick or dying person in need
of comfort; there his deep compassion could be felt and
his gentle words heard without the distraction of the shyness and awkwardness that made more public ministry
sometimes difficult.
But no matter where he was, J.P. was relentlessly
drawn to the boiler room. Many of his suggestions for
greater efficiency were probably on the right track —
although sometimes extreme.
Sadly for him, J.P.’s suggestions were often dismissed,
or received with a certain degree of resentment, because
they were usually delivered without the sort of political
sensitivity needed to successfully negotiate the structures of organizations — even small ones. But his heart
was always in the right place. His family saw clearly what
others sometimes missed — what one Jesuit who knew
him well described as “a kind, plain, sincere, yet simple
person who likes other people.”
Finally, J.P. just wanted to fix things — to see if he
could make them work the way they were supposed to,
the way they were designed to work. Ultimately that is a
profoundly sacred desire: a desire shared with the God
who labors to restore and redeem all of creation.
-- Philip G. Steele SJ
same years of study he was a full-time caseworker, primarily in family counseling, for the Catholic Charities
Office in Brooklyn, N.Y. For the next five years he taught
in Fordham’s School of Social Services, and for two years
after that he taught sociology at Holy Cross.
In 1957 he went to the Philippines to serve as director of social services at the Ateneo of Manila and to teach at the
Ateneo de Yamboanga. He
returned to the U.S. in 1961 to
serve as chaplain at Worcester
State Hospital for the next 15
years after which he engaged in
pastoral work at several parishes
in the Worcester, Mass., Diocese,
and in dedicated pastoral work
while living at Holy Cross College.
Somewhere in Scripture there
is a passage -- “Many men are
popular with their fellows, but how many are faithful to
their duty?” He was known to be very faithful to his
duties, his responsibilities and his commitments. For
years he was “on call” and available as a father confessor at Holy Cross for clergy and laity.
He carried a bulky old-fashioned predecessor of
today’s cell-phone so that he could be reached even if he
were walking about the campus. Over the years, very
many priests and some bishops of the Diocese of Worcester were regular visitors to the Holy Cross Campus to
meet with Fr. “Dick” McKenney.
He was a very kind quiet, unassuming man, but in
spiritual terms, a very influential man.
-- Paul T. McCarty SJ
Charles R. McKenney SJ
Robert E. Nilon SJ
(New England) Father Charles R. McKenney, 88, died
of pulmonary disease at Campion Center in Weston,
Mass., on August 15, 2003.
He was born in Springfield, Mass., but grew up in the
Boston suburb of Brookline. He transferred to Boston
College High School in his fourth year of high school and
graduated in 1932. He attended Boston College for two
years, and then entered the Society of Jesus at Lenox,
Mass., in 1934.
After novitiate and a year of juniorate he came to
Weston College for philosophy and earned his bachelor’s,
master’s, and licentiate degrees. In 1940-41 he taught
math at B.C. High then returned to Weston College for
theology. He was ordained in June of 1944 and finished
theology in 1945, with a Licentiate in Sacred Theology.
Tertianship followed at Auriesville, N.Y.
He had a strong interest in social work and earned a
master’s degree in that field in 1948, after studies at
Boston College and Fordham University. During these
(New Orleans) Father Robert Nilon was born in St.
Paul, Minn., but grew up in Florida where the historic
Jesuit church and school in downtown Miami, the Gesu,
became the center of his early years.
In 1941, one year after graduating from the Gesu, he
followed in the traces of his older brother, Tommy, and
entered the Society at Grand Coteau, La.
Tommy Nilon, six years older than Bob, was an exemplary and promising young Jesuit before his untimely
death in 1949, weeks after completing his tertianship 30day retreat. Throughout his life of 81 years Bob found
inspiration and much peace in the memory of his brother. He prayed with Tommy’s rosary faithfully and took it
with him to the grave.
Bob was ordained at Spring Hill College in 1954, after
philosophy and theology studies there and St. Mary’s,
Kan. In 1955 he went to Cleveland to make tertianship.
In 1956 Bob became Prefect of Discipline at Jesuit
High School, New Orleans, where he had taught as a
16
National Jesuit News
■
December 2003 / January 2004
Spring Hill philosophate (1962-65), and still another
three years in the same office at Jesuit in New Orleans
(1962-65). But it was in the pastoral apostolate that Bob
would fulfill his priestly calling.
For 37 years, from 1965 until a few months before he
died on August 18, 2003, Bob served as pastor or associate pastor in a number of Jesuit parishes. These assignments included Spring Hill, Grand Coteau, New Orleans,
Key West, Miami, West Palm Beach, and Tampa.
He spent a total of eight years in West Palm Beach
and was pastor of St. Ann’s there in 1977-79. In downtown Tampa, at Sacred Heart, Bob was also Catholic chaplain at Tampa General Hospital (1995-2003).
A devastating type of bone cancer (multiple myeloma) necessitated his move to Ignatius Residence in January 2003. There, in his own hand Bob appended to his
dossier one line: “2003 … Praying for the Church and
the Society” And he prayed for death. He was ready.
Father John Edwards, superior of Ignatius Residence,
and Bob’s classmate in the Society, ministered to Bob
daily. He anointed him again as the end drew near. In his
eulogy two days later John spoke of Bob’s deep and simple faith, of his edifying manner, and of the many testimonials and words of appreciation that Bob received from
grateful parishioners.
-- Louis A. Poché SJ
Daniel Lewis SJ
(New England) Fr. Daniel Lewis, 73, died on Sept. 4,
2003, of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (“Lou Gehrig’s disease”) at Campion Center in Weston, Mass.
He was born in Newton, Mass. Dan graduated from
Boston College High School in 1948 and studied for a
year at Boston College before entering the Society at
Lenox, Mass. After novitiate and juniorate at Shadowbrook he came to Weston College for philosophy in 1953,
after which he taught Latin, biology, and history at
Cheverus High School in Portland, Maine.
He returned to Weston College for theology, was
ordained in 1962, and in 1963-64 did tertianship at Pomfret, Conn. He did graduate-level work in religious education at Lumen Vitae in Belgium during the following
year, then another year of advanced theological study at
the Greg in Rome.
From 1966 to 1973 he served as religion department
chairman and taught religion at Fairfield Prep and at
Fairfield University, while also teaching religious education in the Diocese of Bridgeport. He was called to
Boston in 1973 to serve as director of novices, and continued in that critical capacity for seven years.
In 1980 he became provincial
assistant for social ministries and
planning as well as assistant for
pastoral services and director of
province communications. In
1987 he went to Cheverus High
School to serve successively as
rector of the Jesuit community,
acting principal, and president - all the while teaching religion
and Latin in the classroom until
1993.
After a sabbatical year he returned to B.C. High.
When the diagnosis of his disease became definite in late
2002 he continued in the classroom until increasing
impairment required him to come to Campion Health
Center. Accepting his disease as from the hand of God,
Dan cooperated fully with his medical caretakers and the
devoted assistance of his very loyal friend, Bill Murray,
who had once been one of Dan’s novices.
As word passed that Dan was nearing the end, many
members of the Campion community and Jesuits from
across the city came to his room and blessed him with
laying on of hands or gesture. They spoke to him or
prayed with him and for him and thanked him for the
good works he had done in their midst.
good works he had done in their midst.
Dan was able to open his eyes and smile or watch,
mumble a few inaudible words to thank them for their
presence, their comfort, because in fact he did seem comforted by this ritual of his passing.
Dan Lewis will be greatly missed by his brother
Jesuits of the New England Province.
-- Paul T. McCarty SJ
George L. Crain SJ
(California) Father George L. Crain, 82, died September 9, 2003 at Regis Infirmary, Sacred Heart Jesuit
Center, Los Gatos. He was a Jesuit for 65 years and a priest
for 52 years.
George was born in Newport, R.I., on November 20,
1920. He entered the novitiate at Los Gatos on July 30,
1938. After studies at Mount St. Michael’s, he did regency
at Bellarmine Prep, 1945-48, where he taught Latin, history and moderated sports. He studied theology at Alma
College, 1948-52, and he was ordained to the priesthood
in 1951.
Following tertianship, George
was assigned to teach Latin at the
recently opened diocesan minor
seminary in Fresno, Ryan
Preparatory College. In 1954 he
went to Rome as regional subsecretary at the Jesuit Curia.
Returning to California the next
year, he returned to Ryan Prep as
teacher of Latin, Greek, and
speech. He also served as Prefect
of Discipline. George remained there until 1969, when
he moved to Jesuit High, Sacramento, as a Latin teacher.
George was an excellent and demanding teacher. California Provincial Tom Smolich characterized him as “the
best pedagogue I ever had” and remembers him as a
strict disciplinarian who required absolute silence in
class.
George left the classroom in 1974 and studied the
Spiritual Exercises under Fr. William Peters in Auburn,
Cal., where he made the long retreat and learned spiritual direction. When he completed this practicum, he
was assigned to the staff of Manresa Retreat House,
Azusa, and, in 1976, to Loyola Marymount University.
From this base he gave retreats, days of recollection and
spiritual direction to numerous groups and individual
religious and lay people. Each summer for nine years he
would give the 30-day Exercises in the Midwest.
In the late 1980s-early ‘90s, George served as chaplain
to LMU’s basketball team in their high-profile years as
NCAA championship contenders. On the televised games,
he could be seen on the bench, intently rooting and praying. He played an important consoling role in the aftermath of the sudden on-court collapse and death of their
star athlete, Hank Gathers.
George retired to Los Gatos in 1997, where he spent
his final years in quiet prayer. He was a self-effacing man,
generous and solicitous of others and willing to go out
of his way to be helpful. He was an avid fisherman who
loved to hike the Sierra to his favorite streams and lakes.
While at Ryan Prep, he would lead hiking, camping, and
fly-fishing jaunts with the seminarians to the mountains.
He lived his life in a spirit of gratitude, leading countless
others to a holier and happier life through his example,
teaching and spiritual counsel.
-- Dan Peterson SJ
Francis A. Wallner SJ
(Maryland) Father Frank Wallner, 88, died September 10, 2003, at Wernersville, Pa.
Frank was born in Bethlehem, Pa. on March 31, 1915.
His parents had emigrated from Austria-Hungary and
eventually settled in the town of Freemansburg, Pa. where
Frank attended elementary school.
After graduating from high school in Bethlehem, he
entered the Society of Jesus at Wernersville in August of
1939. Following philosophy studies at Woodstock College in Maryland and theology studies at Weston College
in Massachusetts, he was ordained in June of 1951.
Between 1953 and 1972, Frank taught philosophy at
Scranton University, Loyola University in Baltimore,
Wheeling College, and Saint Joseph’s College in Philadelphia. In 1972 he began a 30-year ministry to the diocesan church when he established a small house of prayer
for priests in Haddonfield, N.J., which he staffed for more
than six years.
Then, responding to another need of diocesan priests,
Frank based himself in the Jesuit community at Wernersville and began substituting for a week or two at a time
in parishes throughout the Allentown and Harrisburg
dioceses where priests needed a replacement in order to
take a vacation or make a retreat.
In 1985 Frank took this valued ministry to the growing diocese of Charlotte, N.C., where he continued as a
pastoral substitute until 1990 when the bishop of Charlotte asked him to become pastor of St. James Church in
the town of Hamlet.
Then in 1993 Frank returned to Wernersville and
again substituted in many single-priest parishes throughout the Allentown and Harrisburg dioceses, a ministry
he continued until his health began to fail in 2002.
-- James A. Borbely SJ
James B. Corrigan SJ
(Wisconsin) Fr. James B. Corrrigan, 90, died Sept. 17,
2003 at the St. Camillus Health Care Center in Wauwatosa,
Wis. He was a Jesuit for 64 years and a priest for 54 years.
Jim and his twin, John, were
born in Milwaukee on August 2,
1913. Jim graduated from Marquette University High School in
1931 and from the University of
Notre Dame in 1935. After graduation he worked at a stock brokerage house and as a salesman for
Milwaukee Label and Seals.
Described as a “world-class
gentleman, a charmer, a man of
unfailing humor,” Jim could have
been successful in business but
chose instead to enter the Society at Florissant, Mo. in
1939. He received a shortened formation: one year of juniorate, two years of philosophy, one year of regency at Saint
Louis University High School (1945-46), and four years of
theology in St. Marys, Kan. He was ordained in June 1949.
His first assignment was at Saint Louis University High
School as assistant principal (1951-53), then as principal
(1953-55). His next was Campion Jesuit High School as
rector/president (1955-60). At Campion he raised funds
for two new buildings and built one of them. Having gained
experience as a builder and fundraiser, Jim moved on to
Oshkosh (1960-63) where he renovated the former novitiate into the Jesuit Retreat House and became its first
director.
He became pastor of Gesu Parish, Milwaukee in 1963.
Jim received a large benefaction and used it to renovate
the church according to Vatican II norms. In 1970 Jim
accepted the request of John Raynor, president of Marquette University, to be a liaison between the president’s
office and potential donors, both corporate and individual. By 1977 Raynor gave this position a new title – vicepresident for development and alumni relations.
Finally, Jim was named director of the Jesuit Mission
Service in Minneapolis, raising funds especially for Korea
(1979-86). These were the years when the Korean Jesuits
had become sufficiently numerous to replace the Americans as superiors and directors of works in their country
and when, in 1985, Korea became an independent region.
In 1986 Jim returned to Marquette U. to live in semi-retirement.
Regardless of where he lived or what he did, Jim
always enjoyed meeting people. This was especially so
during his stay at St. Camillus (1992-2003) where he often
stationed himself near the entrance to the building in
order to greet all who entered.
Recently a younger Jesuit, newly appointed as director of a work, asked his advice. His reply says a lot about
why he did so well in many different ministries: “Never
become so attached to anything that you become bitter if
you don’t get it.”
-- Charlie Baumann SJ
Joseph M. Moffitt SJ
(Maryland) Fr. Joseph M. Moffitt, 90, died September 17, 2003, at Merion Station, Pa.
Joe was born in Philadelphia on January 7, 1913. After
graduating from Saint Joseph’s Preparatory School in
1931, he entered the Society at Saint Andrew-on-Hudson in Poughkeepsie, N.Y., on August 14, 1931, and completed his Juniorate in the same house of formation in
1935.
After completing his A.B. degree in 1937 and his Ph.L.
in 1938 at Woodstock, he went on for an M.A. in Educational Psychology at Fordham University. He completed
regency at Loyola High School, New York (1939-1941)
where he taught German to sophomores and juniors. Joe
completed his STL in theology at Woodstock in 1945, and
was ordained on June 18, 1944.
In 1946 he began his extraordinarily long tenure in
the service of the mission of Georgetown University. This
long run of dedicated service in the ministry of teaching
and formation of young people at Georgetown was interrupted only by two years in Freiburg (1962-1964), Germany, where he was professor of theology.
During his many years at Georgetown, Joe was professor of religion and vice-director of the Jesuit Seminary and Mission Fund (1947-1954), director of
admissions for Georgetown College, and for the Schools
of Foreign Service and Nursing (1954-1962), assistant
dean (1956-1962), and finally, professor of theology for
30 years (1964-1994).
Joe remained at Georgetown University as professor
emeritus of theology.
-- John W. Swope SJ
The following Jesuits have died since the
NJN last published and prior to our
November 21 deadline. Their obituaries will
appear as space and information become
available.
Brady, John F. (MIS)
Bryant, Curtis C. (CFN)
Burke, Robert R. (NEN)
Cheney, Edmund K. (NEN)
Coles, Edward T. (NOR)
Dieckman, Leonard E. (MIS)
Farrand, John L. (NYK)
Knott, Francis X. (MAR)
McCluskey, John D. (ORE)
Meyers, Louis E. (NOR)
Neenan, Robert P. (WIS)
Polzer, Charles W. (CFN)
Porter, Richard L. (WIS)
Stevenson, Alden J. (CHN/CFN)
Thatcher, John R. (ORE)
Vogt, Robert H. (NYK)
Walsh, Maurice B. (NEN)
Witzofsky, Richard H. (MIS)
National Jesuit News
■
November 16
November 18
October 26
November 9
October 21
September 12
October 18
September 12
November 3
October 25
October 9
November 4
September 28
October 3
November 19
November 15
October 31
November 13
December 2003 / January 2004
17
FEATURE
Relationship between earth and human
is a defining issue
By John Surette SJ
In 1989 at Port Burwell, Ontario, I heard
cultural historian Fr. Thomas Berry CP
speaking in a most comprehensive manner
for all humankind. Berry spoke of how continued progress in the divine-human relationship and continued progress in the
human-human relationship, now for the
first time ever, depends upon progress in
the earth-human relationship.
The divine-human relationship – this
was something that has always allured me.
In fact, it brought me into our Society.
The human-human relationship – I was
aware of the importance of all the works of
social justice and of our Society’s commitment to a faith that does justice.
The earth-human relationship – since
I was 12, the natural world has been my
spiritual director.
When I heard Berry’s words, there came
forth from deep inside of me a passionate
“Amen.” It seemed that my entire life experience had come together into a unity. I felt
gifted with new eyes with which to look
upon everything. It was so strong an
enlightenment that all things seemed quite
new to me. I knew that those first two
important relationships will only find their
fulfillment through the third.
The ecological issue had become a
defining issue for me. I knew that I would
devote the remainder of my life to focusing
upon the earth-human relationship, knowing that in doing so I would be continuing
to work in the areas of the divine-human
and the human-human. It was a moment of
grace for me.
It has only been in recent years that a
serious meditation upon the earth-human
relationship has taken place. When I first
stumbled across the word ecology as an
undergraduate in the early 50’s, I thought
that it might have to do with the study of
echoes!
18
National Jesuit News
■
It was 41 years ago that Rachel Carson
wrote “Silent Spring,” her passionate critique of
industrial agriculture. In 1972, the Stockholm
Conference of the U.N. dealt with the industrial devastation of the planet and the need of
every nation to establish an Environmental
Protection Agency.
In 1982 the U.N. Assembly passed the
World Charter for Nature. In 1992, the U.N.
Conference on Sustainable Development took
place in Rio de Janeiro with modest results and
in 2002 the World Summit on Sustainable
Development happened in Johannesburg with
disappointing results.
In 1983, the 33rd General Congregation
gave what is perhaps our Society’s first authoritative statement regarding ecological matters
when it said that “lack of respect for a loving
Creator leads to a denial of the dignity of the
human person and the wanton destruction of
the environment.” Since then an ecological consciousness has slowly emerged within our
ranks.
In 1995, responding to postulates from a
number of province congregations, GC34
issued its Decree 20 on ecology. This congregation, due to lack of expertise, time constraints, and a general ambivalence about the
issue, recommended that Fr. General call for a
study. The results of this study have been published in the document “We Live In A Broken
World: Reflections on Ecology.” It is a prophetic document.
I personally was disappointed by the
inability of the Congregation to do more. But I
too had been rather ambivalent about the ecological issue.
In keeping with the teachings of the Church
and our Society, my focus in those years was
on justice for the human community. I considered justice to be the defining issue of our
time. “To serve faith and promote justice”
became my purpose. I understood that the
social gospel placed the dignity of the human
person at the center of all justice concerns.
December 2003 / January 2004
And so, along with so many other Jesuits,
I had my long list of social issues. There was
the poverty issue, the refugee issue, the
women’s issue, the racial issue, the unemployment issue, the nuclear issue, etc. It
seemed that as soon as I was not looking
some new issue cried out for my attention.
The length of the list had a numbing effect
on me but at the same time it energized me.
My identity was that of a Jesuit who was concerned with the pathos of the human situation and who was called to do something
about it on the personal and structural levels.
I was so completely absorbed in this orientation that any hint of an ecological issue
escaped my consciousness. I found myself
weeping over the people, and the God whom
I knew and to whom I prayed was a God who
also was weeping over the people.
Then Thomas Berry’s words entered my
consciousness, my soul. They stirred up the
dust there, with the result that things would
never be the same for me. The pathos of the
human will always be with me. It must never
be neglected.
I have come to understand, however, that
we will never be able to adequately advance
the well being of the human community
unless, at the same time, nurturing a primary concern for the well being of the total earth
community.
As Berry says, “We are moving from suicide, homicide, and genocide, to biocide (the
killing of life systems) and genocide (the
killing of earth itself) in its more elaborate
modes of expression.”
I now find myself weeping over earth with
its community of life that includes our human
community. The God whom I know and to
whom I now pray is also weeping over this
same more comprehensive community.
I find myself at a time of reversal of values
within which earth is primary and we
humans are derivative.
Yes, derivative, but important
nonetheless.
It is a time of understanding that
the alleviation of human suffering can
only be achieved by respecting the natural world upon which we all depend
for our physical, psychic, and spiritual
growth as well as our very survival. No
longer do I see the ecological issue as
having a specific place on my list of
social issues. The real challenge is how
the total human adventure with all of
its issues can find its place within the
larger earth context.
I have one anxiety about our Society’s ability to respond creatively to this
challenge. It has to do with what is our
finest achievement in the human order
of things, namely, our prophetic concern for afflicted humanity. This concern can have a dark side. It can blind
us to the necessity of establishing an
intimate human presence to earth.
GC34 in its Decree on Ecolog y has
opened us up to this kind of presence,
to this more global priority, to this
more universal good. The good is that
justice for earth and justice for earth’s
humans become one justice, not two.
The good is the nurturing of a mutually enhancing earth human relationship,
a relationship in which earth is foundational and in which we humans, with
all our important social issues, are
embedded.
The fulfillment of the earth-human
relationship, the establishment of a
harmonious relation between earth and
its humans, has become an imperative.
It is a defining issue of the 21st century!
(Fr. Surette [NEN] is the cofounder
and director of Spiritearth, a center for
contemplation, reflection, and justice
making in the Ecozoic Era.)
Books
Who Is Jesus? An Introduction to Christology
By Thomas P. Rausch SJ
The Liturgical Press, Collegeville, Minn., 2003
232 pp., $23.95, paper
ISBN 0-8146-5078-3
The text covers the three quests for the historical Jesus; the
methods for retrieving the historical Jesus; the Jewish background,
the Jesus movement; his preaching and ministry, death and resurrection; the various New Testament Christologies; and the development of Christological doctrine from the New Testament period
to the Council of Chalcedon. Fr. Rausch is professor of theology
at Loyola Marymount University.
When I Survey the Wondrous Cross: Scriptural Reflections
for Lent
By Patrick J. Ryan SJ
Paulist Press, New York/Mahwah, NJ, 2004
185 pp., $14.95, paper
ISBN 0-8901-4207-4
These reflections on the Lenten liturgical readings arise not
only out of study of the scriptural passages but also from the
author’s familiarity with the history of religion and his long experience of life in Christian churches both in the U.S. and Africa.
Fr. Ryan is the president of Loyola Jesuit College, a secondary
school on the outskirts of Abuja, Nigeria. He has lived in Nigeria
and Ghana for more than 20 years.
Life’s a Dance, Not a Dress Rehearsal
By John G. Sturm SJ
Tony Walker Press, Williamsville, N.Y., 2003
113 pp., $29.95, paper
ISBN 0-9742327-0-X
Fr. Sturm shares insights into his own spiritual journey and
encourages others on the same quest. Suggesting the key to life
is discovering happiness in one’s self, he writes about willingness
to change, to take risks, to re-evaluate daily living values and readjusting beliefs. Fr. Sturm is currently associate pastor of St.
Michael’s Parish in Buffalo.
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from all of us at
National Jesuit News
ANNOUNCEMENTS
Administrative Coordinator
Office of Social and International Ministries
Jesuit Conference
Washington, D.C.
The Jesuit Conference Office of Social and International Ministries [JSIM] seeks an Administrative
Coordinator based in Washington, D.C. The mission of
JSIM is to support and animate social and international
ministries of the Society of Jesus. The Administrative
Coordinator facilitates communication and provides
support for the 4-5 person JSIM staff, and assists other
Jesuit Conference staff with administrative and project
needs.
For a complete job description, visit our website at
www.jesuit.org, and check the job openings section of
News and Info.
Applicants should have office management experience and strong administrative and organizational
skills. Proficiency with Microsoft Office and WordPerfect, as well as use of the Web and the Internet is necessary. Familiarity with the Catholic Church and the
Society of Jesus is desirable. Experience with government affairs and / or advocacy organizations is valuable. Foreign language skills, while not necessary, are
useful. Competitive salary commensurate with experience and a liberal benefit package are offered. Minorities and women of color are encouraged to apply. Send
resume to JSIM, US Jesuit Conference, 1616 P St NW
#300, Washington, D.C. 20036 or fax to (202) 328-9212
or email to [email protected]. No phone calls please. EOE
M/F/V/H.
Outreach Coordinator
Office of Social and International Ministries
Jesuit Conference
Washington, D.C.
Three Jesuits arrested at Fort Benning - Three Jesuits, two from
the Detroit Province and one from the Chicago Province, were arrested for crossing onto restricted government property during the protest
demonstrations at Fort Benning, Ga., on Nov. 23. After his arrest, Fr.
Joe Mulligan (DET) posted $1,000 bail and returned to his ministry in
Nicaragua. Ben Jimenez (DET) and Mike O’Grady (CHG) refused to
post bail and are self-designated “prisoners of conscience” until their
trial, which could take place as early as January 26. (Photo by Daniel
Hendrickson, SJ)
JSIM seeks an Outreach Coordinator. The mission
of JSIM is to support and animate the social apostolate in the various educational and pastoral ministries
and institutions of the Society of Jesus, as well as in
specifically social and international ministry. The
Outreach Coordinator facilitates collaboration
between the Office and individuals and institutions
in the field, developing and implementing creative
projects for bringing to bear the varied strengths of
Jesuit ministries on social issues and concerns. The
position is based in Washington, D.C. and involves
travel.
For a complete job description, visit our website
at www.jesuit.org.
Applicants should have at least 3 years in a senior
position in an educational or nonprofit organization
with demonstrated experience in both organizational development and outreach / capacity building work,
including ability to deliver facilitative assistance and
training. Strong writing, research and computer skills,
including internet and web familiarity, are necessary.
Fluency in Spanish, a postgraduate degree and inter-
national experience are a plus. Familiarity with the
Catholic Social Teaching and the Society of Jesus, and
experience in educational institutions, are desirable.
Competitive salary commensurate with experience
and a liberal benefit package are offered. Minorities
and women of color are encouraged to apply. Send
resume to JSIM, US Jesuit Conference, 1616 P St NW
#300, Washington, D.C. 20036 or fax to (202) 328 9212
or email to [email protected]. No phone calls please.
EOE M/F/V/H.
Jesuit Retreat
Holy Spirit Center
Anchorage, Alaska
All Jesuits are invited to the Jesuit retreat scheduled for July 22-30, 2004 at Holy Spirit Center in
Anchorage, Alaska. Fr. Greg Boyle SJ (CFN), director
of Jobs for a Future and Homeboy Industries in Los
Angeles will direct the retreat. Cost is $550. For more
information contact Noreen Weishaar, Business Manager, Holy Spirit Center, 10980 Hillside Drive, Anchorage, AK 99507, [email protected] or check out the
Holy Spirit Center website at: home.gci.net/~hsrh
Teaching Pastor and Faculty Member
Jesuit School of Theology
Berkeley, Calif.
JSTB is seeking a Jesuit Teaching Pastor to serve as
a member of the faculty and to lead St. Patrick’s parish
in Oakland, Calif., which has been affiliated with JSTB
as a teaching site for the past four years. Appointed
in collaboration with the Diocese of Oakland, the
Teaching Pastor’s primary responsibility would be to
pastor an African-American and Hispanic inner-city
parish, which is a pastoral, immersion-learning situation for ministry students. He would also serve
JSTB as a regular, non-tenured faculty member in residence. Although his principal responsibilities would
be as pastor, he would also mentor students in parish
work and collaborative team ministry, and he would
be expected to teach one course each semester at the
school in some area of pastoral theology (e.g., Liturgical Presiding, Parish Administration, or Multicultural Ministry). Required qualifications include
abilities as a spiritual and community leader, staff
developer, administrator, and teacher / mentor. The
candidate should likewise give evidence of good pastoral experience in poor, preferably multi-ethnic
parishes. A terminal degree is not required, but some
familiarity with higher educational institutions would
be desirable. Candidates should send appropriate
resumes c/o Fr. John Treloar SJ, Academic Dean JSTB,
1735 LeRoy Ave., Berkeley, CA 94709-1193, Tel: 510549-5012 FAX: 510-841-8536; or c/o Fr. David Haschka SJ, Secretary for Pastoral Ministries, Jesuit
Conference, 1616 P St. NW, Suite 300, Washington,
DC 20036 Tel: 202-462-0400 FAX: 202-328-9212.
National Jesuit News
■
December 2003 / January 2004
19
Jesuit Relations
A Jesuit Gepetto enraptures
audiences across the world
“It is my apostolate,” said
Sheehy, who would be thrilled if
another Jesuit took an interest
in writing plays or scenes for his
Photo by Julie Bourbon
puppets. The action need not
always be instructional or
allegorical, either, he said.
“Sometimes the message is joy.”
An artist among his creations, Br. Sheehy presents his wide array of marionettes.
20
National Jesuit News
■
December 2003 / January 2004
Novena of Grace of
St Francis Xavier
http://www.jesuit.ie/novena
A site dedicated to St Francis
Xavier, the 16th century Jesuit
missionary to the Far East.
The novena is actually meant
to take place in March, but
this Irish Jesuit site offers an
excellent introduction to the
life of Francis Xavier, a man of
his time.
Karl Rahner: Foundations
of Christian Faith
http://www.west.net/~fischer/
Rahner000.htm
This epic work of the German
Jesuit theologian Karl Rahner,
considered by many as the
greatest Catholic theologian
of the 20th century, is
paraphrased on this site. The
work is a very important one,
but its complex and turgid
language makes its ideas
difficult to access, which is
why the site is useful.
1616 P St. NW, Suite 300 ■ Washington, DC 20036-1420
“It’s amazing that each country would
have its own puppetry,” said Sheehy, flipping through one of several photo albums
he keeps of his travels. “It’s like drums.
Every country has drums.”
The photos show a joyful Sheehy and an
enraptured audience. Children, it seems, are
children everywhere, fascinated by the
magic of a puppet on a string. “It’s like
Broadway would come into this little village.
… It’s quite an experience. They tell me
people will be talking about this for
months,” said Sheehy, clearly incredulous
at the thought. They are not the only ones
to feel such excitement. “I’d pinch myself
and say this is not Jersey City. Never in my
wildest dreams!”
The practice of puppetry has applications to everyday life, with Sheehy modestly, unwittingly, tossing off maxims such as
“Once you find something worthwhile, then
you really have to work on it,” as he practices with one puppet in front of a mirror,
or, when animating a particularly complicated hand puppet that holds a stick in each
of its tiny fists, “One hand has to help the
other.”
His is a helping apostolate, visiting
schools, nursing homes, retired religious.
Once a blind man came to a puppet show;
Sheehy let him handle all the puppets afterward. Children at St. Peter’s put on an annual family Mass using the puppets to act out
stories of the Prodigal Son or the Good
Samaritan.
“It is my apostolate,” said Sheehy, who
would be thrilled if another Jesuit took an
interest in writing plays or scenes for his
puppets. The action need not always be
instructional or allegorical, either, he said.
“Sometimes the message is joy.”
In the meantime, he is a man alone with
his puppets, performing, creating, entertaining.
“Somewhere along the line, getting a little older, a lot older,” he adds with a smile,
“you take on sort of a Gepetto mystique.
This is me, this is what I do and these are
my puppets. It’s not so much wood and glue
anymore.”
national jesuit news
and crafts to the children. There, he had an
attic workshop and delighted in the thought
of
being the only puppeteer he knew with a
In Br. Ed Sheehy’s (NYK) office, a fiddler plays on the roof, a graceful rollerblad- studio on Park Avenue.
Four years ago, he returned to Jersey
er glides by, a trapeze artist performs to the
tune of Stars and Stripes Forever, a young City, to St. Peter’s Prep, to a ground floor
studio crammed full of
Asian woman in traditionstuff: a sewing machine,
al dress juggles a ball onto
traveling trunks, Styroher head, Mother Teresa “Once you find
foam balls that will one
counts her rosary beads,
and a man carries parcels something worthwhile, day be marionette heads,
Superman paraphernalia
home from the market.
Once a baker of bread, then you really have to (he’s a big fan), swatches
fabric to make cosshaping loaves, Sheehy now
work on it... One hand of
tumes, books on puppets
shapes wood and cloth into
and dolls. He has also
puppets that teach and has to help the other.”
dabbled in painting and
entertain around the world,
sculpture, and at holiday
from Guyana to Jersey City.
“I haven’t baked in 40 years,” said Shee- time, the school uses an ever-expanding
hy, 70, dimpled, balding, with hands that crèche he built his first year back.
In that crowded studio, and in places
come fully alive when they are animating a
Ukrainian hand puppet or lovingly work- like Central Park, where Sheehy can just
ing the strings of a handcrafted marionette. observe people being people, Sheehy comes
In 1970, he went to Universal Studios and up with his ideas. His puppets are invested
saw his first puppet show; today, he has with humanity and move like people move
dozens of string, rod and hand puppets that – walking, taking a rest, breathing, doing
take up all of his time. “The rest of my life, double takes, hiking up their pant legs
before sitting. “These are the things that
I’m never going to have enough puppets.”
Fifty-two years ago, Sheehy left the St. make a puppet real,” said Sheehy.
He has dozens of marionettes. The fidPeter’s schoolyard in Jersey City with a Jesuit
brother, bound for Grand Central Station. dler on the roof, the oldest member of his
A second brother accompanied him to troupe, is in its fifth incarnation, the first
Poughkeepsie, to the novitiate at St. four worn out by frequent use. The pupAndrew’s on Hudson, now the Culinary pets have been around the world with
Institute of America. With a wink and a Sheehy, to Micronesia, Guyana, Indonenod, Sheehy will happily (and honestly) tell sia and Nigeria, where they put on shows
you he used to bake bread and decorate for local audiences. The trips have afforded him a unique chance not only to percakes at the CIA.
He also coached sports at St. Ignatius form his ministry in other cultures, but
School in New York City, and after his intro- also to learn about their puppetry tradiduction to puppetry, began teaching arts tions.
By Julie Bourbon