And now, for something completely different. Id like,
for a moment, to discuss university politics. Specifically,
Id like to discuss the program that changed my life.
And Id like to tell you why its existence is now
threatened. The program is the St. Ignatius Institute (SII)
at the University of San Francisco (USF). When I first came
to the Institute in 1983, I was a 20-year-old "nice Catholic
kid" whose idea of living a holy life was avoiding mortal sin
and attending Sunday Mass. I had been attending a state
school, and it left me feeling very spiritually hungry. I
went to USF looking to fill that hunger. I found what I was
looking for. And so much more. The St. Ignatius Institute was
a Catholic Great Books program. Its founders had the
ingenious idea of taking all of the general education
requirements of the university, and building them into an
integrated, 10-credit-hours-a-semester Great Books
curriculum. The first semester, we studied the Old Testament,
Ancient Greek Literature and Aristotelian logic, reading
original texts from the period. As the years went on, we
moved through history that way, studying one historical era
at a time examining it through studying its
literature, history, philosophy and theology. And, because
the program took the place of our general education units, we
had the rest of our course load free to pursue any major
offered by the university. But the Institute was more than an
academic program. We lived in community, along with other USF
students, in the residence halls. We went on retreats. We
spent time, outside of class, with the faculty. Many of us
attended Mass together every evening. Most important, we
formed deep, lasting friendships. Many of my best, most
treasured friends today are friends I met in the St. Ignatius
Institute. The St. Ignatius Institute changed my life in many
ways. It taught me to think. It rooted my spiritual life. It
gave me the best friends I could ever ask for. But there was
another, more concrete impact. In my senior year, the
Institute sponsored a speaker series on chastity. That series
absolutely enthralled me, and inspired me to begin speaking
on the subject myself. But the Institutes role in the
genesis of my ministry didnt stop there. John Galten,
then the associate director of the Institute, saw my interest
and gave me $100 to buy books on chastity, pointing me toward
titles he knew to be particularly helpful. If it werent
for that speaker series and Mr. Galtens subsequent
encouragement, Id probably be a corporate consultant
today instead of inspiring kids to live chastity. And now the
threat. Relations between the institute and the university
have been strained for years. USF, like many Catholic
schools, is slowly but surely slipping into educational and
cultural secularism. The Catholic identity of the university
is becoming more and more symbolic, less and less tangible.
And the presence of a solidly, faithfully Catholic program on
campus seemed to serve as a very uncomfortable reminder of
that secular slide. Many seemed to resent the
institutes presence, but the program attracted students
and money to the university. Recognized
nationally and internationally for its academic excellence,
the program proved difficult for university administrators to
toy with. Until now. Enter Stephen Privett, S.J., the
universitys new president. After only five months at
the helm, he has attacked the St. Ignatius Institute with a
very large hatchet. On Jan. 19, he suddenly -- without
warning -- fired institute director John Galten, who has been
with the program since its inception 25 years ago, along with
his associate director John Hamlon. In a letter to institute
alumni, Father Privett assured us that in firing the entire
administration, his real intent was to strengthen the
program, which he somehow plans to accomplish by folding the
SII into a little-known Catholic Studies program which has
apparently emerged on the campus. The SII faculty, however,
see the situation differently. On the day of the firings, six
faculty members submitted a letter to the university
administration. Noting the administrations attitude of
" . . . that liberality which can abide all things but
orthodoxy," they made clear their understanding that the
universitys action "signals clearly that the university
administration plans to alter fundamentally the character of
the institute." As a group, they announced their refusal,
after the current semester, to teach in the re-modeled
institute or its surrogates. They see the writing on the
wall. And so a good, strong, thriving program has, for all
intents and purposes, died the victim of university
and ecclesial politics. It makes me very, very sad. The St.
Ignatius Institute changed my life, and the lives of hundreds
of other young Catholics. Who knows how many more generations
this wonderful program could have touched? Well never
know. But I want to publicly acknowledge the contribution
that the St. Ignatius Institute made to my life, and to my
ministry. To founders John Galten and Joseph Fessio, SJ; to
professors C.M. Buckley, SJ; Dr. Stan Arroyabe; Dr. Erasmo
Leiva; Dr. Raymond Dennehy; Mr. John Hamlon and Fr. Tony
Mastroeni -- as well as the late Drs. Frank Beech and Theresa
Crem; and the late Frs. Francis King, SJ and John Richardson,
SJ: You all had a profound impact on my life, and on
my ministry. You taught me how to think, to question, to seek
and to believe. You have, by extension, touched the thousands
of lives I have consequently reached in my own ministry. The
fruits of your work stretch far and wide, through me and
through the hundreds of other institute alumni out there in
the world. God will surely reward you for that. For more
information on the fate of the St. Ignatius Institute, see
the Friends of the St. Ignatius Institute web site at
www.FriendsofSII.com.
Copyright ?2001 Arlington Catholic Herald. All rights
reserved.