My Interview with Fr. Nguyen

n.b. This interview was held in the Fall 2024 semester.

Last semester, I had the honor of interviewing Fr. Nguyen, S.J., the newest edition to the Jesuit community. Fr. Nguyen was born in Saigon, Vietnam, and grew up in Chicago. He holds a Ph.D. in Theology from the University of St. Michael’s College and an S.T.D from Regis College, both at the University of Toronto, and entered the Jesuits in 1997. Academically, his focus is on the intersection of twentieth-century Christian martyrdom and totalitarianism. He is an expert on the German Jesuit Alfred Delp and the German-Jewish philosopher and Carmelite nun Edith Stein, two martyrs of the Second World War. Fr. Nguyen was on the Holy Cross Board of Trustees from 2017 to 2022, and was a professor at Creighton University before teaching at the College. Spiritually, Fr. Nguyen enjoys giving Ignatian retreats and ministering to students. A fun fact about Fr. Nguyen is that he has a black belt in Brazilian Jiu Jitsu, and in the past he has dabbled in judo, wrestling, and boxing. He feels that his training in martial arts has greatly strengthened his discipline and resilience.

For the first part of the interview, I asked Fr. Nguyen about the classes he is teaching. We decided to focus on one class in particular, an intro-level course called “Theology of Christian Martyrdom. In the first half of the semester, he told me that his purpose was to lay out “the spiritual and logical foundations for Christian martyrdom, which is grounded in Scripture and the early Church martyrs such as Sts. Perpetua, Felicity, and Ignatius of Antioch.” To provide his class with a Scriptural foundation for martyrdom, he used the example of the Beatitudes and showed that the early Church martyrs “embody the Scriptural injunctions to take up one’s cross.”

For the second half of the semester, Fr. Nguyen led students in discussions about the role of martyrdom in contemporary society, with a particular focus on totalitarian regimes. He showed his class that martyrdom becomes “more important and more difficult” in totalitarian regimes because they “take away your capacity to do [what is] good and right, by taking away the capacity to think on your own.” Fr. Nguyen also discussed the essential role of prayer in the lives of martyrs. He hoped to show his class that through frequent prayer,“you have an interior life from which you can draw resources from when times are challenging.” He remarked that if one has an “inner sanctuary,” no one, not even a totalitarian regime, can violate it, thus its importance for those who desire to take up the cross of martyrdom.

Fr. Nguyen’s class also touched on the martyrs of Nazism. The first figure he presented to his class was Dietrich Bonhoeffer, whom he described as “the most salient example of someone who resisted the fascist regime.” Bonhoeffer, a German Lutheran pastor who openly opposed Nazism, started an underground seminary for Lutheran men who hoped to become authentic ministers of God’s Word, unaffected by Nazi censorship. He also taught his class about Edith Stein, a Catholic who was executed by the Nazis due to her Jewish ancestry. Furthermore, he familiarized his class with the White Rose movement, a non-violent, student-led intellectual resistance group in Nazi Germany which originated at the University of Munich. Often, the movement would meet within the basements of professors’ home to read and discuss banned books, an act which Fr. Nguyen compared to contemplative prayer: “You withdraw from the world, not because you want to escape from the world but because you want to keep yourself pure for the sake of the world.” Just as contemplatives pray for the world and bring hope during hard times by holding fast to their faiths, the figures in the White Rose movement helped the world by protecting themselves from Nazi corruption and maintaining their integrity as intellectuals and thinkers unperverted by Nazi censorship.

When Fr. Nguyen and I had finished chatting about his class, we turned to discussing his experiences with students so far. Fr. Nguyen said that during his time on the Board of Trustees, he had some sense of the student body, but that his “understanding of the types of student [at Holy Cross] has grown since this time.” He remarked that he feels “very privileged to be here because [he is] surrounded by students who appear to be motivated by discussing and debating ideas.” He said that he views the class atmosphere at Holy Cross as “formative and not simply transactional.”

However, Fr. Nguyen remarked that he has witnessed some attitudes from students that express quite the reverse: to some, class is only necessary as a means to obtaining a degree.  In his view, this attitude misses the point of a liberal arts education, which ought to be formative rather than solely practical. College ought to be a formative time in one’s life, yet in some cases the formation of the classroom has become secondary to the practical benefits of the college degree. However, overall, his sense of the students at Holy Cross is that they enjoy “soaking up, reflecting, and criticizing ideas,” a refreshing reality.

Fr. Nguyen mentioned that he sees himself as “a scholar, teacher, and priest.” He commented that these three dimensions have created a “fun tension” in his life, but that his identity as a priest is the most important of them all and helps to anchor the others. Fr. Nguyen described his work as labor in the vineyard of academia, ultimately in service to the Church. He said that his different roles intersect in the “formation of students and [in] helping them unfold into the person they are meant to be.” 

I then asked Fr. Nguyen about his process of adjustment to his new Jesuit community at Holy Cross. He revealed that his community of Jesuits is  “very easy-going,” and fondly referred to his brothers as “lovely men.” To him, Fr. Bill Reiser is a figure who emulates wisdom, and Fr. John Gavin has helped him to “enculturate into all things Holy Cross.” As far as Jesuit dynamics go, Fr. Nguyen also offered a glance into his nighttime routine. Being a night owl himself, Fr. Nguyen shared that he enjoys partaking in “second desserts” with Fr. Reiser and Fr. Bill Clark, late night snacks consisting of milk and cookies (and sometimes cake). Another important relationship is the one he shares with Fr. Brent Otto because he is also new to living in the community and teaching at Holy Cross, although Fr. Otto also has past experience with the College, having graduated in 2001. Fr. Nguyen joked that teaching and living in a new Jesuit community here on the Hill is his and Fr. Otto's “first time in the trenches.”  

Furthermore, Fr. Nguyen described the Jesuit community at Holy Cross as being very monastic, since study and research are major parts of the Ignatian contemplative tradition. Concerning the relationship between study and prayer, he remarked, “there's an asceticism where there’s a love for scholarship.” By this, he meant that the life of a scholar-priest is not without sacrifice, and the Jesuits must sometimes forgo enjoyment in order to prioritize their duties. His brother Jesuits focus on transforming their work into prayer, which he believes is essential to the spiritual and intellectual lives of the College. According to Fr. Nguyen, the Jesuits are “scholars, teachers, and priests,” priesthood providing the foundation for the other roles to thrive. 

Finally, I asked Fr. Nguyen about his favorite theologians and saints. We began by discussing his favorite theologians: Hans Urs von Balthasar, Judith Wolfe, and Edith Stein. Hans Urs von Balthasar (1905-1988) was a Swiss theologian and priest whose systematic theology influenced the Church in the post-Vatican II era. Fr. Nguyen appreciates von Balthasar’s emphasis on “beauty as a transcendental,” and the idea that beauty is a revelation of God’s divine essence. He admires Judith Wolfe (b. 1979-), a professor in the School of Divinity at the University of St. Andrews in Scotland, for her work on the importance of imagination in theological discourse. Professor Wolfe’s research focuses are eschatology, the imagination, and how theology, philosophy, art, literature, and psychology interact. Her most recent publication is The Theological Imagination, a book which posits that Christian theology offers a powerful way of imagining the world around us.

Fr. Nguyen’s favorite theologian and favorite saint is Edith Stein because of her challenge to twentieth-century German academia as a woman and a Jew , as well as her emphasis on “the need for an empathetic encounter in the classroom.” Edith Stein, also known as St. Teresa Benedicta of the Cross (1891-1942), was a German philosopher, nun, and martyr. Stein was raised Jewish, became an atheist as a young adult, and converted to Catholicism in 1922 after reading the writings of St. Teresa of Avila, a sixteenth-century Doctor of the Church and mystic. Stein was one of the first women in Germany to get a PhD in Philosophy, yet she was refused a faculty position in the philosophy department at the University of Münster because she was a woman, and in 1933 was forced to resign from the faculty of pedagogy at the University by the Nazis because she was Jewish.  

In the same year, Stein entered the Carmelites and became a Discalced Carmelite nun. Although her decision to join the Carmelites was not inspired by her German-Jewish identity, the Carmelites’ coat of arms features the Star of David, and the Carmelite Order is heavily inspired by the prophet Eliah, a major figure from the Hebrew Bible. Fr. Nguyen emphasized that Stein “never stopped pursuing truth.” He compared her to Socrates, who was not afraid to die for the sake of truth. Although Stein had many chances to escape her suffering and death at the hands of the Nazi regime, she bravely faced her death because “she was wedded to the Cross.” Fr. Nguyen said that although von Balthasar, Wolfe, and Stein are different, they "all intertwine; beauty, imagination, and empathetic encounter” are meant to help young people perceive the world with values.

Peter Kreeft on "The Great Divorce"

At the end of the 2024 Fall semester, our book club welcomed Professor Peter Kreeft to speak on C.S. Lewis. Professor Kreeft teaches philosophy at Boston College and has authored over eighty books covering topics ranging from Zen Buddhism to Martin Heidegger, as well as philosophical dialogues featuring Marx, Socrates, and John F. Kennedy. When he arrived at Holy Cross donning a suit and purple tie, I asked him if he had done so intentionally as a nod to our school colors. He quickly insisted the tie choice was mere coincidence. Although Peter Kreeft is a giant in the Catholic philosophical world, he knew perfectly how to relate to an audience of college students. 

The lecture was attended by twenty philosophically and theologically inclined students, the majority of whom had been attending weekly meetings covering C.S. Lewis’s 1945 classic, The Great Divorce. In the three weeks leading up to Kreeft’s talk, the group met for one hour on Fridays to share food, fellowship, and thoughts provoking discussion on the chapters we had read. The novella follows an unnamed narrator as he makes the journey (via cosmic bus) from a dull and grey Purgatory to the ethereal outskirts of Heaven. The narrator witnesses souls balk at the idea of entering Heaven, preferring to distance themselves from God and return back to Purgatory (or Hell, depending on how you look at it). Up at the podium, Kreeft expounded effortlessly about the book, crystalizing and deepening the insights we had made together during club meetings. He included jokes and anecdotes that kept the audience engaged, and drew connections between the Bible, Dante, and other works by Lewis. Kreeft covered the main themes of the book: free will and God’s judgment of sin. God in his infinite patience and wisdom, Kreeft said, allows his stupid children to make the same mistakes over and over again so that we may come to him and ask for forgiveness. This gets to the heart of C.S. Lewis’s book: the shades in Heaven are given ample opportunity to accept God’s love, only to turn it down in favor of prideful pursuits. 

After the talk, Professor Kreeft stayed for a while to talk to the students, a courtesy we were all grateful for. 
Book club meetings will continue later this month, copies of Dostoyevsky’s Crime and Punishment will be provided for any Holy Cross student interested. Feel free to contact me at tgange26@g.holycross.edu.

A Hero in Our Midst

Few students know that on the far end of our cemetery, under a grand red, white, and blue wreath, lies a man of incredible distinction, someone who truly lived the Holy Cross ideal of being a  man for others. A man of such a distinct courage that our President and our nation saw him fit to receive the highest award our country can bestow: the Congressional Medal of Honor. His name is known in a few circles on our campus, echoed by those who preserve the names of those worthy of our alma mater, and is certainly resounded by the legions of angels and saints in heaven. To our great pride and glory, the final resting place of Fr. Joseph O’Callahan is on our very own campus. 

Fr. O’Callahan was born on May 14th, 1905. Just after graduating from Boston College High School, he began formation with hopes of being ordained into the Jesuit order. He received a bachelor’s degree in 1925 and a master’s in 1929 from St. Andrew’s College, specializing in mathematics, physics, and philosophy. Fr. O’Callahan was ordained into the Roman Catholic priesthood in 1934.  He went on to teach at Boston College, the Jesuit Seminary of Weston College, and eventually directed Holy Cross’ mathematics department in 1938. Coincidentally, one of his students, John V. Power, would also go on to earn the Medal of Honor.

As the U.S. entered into World War II, Fr. O’Callahan felt a strong patriotic duty to serve his nation and put aside his fruitful academic career. He joined the Naval Reserve Chaplain’s Corps and was soon ordered into active naval service in 1940, assigned to the Naval Air Station in Pensacola, Florida.

O’Callahan possessed a special courage few men ever witness. From his very induction into the Navy, he “sought sea duty and wanted to be aboard a carrier” because “[aircraft carriers] are the queens of the fleet, Fighting Ladies, always in the thick of the fray” (IWCF pg. 3). In April of 1942, he was given orders to report to the USS Ranger, set to soon deploy into the European campaign. While aboard the Ranger, O’Callahan was given the opportunity to cut his teeth by learning naval procedure and participating in Operation Torch and Operation Leader as a valued sailor. Aboard the USS Ranger, O’Callahan witnessed the amphibious conquest of French Morocco and the raids of German Shipping in Norwegian waters, becoming an esteemed sailor and finding a passion for his vessel and the Navy he served.

Shortly after his tour on the USS Ranger, O’Callahan was ordered to report to the USS Franklin to aid in a critical operation for the defeat of the Japanese. In March of 1945, Fr. O’Callahan reported to the USS Franklin in Pearl Harbor, which began the perilous duties of Task Force 58. As part of Task Force 58, the USS Franklin would come closer than any other carrier to the Japanese mainland during the war in an attempt to destroy the remnants of the Japanese fleet.

Before dawn on March 19th, 1945, the USS Franklin launched a fighter sweep against Honshu and the Kure Harbor. All men remained alert to a possible Japanese retaliation, forgoing sleep and opportunities to eat. Despite their close attention to possible threats,  a Japanese dive bomber slipped through the cloud cover and slung two semi-armor piercing bombs onto the deck. Fires, explosions, and calamity ensued. A rising inferno consumed all aircrafts and men on deck. The hangar, likewise, was consumed, leaving only two survivors and eviscerating all remaining aircrafts. However, another danger remained. The initial impact of the bombs set off the armed munitions of the striker aircrafts and further threatened the fuel lines of the carrier. There were still tons of munitions within the ship, and an imminent powder keg threatened the remaining lives. The Franklin was left incapacitated and without communications, broiling in the heat of the roaring flames and suffocating the brave survivors. From the bridge, Captain Gehres quickly moved to save the vessel but found vital contingencies failing. A key concern was the Franklin’s magazines, which were posed to explode and lacked critical water lines to extinguish the flames. Rear Admiral Davison urged Capt. Gehres to abandon the ship, but neither the Captain nor his men were willing as there were still many survivors below deck.

Answering his call in this dire situation, Father O’Callahan quickly moved onto the slanting deck to do whatever was necessary to save the men God had entrusted him with. He quickly organized parties of survivors to disarm gun turrets and armed munitions primed to go off. Moving everywhere, all at once, in the midst of fire, debris, and the cries of the wounded and dying, Fr. O’Callahan managed to direct men to crucial duties while administering rites to the dying and comforting the wounded. Capt. Gehres recalls with evident awe the bravery of Fr. O’Callahan as a five-hundred pound bomb broke loose on the deck and began to roll toward an open hold filled with ammunition. A group of sailors instinctively stopped the bomb’s roll but froze at the prospect of having to defuse it. Captain Gehres saw Fr. O’Callahan appear out of nowhere and calmly stand over the bomb, inspiring and encouraging the men as they successfully defused it. Capt. Gehres later referred to Fr. O’Callahan as “the bravest man I have ever seen” [1]. Another striking anecdote is the effort of Fr. O’Callahan in leading firefighting teams into the bowels of the ship to put out raging fires on the magazines and to lead men out of imperiled cells. This man, armed with nothing but a helmet and a bottle of holy water, fulfilled his duty honorably,risking his life for the sake of others. He possessed  courage  akin to that of the greatest of warriors, leaders, and saints.

Fr. O’Callahan maintained the humility of one who knows his duty to God and man, recognizing that he was only one of many to rebel against his ever-dismal fate; he recognized that hundreds of men answered with courage and strength to the needs of their brethren. In answering the praise of Capt. Gehres and the publicity around his actions, Fr. O’Callahan modestly noted that his part in saving the aircraft carrier was “exaggerated”; “Any priest in like circumstances should do and would do what I did” [2]. On that fateful day, seven-hundred and twenty-four sailors perished, and two-hundred and sixty five were injured.

Eventually, the carrier was saved and towed back to the United States for repairs. Due to public outcry, President Truman awarded, Fr. O’Callahan the Medal of Honor and he continued to serve until November 1946. Fr. O’Callahan returned to Holy Cross as a professor in the Philosophy department until he passed away in 1964. In his honor, the U.S. commissioned the USS O’Callahan in 1968. He is now laid to rest in our cemetery and his Medal of Honor, which can be found in the Dinand Archives, testifies to his virtue.

Fr. O’Callahan’s Medal of Honor Citation reads:

For conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity at the risk of his life above and beyond the call of duty while serving as chaplain on board the U.S.S. Franklin when that vessel was fiercely attacked by enemy Japanese aircraft during offensive operations near Kobe, Japan, on 19 March 1945. A valiant and forceful leader, calmly braving the perilous barriers of flame and twisted metal to aid his men and his ship, Lt. Comdr. O'Callahan groped his way through smoke-filled corridors to the open flight deck and into the midst of violently exploding bombs, shells, rockets, and other armament. With the ship rocked by incessant explosions, with debris and fragments raining down and fires raging in ever-increasing fury, he ministered to the wounded and dying, comforting and encouraging men of all faiths; he organized and led firefighting crews into the blazing inferno on the flight deck; he directed the jettisoning of live ammunition and the flooding of the magazine; he manned a hose to cool hot, armed bombs rolling dangerously on the listing deck, continuing his efforts, despite searing, suffocating smoke which forced men to fall back gasping and imperiled others who replaced them. Serving with courage, fortitude, and deep spiritual strength, Lt. Comdr. O'Callahan inspired the gallant officers and men of the Franklin to fight heroically and with profound faith in the face of almost certain death and to return their stricken ship to port. [3] 

As members of the Holy Cross community, we live, succeed, and strive in memory of those who have come before us, never forgetting that we are all living members in the Kingdom of God, established on the throne of our hearts. Let us rejoice that many great men, like Father O’Callahan, have been and are with us as we pursue our vocations in life. And let us draw courage and inspiration from them, ad maiorem Dei gloriam.

In honor of the memory of Fr. O’Callahan, Holy Cross maintains the O’Callahan Society which “encourages and cultivates the traditions associated with the Jesuit, liberal arts education of military and naval officers” [4]. For further information, there is a page on the Holy Cross website (https://www.holycross.edu/alumni/crusaders-connect/affinity-groups/ocallahan-society).

Endnotes: 

[1] David Davidson and Leslie Gehres, “BEFORE THE COLORS FADE: Leslie Gehres: Captain of the "Ship that Wouldn't Die””, American Heritage, April, 1969, https://www.americanheritage.com/leslie-gehres-captain-ship-wouldnt-die\. 

[2] Joseph O’Callahan, I Was Chaplain on the Franklin, 

[3] “JOSEPH TIMOTHY O’CALLAHAN”, Medal of Honor Society, https://www.cmohs.org/recipients/joseph-t-ocallahan. 

[4] “O’Callahan Society,” College of the Holy Cross, https://www.holycross.edu/alumni/crusaders-connect/affinity-groups/ocallahan-society. 

Further Sources Consulted: 

Naval History and Heritage Command. “Modern Biographies: Joseph Timothy O’Callahan.” https://www.history.navy.mil/research/library/research-guides/modern-biographical-files-ndl/modern-bios-o/ocallahan-joseph-timothy.html. 

Satterfield, John R. Saving Big Ben: The USS Franklin and Father Joseph T. O’Callahan. Naval Institute Press, 2011. 
The Ancient Order of Hibernians, “A Shepherd in the Flames: The Medal of Honor Story of Fr. Joseph O’Callahan”, March 11, 2024,https://aoh.com/2024/03/11/a-shepherd-in-the-flames-the-medal-of-honor-story-of-fr-joseph-ocallahan/.

Charity, Queen of Dialogue

Last year, Holy Cross began a long-awaited dialogue about dialogue. Through social media spats, abrupt confrontations, and general tension on campus, the student body demonstrated that it was struggling to come together and engage in constructive discussion about its opposing worldviews. This is the sort of problem that does not befit a liberal arts college, a place whose purpose is the exchange of ideas. In order to remind students of this purpose, the administration had to ask itself, how can Holy Cross foster dialogue? And, are there some subjects that do not merit dialogue?

True to its liberal arts tradition, the College proposed a structured medium for students to voice their views on controversial issues. The administration, in conjunction with the newly founded group SPEECH (Students Promoting Empathy, Expression, and Civic Harmony), began a series called “Dialogue Dinners,” two-hour events during which students could come together and discuss current issues over a meal. These dinners offered students a casual, friendly setting to alleviate the tension of disagreement, but also enforced structure and civility through rules and the presence of administrators and student peer educators. 

One of the rules of the Dialogue Dinners comes directly from the Presupposition of St. Ignatius’ Spiritual Exercises: “Be more eager to put a good interpretation on a neighbor’s statement than to condemn it. If one cannot interpret it favorably, one should ask how the other means it.” Ignatius’ advice calls for patience and cordiality, two necessary qualities of any decent conversation. They certainly have their place at a Dialogue Dinner.

Though the rest of the advice of the Presupposition was not included in the rules of the Dialogue Dinners, it is equally valuable. Still referring to the statements of one’s neighbor, St. Ignatius continues, “If he cannot save it, let him inquire how he means it; and if he means it badly, let him correct him with charity. If that is not enough, let him seek all the suitable means to bring him to mean it well, and save himself.” Notice the key principle here: charity.

St. Ignatius established these guidelines at the beginning of his Spiritual Exercises as a framework for the relationship between the spiritual director and the retreatant, the former of whom is essential to the growing prayer life and discernment of the retreatant. This quote from the Presupposition shows that spiritual direction is impossible without charity, the queen of virtues which Christians also call “love.” For, as Ignatius points out, love seeks understanding. Charity enables the spiritual director and the retreatant to truly listen to and understand one another. Charity disposes of presumptions and self-righteousness. Only with charity can the two engage in constructive dialogue. St. Paul said, “If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal” (1 Corinthians 13, ESV). No matter how learned the spiritual director may be, his advice bears no fruit without love for God and the retreatant. The same can be said for the retreatant’s reception of his advice.

Although the Presupposition was originally intended for this pairing, its content can easily be extended beyond the Spiritual Exercises to the rest of us undergoing daily life. Should we not also desire to nourish each other’s souls, knowing one another as fellow beloveds of God? Is this not what we owe one another as neighbors, or in Holy Cross language, as “men and women for and with others”?

St. Ignatius understood the essential role of charity for fruitful dialogue. This idea from our familiar Ignatian tradition takes its roots all the way back to the moment of creation, and is fulfilled by Christ in the New Covenant.

The Gospel of John paints creation as a dialogue between God and His creatures. The first chapter of John explains how Christ was present at the beginning of time, not yet enfleshed but as the “Word,” through Whom “all things were made” (1:3). Creation was made through the “Word,” which in the Greek also translates to “reason” or “logic.” John shows that God’s creation of the world was an act of reason, and that creation was brought about by the speech of God.

The original Greek makes clear that the act of creation was a dialogue. John 1:3, which begins “All things were made through Him,” tells us that the world was made “dia autou,” with the pronoun autou referring to the Logos, the Word. The preposition dia and the noun Logos form the Greek word “dialogos,” where we get our word for “dialogue.” Through his clever wielding of language, John reveals that creation is a dialogue between itself and its Creator.

Christ further exemplifies His life-giving nature as the Word in the miracles He performs during His ministry. In the three cases where he brings people back to life, He uses the power of speech. He famously brings Lazarus back to life when He commands him, “Lazarus, come out!” (John 11:43). He commands the twelve-year-old daughter of the synagogue leader back to life with the words, “‘Talitha cumi,’ which means, ‘Little girl, I say to you, arise.’” (Mark 5:41). Finally, He revives the son of the Naim widow with the command “Young man, I say to you, arise” (Luke 7:14). In each of these instances, Christ revives His creatures through speech. Through the miracles He performs during His ministry, Christ continues His creative act as Logos, culminating in His death and resurrection, by which human beings are constantly being redeemed and brought into new life.

Christ’s crucifixion fulfills creation, since it is by this act that man is able to do what he was made for; namely, enter into an eternal relationship with God. Man was made and given his purpose at the moment of His creation, when God breathed His own life into him – not only biological life, but life in the Spirit, as indicated in the Greek by the word “zoe” (Genesis 2:7) as opposed to “bios.” Man was uniquely made to be like God and to be one with Him. The Fall ruptured this relationship, but Christ’s willing sacrifice revives it and welcomes us back to life in the Spirit. St. Athanasius, a fourth century Church Father, understood creation and salvation as consistent events: “There is thus no inconsistency between creation and salvation; for the One Father has employed the same Agent for both works, effecting the salvation of the world through the same Word Who made it at the first” [1]. The Logos gave man life in the beginning, and He renews this life through His death and resurrection.

Why did Christ give up His life for humanity? St. John says that it was out of love. “Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love. In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him. In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins” (1 John 8-10). Love is at the essence of God and therefore the essence of the Logos. It was because of love that God formed man from clay and later sent His Son to die for him.

John continues, relaying a social message about how we ought to love one another: “Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God abides in us and his love is perfected in us” (1 John 11-12). As John says, Christians are called to love others in a way that parallels God’s love for man.

This poses a heavy demand. God’s love permits no exceptions. Christ’s sacrifice was for every member of the human race. This is a radical truth which dissolves divisions and calls us to love through difference and in difference. According to St. Paul, “There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus” (Galatians 3:28). All people have a shared identity in Christ, in their purpose as human beings. 

Creation was a dialogue, with love at its center. Considering the nature of this first dialogue, what can we say of the dialogue at Holy Cross?

Holy Cross’ mission statement is rooted in dialogue. The following is a short excerpt: “Because the search for meaning and value is at the heart of the intellectual life, critical examination of fundamental religious and philosophical questions is integral to liberal arts education. Dialogue about these questions among people from diverse academic disciplines and religious traditions requires everyone to acknowledge and respect differences.” Though in secular language, this quote somewhat mirrors Paul’s advice to the Galatians. Our calling to be one in Christ demands respect in spite of differences. Since we are called to love one another as God loves His creation, dialogue is incomplete without love.

As the Gospels show, Christ’s speech gives life. In being made like God, destined for relationship with Him, we are given the ability to co-create, materially, spiritually, and intellectually. We participate in the perpetual dia Logos between God and man. Knowing the crucial role God has for us in His creation, we ought to do our best to ensure that our speech is also life-giving.

Endnotes 

[1] Athanasius, On the Incarnation, (St. Vladimir’s Orthodox Theological Seminary, 1982), 26. 

Thoughts on Our Jesuit Inheritance, Part II: An Interview with Fr. Keith Maczkiewicz S.J.

In my endeavor to discover what makes us Jesuit, I had a helpful conversation with Father Keith Maczkiewicz, S.J., who serves as Associate Vice President for Mission and Ministry, and is a Jesuit priest on campus. I will include here the comments I found especially helpful.

First, I asked Father Mac what distinguishes Jesuit education from other forms of education, Catholic or secular, and what ways Holy Cross lives out that charism. His first point was the mission-driven nature of Holy Cross.

“Holy Cross has a distinct mission. It’s even different than Boston College down the road, even though that’s a Jesuit university, because of the unique mode of what we’re doing here in terms of undergrad-only, liberal arts… In a place like Holy Cross, the focus on the humanities is a huge aspect of what we’re trying to do here.” He compared our college to other Jesuit universities like Fairfield, where a large portion of undergraduates study things like finance, marketing, and nursing. Holy Cross, on the other hand, maintains the historical tradition of Jesuit colleges to pursue the liberal arts and humanities.

He continued that Holy Cross provides the opportunity for spiritual formation,

“I think that the phrase in the mission statement that carries a lot of weight is the phrase, ‘for those who wish.’ Because we have a lot of non-Catholics here. We have non-Catholic students or formerly Catholic students, that’s a huge number... And I think that in general the College is pretty good about providing opportunities for those who wish. Numbers at Mass the last several weeks have been pretty great. There’s the devotional life here. The fact that you can go to confession five days a week says something. There’s still Mass here twice a day… The fact that you can make the Spiritual Exercises four times a year, that the chaplains make themselves available for spiritual direction, that you can become Catholic while you’re here. There are all these opportunities for formation for students.”

In light of the diminishing number of Jesuits, I asked Father Mac if, hypothetically, Holy Cross could retain its Jesuit charism and identity with no Jesuits present. He reminded me that it is not just a hypothetical,

“The Jesuits on the East Coast are currently involved in a conversation about what they’re calling an “Apostolic Plan…” We [The Society of Jesus] are currently in 11 colleges and universities, 47 high schools and pre-secondary schools, 19 parishes and four retreat houses. We can’t stay in all those places… Every institution is going to have to do a deep dive into what it wants. First of all they’ll have to affirm that they actually want to remain a Jesuit school. There might be some places, I don’t think Holy Cross is one of them, who are like ‘yeah, I think we’re done with the Jesuit thing.’”

He said of Holy Cross, regarding our first lay president, “There is more conversation about mission and Catholicism with a lay president than there was with a Jesuit president, because there’s a recognition that, in some people’s minds it doesn’t sit in the person in the president’s office who is wearing a collar, even though president Rougeau is an active, practicing Catholic… Because of that, there are a lot of conversations about mission here. I think there are going to be gradations of things… could a place be ‘Ignatian,’ inspired by Ignatius and his spirituality, but no longer a Jesuit school?... We [Jesuits] haven’t really wrestled with this totally.”

Finally, I asked Father Mac what I consider to be the most important question. That is, whether Holy Cross could retain its Jesuit charism or identity if the majority of the community no longer believed in or practiced the Catholic faith. He pointed out Pope John Paul II’s imperative that the majority of faculty at Catholic institutions should be Catholic. But, he says, “the horse has left the barn, at almost every Catholic school.” He continued with a clarification of what the mission of a Catholic institution is, primarily,

“The thing about Catholic higher education is that it’s not a parish… When I speak to new faculty, I say to them, ‘we do not relate to you as if you are a parishioner here, you’re not a parishioner at Holy Cross.’ Their job is to teach, to teach well, and contribute to the Catholic intellectual tradition, which says: ‘ask really good questions about your discipline. Let’s bring them to a dialogue with what we believe in the Catholic faith’… That’s how we maintain ourselves as an authentically Catholic place.”

At the same time, he cautioned adamantly against a separation between “Jesuit” and “Catholic,”

“I think we have to be really diligent because we can be very quick to say ‘Jesuit, yay, Catholic, boo.’ And I think we see that in multiple areas… People love the Jesuits, people don’t love the Church all the time, and I would say that Saint Ignatius is rolling over in his grave when he hears that. Because you could not conceive of the Jesuits outside the Church. Even just a few years ago, we said in a document coming out of our General Congregation, that the Jesuits are “for, with, and of the Church.” We can’t conceive of ourselves any other way. I think we run into problems when we try to divorce the two, to try to make people happy.

He brought up the example of the Jesuit response to the Dobbs decision,

“The overturning of Roe v. Wade is a good example. I think people were shocked when the Jesuit Conference of the U.S. and Canada put out a statement in support of the Dobbs decision… I think people felt shocked and betrayed by that. But that would say to me that we, Jesuits, have done a poor job reminding people that we’re also Catholic. These two things can never and should never have been divorced. And if we stress ‘Jesuit’ over ‘Catholic,’ we’re doing a disservice to the Church.”

As a final thought, Father Mac reminded me of our privileged position at Holy Cross,

“I think sometimes in these conversations around identity and mission, what I sometimes want to say to people is that we are in a privileged place to be able to have them. Because if you’re aware of the higher ed. landscape in general, there’s basically one institution closing a month… Three colleges in Pennsylvania closed in one month over the summer. The atmosphere for Catholic higher ed. right now… is punishing. So the fact that we can have these conversations means that Holy Cross is doing really well… It’s a privilege to be able to debate these things. Because many places are worried about keeping the lights on and not having paper in the photocopier.”

We are truly privileged to be in the position that we are in. It is a privilege that Holy Cross can focus on its Jesuit mission at all. Idealist Catholics like myself must recognize and appreciate that. At the same time, with the privilege of our resources comes the responsibility to use them well. This responsibility demands Holy Cross to use its resources in service of its Jesuit mission; service which is not just an exterior decoration or mere good works, but truly flowing from and aiming for the living Catholic Faith. Holy Cross has the ability, and thus the responsibility, not only to produce great scholars and successful alumni, but to produce saints. It can, and therefore must, not only work for academic excellence and social change, but labor ad majorem Dei gloriam, for the greater glory of God.

Thoughts on Our Jesuit Inheritance, Part I

Two summers ago, there was a display of lamppost banners around the Hoval, each one advertising a value related to Holy Cross’ Jesuit identity. At the top of each banner was the phrase: “Jesuit Heritage.” It did not say “Jesuit values,”  “Jesuit mission,” or “Jesuit identity.” The word heritage may mean a few different things, but it certainly suggests something received from the past [1]. It may or may not refer to something still living. A man may speak of his “Catholic Heritage,” but this does not guarantee that you will see him at Mass next Sunday. The question, then, is whether this inheritance continues as a living identity, a decorative heirloom, or something in between. Is Holy Cross “Jesuit,” or merely “raised Jesuit?”

The word “Jesuit” is often thrown around at Holy Cross, but there is not a clear understanding of what it means, especially as it relates to our college. If you asked a member of our community a hundred or even fifty years ago what made Holy Cross a Jesuit college, they probably would have looked at you strangely and replied, “Why, the Jesuits, of course!” Today the answer is not so obvious. One needs only to walk from Loyola to Ciampi, then to the new Jesuit residence to get a visual impression of the decline in the number of actual Jesuits who live at Holy Cross. The average student interacts with Jesuits rarely, if at all. We no longer have a Jesuit president, and few Jesuits remain in administration. There are only a handful of Jesuit professors, mostly in Religious Studies. And perhaps most surprisingly, only one out of our dozen chaplains is a Jesuit. This should not be surprising, considering our Church’s vocation shortage, but it makes the answer to our question much less obvious. Our “Jesuit-ness” is no longer incarnate in the collared figures who walk around our campus. It is now more abstract; we cannot point to it. We must recognize first, then, that it is unclear what makes a college “Jesuit” if not Jesuits, and that we are at risk of losing whatever that is.

What does Holy Cross herself have to say? The “Jesuit, Catholic Tradition” section of our website [2] identifies three ways “we honor the Jesuit legacy” (again, suggesting the past). They are: “humanistic studies,” “solidarity with the poor and disenfranchised,” and “a diverse community of participants.” These are good and desirable things. They surely do flow from the Jesuit charism and tradition. But they cannot be what makes Holy Cross Jesuit; non-Jesuit colleges are just as capable of these things. Do we do them better? Maybe. But they are exterior. They are what we do, not who we are. They are, in soteriological language, Holy Cross’ “works.” Just as we are not saved by works [3], we are likewise not “made Jesuit” by them either. Holy Cross is made Jesuit by its faith, none other than the Catholic Faith, expressed through the particular Jesuit charism.  

It may seem obvious to some, but the Jesuits (the Society of Jesus) are a religious order within the Catholic Church. As a clarifying note, this means that “Jesuit” has a narrow meaning that does not apply to us students or the wider college community, despite the applicability of broader categories like “Jesuit charism.” More importantly, this means that Jesuits exist in the context of the Catholic Faith, and any identity that is not properly Catholic cannot, by definition, be a Jesuit identity. This means that when Holy Cross departs from the Catholic Church (not only in explicit matters of faith but also in ethical matters), it separates itself that much from its Jesuit identity. This is not to say that non-Catholics are or should be unwelcome at Holy Cross, but merely that any institution whose core is not Catholic cannot be Jesuit. With this in mind, I do not think it is controversial to say that Holy Cross largely departs from the Catholic Church on matters of faith in thought and practice, and a still larger portion departs on ethical matters. Insofar as this is the case, Holy Cross can only pretend to be authentically Jesuit. The name “Holy Cross” is not enough, our statues of saints are not enough, and the fact that many of our students grew up going to Catholic school is not enough when we are not Christians. As long as we are not Christians, our Jesuit heritage remains merely that, heritage.

But is that it? Shall we use the Jesuits rolling in their graves in our cemetery to power the PAC? Shall we Catholics be content complaining as Holy Cross becomes increasingly “progressive,” increasingly secular, and thus less Jesuit? Shall we be cynics, satisfied with our laughter when our friends and family ask, “So is your school, like, really religious?” A pessimist may say yes, but pessimism is not Christian. Any Fenwick Review writer could write a long and provocative article about all the ways Holy Cross fails to be authentically Catholic and thus fails to be Jesuit. Maybe that is necessary. But it is not enough. What we need is to identify where Holy Cross lives out its Jesuit Charism well, and work to strengthen these points. We need to claim our Jesuit inheritance. We must participate in and promote the sacramental life of the Church at Holy Cross. We must adopt authentic Ignatian modes of prayer. We must preach the Gospel. We must pursue academic excellence, and scholarship which seeks truth and advances the cause of faith, rather than subversion. We Catholics must live in such a way that reveals the fruits of the Jesuit charism so that Holy Cross will see what it means to be authentically “Jesuit.”

Endnotes

[1] The OED defines Heritage as “the condition or state transmitted from ancestors.” Oxford English Dictionary, s.v. “heritage (n.), sense 4,” June 2024, https://doi.org/10.1093/OED/5778821977.

[2] “Jesuit, Catholic Tradition,” College of the Holy Cross, accessed November 5, 2024, https://www.holycross.edu/about-us/jesuit-catholic-tradition. 

[3] According to the Council of Trent, session six, canon 1: “If any one saith, that man may be justified before God by his own works, whether done through the teaching of human nature, or that of the law, without the grace of God through Jesus Christ; let him be anathema.”

The Crisis of Meaning at Holy Cross

I have been a student here at Holy Cross for four years. I have lived and breathed this campus for four years of my life. I have been immersed in various classes, social groups, campus events, and way too many Thirsty Thursdays at Weagle. Even after all this immersion, I still do not know what it truly means to be a Holy Cross student. 

However, I do know that I have been inundated with a lot of slogans that tell me what it means to be a Holy Cross student. According to these slogans, a Holy Cross student must be “a man or woman for and with others,” who always seeks “magis” and “cura personalis” above all else. By themselves, these slogans are pretty good. Who is opposed to being a “man or woman for and with others?” Are we going to be men and women for ourselves? Or cura personalis? Are we really just going to care for one aspect of ourselves to the detriment of the rest? Nonsense. The vast majority of people, even those outside Jesuit-sponsored institutions, intuitively understand that these things are good and important. 

These slogans allow Holy Cross to escape from answering the big question of “what does it mean to be a member of this community.” The administration uses these amorphous statements as a substitute for answering the tough questions posed at the beginning of our mission statement. These questions, which you might have glanced at in Montserrat (which, by far, is one of the most misguided programs at Holy Cross), are very good. In order to live the good life, we must figure out “how to find meaning in life and history” and “what are our obligations to one another.” It is impossible to live a truly human life without answering these questions.

The sad fact is that Holy Cross has made these questions, which lie at the heart of the College’s current mission statement, impossible to answer. They have made them impossible to answer because, above all else, Holy Cross has made the institutional decision to become a corporate institution. 

You might be asking what is the difference between a corporate institution and an educational institution. Well, for starters, a corporate institution seeks above all else the minimization of conflict, the maximization of the endowment, and the growth of the administrative bureaucracy. Can anybody with a straight face tell me that these goals are not the main goals of our administration? 

An educational institution does not seek these things. These goals, while sometimes important for the survival of the institution, are not the telos of an educational institution. To Holy Cross, these three corporate prongs are our final end. We have no greater end. Our end is not “in hoc signo vinces” or “ad maiorem Dei gloriam,” but rather it is “make sure that we soothe the concerns of alumni (whether they are progressive or conservative; old or young; white or non-white) enough that they are still willing to remember us, and the endowment, in their will.”

This corporate model has inevitably hurt the student body because it has produced an administration that is fundamentally incapable of giving students anything more than amorphous, relatively subjective, and undefinable slogans. For example, can anybody really define for me what it means to be “a man or woman for and with others?” Or, does it just mean whatever I want it to be? 

The scariest consequence of the administration’s corporate approach to institutional management is that they have entrusted these questions to people who fundamentally disagree with the mission of our college: the progressive academic.

Our faculty, composed mostly of very kind and overly generous people, is also stacked with dangerous ideologues. The faculty, by and large, has proposed solutions to these fundamental questions, but many of these solutions are inhuman and drastically opposed to the traditional mission of our college. Their solutions are not grounded in claims of Truth, but rather you will hear plenty of variants of “the truth is whatever you want it to be,” “objective truth does not exist,” or “just live your (undefined, subjective, and constantly transforming) truth, babe” from them. 

By grounding their answers in these morally relativistic terms, they have fundamentally destroyed the student body’s ability to answer these questions. Every man, woman, and child who labored to answer these questions in generations past would have been unable to answer them without resting them on solid, morally secure foundations. However, the progressive academics have intentionally destroyed this capacity in order to fulfill their ideological goal–the transformation, and thus destruction, of the liberal arts and humanities.

The modern academic is not a traditional academic, rather they are ideological conquistadores intent on colonizing the liberal arts and humanities in an attempt to “decolonize” and deconstruct them. In their opinion, one does not become a “man or woman for and with others” through living lives of charity and faith; rather, one only becomes a “man and woman for and with others” through actively working to dismantle “systems of oppression” and “recentering” social structures both on and off campus (ideas that would have been very foreign to Ignatius, Fenwick, and Arrupe).

The question remains: what can we, people who are opposed to this ideological colonization and believe that the administration is weak-kneed, do about this institutionally existential crisis? 

The answer is honestly not much. Holy Cross has made the active decision to become an Amherst College with a pretty chapel. No amount of complaining, arguing, or writing op-eds in The Fenwick Review will change this fact. As a result, somebody has to lay out a plan for institutional recapture, and the good thing is that, unlike the progressive academic, we do not have to start from scratch. The plan for institutional recapture has been laid out since 1843.

The plan is evident in our campus’ architecture. Holy Cross was built by men who believed in the good, true, and beautiful. And so, they built a campus that corresponded to all that is good, true, and beautiful. There is no greater example of such a building than Dinand Library. Dinand, an intentionally imposing neoclassical structure, tells that our mission is “ut cognoscant te solum deum verum et quem misisti Iesum Christum.” Institutionally, we exist in order for students to be able to “know you, the one true God and Jesus Christ whom you sent.” That is our mission. 

Holy Cross also knew that one can only truly know Christ and live this mission through the liberal arts and humanities. One can only truly be immersed within this tradition by studying “religio, philosophia, ars, literae, historia, scientia, medicina, jus.” These disciplines “nourish youth [and] delight old age.” They make us human. They answer these fundamental questions posed in our current mission statement. The works, conquests, and ideas of men such as Aquinas, Benedict, Bellarmine, Columbus, Copernicus, Dante, à Kempis, and Justinian (whose names are all prominently featured in the Main Reading Room) are examples of individuals (and there are many more, including modern, female, and non-Western figures) who show us what it means to be truly human and Christian. These figures have engaged in the Great Conversation through studying and participating in the triumphs and failings of our civilization, the liberal arts, and the Church. They are the models that our administration and faculty should point us toward.

Holy Cross, like much of our world, is in a crisis of meaning. We are unable and unwilling to answer the fundamental questions posed by our very institution because our current corporate administration acts primarily out of fear. As a result, they leave these human questions to the province of ideologues whose intent seems to be the destruction of the institution itself. However, this story does not have to end with Ignatius wishing that the cannonball hit his head instead of his leg, rather Holy Cross can go “ad fontes.” Holy Cross can return to the sources of her heritage, her very self, as evidenced through her very campus. There, she will find the answers that she poses to herself; there, she will be able to tell her students what it truly means to be a member of this college.

How the Humanities Died

In his 1954 inaugural lecture as the first chair and professor of “Medieval and Renaissance English” at Cambridge, C.S. Lewis says that, though it is not within his power to treat the whole field, “this appointed area must primarily appear as a specimen of something far larger, something which had already begun when the Iliad was composed and was still almost unimpaired when Waterloo was fought…I shall be unable to talk to you about my particular region without constantly treating things which neither began with the Middle Ages nor ended with the end of the Renaissance. In this way I shall be forced to present to you a great deal of what can only be described as Old European, or Old Western, culture” [1]. I think C.S. Lewis would lament the absence of this “Old Western culture” in many Holy Cross humanities classrooms. In many of our literature classes, students emerge uneducated on the culture and history out of which classic pieces of writing were produced. Instead, they emerge with knowledge of how to manipulate these works to fit their own purposes. I hope to offer my opinion as a student of English and Spanish literature, informed by the thoughts of C.S. Lewis, as to why it seems plausible that the humanities are declining and criticized for not being serious areas of study.

My first reason is that many teachers and students have lost the ability to relate to the past. As a result, we miss the invaluable opportunity that literature gives us to engross ourselves in a different world and a different mentality. One example of our disconnect is our failure to understand the religiosity of our predecessors. Lewis notes: “Christians and Pagans had much more in common with each other than either has with a post-Christian. The gap between those who worship different gods is not so wide as that between those who worship and those who do not” [2]. The post-Christian character of many academics makes it difficult for them to pick up on religious references in classic pieces of literature which in turn diminishes their students’ understanding of the material. Jeffrey Knapp, author of Shakespeare’s Tribe, mentions: “On the level of practical criticism, secularist readings of Renaissance plays have failed to explain some of the most prominent recurring plots, themes, and character types in the plays, or even to notice the existence of such recurrences” [3]. We speak a different language now; we quickly pass over Shakespeare’s many references to Doomsday because we have lost the sense of its gravity and meaning, a meaning that Christians throughout the ages would have understood. Because of this lost sensibility, we begin to lose access to the mind of Shakespeare.

As a result of our ruptured relationship with the past, many classes attempt to discuss pieces of classic literature from a time period distinct from our own through the use of modern critical lenses without teaching much about the traditions and cultures from which these pieces emerged.

Some have preserved this lost art. To illustrate what I mean, I will cite an example from a class with a professor who has maintained this ability to have a healthy relationship with the past. In my class Shakespeare’s Contemporaries, the professor posed a question to the class: “Who has thought today: am I going to Heaven or Hell?” The class was silent. He responded, “The Elizabethans thought about that every day.” Through a jarring question, we were transported to a time distinct from our own. However, this class was an exception. In many other classes, we would have focused on class struggles, perception of women, questions of identity and sexuality, etc. Accordingly, we would likely have brought modern presumptions into our study of history’s best literature so that we were no longer studying history or literature at all but learning how to manipulate the material to fit our own agendas.

Learning about and immersing ourselves in the past does not enslave us to it. Lewis argues, “I think no class of men are less enslaved to the past than historians. The unhistorical are usually, without knowing it, enslaved to a fairly recent past” [4]. I think we as students are becoming bound to a fairly recent past by only learning to work with modern presumptions. I fear that our literary education is equipping us with the ability to perform one, low-level party trick: do shallow, unhistorical criticism of great literature. This subjectivity and infinite malleability diminishes the seriousness of the humanities: we become the stereotype of literature majors who do not have to do work (because reading our own opinions into literature does not often require reading the literature), who go to class and just talk about their feelings, and who write nonsense, and as long as the professor agrees with our nonsense, we get an A. 

The seriousness of the humanities is regained when we remember that reading great pieces of literature and immersing ourselves in the ideas of great authors enrich our minds. By applying various modern critical lenses onto literature and reading our own ideas into it, “we are so busy doing things with the work that we give it too little chance to work on us. Thus increasingly we meet only ourselves"[5]. I think we would do well to follow Lewis’s advice and, when studying literature from the Old Western tradition, to immerse ourselves in this tradition: “Look. Listen. Receive. Get yourself out of the way.” [6]. Then we can escape the danger of meeting only ourselves, and maybe then we can meet people like Cervantes and Shakespeare.

Endnotes 

[1] C.S. Lewis, Selected Literary Essays (Cambridge University Press, 2013), pp. 11-12.

[2] Ibid., p.5.

[3] Jeffrey Knapp, Shakespeare’s Tribe (University of Chicago Press, 2012), p.2.

[4] Lewis, Selected Literary Essays, p.4.

[5] Lewis, An Experiment in Criticism (Cambridge University Press, 2012), p. 85.

[6] Ibid., p.19.