A House Fitting for the Lord

You’re stuck shoulder to shoulder with a somewhat familiar face from your orientation group while a voice echoes from the ambo, barely audible over the droning roar of circular fans. The sharp crack of a small rock dropped on the marble floor jolts your mind from the stifling stupor of the late summer heat, if only for a moment. A bead of sweat journeys down your forehead as the grumbling of your stomach recalls the promise of food ere long. Convocation – perhaps, the first time you’ve truly sat in St. Joseph’s Chapel.

This first time formally gathered with your entire class may not have instantly screamed beauty, though it was undoubtedly a charming event. Too often are we caught unaware of the beauty that St. Joseph’s chapel holds. However, I must say, the chapel, although far from the pinnacle of church architecture, maintains a standard of beauty unsurpassed by any other structure on campus – a standard of beauty sacrosanct with the beauty of the Mass celebrated within its walls. A beauty too often buried by apathy. In reality, Church design far surpasses everyday beauty and encompasses a realm of symbolism that encapsulates the whole of salvation history. I invite you to simply observe. If you’re able, take this article and read it in the chapel so you may observe any details I highlight. Let me take you on a tour.

St. Germanus of Constantinople prescribes the standard of a Christian church in his work “Ecclesiastical History and Mystical Contemplation,” pronouncing “The Church is an earthly heaven in which the supercelestial God dwells and walk about.” And we as Catholics know this to be true. Does not our God truly dwell in the tabernacle? Does He not walk about in each of us when we receive His true Body and Blood? Surely, He does. So the Church must then look the part. This is why we see Gold ornamentation a plenty. This is why the predella is constructed from marble. This is why the ceilings lift high as though to somehow mimic the vast glory of Heaven. What houses the glorious must be glorious, if only a mere shred of the glory of the former. The earthly beauty helps our weak mortal minds to conceptualize the incalculable majesty of God – a God truly present in the Church.

Perhaps my favorite feature upon the predella is the ciborium. The four columns support a grand golden canopy, under which is the tabernacle of Christ (though St. Joseph’s Chapel houses the true presence of our Lord off to the left side, a decision I will not discuss here). This ciborium not only supports the majesty of what dwells beneath, but as St. Germanus connects, harkens to the Holy of Holies – the dwelling place of God in the Old Testament, which housed the Ark of the Covenant. This similarity deepens once we recognize that, as the Ark housed the sign of the Mosaic covenant, the tabernacle under the ciborium houses the sign of God’s final covenant, Christ Himself.

The columns, which support this grand canopy hold weight, yet hold a vastly greater host of symbolism. In 1 Kings 6:16 Solomon adorns the temple with “palm trees and open flowers.” Upon closer glance, we see that St. Joseph’s Chapel is similarly adorned: the Corinthian column, with their capitals of foliage rise like the palm trees. Rosettes comprise the backdrop of the stained-glass windows and carved flowers adorn the edges of the octagonal segments on the ceiling. These are not exclusive to St Joseph’s Chapel but adorn most any church, though the symbolism runs deeper than mere decorative similarity. Church tradition holds that this design of churches, and Solomon’s temple reference the Garden of Eden, before the fall. As places of Heaven on Earth, they recall the time when man was closest to God. This perfect, unblemished state of man is paralleled by the neat, orderly rows of the columns, the consistency of the foliage from capital to capital, the seemingly perfect placement of every floral detail. The Church itself strives to be perfect as was the garden before man ate of the forbidden fruit.

Still, there is more to learn from the columns. Notice how the columns are Corinthian, not Ionic like those of Dinand. This differentiates the house of God from merely a house of study. There are two other places on campus, to my knowledge, where Corinthian columns can also be found.  They can be found in Fenwick, for instance, but even more importantly, they can be seen in the interior of Kimball. Why do these similar architectural choices appear in both locations? Well, think — what do Kimball and the chapel have in common? Two things, for me, come to mind – they are both houses of feasts and of celebration. In Kimball we hold banquets and common meals – we eat and are sustained. In the chapel we consume the Body and Blood of Christ – we eat and are sustained. In Kimball we celebrate holidays and events, and in the chapel, we celebrate the most magnificent moment in history: our salvation.

So far, I’ve elucidated some deeper symbolism and ancient significance of the Chapel, however one particular detail, a personal favorite of mine, speaks to more recent church History. If you venture up the steps of the predella and look closely at the marble floors, you’ll notice something peculiar – a thin rectangular strip of marble, a slightly different color from the marble surrounding it. A quick glance, left or right, will tell you why the floor was patched. On either flank are the remnants of the altar rail, a relic from the Church pre-Vatican II. The rail once separated the lay from the priest, maintaining a higher degree of sanctity about the altar. It was a place where only those performing the sacrifice might dare to step. Now, we’ve lost that symbol of deep sanctity, though the altar remains as holy as ever. It’s these little details that go unnoticed, and that many in the Church want to go unnoticed, that speak to the true sanctity of the place, as well as the historical operations of the church.

As the altar rail (or the remnant thereof) tells us, the congregation of the Church stands removed from the altar. The altar is the place of God, the pews are the place of people. What great reminders of this are the beautiful stained-glass windows that flank the walls depicting Confessors on one side and Martyrs on the other. We stand, not only amid those other people present with us at Church in the moment, but with the entire congregation of the Church in Heaven as well. What great company to dwell with us!  Yet, they are, like us, nowhere near the greatness of our Lord. 

I would now like to return this tour to you. You’ve heard my spiel on some symbolism. You’ve heard my interpretation, that of the traditions of the church, and of St. Germanus. But take some time to view the chapel with your own eyes. What catches your glance? What enraptures you? What lifts your mind and heart to God?

There is so much beauty within this chapel, a beauty common to many Catholic churches across the globe. We are lucky to have such a rich history of architecture – of architecture with meaning. So let us not forget the importance of the Church. Quoting St. Germanus once more, “…it is glorified more than the tabernacle of the witness of Moses, in which are the mercy-seat and the Holy of Holies. It is prefigured in the patriarchs, foretold by the prophets, founded in the apostles, adorned by the hierarchs, and fulfilled in the martyrs.” It is the house of our truly present God.

The Climate Strike

Environmental activists gathered on the Dinand steps today, in front of the statue of Christ’s Crucified Hand. Representatives from the Chaplain’s office tried to hang one of their strike signs on the statue, but the wind blew it off; they made sure to use the statue for the remaining time as a placeholder for their plastic water bottles and cell phones. To prevent starvation, protestors were given dozens of colorful bagels to munch on as they paraded with their capes and signs.

“The world is dying and we need to do something about it,” said student Jack Parks ‘23, who told The Fenwick Review that he was protesting “deregulation on things like mercury, or waste - how people handle waste, stuff like that. Companies throwing stuff into any bodies of water that they can pollute just to get waste away from them.”

Despite the protesters’ widespread opposition to plastic items like straws, the protest’s organizers were passing out plastic Climate Strike stickers. When pressed, protestors acknowledged that it seemed a little hypocritical.

At a little past nine, the event officially started, with speeches given by the march’s leaders. The first speaker was a junior who attempted in vain to rally people up. The cheers were vaguely reminiscent of teenagers at a concert. There were calls to demand action, and to interrogate their fellow students on why they didn’t attend the rally: “...you must hold the people around you accountable.” The first speaker was the longest and was followed by other students with similar points.

Finally, Marybeth Kearns-Barrett, the head of the Chaplain’s office, addressed the crowd. She continued to use the same rhetoric as the former speakers, quoting Pope Francis and calling for action. Towards the end of her speech, she spoke about God’s graciousness and love, referring to God with the pronoun “she.” When asked to clarify that this is what she meant, she did so without hesitation. Her speech ended with a prayer.

Our warriors then proceeded to march through the streets of Worcester to City Hall to demand their voices be heard.

Holy Cross Hysteria

On Vanderbilt University’s campus in November 2015, a bag of fecal matter was discovered on the porch of the University’s Black Cultural Center.  As might be expected, the incident garnered widespread attention on campus, and outrage immediately ensued. The discovery of the bagged feces came the day after a group of black students staged a public protest against alleged racism on campus.  Naturally, the optics of an incident like this are less than ideal; the placement of feces on the doorstep of a University’s Black Cultural Center only a day after a major protest might have certain implications and play into particular narratives.  Vanderbilt’s black student organization didn’t hesitate to denounce the incident as a “deplorable” act of hate: without delay, the group condemned the episode on its Facebook page, contacted police, and informed campus administrators of what it saw to be a “vile” act “of hurt.”  Within hours of the student group’s allegations, however, law enforcement officials revealed that the bag was left on the porch not as an act of racism or bias, but by a blind student who had just picked up after her service dog and hoped someone at the Center would properly dispose of the bag on her behalf.

In recent weeks and months, the Holy Cross community has been practically bombarded with allegations, assumptions, and assertions that echo the false cries of bias and racism from Vanderbilt’s campus several years ago.  Students and other members of the campus community have received a plethora of frantic emails, walked past constantly expanding arrays of condemnatory posters and signs, and attended narrative-driven on-campus events that paint Holy Cross as a nasty community festered with hate, plagued by intolerance, and beleaguered with bigotry.

““...The administration should practice what it preaches and aim to seek the truth rather than to impose a narrative.”
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The Holy Cross administration’s tendency to leap to particular conclusions about rumors and allegations on campus has become entirely predictable.  Rather than withholding judgment about reported incidents until additional facts are available and investigations are completed, the school chooses to immediately default to the “hate crime” label.  This pattern has led to immeasurable harm within the Holy Cross community: the administration’s habitual rush-to-judgment approach when handling ambiguous incidents has cultivated an atmosphere of hypersensitivity on campus.  How can Holy Cross in good faith call for students to “be patient with ambiguity and uncertainty,” as it does in its mission statement, when the school itself refuses to be?  Instead of force-feeding students with unsubstantiated narratives of racism, sexism, homophobia, and bigotry every time vague incidents are reported, the administration should practice what it preaches and aim to seek the truth rather than to impose a narrative.

Like the occurrence at Vanderbilt in 2015, many of the incidents to which the Holy Cross administration has responded appear nefarious on a surface level.  When students are informed of torn-down black history signs and missing rainbow flags, it’s not entirely unreasonable to assume that such acts are bias-motivated or otherwise wicked in intent.  But the automatic presumption that these acts are ‘hate crimes’ is preposterous and unfair. On more than one occasion during my rather short time at Holy Cross, students have drunkenly torn down signs in residence halls.  Is it that far-fetched to think that the removal of the “Black Herstory” board in February could have been the result of drunken recklessness rather than an instance of “bias-motivated vandalism” and an “act of intolerance”?  Is it that far-fetched to think that the disappearance of a rainbow flag last November could have been caused by the wind? According to Holy Cross, apparently. In both of these instances, the administration explicitly noted that investigations had not been completed.  In the case of the rainbow flag, students were informed that school officials “do not know the motivation for the flag’s removal,” yet they still didn’t hesitate to label the incident as “deeply troubling.”

Of course, it’s not infeasible that some of these incidents have been bias-motivated.  And in cases where bias is proven and verified, such incidents should be condemned in the strongest possible terms.  But the constant presumption of bias in cases where no such bias is evident makes the Holy Cross administration look reactive, hypersensitive, and possibly motivated by a victimhood narrative.  As Professor David Schaefer of Political Science wrote in a previous issue of The Fenwick Review in response to the appearance of a swastika on campus, “Judging from my long acquaintance with Holy Cross students, I would guess that the swastika was far more likely a stupid prank provoked by the College's ever-increasing barrage of ‘multicultural’ indoctrination than a reflection of Nazi sentiment.”  In a sense, the College’s ultra-reactive responses to incidents like the torn-down black history sign, the missing rainbow flag, and other allegations with zero evidence are comical. How can one make such jarring assumptions based on such little information? How can the administration justifiably cancel a day of classes and force a summit on “campus culture” when over 100 hours of security footage and more than 40 interviews produced not even an iota of evidence for the supposed “hate crime” the summit was intended to address?  How does jumping to unsubstantiated conclusions and advancing uncorroborated narratives of hate in any way benefit students or the greater campus community?

Several national incidents have invoked this same sense of false outrage in the first two months of 2019 alone.  The alleged bias-motivated attack against actor Jussie Smollett, which several prominent politicians did not hesitate to label as “an attempted modern day lynching” and a “racist, homophobic attack,” turned out to be part of a not-so-elaborate hoax staged for the advancement of Smollett’s own career.  Ironically, it wasn’t until after the alleged Jussie Smollett attack was revealed as a hoax that Democrat presidential candidate Senator Kamala Harris said she wasn’t “going to comment until I know the outcome of the investigation” and Senator Cory Booker, another 2020 candidate, vowed to “withhold until all the information actually comes out from on-the-record sources.”  If the “outcome of the investigation” and “all the information” are important, why weren’t they when each senator immediately decried the attack as a “modern day lynching”? Likewise, students from Covington Catholic High School were instantly characterized as racist and bigoted based on a few seconds of video footage depicting a confrontation with a Native American elder, until it was revealed based on extended footage that the elder was provoking the students, not the other way around.  What do incidents such as these say about the state of the culture? Perhaps more importantly, what can we learn from them?

We live in a reactive society.  Whether our nation’s current level of hypersensitivity is rooted in animosity towards the President, towards people of faith, towards ‘straight white men,’ or towards anything or anyone else, people tend to jump to conclusions based on what they want to believe.  In reality, narratives of racism don’t hold any water when evidence for such racism ceases to exist.  America in 2019 is a pretty great place to exist: very few are truly victims, and all people – including women and minorities – have more opportunities now than at any other time in history.  Likewise, whether we like to admit so or not, Holy Cross is an extremely inclusive and welcoming campus.  Everyone who is fortunate enough to attend this school is far from being victimized, regardless of what the powers at be might want us to think.
Ultimately, everyone on campus would be better off if the administration were to take a step back, examine all available information, and let any investigations run their course before sending campus-wide emails decrying unclear incidents as “hate crimes” the second they’re reported.  Do we want to be a campus based on narrative or a campus based on fact? Do we want to assume the worst in one another or the best in one another? Do we want to be a campus that jumps to conclusions or a campus that strives to reach the truth? I can only hope we aim for the latter.  Our campus, our community, and our culture will be better for it.

““Ultimately, everyone on campus would be better off if the administration were to take a step back, examine all available information, and let any investigations run their course before sending campus-wide emails decrying unclear incidents as ‘hate crimes’ the second they’re reported.” 
”

In Defense of Being a Jesus Freak

For a long time, I was convinced that only weirdos were called to take Christianity seriously. That sounds harsh and judgmental, but in my defense, there are a lot of weird Christians. This isn’t anything new; Jesus spent most of his time on earth hanging out with the social outcasts, the weirdos of his day, and for the last 2,000 years, Christianity has embraced those on the fringes of society. The result, at least in my mind, was a religion full of weirdos. By that logic, I figured that, since I’m not a weirdo, I’m not called to take Christianity seriously or follow Jesus.

““As a result, plenty of people are content to write off the Catholic Church by its stereotypes, and society is full of rhetoric that consistently paints religious people in a bad light.”
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I was wrong. I am weirdo. And I am called to follow Him. Now I’m not saying that God only calls weirdos, but I am saying that I certainly don’t break the stereotype. Furthermore, if you look around at groups of faithful, young, intelligent Catholics, you’ll find tons of weirdos. The result is that many people, inside and outside of the Catholic Church, come to believe the stereotype. It doesn’t help that the very structure of Catholicism can seem designed to breed weirdos: it’s full of secrecy and strange smoke and odd rules about sex. At times, it can seem like the Church is designed to attract weird people and then make them weirder. As a result, plenty of people are content to write off the Catholic Church by its stereotypes, and society is full of rhetoric that consistently paints religious people in bad light.

Here’s the truth: there is no shortage of…unique Catholics. But contrary to what society or even those within the Church want to tell you, I don’t think that’s such a bad thing. For one, society’s disdain for the uniqueness of Catholics can be hypocritical. Social media is full of people urging one another to be true to themselves and to fight conformity, but Catholics are derided or mocked for their refusal to conform. Our culture promotes pseudo-countercultural movements (like being hipster) while it simultaneously attacks ideologies that are actually countercultural. Ironically, the very people praising non-conformity miss the fact that some of the most unique, countercultural people are faithful Catholics. Even within the Church, there is often an unspoken pressure for young Catholics to not be “too” Catholic, too overtly or outspokenly faithful. While some think that “playing it cool” could make the Church more attractive, this approach could be lethal.

That is because uniqueness—authentic uniqueness, not the hipster uniqueness that can be found in every nook and cranny in Portland—is the stuff of Saints. Many writers have said that true holiness is about becoming yourself. If that’s true, then it makes sense that holy people don’t really blend in with the crowd. We were made to be unique individuals, and when we are the people we were made to be, we’re going to be a little unique. (I’m not claiming to be holy - I’m just saying I’ve got the unique part down pat.) If you look at the saints, this holds true. The lives of the saints are often shockingly different from one another, illustrating that sanctity runs contrary to conformity. For example, Anthony of Padua got sick of nobody listening to him, so he started preaching to the fish. That’s weird. St. Philip Neri once shaved off the right half of his beard so people wouldn’t take him too seriously. St. Therese of Lisieux was meek and gentle; St. Nicholas (aka Santa) punched a man during a gathering of bishops and spent a night in jail. God’s chosen ones come in all shapes in sizes. He calls all of us, and we’re all a little odd.

Society also freaks out about weird holy people because they don’t understand Christ, and true holiness divorced from Christ makes no sense. Take Mother Teresa. Most called her a living saint, yet a variety of atheists slandered her, condemned her, and compared her to Satan. Why? Because Mother Teresa was too Christlike to possibly comprehend without comprehending Christ. Her critics made up a million selfish motivations to explain the way she lived her life because they couldn’t figure out what her real reward was. They assumed she was driven by ulterior motivations. No one, they argued, could be that... good. True holiness is incomprehensible to those who don’t understand Jesus. When confronted with inexplicable goodness, the world naturally tries to explain it away with explicable badness.

I’m not saying that holiness necessarily makes you weird. As Fr. Mike Schmitz said, “I’ve met a lot of weird holy people, but most of them were weird before they were holy.” Nor am I saying that everyone who’s weird is also holy. I am saying that society tends to hyper-focus on the fact that Christians are weird. This weirdness comes in part from being ourselves. That’s a major aspect of holiness. It also comes from the countercultural nature of Christ’s message—anyone who wants to reject the culture in favor of Christ appears to be out of their mind. But I also think that some of this has to do with the devil.

I know, I know. Bringing up Satan. I sound like one of those weirdos from church. Oh wait—

Here’s the deal. The devil doesn’t just dance around in a red unitard with horns and a pitchfork. That would be too easy (and too funny). Instead, he gets in our heads. As C.S. Lewis points out in The Screwtape Letters, one way the devil does this is by convincing us that everyone at church is weird. If we think weirdness and holiness are inseparable, we’ll be deterred from our desire for holiness by our desire to be normal. I’ve been there before. I rationalized not living a Christian life by telling myself I was normal, and therefore not obligated to follow God. Looking back on it, I can see my exorbitant pride and selfishness. Yet how often are our impulses to follow God curbed by the fear that we’ll be seen as a “Jesus-freak”? The enemy benefits from that. By sheer pride, he can convince us to never even try to follow God.

““As a College we didn’t get to where we are now by inching away from our Catholicism.”
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One last note. As the College reviews and examines its own Catholic identity, it’s all too easy to fall into the same trap. It would be easy to sacrifice our Catholic identity in the name of attracting more diverse applicants, gaining prestige, or earning respect in the increasingly secular world of academia. Whether we admit it or not, the same self-consciousness that prevents a college freshman from standing up for his or her faith can be found at an institutional level. There’s a fear of being “too Catholic.” There’s a worry that outsiders will stereotype us, laugh at us, and judge us. As a College, we didn’t get to where we are now by inching away from our Catholicism. In fact, Holy Cross has a long and storied history of embracing Catholicism, even when it wasn’t popular: the College is only in Worcester because Bishop Fenwick was run out of Boston by an anti-Catholic mob, and we chose the Crusader mascot in 1925 to anger the KKK, who had been attacking Catholic schools. Both instances highlight how, instead of shying away from our faith, we have embraced it. I urge all those involved in reviewing the school’s Catholic identity to do the same. Do not be afraid.

All I can say is this: maybe we’re not all called to be weirdos (most of us already are a little weird) but we are all called to holiness. So let’s embrace that and live for Christ—in all the wild weirdness that that may entail.

Holy Cross Athletics: Quo Vadis?

This article was written in March 2019, previous to the hiring of a new Athletic Director.

In view of the multimillion dollar enhancements which have been made to the Holy Cross (HC) athletic facilities in the past few years, primarily as a result of alumni donations, this analysis was undertaken to assess the trajectory of athletic success which has accompanied these developments. For this purpose, we have conducted an analysis of the win-loss records and winning percentages of all HC sports teams for which such records have been compiled in the Go Holy Cross website (including the men’s baseball, basketball, football, ice hockey, lacrosse, soccer and tennis teams and the women’s basketball, field hockey, ice hockey, lacrosse, soccer, softball, tennis and volleyball teams) during the years 2013-2018. The analysis consisted of an examination of the win-loss records for each team for each year and the compilation of cumulative win-loss records and winning percentages for the entire study period as both overall results and conference-specific results.

Men’s teams:  

Overall Records: Over the 5 years of the study, 4 of the 7 men’s teams achieved a winning record at least one year, all but one before 2015: baseball 2/5 (last 2017), basketball 1/5 ( 2013), Football 1/5 ( 2015) and Ice Hockey 1/5 ( 2015). None had an overall winning percentage, and 4 won less than 40% of their games over 5 years.

Conference records: Three teams had at least one winning season in conference play:  Baseball 4/5 years (all but 2014), basketball 1/5 years (2013) and Ice Hockey 4/5 years (all but 2013). Two (baseball (0.74) and Ice Hockey (0.53) had winning conference percentages, while four of the other teams won 37% or less of their conference games over 5 years.

Women’s teams:

Overall Records: Three of the 8 women’s teams posted a winning record in at least one of the 5 years: Basketball 1/5 (2013), Ice Hockey 5/5, and soccer 1/5 (2014). Only Ice Hockey had an overall winning percentage (0.76) and 6 teams  won 39% or less of their games over 5 years.

Conference Records: Two of the 8 teams posted at least one winning year in conference play:  Basketball 3/5 (last 2015) and Ice Hockey 5/5, which was the only team with a winning percentage (0.75) over the 5 years while 6 won 39% or less of their conference games over the 5 years.

Summary:

During the study period, 7/15 teams posted at least one winning overall season for a total of 12 out of 75 (16%) seasons of play. In conference play, 5/15 teams posted winning seasons for a total of 17 out of 75 (0.22%) seasons of play.  Over the five years, none of the men’s teams and only one of the women’s teams achieved a cumulative overall winning percentage of 50% or greater, while 10 of the 15 teams won less than 40% of their games. In conference play, two men’s teams and one women’s team posted cumulative winning records while 10 won less than 40% of their games.

In addition to these team sports which produce W-L records, two other categories of sport were reviewed: 1) individual sports which do not routinely report team scores (e.g. track/field; swimming/diving which could not be further assessed); and 2) team sports involving competition with several teams in which team scores are reported based on the team’s standing among the competing teams (e.g. cross country and golf). In reviewing the latter sports for this study, team records were rated based on whether the team scored in the top half of the total competing teams for each meet. Of these teams only the women’s cross country team recorded a winning record in one year (7-3 in 2014) out of a total of 20 seasons of play (5%).

Discussion:

At the time of his appointment as Athletic Director, the current Holy Cross AD was quoted (Holy Cross Magazine) as setting a goal for Holy Cross Athletic teams of winning conference championships in all sports in which teams were fielded by Holy Cross. From these data, during the study years, 2 men’s teams (Baseball and Ice Hockey) and 2 Women’s teams (Basketball and Ice Hockey) posted winning records in conference play in most years, which could be judged to approach this standard, although the last winning conference record for the women’s basketball team was in the 2015-16 season.  In contrast, 4 men’s teams and 6 women’s teams never posted a winning season in any of the 5 years and their trajectories over the 5 year span were fairly flat, indicating little or no improvement. Clearly, if the stated goal of the Athletic Department is to be reached, especially for the latter teams, a strategy for accomplishing this is needed. There appear to be at least two possible courses of action to develop such a strategy (which are not mutually exclusive):

Specific sports (especially those without a history of winning) could be considered candidates for a change in their levels of intercollegiate competition, such as going down in Division of competition (e.g. from NCAA Div I to Div II or III or to a non-NCAA level) while keeping the successful (or revenue-generating) teams in the higher division). This option has worked well for schools such as The Johns Hopkins University which fields only one NCAA Div I team (Lacrosse) which is highly successful and usually nationally ranked while competing in a Div III conference quite successfully in all other sports.  This would entail decisions about conference participation as well, especially for those teams which have traditionally been non-competitive in the current conference as noted above. Holy Cross has implemented a variant on this theme in the current year by upgrading the level of competition of the women’s hockey team from Div III to Div I. Unfortunately, at the time of this writing (February 2/12/19), this team, which achieved an enviable (and the best of all Holy Cross teams) prior 5 year overall record of 88-35 (winning %= 0.75) as a Div III team, currently has a record of 1-26-3 in Div I. Another strategy in this category would be to remove these teams from NCAA competition altogether and designate them as club teams, which several colleges have done very successfully at major savings in cost.

Consideration can also be made to initiate changes in the staffing of the team leadership, especially for teams which have a longstanding history of poor performance (e.g. beyond this 5 year window) under the same management. This could include both changing coaching staff and improving recruitment efficiency and practices. Again, Holy Cross has in the 2018-19 year hired a new football coach after the dismissal of the prior long-term coach with somewhat positive results (overall winning record went from 4-7 in the previous 2 years to 5-6 (although the record in 2015 was 6-5) and the conference record went from 3-3 to 4-2, the first conference winning record in the study period of 6 years. However, this option might be limited since the majority of both men’s and women’s coaches are of recent tenure (5 years or less).

Personal Reflection:

““...the Holy Cross student body deserve(s) at least some evidence of an attempt by the Holy Cross Athletic Department to carry out the laudable goals set forth by the Athletic Director at the time of his hiring.”
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As a member of the Holy Cross Class of 1959, I was fortunate to have experienced an era (1955-1959) of almost unparalleled success of the limited number of teams fielded by Holy Cross during my student career. The major sports teams (Football (22-13, pct 0.63); Basketball (66-35, pct 0.66 with one appearance in the NCAA tournament); and Baseball (47-13 for 3  years, pct. 0.78 with two bids to the NCAA College World Series) all had overall winning records (there was no conference at that time) for all years except for a 12-12 record for the basketball team in 1956-57. The one team with an overall losing record (Ice Hockey, 16-23, pct. 0.40) was dropped as an intercollegiate sport in the 1958-59 season due to lack of support. In addition, the sports of Lacrosse and Tennis saw substantial improvements in performance over the 4 years, with records going from 1-6 in ’55 to 7-3 in ’59 for Lacrosse and 5-4 to 8-2 for Tennis. The success described had a very salutary effect on the morale and enthusiasm of the student body and, of course, was very supportive of the student athletes.  With this as background, it is my personal opinion that the Holy Cross student body and especially its student athletes as well as alumni (especially those donating large sums to the upgrading of the sports facilities) and the sports fans of the Worcester area deserve at least some evidence of an attempt by the Holy Cross Athletic Department to carry out the laudable goals set forth by the Athletic Director at the time of his hiring.

Unapologetically You

You know when you’re singing along to the radio and the words flow from your lips without a single thought? Perhaps you stop to think for a moment, then realize you just shouted an entire line of curse words with your mom sitting beside you. The same seems to go for the Mass as well: an entire group of people, standing in unison reciting the prayers, sitting, responding, maybe whispering along with the opening hymn - but are you really thinking about what you’re doing, or are you going through the motions? We repeatedly praise, worship, and direct our hearts towards our Heavenly Father; we literally speak the words “Our Father,” so why are we denying Him? As Christians, we must never be ashamed of Christ; we must never refuse the gift of faith given to us through Christ’s eternal single sacrifice.

What does that even mean? Now is when most get defensive, explaining how they go to Sunday Mass every single week (maybe except when the Super Bowl is on because… it’s the Super Bowl!) [Note: eyeroll]. They explain how they went to Catholic school for their entire lives; how they were baptized minutes after being born as if their 4-hour-old selves quoted the word of Peter: "Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins; and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit" (Acts 2:38). That’s not to be minimized, for it’s true that the blessing of the faith lies within us all. As such, this article isn’t to say that you aren’t doing enough, although that is probably true. Rather, this is to raise the question of denying Christ.

Think about your father. Would you ever deny that he is your father? No matter what your circumstance may be, each one of us has a dad. Even if you don’t know him, or if he is your very best friend in the world, human beings feel a distinct connection to their biological parents. These two people, by the grace of God, created you in His image. Even if he fails to take into account your delicate sensibilities (yes, speaking from experience here...), one does not deny his or her father. Even if you don’t like him, chances are that you somehow love him. Surely, there is a difference between those two verbs.

Now, think of the last time you were standing in Mass, or most any Christian service for that matter. Perhaps without even thinking, the words begin to flow from your mouth: “Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be Thy name…” It does not take a Bible scholar to note that we are not talking about our biological father in this instance; rather, we are talking about our Heavenly Father, the one who commonly goes by the name of God, or Dieu if you’re French, Dios if you’re Spanish, and so on. It’s like that time that you were singing in the car with your mom, not considering what the words meant but saying them nonetheless. Crazy, truly.

As someone that did not grow up in this world where we discuss the change of saying “and with your spirit” instead of  “and also with you,” I noticed everything right down to its most basic level. In other words: I questioned everything like I was a two-year-old child asking “why” about quite literally every part of the Mass. Why did that person just do a little bow there in front of that table? (Note: I soon find that we call this the altar.) Why did that one person go down on one knee before sliding into his seat? (Note: this one was hard to grasp at first because genuflection feels like a dying ritual, but one that should most certainly be preserved). Why did that girl hug me at the Sign of Peace, and how many people do I have to awkwardly look at and mouth “peace be with you” until the priest continues? Everyone was speaking English around me, but they might as well have spoken a made-up language, for I was lost.

Since I’ve come from the secular world, my first time attending a Catholic Mass freaked me out. I felt as if I entered into an entirely different world, and despite the fact that the Mass was opened with the words “all are welcome here,” I most certainly felt out of place. Why are people singing now? What was that word that everyone just said in unison? Why does that person kneel while that one doesn’t? All these questions (and, trust me, many more) raced through my mind - and not just at my first Mass, but sometimes to this day. I had this feeling that everyone around me knew was was going on… except me. I felt a vague sense of unease whenever I would go to Sunday Mass because of that feeling, but I still needed to identify why, after eighteen years of existence, I decided that now was the time to explore Catholicism. Arguably, I had gotten along just fine before (or so I thought), but in seemingly minutes’ time, I felt like I could not live; I could not breathe one more day without giving myself to this Church. Because of all this, I found myself sitting in the office of Fr. Hayes to discuss the conversion process.

Per my typical “all or nothing” attitude, I quickly found myself attending daily Mass, running (yes, physically running) from meetings to Theology by the Slice so I could listen to talks on the Old Testament or Saints and Superheroes, and having breakfast with friends to talk about the faith. I went and bought my own Bible, which turned out to be an amusing and interesting experience as I tried to find out which translation was “best”... and which color I wanted. With such a dramatic change in who I was and who it seemed like I was becoming, friends and others around me began to take notice and give their “advice” on my new lifestyle. I was taking it too far, they said. “Perhaps she’s going to become a nun?” others remarked. Those who don’t know what Holy Cross is were convinced I had been sent to Bible school. Rival voices crept in from all directions, poking at me and making me question if the decision I was being called to make through the grace of the Holy Spirit was the right one for me. These voices came from some of the people I love most, making my “choice” that much harder… but that’s the thing: this isn’t a “choice,” because if it were, I could have easily decided to step away from the Church and return to my previous life. That life, however, was far gone.

““Faith is not a one-size-fits-all, and it is therefore going to look different for each and every one of us.”
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Not wanting to be perceived as weird or anything too far out of our idea of normal, I cut back. I sometimes skipped Mass altogether, ultimately suffering and only hurting myself through that choice. I would take my cross necklace off around certain friends for fear of judgement. I would make excuses as to where I was going at 9 P.M. on Tuesday night, because who goes to Mass on a Tuesday? The answer: a lot of amazing people. Sometimes I feared that the aforementioned breakfast conversations about age-old debates of the Catholic Church would get so loud that nearby tables could hear. Without even knowing, and certainly without desire, I began to deny Christ. It was not until I listened to a podcast by Fr. Mike Schmitz that I realized what I was doing. [Note: if you haven’t listened to Fr. Mike, get ready for some life changing material.] Simply put, Fr. Mike outlines, “to deny Jesus will always be the wrong thing to do.” As much and perhaps more, we must care for our souls to the same extent we care for our bodies. This entails nurturing your relationship with Jesus and never being afraid (or ashamed) to accept him as your Lord. It entails not only acknowledging, but responding to the voice - the Holy Spirit - that is guiding you from within.

Faith is not a one-size-fits-all, and it is therefore going to look different for each and every one of us. With that said, it is time for us to show no fear or shame in our worship of God, which will mean different things for different people. Do you feel the call to kneel at Mass at the preparation of the Eucharist even though no one else is? Kneel. Do you love celebrating the Mass by singing? Let’s even get you a microphone! Is your ideal Wednesday night characterized by some pizza and theological discussions on the faith? Go eat pizza and open up your mind. The point is this: there will always be someone who doesn’t approve of you. Unfortunately for us, there is no such thing as a “good Catholic,” for at the end of the day, sin is to the human being as sacrifice is to the Mass, as Jesus is to the highest form of love.

If I had to describe the purest form of liberation, it would be the idea of being unapologetically you, which includes a fearless, shameless, loving worship and acceptance of Jesus. We would never want to deny our fathers here on earth, so why is it okay to deny our Father in Heaven? If it is of the unpopular opinion, so be it. If it is “weird” to unapologetically accept the utter gift of faith that has been given to us, let us be weird. Let us liberate ourselves from the shackles of fear and disappointment and step into a new life of love. All we can give to the Lord is our complete will. Offer it up. Accept your faith. Embrace the gift of acceptance, liberation, and life. Witness of the Mass is not enough; rather, we are called to participate in Christ’s sacrifice on the Cross. The urge to deny Jesus will always come, but Fr. Mike gives us the only answer we may ever need: “[rival voices] can rob us of peace, joy, and Christ’s place in our heart. But to take courage, get up, Jesus is calling you.”

““As Christians, we must never be ashamed of Christ...”
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The Problem With Asking More

Despite its blatant contradictions to Holy Cross’s mission statement, to Jesuit values, and to the objectives of Catholic education, the College’s “Ask More” tagline is decidedly appropriate for the current state of the school.  Rooted in fallacies and dangerous inconsistencies, the now five-year-old motto is not only a direct source of the College’s intellectual and cultural decline, but it has also fundamentally distorted the College’s mission as an educational institution – whether those behind the motto acknowledge so or not.  Because of the “Ask More” motto and its inevitable philosophical consequences, Holy Cross has devolved, on an institutional level, from a campus of higher learning to a campus void of answers, a campus void of lasting knowledge, and a campus void of truth.

In February 2014, Fenwick Review co-founder Fr. Paul Scalia said in an interview that his experience as a Holy Cross student could best be summarized as “the constant questioning, but never the articulation of an answer.”  Scalia continued: “Once we say the purpose of a college is to ask questions, […] that’s a huge problem.” As Scalia rightly noted, the act of questioning innately presupposes an answer; interpersonal dialogue in and of itself – both formal and informal – is contingent upon the existence of truth and an underlying desire to reach it.  But that’s not how many Holy Cross professors and administrators are inclined to approach their lectures and class discussions. Holy Cross’s version of ‘asking’ is not based upon seeking the truth or reaching a final conclusion, but on needless exposure and experimentation for their own sake.

The College’s “Campus Life” webpage suggests that “deep exploration” and the “uncover[ing of] new perspectives” are valued above all else.  The Montserrat program’s webpage indicates the program “encourages engagement” and “fuels an enduring quest” for “growth.” The Office of Diversity and Inclusion purports “the best way to understand the world around us is to embrace the full spectrum of perspectives and life experiences.”  And the list goes on. Several courses and seminars I have taken during my time at Holy Cross introduced students to a wide assortment of “perspectives” and “experiences,” but never once sought to analyze or dissect them, to dig deeper, or to – dare I say – answer any of the questions professors so tirelessly pose.  A multitude of perspectives can be noble and worthwhile, but only when presented in a way that compares and contrasts them – in a way that acknowledges their flaws and their fine points and isn’t afraid to elevate one over the other, or cast one aside because it might fall short. When teaching their classes, it seems many Holy Cross professors are consumed with following endless roadmaps with infinite numbers of twists and turns, divergent paths, and no destination anywhere in sight. Just as roadmaps might be deemed useless if they fail to direct one to a final destination, the act of ‘asking more’ is fruitless and meaningless when answers are abandoned and truth is left unacknowledged.  Asking without any intention of answering can only lead one down an eternal rabbit hole of uncertainty, indecision, and emptiness.

Unfortunately, the College’s apathy towards truth is not limited to the classroom.  The administration and student offices have taken up similar methods: the bleak intellectual consequences of ‘asking more’ have bled over to other components of the school and have further exposed the fallacious nature of one of the College’s most highly touted marketing slogans.  The Foundation for Individual Rights in Education labeled three of Holy Cross’s policies and codes of conduct as “red light policies,” indicating they are guidelines that “clearly and substantially restrict freedom of speech.” In its Use of Information Technology Services policy, for instance, Holy Cross leadership states that “the determination of what is obscene, offensive or intolerant is within the sole discretion of the College.”  Its Code of Student Conduct for Emotional Abuse denotes that “emotional injury” – for which the College offers no reliable definition – is considered a violation of community standards. Four additional rules and guidelines are categorized as “yellow light policies,” which the Foundation describes as having the capability to “easily be used to restrict protected expression.”

For a college that prides itself on “asking more,” encouraging “engagement,” and promoting an “enduring quest” for “growth,” aren’t free speech restrictions of any sort antithetical to the school’s mission and branding campaign?  If the “power of a question and the door it opens” is truly the “fundamental idea” behind the Holy Cross experience, as the school itself asserts, why should the College have the right to silence students based on what it subjectively perceives as “emotional injury” or “intolerant”?  If all ideas and perspectives must be acknowledged and discussed on equal playing fields, what gives the supposed champions of ‘asking more’ a right to shut them down? Here lies the problem with the morally relativistic and multicultural lenses through which the College is entrapped: if truth does not exist or is not worth pursuing, why should Holy Cross administrators have the right to tell one that his “perspective” is wrong or intolerant?  If all “perspectives” are equally valid and worth exploring, then why aren’t some? Perhaps most importantly, how does censorship of “emotional injury” complement one’s “enduring quest” for “growth”? The College that insists exposure to a multitude of perspectives is the basis for intellectual and personal growth should not be the College that flaunts its “sole discretion” to determine what might not be an acceptable perspective.  One cannot logically direct a body of students to “ask more,” but only up until someone’s feelings are hurt.

The “Ask More” tagline aptly characterizes the general academic and cultural atmosphere on the Holy Cross campus as palpably self-contradictory.  Of course, not every professor or every class abides by this faulty approach: intellectual honesty and appreciation for truth have not yet been not entirely terminated from campus, but they seem to be lessening every new semester.  Catholic Jesuit education is built upon pursuit of the truth. Holy Cross’s own mission statement, ironically enough, calls for “a passion for truth.” When will we start living up to it?

Truth is not always easy.  The quest for truth can be distressing, onerous, and at times downright infuriating.  But that doesn’t mean it’s worth forsaking. The act of ‘asking more’ is noble, but asking must lead somewhere or to something.  A restoration of meaning, purpose, and value would lead to immeasurable improvement and would do infinite good for Holy Cross’s campus.  As St. Ignatius Loyola, founder of the Jesuits, wrote, “It is not much knowledge that fills and satisfies the soul, but the intimate understanding and relish of the truth.”  In order for Holy Cross to live up to its strong potential as a Catholic liberal arts institution, it must shift from the pursuit of knowledge for its own sake to the pursuit of knowledge for the attainment of what is true and what is good.  Like truth itself, Holy Cross is worth protecting. It is in seeking the answer, not the question, that we can open our minds, revitalize our intellect, and reach our potential as a campus of higher learning.

On the Relation of Feelings, "Demands," and Reason in Liberal Education

This past November 11, in reply to the student/faculty letter demanding that the College cancel classes for as long as a week in response to an alleged "hate crime" (as well as to other alleged but unspecified incidents of bias-motivated "hate and violence")—a demand to which the College administration acceded in part by canceling all classes and extracurricular activities for an afternoon so that students and faculty could attend a mandatory "Summit" to address the issues raised in the letter—I arranged for the following notice (slightly edited here) to be posted on my office door. (Since I am currently on sabbatical, I wouldn't have been in my office on that date, nor even, I suppose, expected to participate in the Summit, but I thought it essential to make a statement regarding the significance of the shutdown,)

I have not signed the letter asking the College to suspend classes on account of a reported hate crime. This is because I believe the primary purpose of a liberal arts college is to engage in the pursuit of learning, through classes and the study of readings that are of lasting importance. So far as I know, Holy Cross maintained a regular class schedule even during the Second World War, when many of our students and recent alumni were abroad fighting for our country. We cannot afford to set a precedent of calling off classes whenever faculty and/or students are upset about some particular incident, however ugly it may have been. (I say "may have been" because the circumstances of this incident have not been made clear to the faculty, the student body, or the public at large.)

The foregoing statement elicited a remarkable response from a student I have never met, which she emailed to a dozen or so College administrators from the president on down, as well as to the chair of my department:

As I was passing through the hallway in Fenwick, I saw a very concerning letter from Prof. Schaefer posted outside of his office door. I felt like this letter is very inconsiderate and insensitive as it minimizes past and recent events that have been impacting many students, faculty and staff on our campus. It makes me feel extremely uncomfortable, especially coming from a professor, because I feel like this is disrespectful to those who have been affected by these events. I noticed on the ENGAGE Summit schedule, the Political Science department is hosting an Open House, and as a faculty member that represents that department, what he mentions in his letter contradicts the message the department is trying to put forth for tomorrow in their session.

Last year, I was the student that found and reported a swastika that was in one of my classrooms. It is extremely upsetting and disheartening to be in this position, as a student, to have to make reports like this–  but especially when they are coming from our own professors. Thank you.by [sic].

According to a report subsequently issued by the Office of Public Safety, it appears that no proof has been found of the alleged incident that provoked the mass letter calling for a suspension of classes. But whether or not the incident occurred is beside my present point. What centrally concerns me—as it did when I posted the "offending" message on my door—is the misunderstanding of the function of a liberal arts college, or the very meaning of liberal education, that is embodied in the original petition that led to the Summit; in the resultant cancellation of academic and extracurricular activities; and in the student letter I have quoted.

To anyone old enough to have been in graduate school during the late 1960s, as I was, the cancellation of classes has an ominous ring. That was the era in which students forcibly shut down college campuses, sometimes occupying academic buildings, even with weapons, for the sake of demonstrating their opposition to the Vietnam War, for racial "causes," or for other political agendas. (This occurred, most famously, at Harvard, Columbia, and [sadly for me] my own undergraduate alma mater, Cornell—where a supine University president was photographed squatting on a podium floor, soda can in hand, while a student "activist" railed at him before a large audience—this in preparation for the University's surrender to demands that punishments for rioting students, including those who had occupied the student union with guns, be canceled.) To those who possess some historical memory, the surrenders also recalled the sacrifice of the pursuit of learning to a radical political agenda that destroyed German universities in the 1930s.

By contrast, I am proud to say, my graduate alma mater, the University of Chicago, refused to suspend classes, or allow those who occupied the administration building to go unpunished. This isn't because many or most faculty didn't agree with the political beliefs of the protestors—regarding the war, race relations, etc.—but because at Chicago, then and now, the pursuit of learning is sacrosanct.

In this light, what is striking about the student's response to my notice is the expectation it exhibits that all professors (as well as students and administrators, presumably) should suspend their joint pursuit of learning, just in order to accommodate her (and other students') feelings of distress. If a professor's daring to dissent from the demand that classes be canceled makes her "feel extremely uncomfortable," I fear that Holy Cross has poorly prepared her to face the much more strenuous tribulations that adult life is likely to hold. To say that she "feels like" my dissent "is disrespectful" exhibits a significant misconception of what "respect" means, or to whom it is properly owed. Since when is it the job of professors to accommodate their students' "feelings," justified or not? How does she react if she is assigned a book in class that she disagrees with? (Does she require a "trigger warning," if not the removal of the offending text?)

The proper function of liberal education, as understood from as far back as Plato and Aristotle through such nineteenth-century champions as Matthew Arnold and John Henry Newman (and in the twentieth century, University of Chicago president Robert Maynard Hutchins), isn't to accommodate learners' feelings, but to challenge their received opinions or prejudices on the basis of rational arguments and free debate. Apparently, none of the letter writer's teachers thus far have got this message through to her—perhaps because they themselves, like the Baby Boomer protestors of the 1960s (or their predecessors, German youth of the 1930s) don't really believe in the superiority of rational thought to political advocacy based on mere emotion. If this is so, then they have been failing in their vocation.

(As an aside, I must observe with great regret the egregious recent discoveries of individual faculty sexual misconduct towards students, two of which have recently been acknowledged by the College administration. In that regard the third of the complaints submitted by "@sexualassaultonthehill" subsequent to the Summit urgently merits firm administrative action—although not another suspension of classes that would only divert attention from the real problem. Nonetheless, the fact that the complaints are listed as "demands" exemplifies a distorted understanding of the proper relation of students to College faculty and administrators as a whole—eerily reminiscent of the assaults on Chinese professors and teachers in the 1960s under the auspices of the government-sponsored, terrorist "Cultural Revolution." Additionally, the sixth "demand"—that the College "protect" self-identified student "survivors" from Secretary of Education Betsy Devos's proposal that accused perpetrators of sexual abuse "be able to hire a separate investigator to cross-examine" their accusers—bespeaks an ominous disregard for the Anglo-American tradition of due process of law, recalling the Salem witch trials. Will administrators and faculty have the backbone to stand up against such lawlessness?)

I close this essay by mentioning that as a Jew, I would have had far more reason than the letter writer to be offended or even upset at the discovery of a swastika on campus. However, it would never have occurred to me to respond by demanding that classes be suspended in consequence. To do so would play into the hands of those who seek to suppress rational debate, as well as respect for legitimate differences of opinion. (On the other hand, judging from my long acquaintance with Holy Cross students, I would guess that the swastika was far more likely a stupid prank provoked by the College's ever-increasing barrage of "multicultural" indoctrination than a reflection of Nazi sentiment.)

I earnestly hope that the suspension of classes is not an event to be repeated. And I urge the letter-writer to take some challenging classes in which classic, difficult texts— philosophic, literary, historical—are read closely with a view to understanding what their authors have to teach us, rather than judging them by the standard of our own pre-existing "feelings." What else is liberal education—the education that is supposed to equip a human being for genuine freedom, with reason governing rather than serving the passions, and with respect for the rule of law—for?