ON JESUIT HIGHER EDUCATION Fall 2012 • Number 42 After 50 Years: The Living Spirit of Vatican II The Council, Diversity, and Jesuit Education Diversity in Action • Living Different Faiths • Seven Characteristics of Jesuit Education FALL 2012 NUMBER 42 Members of the National Seminar on ON JESUIT HIGHER EDUCATION Jesuit Higher Education Lisa Sowle Cahill Boston College After 50 Years: The Living Spirit of Vatican II Harry R. Dammer University of Scranton The Council, Diversity, and Jesuit Education Susanne E. Foster Marquette University Patrick J. Howell, S.J. Seattle University Features Steven Mailloux 2 The Council’s Spirit, John W. O’Malley, S.J. Loyola Marymount University 7 The “New” Jesuits, Patrick Howell, S.J. Diana Owen 12 Interreligious and Ecumenical Dialogue at Vatican II, Diversity in Georgetown University Peter Phan Action 30 Stephen C. Rowntree, S.J. Loyola University New Orleans 18 Catholics are “Just Like Everyone Else”? The Council Trialogue: A Three- Alison Russell and Catholic Conviction, Stephen M. Field, S.J. Way Conversation Xavier University 20 Vatican II: Text and Context, Massimo Faggioli of Faith, Raymond A. Schroth, S.J. 24 The Courses were Taught in Latin, Stephen John Switzer America Magazine Rowntree, S.J. Beyond Interfaith William E. Stempsey, S.J. College of the Holy Cross 27 Then and Now, Susan K. Wood Dialogue, Aparna Venkatesan James P. Buchanan University of San Francisco Reports DREAM and Tears Stephen C. Rowntree, S.J. 38 Characteristics of Jesuit Colleges and Universities: at USF, Loyola University New Orleans a Self-evaluation Instrument Sara Pendergast Conversations is published by the 40 The Exodus of Americans from the Catholic The Mission of National Seminar on Jesuit Higher Church, Chester Gillis Scholarship, Education, which is jointly spon- sored by the Jesuit Conference 42 The Retreat Master is – God! Howard Gray, S.J. John L. Esposito Board and the Board of the 44 Ecumenical, Interreligious and Global. The future Association of Jesuit Colleges and Universities. The opinions stated is Lutheran Buddhist, Michael Reid Trice Forum 34 herein are those of the authors 46 Men and Women for Others across the Disciplines, Living Different and not necessarily those of the JC or the AJCU. Mary Beth Combs Faiths 49 The Heart Feels what the Eyes See, John Savard, S.J. Things My Father Taught Me, Comments and inquiries may be addressed to the editor of Student Pieces Nagarajan Vijaya Conversations 23 How Vatican II Helped the Jesuits Do their Job, Being a “Jewish Raymond A. Schroth, S.J. America House Tyler Flynn Jesuit” 106 W. 56th Street 29 The Very Fabric of our Society, Michael Madrinkian New York, NY, 10019-3596 Rabbi Ruth Langer Phone: 212-515-0142 37 The Future of the Church Lies with Following the Two Voices: Grace e-mail: [email protected] Example Set by the Apostles, Peter Domas Knows No For information about 55 The Church Has Lost its Way, Christopher Kennedy Boundaries, subscriptions to Conversations: Wilburn T. Stancil Stephen C. Rowntree, S.J. Secretary to the National Seminar Book Reviews on Jesuit Higher Education 51 Katherine H. Adams on Jesuit and Feminist Education: Loyola University New Orleans Talking Back 59 1575 Calhoun Street Intersections in Teaching and Learning for the Twenty- Jesuit Community New Orleans, LA 70118 Phone: 504 865 2781 First Century Colleges? e-mail: [email protected] 53 C. Michael Bryce on Catholic Social Learning, Harry R. Dammer Conversations back issues are Educating the Faith That Does Justice available online at http://epublications.marquette. 56 John T. Day on Fraternity edu/conversations/ Cover: The Second Vatican Design and layout by Photo Collages Council Convened in 1963. Pauline Heaney. 22 Marquette University • 36 College of the Holy Cross The Bridgeman Art Library Printed by Peacock Communications, Lincoln Park, N.J. From the Editor What 50 Years May Mean hen we entered the Society of Jesus at the alienation of women, the sex abuse crisis, the appar- Saint Andrew on Hudson in 1957, the ent isolation of church authorities — too many people church was, as far as we knew, set on its have stopped calling themselves Catholics. W course. I had come out of Fordham Those who were on Jesuit campuses in the 1960s and University and the U. S. Army Artillery, as a First early ’70s recall the student strikes, building occupations, Lieutenant accustomed to taking orders from higher offi- marches and candle-light vigils for civil rights and in cers and was warned that, as a Jesuit, I might receive opposition to the Vietnam War. Jesuits at the old more orders I might not agree with. But that’s how Woodstock Maryland seminary seized the opportunity to armies work. experiment with the liturgy: they wrote their own liturgi- One “order” emphasized that the young religious be cal prayers, tried them out in small group daily Masses formed sealed off from outside world “distractions.” No where each person improvised opening and closing newspapers, magazines or radio and only rare visitors. So prayers, and shared in the free-wheeling homily. One when my father, a newspaper man, sent me clippings of music group, the Woodstock Jesuit Singers, made it to the James Reston columns from the New York Times, some- Ed Sullivan Show. The spirit of experiment carried over times my mail was opened and the clippings removed. onto the campus liturgies, some in the campus chapel, One evening I saw a mysterious streak of light sail across weekdays at midnight, sitting in a circle, informally the horizon sky. I found out later it was Sputnik, a Cold dressed, or in the resident Jesuit’s dorm room. There was War reminder. a strong feeling that the Spirit really was at work. In 1958 the novice master announced that Pope Pius eanwhile, in a dramatic response to the XII had died and John XXIII had been elected and, soon demand for change, the Society closed its after, called for Vatican Council II. But we were kept in isolated country seminaries and moved to pious ignorance while Pope John threw open the win- Mthe big university campuses where, with dows and let the 19th and 20th century intellectual world their lay peers, Jesuits mingled with male and female stu- — personified in Charles Darwin, Karl Marx, and dents and faculty of every age, shape, color, social class, Sigmund Freud — come flying in. A lot has happened religion, sexual orientation, belief and unbelief. Jesuits since then. and lay colleagues took risks and threw themselves into By 1960 the American Assistancy reached its peak of the world they were committed to serve. Some Jesuits 8,338 men, and the New York Province had two novitiates. left; others, under stress, grew stronger. The summer I joined 43 entered at St. Andrew and 33 at In this issue of Conversations we open with essays Bellarmine College on Lake Champlain. Today, from St. on the tensions within the council itself, ecumenical dia- Andrew six remain, from Bellarmine, seven. The national logue, challenges to Jesuit identity, the struggle of phi- headcount is 2574. In June three priests were ordained losophy and theology, once the spiritual and intellectual from the combined provinces of New England, New York, core of the curriculum, to adapt. Next a campus tour and Maryland, and three novices entered. And 300 Jesuits introduces new institutions set up to integrate and lay colleagues from the three met for three days at Protestants, Jews, Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists into the Fordham, celebrated their new relationship as one unified campus culture. Then reports on Ignatian spirituality province, confident that our future is bright. programs and social projects, which sometimes restore This issue of Conversations examines what has hap- the religious faith of the alienated, plus student essays pened in Jesuit higher education over those years and and book reviews. Finally, to knit the issue together we spells out the basis of that confidence. The church is still present the AJCU-developed seven key characteristics of dealing with the council’s changes. Some have resisted Jesuit university education. and want to turn back the clock. Others fear that certain What do we conclude from our review of the last 50 theologians and members of women’s religious orders years? We have much to be proud of. We have much have, in their interpretation of Vatican II, exceeded the lim- more work to do. ■ its of orthodoxy. On some campuses this is a critical time during which freedom of expression may be in jeopardy. RASsj Meanwhile, the church is shrinking. For various reasons — Conversations 1 The Council’s Vatican II: Spirit The Time for Reconciliation By John W. O’Malley, S.J. 2 Conversations hen the Second Vatican To express this larger import, people began to speak Council ended almost fifty of “the spirit of the council.” They did not mean to imply years ago, it was clear that the “spirit” was at odds with the “letter” of the coun- something of great impor- cil’s documents, but, rather, that, while it built on the let- tance had happened. Its ter, it rose to a higher level of generalization. It fit the impact hit every Catholic particulars into a coherent and consistent framework. most immediately in that the Although the distinction between spirit and letter is liturgy began to be celebrat- venerable in the Christian tradition and is, indeed, a dis- ed in the vernacular, with tinction often made in everyday speech, it is tricky and the priest turned to face the susceptible to manipulation. Your spirit of the council may congregation. But there was much more. For the first not be my spirit of the council. Yet, if careful attention is Wtime in history Catholics were encouraged to foster paid to the “letter” of the council’s documents—that is, to friendly relations with non-Catholic Christians and even certain basic orientations found in them—it is possible to to pray with them.