JESUIT WISDOM?

This week, we saw the media pick up on a story that is personal to me and one that I had previously written about. The Pastor of Manhattan’s St. Francis Xavier parish church gave a “racial justice” prayer that acknowledged and denounced so-called “white privilege” as the church’s streamed Mass panned to images of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and Ahmaud Arbery. Now, I know this priest. He was at Xavier High School when I was there. A good man and priest. I wrote him back in June voicing my opinion that I condemn the manner of George Floyd’s death and join in calling for greater police accountability and police reform, but I wrote that listening to various statements made by him and others from this Church whereby ‘White Privilege’ statements were vigorously offered, in my opinion, were nothing more than pandering. I told him that they do not amount to counterarguments: they are simply arbitrary offensive classifications, intended to silence and oppress discourse. Any serious historian will recognize these for the silencing orthodoxy tactics they are, common to suppressive regimes, doctrines, and religions throughout time and space. They are intended to crush real diversity and permanently exile the culture of serious discussion that will offer hope in solving very real issues.
I still feel this way.
But the other thing that happened this week was something remarkable and speaks to the special place that Xavier is. I heard from classmates. Classmates who I went to grammar school and high school with. Classmates who I met when I was 14 and, though the passage of time has now moved us into middle age, are still my friends. I also heard from Xavier graduates that are older and younger than me. Graduates who I never met who are my friends simply because we share Xavier. We share Xavier. Many years ago, I wrote of first meeting Antonin Scalia, one of our most famous Alums. When I, sheepishly, approached him and told him that I, too, went to Xavier, he lit up, grabbed my arm, pulling into an empty seat at Lincoln Center and talked…..about Xavier. Yesterday, my day closed hearing form Leo Gorynski, a classmate. Leo first befriended me as I sat next to him in 10th grade history class. I was a transfer student, initially overwhelmed, and Leo said to me “don’t worry, guys whose last names end in ‘ski’ have to stick together”. And for the next 45 years , through Xavier and Fordham, we did. Years can go by without talking to Leo and yesterday proved that we can pick up right where we last left it. Leo and all the other Xavier guys who contacted me, were upset. Upset because we never thought of us as perpetuating ‘White Privilege’ – either during our time at Xavier or now, as Father Boller and others have preached. The most telling part of my hour long conversation with Leo was when we talked about our classmates who are black and we both said to each other that we never thought of them as being black; they were just our friends; they were just ‘Xavier Guys’. Did these guys have hurdles that they had to overcome…you bet. But our school didn’t tolerate our disrespecting each other. The Jesuits taught to take the full measure of each other. I believe in being a ‘man for others’. That means something.
Do we need healing? Do we need to dialogue on what our nation is going through? Yes we do. It’s much harder to do this when, as I wrote to Father Boller, blanket offensive classifications that are really meant to silence and oppress discourse on this topic are offered from the altar. His comments do nothing in advancing hope in solving real issues. They were, pure and simple, political pandering at its worse. But, as Xavier as proved to me over the many years that I have been gone, is that when the phone rings and Leo or Gordon or Tommy or Mark are calling or an email comes in from another SOX from a different year, I’ll always take the call or respond. That can’t be taken away and we can’t be made to believe we are guilty of something that we’re not….even if it’s preached by a Jesuit.
AMDG