St. Joe's Jesuit identity is about more than white collarsDaniel R. Joyce, S.J.
Issue date: 12/10/08
Dear Members of the Hawk Staff:
As a Jesuit at Saint Joseph's University I read with great interest your editorial in the December 3, 2008 issue titled "Jesuits must be sought after, retained to maintain traditional identity." I take issue with a host of the presuppositions that you lay out in this letter, but for the sake of time and space let me address two of them.
Eight years after St. Ignatius of Loyola founded the Jesuits in 1540, he decided to take on the work of education. Since that time some members of the Society of Jesus have been successful as Jesuit educators and others have not. The same is true for the thousands of lay women and men who have been educators at Jesuit schools throughout the centuries. To say that a member of the Society of Jesus is, by nature, more passionately dedicated to his area of study and committed to expressing his faith is simply proven otherwise by the many examples of success and failure found in the long history of Jesuit education. As a student at Saint Joseph's University in the 1980s, I was influenced to become a Jesuit by a host of lay-women and men who embodied the values of Jesuit education and, more importantly, taught me how to integrate my faith and intellectual curiosity.
I find it interesting that this particular Hawk staff found it necessary to pen this letter at this time. This is the same Hawk staff that last January chose to eliminate the "Ignatian Corner" as a regular part of the features section of the paper. This was a space where a wide variety of men and women from throughout the university could share the essence of a Jesuit education on a weekly basis.
The lasting effect of Jesuit education never completely depended upon the success or failure of Jesuits as educators. It has depended on a wide variety of participants for 460 long years - not the least of which have been students, such as the Hawk staff members. I would very much be willing to once again dialogue with the Hawk on how you can play a greater role in ensuring that Saint Joseph's "espouses the educational priorities of the Society of Jesus."
Daniel R. Joyce, S.J.
Link (here)
As a Jesuit at Saint Joseph's University I read with great interest your editorial in the December 3, 2008 issue titled "Jesuits must be sought after, retained to maintain traditional identity." I take issue with a host of the presuppositions that you lay out in this letter, but for the sake of time and space let me address two of them.
Eight years after St. Ignatius of Loyola founded the Jesuits in 1540, he decided to take on the work of education. Since that time some members of the Society of Jesus have been successful as Jesuit educators and others have not. The same is true for the thousands of lay women and men who have been educators at Jesuit schools throughout the centuries. To say that a member of the Society of Jesus is, by nature, more passionately dedicated to his area of study and committed to expressing his faith is simply proven otherwise by the many examples of success and failure found in the long history of Jesuit education. As a student at Saint Joseph's University in the 1980s, I was influenced to become a Jesuit by a host of lay-women and men who embodied the values of Jesuit education and, more importantly, taught me how to integrate my faith and intellectual curiosity.
I find it interesting that this particular Hawk staff found it necessary to pen this letter at this time. This is the same Hawk staff that last January chose to eliminate the "Ignatian Corner" as a regular part of the features section of the paper. This was a space where a wide variety of men and women from throughout the university could share the essence of a Jesuit education on a weekly basis.
For over ten years, the Hawk dedicated a small part of every issue to a dialogue on what makes St. Joe's a Catholic and Jesuit school. At the same time, the Hawk staff decided that the election of a new Superior General of Society of Jesus was not newsworthy for our campus and refused to cover it.Just this past semester as an unprecedented 82 people at St' Joe's elected to participate in the extraordinary experience of "The Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius," the Hawk staff could not manage to find someone to write the story. Your plea for seeking and retaining more members of the Society of Jesus to maintain the character of Jesuit education at Saint Joseph's University only highlights the unwillingness of the Hawk staff to make a serious contribution to this effort.
The lasting effect of Jesuit education never completely depended upon the success or failure of Jesuits as educators. It has depended on a wide variety of participants for 460 long years - not the least of which have been students, such as the Hawk staff members. I would very much be willing to once again dialogue with the Hawk on how you can play a greater role in ensuring that Saint Joseph's "espouses the educational priorities of the Society of Jesus."
Daniel R. Joyce, S.J.
Link (here)
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