What does it mean to be a Jesuit, Catholic university in San Francisco today? What are the qualities that define a university as Catholic? At the University of San Francisco, the answers are all around—from service among the city’s marginalized to work with victims of human trafficking to weekly student Mass.
THe Bayview Hunters Point area of San Francisco is a gritty neighborhood that usually makes the news only when gunshots are fired. Here and there, discarded tennis shoes droop from telephone wires, broken glass glitters in the gutters, and split garbage bags belch forth refuse onto the sidewalk. Drivers keep their car doors locked, more intent on passing through than passing time.
But it is here, in a few hard-won plots of dirt that dot the neighborhood with lettuce, tomatoes, fruit trees, and even corn stalks, seven miles and a world away from the University of San Francisco’s tidy campus, that the school and its students live out the Catholic and Jesuit identity of their university. “The fundamental desire of Jesus was to create a world that was fair and balanced and a help to those with the least ability to help themselves,” said Seth Wachtel, an assistant professor of architecture whose students have helped design and build the dozen or so green plots of the Quesada Gardens Initiative, where local residents, many of them poor and underserved, grow their own food. “To train students professionally and emotionally to use their skills to develop a fair planet is very much in the Catholic and Jesuit tradition and very much the mission of the university.”
USF is one of more than 235 Catholic universities and colleges in the United States, 28 of them run by the Society of Jesus. All of these schools seek to endow their combined 900,000 students with Catholic ideals and values, but the definition of those values and how they are communicated varies from school to school. At some, like Ave Maria University, it means, in part, a curriculum requiring Gregorian chant, Aquinas, and Augustine. At others, like Boston College, it means, in part, students take two semesters of Western theology.
USF, too, has requirements that help stamp it as Jesuit and Catholic. Students must study theology and engage in service learning—courses requiring hands-on work among San Francisco’s poor. There is also a wealth of Catholic-themed courses, including ones on Catholic social thought, celebration of the sacraments, and exploration of bio-medical issues through a Catholic lens. But students and faculty seldom cite these courses when asked how the school is Catholic and Jesuit. Rather, they name the school’s dedication to justice, central to the teachings of Jesus and a primary concern of the Roman Catholic Church. Faculty, staff, and students at USF say the main place they seek and find the school’s Catholic and Jesuit identity is not always in the most Catholic of things—Mass in St. Ignatius Church, the Catholic studies program, the Jesuit-led retreats and workshops—but just as often in its adherence to the direction of St. Ignatius of Loyola, founder of the Jesuit order, to “see God in all things.”
“When people ask about the Catholic character of the university, I think it is important to understand you cannot find it in any single place,” said USF President Stephen A. Privett, S.J. “You can’t find it only in Jesuits who wear collars. That’s not what makes us Catholic. Is that a part of it? Yes. But no one piece by itself is the key. There is no cornerstone without which you don’t have a Catholic university.”
Not everyone agrees. Many Catholic institutions of higher education have faced biting criticism, both from within and outside Church hierarchy for actions some deem “un-Catholic.” Earlier this year, Notre Dame University was excoriated by some who disapproved of President Barack Obama delivering the graduation address because he favors reproductive rights for women. Christian Brothers University has come under fire for hosting a lecture by the Catholic scholar and journalist Peter Steinfels because he has written favorably of the ordination of women. USF, too, has been condemned for having Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi as a graduation speaker (she was not given an honorary degree) and for awarding Bishop Kevin Dowling of South Africa an honorary degree on the grounds that their views on human sexuality conflict with Church doctrine. (Bishop Dowling, however, has publicly declared that he supports the Church’s teaching on human sexuality.) Patrick J. Reilly, president of the Cardinal Newman Society, wrote in a letter to Fr. Privett, “You are publicly allying a Catholic university with leaders of what Pope John Paul II called a ‘Culture of Death.’”
Others see this openness to different views and the welcoming of the stranger as central to Catholicism and the Jesuit order. “There are folks who are much more comfortable with the Church up on a mountain top with clear answers to clear questions, relatively unsullied by contact with the world,” said Charles Currie, S.J., president of the Association of Jesuit Colleges and Universities, of which USF is a member. “Others are more comfortable with a Church that is involved with the risks and ambiguities of the human condition and runs the risk of getting dirty in the process. Such a Church has the chance to transform society in a way the Church on the mountain top can never do. And there is room in the Church for both.”
Fr. Privett holds that a university that refuses to engage those who differ with it is harsh, unwelcoming, and un-Christ-like. Critics like those from the Cardinal Newman Society “would do more good for the Church by taking a less rigid and self-righteous stance,” he said. He also suggested hardliners look to the warm welcome Pope Benedict XVI gave to both President Obama and Speaker Pelosi in Rome earlier this year. He sees a further model in the Pope’s response to a letter from Sen. Edward Kennedy just before his death. Despite Kennedy’s public support for reproductive rights, the Pope invoked upon him “the consolation and peace promised by the Risen Savior to all who share in His sufferings and trust in His promise of eternal life.” “That is the kind of charity and reconciliation expected of Catholics,” Fr. Privett said.
more: By Spirit & Deed 1 2 3 4
Kimberly Winston is a freelance journalist who covers religion for several national publications. She is the 2005 recipient of the American Academy of Religions award for best in-depth reporting on religion and the author of three books. She lives in the Bay Area and is a graduate of Columbia Universitys Graduate School of Journalism.
Share This Article
Email Comments
As Printed PDF