 Working From Within the Jesuit Catholic Tradition
To understand the Jesuit Catholic tradition and define the University of San Francisco’s role in an unprecedented era of global promise and global need, USFnews interviewed faculty and staff from a range of disciplines to learn what the University’s Jesuit Catholic identity means to them. This article describes how the Jesuit tradition is carried out at USF—a topic unanimously discussed with pride by faculty and staff. A second article next month will explore the role of Catholic education—a subject that elicited a more complex reaction from the USF community.
“The University of San Francisco will be internationally recognized as a premier Jesuit Catholic, urban university...”
—Vision, Mission and Values Statement of the University of San Francisco
Every year, Nursing Professor Linda Walsh recruits 10 students for a summer trip to Guatemala to work with indigenous midwives and gain an appreciation of the spiritual aspects of their work. Psychology Professor Kevin Chun’s students wrestle with how ethnicity, class, and stratification of power in the U.S. are interrelated. And for Salvador Aceves, associate dean of the School of Business and Management, the question is, how do executives in his program pair economic justice with business opportunities in China?
Curriculum questions and practices like these involving social justice have been going on at USF for years. But suddenly they hold a new relevance.
On Sept. 11, the day the USF Board of Trustees approved a new University Vision, Mission and Values Statement—the day terrorists crashed three commercial jets into New York’s World Trade Center and the Pentagon—the character and purpose of a Jesuit Catholic university suddenly took on an urgent, far-reaching importance.
“We know more poignantly than ever the world’s need for leaders who will fashion a more humane and just world,” wrote USF President Stephen A. Privett, S.J. the day after the terrorist attacks. “We can see clearly now the need to pursue a common good that transcends the interests of particular individuals or groups, and that reasoned discourse and persuasion rather than coercion and violence are the best tools for creating a world of justice and peace.”
Concern and conversation about how to accomplish the University’s mission—how to train leaders for an increasingly challenging tomorrow—is evident across campus, from classroom discussions to weekly forums on peace and justice. But what exactly does it mean to train students in the Jesuit Catholic tradition? And how can non-Catholics or people of no religious affiliation at USF unite under the umbrella of Catholicism?
“I had mixed feelings about being at a Catholic university. I was brought up Jewish,” said Alexandra Amati-Camperi, assistant professor in fine and performing arts. “It’s a much more open environment [at USF] than I would expect from the label.”
The Jesuit educational tradition began more than 400 years ago when St. Ignatius of Loyola, founder of the Society of Jesus, decreed education as a key to “affirming the ultimate goodness of the world.” In his Spiritual Exercises, a treatise on religious devotion, he recognized scholastic achievement as necessary to “define and explain for our times what is necessary for salvation, and more to attack and to expose all errors and fallacies.”
In its preservation of those values, Jesuit education invigorates their classroom life, USF faculty said, with its focus on service learning, emphasis on multiculturalism, and by the respect paid to open, pluralistic dialogue.
“It’s a wonderful place to work because you have the opportunity to instill a sense of social justice in your work,” said Kevin Chun, assistant professor of psychology. “The University essentially strives for an education with a purpose.”
For Chun, USF provides a home for his work helping marginalized immigrant populations. For Walsh and Aceves, USF is where they can integrate principles of social justice within their professional arenas.
“The ‘Jesuitness’ comes out by us not only including but actively discussing the social responsibility of justice and reconciling it with economic growth,” Aceves said, referring to globalization and business education.
For Mathematics and Computer Science Professor Benjamin Wells, it’s the chance to create courses on math and mysticism or religion and science.
“I think [the Jesuit tradition] underlies the freedom and respect that supports everyone in the community,” Wells said. “I have had many opportunities that I wouldn’t have had at a secular university.”
Although the Jesuit presence on campus has declined—from more than 50 priests at USF in 1960 to 30 today, due to the declining number of men taking the vocation—their religious legacy is well established within the University’s moral framework. More than a dozen faculty and staff described a heightened sense of responsibility and commitment to their work that would not be possible at any other school.
“It means a frame of mind that proposes an active discussion and active participation in social justice,” said Homa Shabahang, associate dean of academic programs and services at the College of Professional Studies. “It is an allowance for me to put some of my time into social justice as part of my professional life.”
“It’s nice to be connected to a place where service is of prime importance, because it’s important to me,” said Rosemary Perez, residence hall director of Hayes-Healy Hall.
St. Ignatius’ vision of a “community of open dialogue,” another Jesuit legacy at USF, is also enthusiastically supported by faculty and staff. Although the Jesuits’ uninhibited embrace of foreign cultures and mores put them at odds with many Church members, their open-minded approach is more accessible to people who may not agree with all current official Church teaching.
“We’re very flexible,” acknowledged theology and religious studies professor Francis J. Buckley, S.J. “The role of a Catholic university is to be where faith engages in dialogue with culture, with academic traditions, and all the traditions of the world.”
“I haven’t experienced USF as a place where I’ve had to pass some kind of theological litmus test,” said Lois Lorentzen, associate professor in theology and religious studies. “Where appropriate I feel perfectly free to critique the Catholic tradition.”
It takes more than one to converse, however. Andrew Heinze, associate professor of history and director of the Swig Judaic Studies Program, said he was dismayed by the lack of debate a campus appearance by controversial Catholic critic John Carroll sparked last month.
“We have nice relationships on campus, the fact that I am here is valued by other colleagues,” Heinze said. “But there is a stalled relationship between Catholics and Judaism.”
Other faculty said some forms of debate are more welcomed at USF than they would be at other religious or secular universities. Roberto Varea, assistant professor in fine and performing arts, said his act of political theater—dressing up last month as a member of a mock Nazi group, the American Security Service, to protest the passage of an immigrant-identification bill in Congress—would not be possible at other campuses.
“I wouldn’t have done it anywhere else because I have never encountered such support for socially conscious art as at USF,” Varea said.
Even touching on topics considered controversial by the Church is a permissible part of the Jesuit tradition. In Chun’s Asian American psychology class, for example, a section is devoted to gay and lesbian issues. “To ignore it would not be a Jesuit education,” Chun said.
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