Santa Clara University, Religious Studies Professor, Dr. Connie Lasher, "blackballed" Jesuit educated advocate for victims of clergy sex abuse.

IGNATIUS Group_____ Why won't Professor Connie Lasher of Santa Clara University answer a simple question? Why does she need a lawyer? What is she afraid of? Dr. Lasher has been asked to explain the reasons why she "blackballed" a fellow Catholic when she discovered that he is an outspoken advocate for the protection of children and the pursuit of justice for victims of clergy sexual abuse. Instead of just answering the question, Dr. Lasher has retained the services of a Portland, Maine attorney and is threatening "legal remedies" against Paul Kendrick, a long-time, Jesuit educated advocate for clergy sex abuse victims, if Kendrick doesn't shut up and stop confronting Dr. Lasher about her past actions. The situation at hand is not complicated.  Several years ago, Kendrick and Lasher exchanged several friendly emails and a couple of phone calls regarding Kendrick's request to join the Communio Study Circle at St. Joseph's College in Maine.   Dr. Lasher served as the Communio   coordinator for Maine.  Then it happened. One morning Kendrick forwarded to Dr. Lasher that day's copy of his letter to the editor of the Portland Press Herald. In the letter, Kendrick called upon Bishop Richard Malone to immediately release all documents relevant to clergy sex abuse, to stop employing hardball legal tactics against abuse victims, and to begin treating victims and their families with compassion and understanding. Lasher's past and current retaliation against Kendrick defies the essence of a Jesuit education.  "If the professors choose viewpoints incompatible with the justice of the Gospel and consider researching, teaching, and learning to be separable from moral responsibility for their social repercussions, they are sending a message to their students. They are telling them that they can pursue their careers and self-interest without reference to anyone other than themselves." Rev. Peter-Hans Kolvenbach, S.J., Santa Clara University, October 2006 Victims of clergy child sex abuse are among the most vulnerable members of our society. Sadly, the record shows that millions of Catholics have failed to demand redress for the crimes committed against children by priests and Church workers and instead have chosen to reject, ostracize and often despise those who have come forward to report their abuse.  In an October 6, 2000 speech delivered at Santa Clara University entitled, "The Service of Faith and the Promotion of Justice in American Jesuit Education," Rev. Peter-Hans Kolvenbach, S.J., Superior General of the Society of Jesus, stated that "in order to make sure that the real concerns of the poor find their place in research, faculty members need an organic collaboration with those in the Church and in society who work among and for the poor and actively seek justice." Here are other excerpts from Kolvenbach's speech (complete text below): "Solidarity is learned through "contact" rather than through "concepts," as the Holy Father said recently at an Italian university conference.24 When the heart is touched by direct experience, the mind may be challenged to change. Personal involvement with innocent suffering, with the injustice others suffer, is the catalyst for solidarity, which then gives rise to intellectual inquiry and moral reflection." "With a passion both inspiring and disconcerting, the General Congregation coined the formula, "the service of faith and the promotion of justice," and used it adroitly to push every Jesuit work and every individual Jesuit to make a choice, providing little leeway for the fainthearted. Many inside and outside the Society were outraged by the "promotionof justice." As Father Arrupe rightly perceived, his Jesuits were collectively entering upon a more severe way of the cross, which would surely entail misunderstandings and even opposition on the part of civil and ecclesiastical authorities, many good friends, and some of our own members. Today, twenty-five years later, this option has become integral to our Jesuit identity, to the awareness of our mission, and to our public image in both Church and society." "Students, in the course of their formation, must let the gritty reality of this world into their lives, so they can learn to feel it, think about it critically, respond to its suffering, and engage it constructively. They should learn to perceive, think, judge, choose, and act for the rights of others, especially the disadvantaged and the oppressed." "Even before GC 32, Father Arrupe had already fleshed out the meaning of diakonia fidei for educational ministries when he told the 1973 International Congress of Jesuit Alumni of Europe: "Today our prime educational objective must be to form men for others; men who will live not for themselves but for God and his Christ—for the God-man who lived and died for all the world; men who cannot even conceive of love of God which does not include love for the least of their neighbors; men completely convinced that love of God which does not issue in justice for men is a farce." "All professors, in spite of the cliché of the ivory tower, are in contact with the world. But no point of view is ever neutral or value-free. By preference, by option, our Jesuit point of view is that of the poor. So our professors' commitment to faith and justice entails a most significant shift in viewpoint and choice of values. Adopting the point of view of those who suffer injustice, our professors seek the truth and share their search and its results with our students. A legitimate question, even if it does not sound academic, is for each professor to ask, "When researching and teaching, where and with whom is my heart?" To expect our professors to make such an explicit option and speak about it is obviously not easy; it entails risks. But I do believe that this is what Jesuit educators have publicly stated, in Church and in society, to be our defining commitment." ________________________________ THE SERVICE OF FAITH AND THE PROMOTION OF JUSTICE IN AMERICAN JESUIT HIGHER EDUCATION Rev. Peter-Hans Kolvenbach, S.J. Superior General of the Society of Jesus Santa Clara University, October 6, 2000 This conference on téhe commitment to justice in American Jesuit higher education comes at an important moment in the rich history of the twenty-eight colleges and universities represented here this evening. We also join Santa Clara University in celebrating the 150th anniversary of its founding. Just as significant as this moment in history, is our location. Santa Clara Valley, named after the mission at the heart of this campus, is known worldwide as "Silicon Valley," the home of the microchip. Surely when Father Nobili, the founder of this university, saw the dilapidated church and compound of the former Franciscan mission, he could never have imagined this valley as the center of a global technological revolution. This juxtaposition of mission and microchip is emblematic of all the Jesuit schools. Originally founded to serve the educational and religious needs of poor immigrant populations, they have become highly sophisticated institutions of learning in the midst of global wealth, power, and culture. The turn of the millennium finds them in all their diversity: they are larger, better equipped, more complex and professional than ever before, and also more concerned about their Catholic, Jesuit identity. In the history of American Jesuit higher education, there is much to be grateful for, first to God and the Church, and surely to the many faculty, students, administrators, and benefactors who have made it what it is today. But this conference brings us together from across the United States with guests from Jesuit universities elsewhere, not to congratulate one another, but for a strategic purpose. On behalf of the complex, professional and pluralistic institutions you represent, you are here to face a question as difficult as it is central: How can the Jesuit colleges and universities in the United States express faith-filled concern for justice in their existence as Christian academies of higher learning, in what their faculty do, and in what their students become? As a contribution to your response, I would like to reflect with you on what faith and justice has meant for Jesuits since 1975, consider some concrete circumstances of today, suggest what justice rooted in faith could mean in American Jesuit higher education, and conclude with an agenda for the first decade of the years 2000. 1. The new Jesuit commitment to faith and justice in 1975 I begin by recalling another anniversary, which this conference commemorates. Twenty- five years ago, ten years after the closing of the Second Vatican Council, Jesuit delegates from around the world gathered at the 32nd General Congregation (GC), to consider how the Society of Jesus was responding to the deep transformation of all Church life that was called for and launched by Vatican II.After much prayer and deliberation, the Congregation slowly realized that the entire Society of Jesus in all its many works was being invited by the Spirit of God to set out on a new direction. The overriding purpose of the Society of Jesus, namely "the service of faith," must also include "the promotion of justice." This new direction was not confined to those already working with the poor and marginalized in what was called "the social apostolate." Rather, this commitment was to be "a concern of our whole life and a dimension of all our apostolic endeavors."1 So central to the mission of the entire Society was this union of faith and justice that it was to become the "integrating factor" of all the Society's works,2 and in this light "great attention" was to be paid in evaluating every work, including educational institutions.3 I myself attended GC 32, representing the Province of the Near East where, for centuries, the apostolic activity of the Jesuits has concentrated on education in a famous university and some outstanding high schools. Of course some Jesuits worked in very poor villages, refugee camps or prisons, and some fought for the rights of workers, immigrants, and foreigners, but this was not always considered authentic, mainstream Jesuit work. In Beirut we were well aware that our medical school, staffed by very holy Jesuits, was producing, at least at that time, some of the most corrupt citizens in the city, but this was taken for granted. The social mood of the explosive Near East did not favor a struggle against sinful, unjust structures. The liberation of Pale stine was the most important social issue. The Christian churches had committed themselves to many works of charity, but involvement in the promotion of justice would have tainted them by association with leftist movements and political turmoil. The situation I describe in the Near East was not exceptional in the worldwide Society at that time. I was not the only delegate who was ignorant of matters pertaining to justice and injustice. The 1971 Synod of Bishops had prophetically declared, "Action on behalf of justice and participation in the transformation of the world fully appear to us as a constitutive dimension of the preaching of the gospel, or, in other words, of the church's mission for the redemption of the human race and its liberation from every oppressive situation,"4 but few of us knew what this meant in our concrete circumstances. Earlier, in 1966, Father Arrupe had pointed out to the Latin American Provincials how the socio-economic situation throughout the continent contradicted the Gospel, and "from thissituation rises the moral obligation of the Society to rethink all its ministries and every form of its apostolates to see if they really offer a response to the urgent priorities which justice and social equity call for."5 Many of us failedto see the relevance of his message to our situation. But please note that Father Arrupe did not ask for the suppression of the apostolate of education in favor of social activity. On the contrary, he affirmed that "even an apostolate like education—at all levels—which is so sincerely wanted by the Society and whose importance is clear to the entire world, in its concrete forms today must be the object of reflection in the light of the demands of the social problem."6 Perhaps the incomprehension or reluctance of some of us delegates was one reason why GC 32 finally took a radical stand. With a passion both inspiring and disconcerting, the General Congregation coined the formula, "the service of faith and the promotion of justice," and used it adroitly to push every Jesuit work and every individual Jesuit to make a choice, providing little leeway for the fainthearted. Many inside and outside the Society were outraged by the "promotion  of justice." As Father Arrupe rightly perceived, his Jesuits were collectively entering upon a more severe way of the cross, which would surely entail misunderstandings and even opposition on the part of civil and ecclesiastical authorities, many good friends, and some of our own members. Today, twenty-five years later, this option has become integral to our Jesuit identity, to the awareness of our mission, and to our public image in both Church and society. 7 The summary expression "the service of faith and the promotion of justice" has all the characteristics of a world-conquer ing slogan using a minimum of words to inspire a maximum of dynamic vision, but at the risk of ambiguity. Let us examine first the service of faith, then the promotion of justice. A. The service of faith From our origins in 1540 the Society has been officially and solemnly charged with "the defense and the propagation of the faith." In 1975, the Congregation reaffirmed that, for us Jesuits, the defense and propagation of the faith is a matter of "to be or not to be," even if the words themselves can change. Faithful to the Vatican Council, the Congregation wanted our preaching and teaching not to proselytize, not to impose our religion on others, but rather to propose Jesus and his message of God's Kingdom in a spirit of love to everyone. Just as the Vatican had abandoned the name Propaganda Fidei, GC 32 passed from propagation to service of faith. In Decree 4, the Congregation did use the expression "the proclamation of faith," which I prefer.8 In the context of centuries of Jesuit spirituality, however, "the service of faith" cannot mean anything other than to bring the counter- cultural gift of Christ to our world.9 But why "the service of faith"? The Congregation itself answers this question by using the Greek expression diakonia fidei,10 It refers to Christ the suffering Servant carrying out his diakonia in total service of his Father by laying down his life for the salvation of all. Thus, for a Jesuit, "not just any response to the needs of the men and women of today will do. The initiative must come from the Lord laboring in events and people here and now. God invites us to follow Christ in his labors, on his terms and in his way."11- I do not think we delegates at the 32nd Congregation were aware of the theological and ethical dimensions of Christ's mission of service. Greater attention to thediakonia fidei may have prevented some of the misunderstandings provoked by the phrase "the promotion of justice." B. The promotion of justice This expression is difficult to translate in many languages. We delegates were familiar with sales promotions in a department store or the promotion of friends or enemies to a higher rank or position; we were not familiar with the promotion of justice. To be fair, let us remember that a General Congregation is not a scientific academy equipped to distinguish and to define, to clarify, and to classify. In the face of radically new apostolic needs, it chose to inspire, to teach, and even to prophesy. In its desire to be more incisive in the promotion of justice, the Congrega tion avoided traditional words like charity, mercy, or love, unfashionable words in 1975. Neither philanthropy nor even development would do. The Congregation instead used the word "promotion" with its connotation of a well-planned strategy to make the wor ld just. Since Saint Ignatius wanted love to be expressed not only in words but also in deeds, the Congregation committed the Society to the promotion of justice as a concrete, radical but proportionate response to an unjustly suffering world. Fostering the virtue of justice in people was not enough. Only a substantive justice can bring about the kinds of structural and attitudinal changes that are needed to uproot those sinful oppressive injustices that are a scandal against humanity and God. This sort of justice requires an action-oriented commitment to the poor with a courageous personal option. In some ears the relatively mild expression "promotion of justice" echoed revolutionary, subversive, and even violent language. For example, the American State Department recently accused some Colombian Jesuits of being Marxist-inspired founders of a guerilla organization. When challenged, the U.S. government apologized for this mistake, which shows that some message did get through. Just as in diakonia fidei the term faith is not specified, so in the "promotion of justice," the term justice also remains ambiguous. The 32nd Congregation would not have voted for Decree 4 if, on the one hand, socio-economic justice had been excluded, or if, on the other hand, the justice of the Gospel had not been included. A stand in favor of social justice that was almost ideological, and simultaneously a strong option for "that justice of the Gospel which embodies God's love and saving mercy" 1 2 were both indispensable. Refusing to clarify the relationship between the two, GC 32 maintained its radicality by simply juxtaposing diakonia fidei and "promotion of justice." In other decrees of the same Congregation, when the two dimensions of the one mission of the Society were placed together, some delegates sought to achieve a more integrated expression by proposing amendments such as the service of faith through or in the promotion of justice. Such expressions might better render the 1971 Synod's identification of "action on behalf of justice and participation in the transformation of the world [as] a constitutive dimension of the preaching of the gospel."13 But one can understand the Congregation's fear that too neat or integrated an approach might weaken the prophetic appeal and water down the radical change in our mission. In retrospect, this simple juxtaposition sometimes led to an "incomplete, slanted, and unbalanced reading" of Decree 4,14 unilaterally emphasizing "one aspect of this mission to the detriment of the other,"15 treating faith and justice as alternative or even rival tracks of ministry. "Dogmatism or ideology sometimes led us to treat each other more as adversaries than as companions. The promotion of justice has sometimes been separated from its wellspring of faith."16 On the one side, the faith dimension was too often presumed and left implicit, as if our identity as Jesuits were enough. Some rushed headlong towards the promotion of justice without much analysis or reflection and with only occasional reference to the justice of the Gospel. They seemed to consign the service of faith to a dying past. Those on the other side clung to a certain style of faith and Church. They gave the impression that God's grace had to do only with the next life, and that divine reconc iliation entailed no practical obligation to set things right here on earth. In this frank assessment I have used, not so much my own words but rather those of subsequent Congregations, so as to share with you the whole Society's remorse for whatever distortions or excesses occurred, and to demonstrate how, over the last twenty- five years, the Lord has patiently been teaching us to serve the faith that does justice in a more integral way. C. The ministry of education In the midst of radical statements and unilateral interpretations associated with Decree 4, many raised doubts about our maintaining large educational institutions. They insinuated, if they did not insist, that direct social work among the poor and involvement with their movements should take priority. Today, however, the value of the educational apostolate is generally recognized, being the sector occupying the greatest Jesuit manpower and resources, but only on condition that it transform its goals, contents, and methods. Even before GC 32, Father Arrupe had already fleshed out the meaning of diakonia fidei for educational ministries when he told the 1973 International Congress of Jesuit Alumni of Europe: "Today our prime educational objective must be to form men for others; men who will live not for themselves but for God and his Christ—for the God-man who lived and died for all the world; men who cannot even conceive of love of God which does not include love for the least of their neighbors; men completely convinced that love of God which does not issue in justice for men is a farce."17 My predecessor's address was not well received by many alumni at the Valencia meeting, but the expression "men and women for others" really helped the educational institutions of the Society to ask serious questions that led to their transformation.18 Father Ignacio Ellacuría, in his 1982 convocation address here at Santa Clara University, eloquently expressed his conviction in favor of the promotion of justice in the educational apostolate: "A Christian university must take into account the Gospel preference for the poor. This does not mean that only the poor study at the university; it does not mean that the university should abdicate its mission of academic excellence—excellence needed in order to solve complex social problems. It does mean that the university should be present intellectually where it is needed: to provide science for those who have no science; to provide skills for the unskilled; to be a voice for those who do not possess the academic qualifications to promote and legitimate their rights."19 In these two statements, we discover the same concern to go beyond a disincarnate spiritualism or a secular social activism, so as to renew the educational apostolate in word and in action at the service of the Church in a world of unbelief and of injustice. We should be very grateful for all that has been achieved in this apostolate, both faithful to the characteristics of 400 years of Ignatian education and open to the changing signs of the times. Today, one or two generations after Decree 4, we face a world that has an even greater need for the faith that does justice. II. A composition of our time and place The twenty-five year history we lived through, and have briefly surveyed, brings us to the present. Ignatius of Loyola begins many meditations in his Spiritual Exercises with "a composition of place," an exercise of the imagination to situate prayerful contemplation in concrete human circumstances. Since this world is the arena of God's presence and activity, Ignatius believes that we can find God if we approach the world with generous faith and a discerning spirit. Meeting in Silicon Valley brings to mind not only the intersection of the mission and the microchip, but also the dynamism and even dominance that are characteristics of the United States at this time. Enormous talent and unprecedented prosperity are concentrated in this country. This is the headquarters of the new economy that reaches around the globe and is transforming the basic fabric of business, work, and communications. Thousands of immigrants arrive from everywhere: entrepreneurs from Europe, high-tech professionals from South Asia who staff the service industries as well as workers from Latin America and Southeast Asia who do the physical labor—thus, a remarkable ethnic, cultural and class diversity. At the same time the United States struggles with new social divisions aggravated by "the digital divide" between those with access to the world of technology and those left out. This rift, with its causes in class, racial, and economic differences, has its root cause in chronic discrepancies in the quality of education. Here in Silicon Valley, for example, some of the world's premier research universities flourish alongside struggling public schools where African-American and immigrant students drop out in droves. Nationwide, one child in every six is condemned to ignorance and poverty. This valley, this nation, and the whole world look very different from the way they looked twenty-five years ago. With the collapse of Communism and the end of the Cold War, national and even international politics have been eclipsed by a resurgent capitalism that faces no ideological rival. The European Union slowly pulls the continent's age -old rivals together into a community but also a fortress. The former "Second World" struggles to repair the human and environmental damage left behind by so-called socialist regimes. Industries are relocating to poorer nations, not to distribute wealth and opportunity, but to exploit the relative advantage of low wages and lax environmental regulations. Many countries become yet poorer, especially where corruption and exploitation prevail over civil society and where violent conflict keeps erupting. This composition of our time and place embraces six billion people with their faces young and old, some being born and others dying, some white and many brown and yellow and black. 20 Each one a unique individual, they all aspire to live life, to use their talents, to support their families and care for their children and elders, to enjoy peace and security, and to make tomorrow better. Thanks to science and technology, human society is able to solve problems such as feeding the hungry, sheltering the homeless, or developing more just conditions of life, but remains stubbornly unwilling to accomplish this. How can a booming economy, the most prosperous and global ever, still leave over half of humanity in poverty? GC 32 makes its own sober analysis and moral assessment: "We can no longer pretend that the inequalities and injustices of our world must be borne as part of the inevitable order of things. It is now quite apparent that they are the result of what man himself, man in his selfishness, has done ... Despite the opportunities offered by an ever more serviceable technology, we are simply not willing to pay the price of a more just and more humane society." 21 Injustice is rooted in a spiritual problem, and its solution requires a spiritual conversion of each one's heart and a cultural conversion of our global society so that humankind, with all the powerful means at its disposal, might exercise the will to change the sinful structures afflicting our world. The yearly Human Development Report of the United Nations is a ha unting challenge to look critically at basic conditions of life in the United States and the 175 other nations that share our one planet.22 Such is the world in all its complexity, with great global promises and countless tragic betrayals. Such is the world in which Jesuit institutions of higher education are called to serve faith and promote justice. III. American Jesuit Higher Education for faith and justice Within the complex time and place we are in, and in the light of the recent General Congregations, I want to spell out several ideal characteristics, as manifest in three complementary dimensions of Jesuit higher education: in who our students become, in what our faculty do, and in how our universities proceed. When I speak of ideals, some are easyto meet, others remain persistently challenging, but together they serve to orient our schools and, in the long run, to identify them. At the same time, the U.S. Provincials have recently established an important Higher Education Committee to propose criteria on the staffing, leadership and Jesuit sponsorship of our colleges and universities. 23 May these criteria help to implement the ideal characteristics we now meditate on together. A. Formation and learning Today's predominant ideology reduces the human world to a global jungle whose primordial law is the survival of the fittest. Students who subscribe to this view want to be equipped with well-honed professional and technical skills in order to compete in the market and secure one of the relatively scarce fulfilling and lucrative jobs available. This is the success that many students (and parents!) expect. All American universities, ours included, are under tremendous pressure to opt entirely for success in this sense. But what our students want—and deserve—includes but transcends this "worldly success" based on marketable skills. The real measure of our Jesuit universities lies in who our students become. For four hundred and fifty years, Jesuit education has sought to educate "the whole person" inte llectually and professionally, psychologically, morally and spiritually. But in the emerging global reality, with its great possibilities and deep contradictions, the whole person is different from the whole person of the Counter -Reformation, the Industria l Revolution, or the twentieth century. Tomorrow's "whole person" cannot be whole without an educated awareness of society and culture with which to contribute socially, generously, in the real world. Tomorrow's whole person must have, in brief, a well- educated solidarity. We must therefore raise our Jesuit educational standard to "educate the whole person of solidarity for the real world." Solidarity is learned through "contact" rather than through "concepts," as the Holy Father said recently at an Italian university conference.24 When the heart is touched by direct experience, the mind may be challenged to change. Personal involvement with innocent suffering, with the injustice others suffer, is the catalyst for solidarity, which then gives rise to intellectual inquiry and moral reflection. Students, in the course of their formation, must let the gritty reality of this world into their lives, so they can learn to feel it, think about it critically, respond to its suffering, and engage it constructively. They should learn to perceive, think, judge, choose, and act for the rights of others, especially the disadvantaged and the oppressed. Campus ministry does much to foment such intelligent, responsible, and active compassion, compassion that deserves the name solidarity. Our universities also boast a splendid variety of in-service programs, outreach programs, insertion programs, off-campus contacts, and hands -on courses. These should not be too optional or peripheral, but at the core of every Jesuit university's program of studies. Our students are involved in every sort of social action—tutoring drop-outs, demonstrating in Seattle, serving in soup kitchens, promoting pro-life, protesting against the School of the Americas—and we are proud of them for it. But the measure of Jesuit universities is not what our students do but who they become and the adult Christian responsibility they will exercise in the future towards their neighbor and their world. For now, the activities they engage in, even with much good effect, are for their formation. This does not make the university a training camp for social activists. Rather, the students need close involvement with the poor and the marginal now, in order to learn about reality and become adults of solidarity in the future. B. Research and teaching If the measure and purpose of our universities lies in what the students become, then the faculty are at the heart of our universities. Their mission is tirelessly to seek the truth and to form each student into a whole person of solidarity who will take responsibility for the real world. What do they need in order to fulfil this essential vocation? The faculty's "research, which must be rationally rigorous, firmly rooted in faith and open to dialogue with all people of good will,"25 not only obeys the canons of each discipline, but ultimately embraces human reality in order to help make the world a more fitting place for six billion of us to inhabit. I want to affirm that university knowledge is valuable for its own sake, and at the same time knowledge must ask itself, "For whom? For what?" 26 Usually we speak of professors in the plural, but what is at stake is more than the sum of so many individual commitments and efforts. It is a sustained interdisciplinary dialogue of research and reflection, a continuous pooling of expertise. The purpose is to assimilate experiences and insights according to their different disciplines in "a vision of knowledge which, well aware of its limitations, is not satisfied with fragments but tries to integrate them into a true and wise synthesis"27 about the real world. Unfortunately many faculty still feel academically, humanly, and, I would say, spiritually unprepared for such an exchange. In some disciplines, such as the life sciences, the social sciences, law, business, or medicine, the connections with "our time and place" may seem more obvious. These professors apply their disciplinary specialties to issues of justice and injustice in their research and teaching about health care, legal aid, public policy, and international relations. But every field or branch of knowledge has values to defend, with repercussions on the ethical level. Every discipline, beyond its necessary specialization, must engage with human society, human life, and the environment in appropriate ways, cultivating moral concern about how people ought to live together. All professors, in spite of the cliché of the ivory tower, are in contact with the world. But no point of view is ever neutral or value-free. By preference, by option, our Jesuit point of view is that of the poor. So our professors' commitment to faith and justice entails a most significant shift in viewpoint and choice of values. Adopting the point of view of those who suffer injustice, our professors seek the truth and share their search and its results with our students. A legitimate question, even if it does not sound academic, is for each professor to ask, "When researching and teaching, where and with whom is my heart?" To expect our professors to make such an explicit option and speak about it is obviously not easy; it entails risks. But I do believe that this is what Jesuit educators have publicly stated, in Church and in society, to be our defining commitment. To make sure that the real concerns of the poor find their place in research, faculty members need an organic collaboration with those in the Church and in society who work among and for the poor and actively seek justice. They should be involved together in all aspects: presence among the poor, designing the research, gathering the data, thinking through problems, planning and action, doing evaluation and theological reflection. In each Jesuit Province where our universities are found, the faculty's privileged working relationships should be with projects of the Jesuit social apostolate— on issues such as poverty and exclusion, housing, AIDS, ecology, and Third World debt—and with the Jesuit Refugee Service helping refugees and forcibly displaced people. Just as the students need the poor in order to learn, so the professors need partnerships with the social apostolate in order to research and teach and form. Such partnerships do not turn Jesuit universities into branch plants of social ministries or agencies of social change, as certain rhetoric of the past may have led some to fear, but are a verifiable pledge of the faculty's option, and really help, as the colloquial expression goes, "to keep your feet to the fire!" If the professors choose viewpoints incompatible with the justice of the Gospel and consider researching, teaching, and learning to be separable from moral responsibility for their social repercussions, they are sending a message to their students. They are telling them that they can pursue their careers and self -interest without reference to anyone other than themselves. By contrast, when faculty do take up inter -disciplinary dialogue and socially -engaged research in partnership with social ministries, they are exemplifying and modeling knowledge that is service, and the students learn by imitating them as "masters of life and of moral commitment,"28 as the Holy Father said. C. Our way of proceeding If the measure of our universities is who the students become, and if the faculty are the heart of it all, then what is there left to say? It is perhaps the third topic, the character of our universities—how they proceed internally and how they impact on society—that is the most difficult. We have already dwelt on the importance of formation and learning, of research and teaching. The social action that the students undertake, and the socially-relevant work that the professors do, are vitally important and necessary, but these do not add up to the full character of a Jesuit university; they neither exhaust its faith-justice commitment nor really fulfill its responsibilities to society. What, then, constitutes this ideal character, and what contributes to the public's perception of it? In the case of a Jesuit university, this character must surely be the mission, which is definedby GC 32 and reaffirmed by GC 34: the diakonia fidei and the promotion of justice, as the characteristic Jesuit university way of proceeding and of serving socially. In the words of GC 34, a Jesuit university must be faithful to both the noun "university" and to the adjective "Jesuit." To be a university requires dedication "to research, teaching and the various forms of service that correspond to its cultural mission." To be Jesuit "requires that the university act in harmony with the demands of the service of faith and promotion of justice found in Decree 4 of GC 32."29 The first way, historically, that our universities began living out their faith-justice commitment was through their admissions policies, affirmative action for minorities, and scholarships for disadvantaged students;30 and these continue to be effective means. An even more telling expression of the Jesuit university's nature is found in policies concerning hiring and tenure. As a university it is necessary to respect the established academic, professional, and labor norms, but as Jesuit it is essential to go beyond them and find ways of attracting, hiring, and promoting those who actively share the mission. We have made considerable and laudable Jesuit efforts to go deeper and further: we have brought our Ignatian spirituality, our reflective capacities, and some of our international resources to bear. Good results are evident, for example, in the Decree "Jesuits and University Life" of the last General Congregation and in this very Conf erence on "Commitment to Justice in Jesuit Higher Education"; and good results are hoped for from the Higher Education Committee working on Jesuit criteria. Paraphrasing Ignacio Ellacuría, it is the nature of every University to be a social force, and it is the calling of a Jesuit university to take conscious responsibility for being such a force for faith and justice. Every Jesuit academy of higher learning is called to live in a social reality and to live for that social reality, to shed university intelligence upon it and to use university influence to transform it.31 Thus Jesuit universities have stronger and different reasons, than many other academic and research institutions, for addressing the actual world as it unjustly exists and for helping to reshape it in the light of the Gospel. IV. In conclusion, an agenda The twenty-fifth anniversary of GC 32 is a motive for great thanksgiving. We give thanks for our Jesuit university awareness of the world in its entirety and in its ultimate depth, created yet abused, sinful yet redeemed, and we take up our Jesuit university responsibility for human society that is so scandalously unjust, so complex to understand, and so hard to change. With the help of others and especially the poor, we want to play our role as students, as teachers and researchers, and as Jesuit universities in society. As Jesuit higher education, we embrace new ways of learning and being formed in the pursuit of adult solidarity, new methods of researching and teaching in an academic community of dialogue, and a new university way of practicing faith-justice in society. As we assume our Jesuit university characteristics in the new century, we do so with seriousness and hope. For this very mission has produced martyrs who prove that "a n institution of higher learning and research can become an instrument of justice in the name of the Gospel."32 But implementing Decree 4 is not something a Jesuit university accomplishes once and for all. It is rather an ideal to keep taking up and working at, a cluster of characteristics to keep exploring and implementing, a conversion to keep praying for. In Ex Corde Ecclesiae, Pope John Paul II charges Catholic universities with a challenging agenda for teaching, research, and service: "The dignity of human life, the promotion of justice for all, the quality of personal and family life, the protection of nature, the search for peace and political stability, a more just sharing in the world's resources, and a new economic and political order that will better serve the human community at a national and international level."33 These are both high ideals and concrete tasks. I encourage our Jesuit colleges and universities to take them up with critical understanding and deep conviction, with buoyant faith and much hope in the early years of the new century. The beautiful words of GC 32 show us a long path to follow: "The way to faith and the way to justice are inseparable ways. It is up this undivided road, this steep road, that the pilgrim Church" — the Socie ty of Jesus, the Jesuit College and University— "must travel and toil. Faith and justice are undivided in the Gospel which teaches that 'faith makes its power felt through love.'34 They cannot therefore be divided in our purpose, our action, our life."35 For the greater glory of God. 1 G.C. 32, D.4, n.47. 2 GC32, D.2, n.9. 3 See GC 32, D.2, n.9 and D.4, n.76. 4Synod of Bishops, "Justice in the World," 1971. 5 Pedro Arrupe, S.J., "On the Social Apostolate in Latin America," December 1966 (AR XIV, 791). 6 Ibid. 7 Cf. Peter-Hans Kolvenbach, S.J., "On the Social Apostolate," January 2000, n.3. 8 "Since evangelization is proclamation of that faith which is made operative in love of others (see Galatians 5:6; Ephesians 4:15), the promotion of justice is indispensable to it," (GC 32, D.4, n.28). 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 Cf. GC 34, D.26, n.5. For example, GC32, D.11, n.13. GC 34, D. 26, n.8. GC 33, D.1, n.32. Synod of Bishops, "Justice in the World," 1971. Pedro Arrupe, S.J., Rooted and Grounded in Love , 67 (AR XVIII, 500). GC33, D.1, n.33. 16 GC34, D.3, n.2. 17 Pedro Arrupe, S.J., Address to the European Jesuit Alumni Congress, Valencia, August 1973, in Hombres para los demás (Barcelona: Diafora, 1983), 159. 18 Cf. The Characteristics of Jesuit Edu cation (Washington, D.C.: Jesuit Secondary Education Association, 1987). 19 Ignacio Ellacuría, S.J., "The Task of a Christian University," Convocation address at the University of Santa Clara, June 12, 1982; "Una universidad para el pueblo," Diakonía 6:23 (1982), 41-57. 20 See Ignatius of Loyola, "Contemplation on the Incarnation," Spiritual Exercises , nos. 101- 109. 21 GC32, D.4, nn.27, 20. 22 United Nations Development Program, Human Development Report, 1990-present (annual). 23 In February 2000, the Jesuit Conference established a five-man Committee on Higher Education to prepare recommendations regarding 1) sponsorship by the Society of U.S. Jesuit colleges and universities; 2) assignment of personnel to these institutions; 3) selection of presidents (particularly non-Jesuit presidents) for these institutions. 24 John Paul II, Address to Catholic University of the Sacred Heart, Milan, May 5, 2000, n.9. 25 Ibid. n.7. 26 Cf. GC34, D.17, n.6. 27 John Paul II, op.cit., n.5. 28 John Paul II, Address to the Faculty of Medicine, Catholic University of the Sacred Heart, 26 June 1984. 29 GC34, D.17, nn.6,7. 30 "For the poor [the universities] serve as major channels for social advancement" (GC34, D.17, n.2). 31 Ellacuría, op.cit. 32 Peter-Hans Kolvenbac h, S.J., Address to the Congregation of Provincials (September 20, 1990), AR 20 (1990), 452. 33 John Paul II, Ex Corde Ecclesiae, August 1990, n. 32. 34 Galatians 5:6. 35 GC 32, D.2, n.8. ____________________ "La vraie reconstruction d'Haïti passe par des réformes en profondeur des structures de l'État pour restaurer la confiance, encourager les investisseurs et mettre le peuple au travail. Il faut finir avec cette approche d'un État paternaliste qui tout en refusant de créer le cadre approprié pour le développement des entreprises mendie des millions sur la scène internationale en exhibant la misère du peuple." Cyrus Sibert Reconstruction d'Haïti : A quand les Réformes structurelles? Haïti : La continuité du système colonial d'exploitation  prend la forme de monopole au 21e Siècle. WITHOUT REFORM, NO RETURN ON INVESTMENT IN HAITI (U.S. Senate report.)

L'ancienne députée de Gros Morne tuée dans un accident de la route ce lundi matin (Source : InfoHaiti.net)

L'ancienne députée  de Gros Morne tuée dans un accident de la route ce lundi matin (Source : InfoHaiti.net) Mme Gérandale Thélusma, députée de la 48e législature pour la circonscription de Gros-morne, dans l'Artibonite a été tuée dans un accident de la route vers les cinq heures ce lundi matin. L'accident s'est produit quand le véhicule de l'ex parlementaire est entré en collusion avec un autre qui venait en sens inverse sur la nationale No 1 au niveau de la localité  Pinson, section communale de Desdunes. Mme Thélusma aurait rendu l'âme sur place alors que son chauffeur a été blessé, a-t-on appris d'une source proche de la victime. Gérandale Thélusma était la présidente de la commission Affaires Sociales dans la dernière législature et était très connue à cause notamment de la loi sur le salaire minimum dont elle avait la charge de rédiger. Elle était candidate à sa succession dans sa circonscription et était en ballotage pour le second tour en compagnie du journaliste Fritz Chéry (Radion Vision 2000). Mme Thélusma qui se rendait ce matin dans la capitale devait participer en direct sur Radio Caraibes à l'émission Intersection animée  par le directeur de Infohaiti.net en Haiti, Jean-Monard Métellus. ____________________ "La vraie reconstruction d'Haïti passe par des réformes en profondeur des structures de l'État pour restaurer la confiance, encourager les investisseurs et mettre le peuple au travail. Il faut finir avec cette approche d'un État paternaliste qui tout en refusant de créer le cadre approprié pour le développement des entreprises mendie des millions sur la scène internationale en exhibant la misère du peuple." Cyrus Sibert Reconstruction d'Haïti : A quand les Réformes structurelles? Haïti : La continuité du système colonial d'exploitation  prend la forme de monopole au 21e Siècle. WITHOUT REFORM, NO RETURN ON INVESTMENT IN HAITI (U.S. Senate report.)

We want to know the name of the Perlitz "supporter" who made ethnic slurs, threats, accusations and derogatory remarks against a female federal prosecutor

"During this call, when a supporter suggested that the prosecutor (who was born outside the United States and is of Indian descent) should 'take care of your own f*****g country, you f*****g bitch,' Douglas Perlitz laughs again.  This sleazy and cowardly "supporter" can be sure of one thing. When the sentencing hearing is concluded, advocates for abuse victims will be searching court files to determine the "supporter's" identity.  Excerpt from U.S. Government Sentencing Memorandum Throughout June and July 2010, defendant, along with a family member and a supporter, made repeated threats, accusations, ethnic slurs and derogatory remarks regarding the federal prosecutors assigned to his criminal case. Given that Perlitz knew his telephone conversations were being recorded, it is rather evident that Perlitz, his brother in Colorado, and his supporter sought to intimidate the AUSAs by: (1) comments made during the recorded telephone calls; and (2) by Douglas Perlitz?s cavalier attitude when his brother promised to seek revenge against the prosecutors assigned to the case. Moreover, it is rather obvious that when Perlitz engaged in conversations with his brother who was not incarcerated, a potential threat existed that Perlitz?s brother would carry out the threats discussed during these telephone conversations. Indeed, Perlitz?s brother made it clear that he was "serious" about taking retaliatory action against the AUSAs no matter the consequences. At the very least, Perlitz and his family members sought to intimidate the prosecutors by making such statements on telephone calls that they knew were being recorded. The threats were made in four of the telephone calls took place from June 12, 2010 through July 15, 2010. A copy of the pertinent calls and a chart describing the nature of the threats has been provided to the Probation Officer and is available for the Court?s review.4 From these calls, the following is clear: 1. When defendant?s brother first mentions on June 12, 2010 that he cannot wait to "go after **** [AUSAs] Patel and Reynolds" and assures Douglas Perlitz that he is "serious" and "does not care" what the consequences are, Perlitz laughs. The refers to the AUSA as a "f*****g bitch" and a "f*****g whore" who should be "flipping burgers." The brother goes on to state "Can?t wait to go after f*****g [names the AUSA] I?m going to go after that bitch." No effort is made by Douglas Perlitz to dissuade his brother from seeking to take revenge on the AUSAs. See call dated June 12, 2010. 2. When the threats from the brother escalate five days later while both acknowledge that the conversation is being recorded, the brother assures Douglas Perlitz that he will "track her ass down" [referring to one particular AUSA]. The brother in Colorado states "I?ll tell you what f*****g [referring to same AUSA], f*****g grease head, f*****g where she from, India? I?ll track her down." Douglas Perlitz laughs while halfheartedly suggesting that his brother should not say stuff like that. See call dated June 17, 2010. 3. After the Government advised the Court that it would pursue charges in New York following the dismissal on venue grounds in Connecticut, Douglas Perlitz referred to the AUSA singled out by his brother as a "pyscho bitch." During this call, when a supporter suggested that the prosecutor (who was born outside the United States and is of Indian descent) should "take care of your own f*****g country, you f*****g bitch," Douglas Perlitz laughs again. See call dated July 14, 2010. ____________________ "La vraie reconstruction d'Haïti passe par des réformes en profondeur des structures de l'État pour restaurer la confiance, encourager les investisseurs et mettre le peuple au travail. Il faut finir avec cette approche d'un État paternaliste qui tout en refusant de créer le cadre approprié pour le développement des entreprises mendie des millions sur la scène internationale en exhibant la misère du peuple." Cyrus Sibert Reconstruction d'Haïti : A quand les Réformes structurelles? Haïti : La continuité du système colonial d'exploitation  prend la forme de monopole au 21e Siècle. WITHOUT REFORM, NO RETURN ON INVESTMENT IN HAITI (U.S. Senate report.)

"A distorted notion of the vow of obedience and the tension it creates between loyalty to the Gospel and loyalty to the institution"

Divided loyalties: an incredible situation By Sister Joan Chittister National Catholic Reporter March 17, 2010 For all the certainty about the facts of the case, there is still an aura of discontent everywhere about the situation surrounding clerical sex abuse in the church. No one disputes the data now; everyone disputes the nature of the problem. And worse than that, the data simply keeps piling up on all sides. First, the world called it an "American problem." As in, those Americans are a wild bunch anyway, what else can you expect?" The Vatican went so far as to dismiss the issue as simply another demonstration of American exaggeration — what the Irish call the American tendency to be "over the top." Then Ireland found itself engulfed in the problem and suddenly the outrage was no longer seen as "over the top." On the contrary, it became a display of integrity. Nor were the numbers seen as being exaggerated by the media. On the contrary, the numbers of child victims, the world began to understand, had, if anything, been minimized. Now, the boil has broken in Europe, too: in the Netherlands, in Austria, in Germany, and, oh yes, in the Vatican, as well. Now, the United States is no longer seen as being hysterical about a non-problem but early in its confrontation of it, also a decidedly American trait. But what, precisely, is "it?" What is the real problem? Note well: After stories of the first few high-profile cases of serial rapes and molestations and their unheard of numbers died down, the focus shifted away from individual clerical rapists to the unmasking of what was now obviously a systemic problem. This prevailing practice of episcopal cover-ups, of moving offenders from one parish to another rather than expose them either to legal accountability or to moral censure in the public arena, occupied the spotlight. It was a practice that saved the reputation of the church at the expense of children. It traded innocence for image. But we know all of that. So why doesn't all of this just settle down and go away? Why won't these people — these survivors — "just forget about it," some people said. The answers to that question is both personal and social. For some, of course, the need to expose their experiences comes out of the need to heal themselves by reclaiming a sense of control over their lives. To stop living in the shadow of victimhood and powerlessness. For others of them, it was because, having had their secret shame exposed, they now found the courage themselves to speak out about the unspeakable ghost that had for so long haunted their lives. But it is also possible that the survivors go on drawing our attention to the situation because, this time, consciously or unconsciously, they are trying to warn us of a second aspect of the problem, still largely undefined, that is at least as serious — even the incubator, in fact — of the obvious issues of cover-up and concealment. This time, however, it is Ireland, not America, that is ripping away the veil from this even deeper dimension, the one that moves beyond the problems of sexual repression and institutional face-saving. The unmasking of this context requires changes in the church that are in ways more serious — and certainly as important — as is the awareness of the danger of the sexual abuse itself. The dilemma that really threatens the future of the church is a distorted notion of the vow of obedience and the tension it creates between loyalty to the Gospel and loyalty to the institution — translate: "system." In this case, the problem swirls around Ireland's Primate, Cardinal Sean Brady, a good man with a good heart and a good reputation. Until now. In 1975, then Fr. Sean Brady, a newly certified canon lawyer and secretary to then Bishop Francis McKiernan, now deceased, in the diocese of Kilmore, took testimony from two young boys abused by the serial rapist Fr. Brendan Smyth. At the end of those interviews, Brady exacted a vow of silence from the boys which effectively protected Smyth from public censure and enabled him to go on abusing children — including in the United States — for another 18 years. Brady, too, said nothing to any one about the case, other than to his bishop, ever again. Not to the gardai, not to the courts, not even to the bishops to whose dioceses Smyth had then been sent. Challenged now to resign because of that failure to give evidence of a crime, Brady's answer is the Nuremberg defense: He was only following orders; he did not have the responsibility to make any reports other than to his bishop; he was only a note-taker. All of these elements of the situation are now in hot dispute. But the question is deeper than the simple ones of role and organizational responsibility. The question is why would a good man with a good heart, as he surely is, think twice about his responsibility to take moral and legal steps to stop a child predator from preying on more children everywhere, some of them for years at a time? The answer to that question is a simple one: It is that the kind of "blind obedience" once theologized as the ultimate step to holiness, is itself blind. It blinds a person to the insights and foresight and moral perspective of anyone other than an authority figure. Blind obedience is itself an abuse of human morality. It is a misuse of the human soul in the name of religious commitment. It is a sin against individual conscience. It makes moral children of the adults from whom moral agency is required. It makes a vow, which is meant to require religious figures to listen always to the law of God, beholden first to the laws of very human organizations in the person of very human authorities. It is a law that isn't even working in the military and can never substitute for personal morality. From where I stand, if there are any in whom we should be able to presume a strong conscience and an even stronger commitment to the public welfare, it is surely the priests and religious of the church. But if that is the case, then the church must also review its theology of obedience so that those of good heart can become real moral leaders rather than simply agents of the institution. A bifurcation of loyalties that requires religious to put canon law above civil law and moral law puts us in a situation where the keepers of religion may themselves become one of the greatest dangers to the credibility — and the morality — of the church itself. ____________________ "La vraie reconstruction d'Haïti passe par des réformes en profondeur des structures de l'État pour restaurer la confiance, encourager les investisseurs et mettre le peuple au travail. Il faut finir avec cette approche d'un État paternaliste qui tout en refusant de créer le cadre approprié pour le développement des entreprises mendie des millions sur la scène internationale en exhibant la misère du peuple." Cyrus Sibert Reconstruction d'Haïti : A quand les Réformes structurelles? Haïti : La continuité du système colonial d'exploitation  prend la forme de monopole au 21e Siècle. WITHOUT REFORM, NO RETURN ON INVESTMENT IN HAITI (U.S. Senate report.)

A Letter to Child Sex Offender, Doug Perlitz, refuting his conspiratorial theories of government misconduct

December 18, 2020 Defendant Douglas Perlitz Donald W. Wyatt Detention Center 150 High Street Central Falls, Rhode Island 02863 Dear Doug,  As part of your rebuttal to the Government's Sentencing Memorandum, you attempt to defend yourself against claims that you and your brother (from Colorado) threatened to physically harm government prosecut ors. In a June 12, 2010 call between you and your brother, you wonder how a "vocal supporter" of the prosecution could have learned about defense counsels' recently- concluded investigative trip to Haiti sufficiently quickly to be able to send critical emails to counsel while they were still traveling. You and your brother speculate that the government may have been to blame; the brother in Colorado speaks of "prosecutorial misconduct", "highly illegal" government conduct, the amount of money spent on the case and a "waste of taxpayer dollars", and the possibility of obtaining information in that regard from the Department of Justice.  I will assume that the "vocal supporter" you are referring to, Doug, is me, Paul Kendrick. And yes, I did, indeed, send email correspondence to your attorney, William Dow, while he was in Cap Haitien, Haiti staying at the Mont Joli Hotel.  Now, you knew perfectly well at the time, Doug, that word of Dow's arrival in Cap Haitien spread like wild fire. I received word from Cyrus Sibert that Dow was traveling with armed guards. Dow had already begun trying to make contact with several of the abuse victims. They were scared to death, Doug, frightened by Dow and his gun slinging thugs. The boys told Cyrus they did not want to speak with Dow. Some of the boys hid. It was important to me and Cyrus that Dow be put on notice that he must not intimidate or threaten the victims in any way. Keep in mind, Doug, that the abuse victims were being called liars by your friends and associates in Cap Haitien and Fairfield County. The Haitian boys you paid off with rent and food money had physically threatened the victims. But, most of all, the boys were afraid of you because of your past threats right up until the moment you were arrested.  So, Doug, your conspiratorial theories about the government's conduct are absolutely nuts. As I keep saying over and over again, the only thing you're sorry about, Doug, is the fact that you got caught. You'll do and say anything to minimize your jail time. Sincerely, Paul Kendrick 207 838 1319 ____________________ "La vraie reconstruction d'Haïti passe par des réformes en profondeur des structures de l'État pour restaurer la confiance, encourager les investisseurs et mettre le peuple au travail. Il faut finir avec cette approche d'un État paternaliste qui tout en refusant de créer le cadre approprié pour le développement des entreprises mendie des millions sur la scène internationale en exhibant la misère du peuple." Cyrus Sibert Reconstruction d'Haïti : A quand les Réformes structurelles? Haïti : La continuité du système colonial d'exploitation  prend la forme de monopole au 21e Siècle. WITHOUT REFORM, NO RETURN ON INVESTMENT IN HAITI (U.S. Senate report.)