Joe Nocera's The Institutional Pass

There is much to ponder in the wake of the recent Penn State scandal. Across the board, all institutions (and that certainly includes the church) need to improve, radically, the way things are done in order to safeguard children and insure that young adults are treated justly. As the Church has needed to improve, radically, the way children's safety is guarded, so schools have to look at the many ways, on multiple levels, that institutions profit off athletes' work. Joe Nocera's article in The New York Times is very thought provoking. - Fr. Rick
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November 11, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/12/opinion/nocera-the-institutional-pass.html

The Institutional Pass

By JOE NOCERA

“Joe is a devout Catholic,” a retired football coach named Vince McAneney told a reporter the other day. He was referring, of course, to Joe Paterno.

McAneney, 82, a high school coaching legend in Pennsauken, N.J., had known the 84-year-old Paterno for some 50 years, he told Randy Miller of The Courier-Post in Cherry Hill, N.J., and was “heartbroken” to see his friend fired as the Penn State football coach for his involvement in the sexual abuse scandal that has so soiled the university. Describing Paterno as a devout Catholic was McAneney’s way of saying that his friend was still a good and decent man.

But to someone like me, who grew up in a Catholic household, the fact that Paterno was a regular churchgoer is part of what makes his actions — or, more accurately, his inaction — so inexplicable. By March 1, 2002 — the date, according to a grand jury report, that Jerry Sandusky, the former Paterno assistant, was spotted in the locker-room shower raping a boy believed to be about 10 years old — every Catholic was sadly familiar with the sex abuse scandal that had engulfed the Roman Catholic Church. They knew that predatory priests had taken advantage of their proximity and positions of trust to sexually abuse young boys, just as Sandusky appears to have done. They knew that church leaders had covered it up. And they knew the devastating consequences of the abuse.

Two months before Sandusky’s alleged rape, The Boston Globe had begun publishing its powerful series on clergy sexual abuse. Dioceses were being sued by lawyers for the victims, who, in turn, were coming forward to describe how the abuse they suffered as children had shattered their lives. Alcoholism, drug abuse, and depression were common themes.

More shocking yet, Catholics in Paterno’s own diocese of Altoona-Johnstown, Pa., understood these consequences long before the rest of the country. In 1987, Richard Serbin, an Altoona lawyer representing abuse victims, had sued the diocese. The suit was widely publicized in the local media — publicity that did not diminish much even after he won in 1994 because the diocese kept appealing. (It finally agreed to pay $3.7 million in 2004.) One of the victims Serbin represented was a former altar boy in State College — Penn State’s hometown.

Given that foreknowledge, how could Paterno, upon learning that one of his graduate assistants allegedly had seen Sandusky having anal sex with a preteen boy, content himself with mentioning it to his superior and then looking the other way? How could he have allowed Sandusky to maintain access to Penn State’s football facilities? How could the university have let him continue to run his youth camps on Penn State property — camps where he no doubt scouted potential targets? Everyone at Penn State who averted their eyes had to know they were doing something abhorrent. They knew from the experience of their own community.

Big-time college football requires grown men to avert their eyes from the essential hypocrisy of the enterprise. Coaches take home multimillion-dollar salaries, while the players who make them rich don’t even get “scholarships” that cover the full cost of attending college. They push their “student-athletes” to take silly courses that won’t get in the way of football. When players are seriously injured and can no longer play, their coaches often yank their scholarships, forcing them to drop out of school.

“College football and men’s basketball has drifted so far away from the educational purpose of the university,” James Duderstadt, a former president of the University of Michigan, told me recently. “They exploit young people and prevent them from getting a legitimate college education. They place the athlete’s health at enormous risk, which becomes apparent later in life. We are supposed to be developing human potential, not making money on their backs. Football strikes at the core values of a university.”

It is true that Joe Paterno ran a better program than most, and that no university outside of Notre Dame has benefited more from having a football team than Penn State. Its football renown helped turn a small-time state school into an important research university. But it is also true that, in 2009, Penn State football generated a staggering $50 million in profit on $70 million in revenue, according to figures compiled by the Department of Education. Protecting those profits is the real core value of college football — at Penn State and everywhere else.

What goes on in the typical big-time college football program constitutes abuse of the athletes who play the game. It’s not sexual abuse, to be sure, but it’s wrong just the same. For 46 years, Joe Paterno averted his eyes to the daily injustices, large and small, that his players suffered — just like Nick Saban does at Alabama and Steve Spurrier at South Carolina, and all the rest of them. When Paterno averted his eyes from Jerry Sandusky, he was just doing what came naturally as a college football coach.

Tim Egan NY Times Boomer Parent's Lament

Those of us who work in Universities should take time to reflect on what Tim Egan says here. The young adults whom we serve need to be instructed in learning about the true worth of things and the joys of the simple things in life. We need to help them develop their hearts and souls as much as, or more than, their intellects and resumes. Peace Rick

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Boomer Parent's Lament

http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/10/27/boomer-parents-lament/

What we talk about when we talk about tomorrow is the great fear that our kids will never find their way, now that opportunity is just another word for no. By we, I mean parents of a certain age.

I fell into one of these conversations a few weeks ago with a mother of two grown children, both boys, both graduates from terrific universities, both shackled to college loans as heavy as a ship’s anchor.

Her sons jumped from commencement to the real world full of springy confidence. But now, two years after graduation, after hundreds of rejections, after their resumes bounced back like boomerangs to the head, they were living at home, and every day brought another dent to their self-confidence.

“What do I tell them?” she asked. You can’t lie. You can’t remind them how special there are, because that was part of the problem. The hope reflex seems phony. I was at a loss to say anything beyond an expression of sympathy.

Later, though, I thought of something obvious: self-worth should never be tied to net worth. Easy to say, of course, an ancient observation. But I was struck by a failing of many fellow parents of recession-whacked Millennials. For all the efforts to raise hyper-achievers, we didn’t teach enough of a basic survival skill — to find joy in simple things not connected to a grade, a trophy or a job.

What was missing in the life message of child-raising was some of the counter-cultural swagger in that 2005 commencement speech by Steve Jobs, the one that made the viral video rounds after his death. If you listen to the whole speech, it is what he says at the end that seems so apt for these years of diminished expectations. “Stay hungry,” Jobs said, borrowing an admonition from the creators of The Whole Earth Catalogue, an early bible for him, and equally important, “Stay foolish.”

Hungry is the easy part. Employment rates and starting salaries have fallen off a cliff for new college graduates in the last two years. One study found that 55 percent of humanities majors newly released from school are either not working or hold jobs that require no college degree. I know a Stanford honors graduate in English literature who works as a nanny, and a University of Michigan political science graduate on the night shift at an Amazon warehouse. Their friends call them lucky.

There is all sorts of topical journalism on this issue. Last week brought a New York magazine piece by Noreen Malone, a self-snarky confessional with these words on the cover: “Sucks to Be Us: Coming of Age in Post-Hope America.”

“We grew up, all the way through college, with everything seeming so ripe and possible,” Malone writes. She defines the Millennials this way: “We are self-centered and convinced of our specialness and unaccustomed to being denied.”

There were those soccer games with no losers or winners, with everybody getting a trophy at season’s end. (Even if most parents knew the score.) And all those small bodies trudging home with ridiculously heavy backpacks, loaded down in many cases with SAT prep material for children yet to lose their front teeth. The summertime menu included homework camp. How fun!

All of the above was in service to a child prepared to enter a competitive and punishing world — that is, prepared in a certain way, only for things that could be controlled and quantified.

“It might be hard, in fact, to create a generation more metaphysically ill-equipped to adjust” to the economic realities of 2011, Malone writes.

Defining an entire generation in short-hand is something trendy magazines always do. Twenty years ago, there was a rush of silly stories about how a single woman past a certain age had a better chance of getting killed by terrorists than finding a suitable spouse. But Malone makes some points that ring true.

She quotes a friend, Lael Goodman, with the kind of complaint that will sound familiar to many people just out of college. “The worst thing is that I’ve always gotten self-worth from performance, especially good grades. But now that I can’t get a job, I feel worthless.”

Goodman nails it — the self-worth from performance. And for that, we parents have to take the blame. Baby Boomers who rejected “Mad Men” conformity groomed their offspring to expect only the best, to climb a ladder that would end in startups cranking out stock-option millionaires.

My father was a child of the Great Depression, raised by a widowed mother living above a little bar in Chicago. He never tried to make himself out to be more virtuous than anyone else because he had lived through hard times. His parenting was by example. As such, my lasting image is of him making meatballs and a thick spaghetti sauce on Saturday night, while going through a stack of Neil Diamond and Frank Sinatra records. He was never happier.

Maybe if I knew that our children would be coming of age in an economy that would crush even the best and brightest among them, I would have cared a little less about their score on an advanced placement history test, and a little more about helping them find happiness in moments at the margin. I hope many of them are doing just that — without our help

Fr. Pilarz's Address at Commencement, The University of Scranton

2011 Undergraduate Commencement address by Rev. Scott R. Pilarz, S.J.

05/29/11

Fellow trustees, distinguished guests, parents, families, friends and most importantly members of the Class of 2011. Welcome to this auspicious event in the life of The University of Scranton.

It is a rare privilege to be here today. The assembly in this arena epitomizes Scranton’s pride, passion and promise. The pride especially belongs to parents and families. Your love for your daughters and sons is palpable and contagious. You are rightly exuberant in celebrating their success. How wonderfully you have raised them and nurtured them down the path that leads to this commencement. For more than 20 years, these graduates have been graced by your love. And now look what love has done. Parents and families thank you for sharing these remarkable women and men with The University of Scranton. Members of the Class of 2011 take a moment now to acknowledge your first, best teachers, the people who have made all of this possible.

My friends in the Class of 2011, your education here at Scranton introduced you to high ideals and aspirations. Yours is a formation that elicits great desires – desires that direct your days and works to the glory of God and the well-being of humankind. Today your class is enhanced by the addition of three members whom we’ve honored with doctorates honoris causa.

These three exemplary individuals have lead lives that clearly mirror qualities that have been prized by Jesuit educators since the 16th century. Ignatius and the first Jesuits gave pride of place in their work to what they called the intellectual apostolate. Freda Adler has devoted her life to this work. Throughout her distinguished career, she has shaped her discipline as well as the lives of and careers of her students, including three University of Scranton professors. She was among the first women in the United States to earn a Ph.D. in sociology with an emphasis in criminology, and she has been a pioneer ever since, pushing the limits of her discipline with a special regard for the promotion of justice.

Early Jesuits also encouraged their companions and collaborators to be outwardly focused, always aware of the needs of others around them. Carl Kuehner epitomizes this attribute. His outstanding service to his alma mater is matched by his generosity to others around the world in need of assistance. I have had the privilege of witnessing firsthand the work that Carl has done, not only here in Scranton as chair of the Board of Trustees, but also in his native Florida, Haiti and missions sponsored by the Knights of Malta. Under Carl’s leadership as board chair, the University benefited from his sagacity and entrepreneurial spirit, embarking on some of the most substantial projects in our history. Members of the Class of 2011, if there is any person mostly responsible for the sweet sound of construction that was the theme song of your four years here, it is Carl Keuhner.

As you know, Jesuits early on embraced the apostolate of education, understanding intuitively that there is nothing quite like a school when it comes to shaping souls. Monsignor Andy Martin is a shaper of souls. Catholic secondary education in his native New Jersey has no greater champion. For more than a quarter century, Andy served as principal and then as president of Camden Catholic High School. On a personal note, I had the honor of serving as board chair at Camden Catholic, my alma mater. I can attest that during Andy’s years, he left his mark not only on the institution but on thousands of individuals who benefited from his pastoral care, commitment to excellence and lived conviction that Catholic education should be accessible and affordable.

As you steer the course of your lives, let people such Freda, Carl and Andy be an ever fixed mark and a measure of success.

Members of the Class of 2011, coincident with your arrival here, the Jesuits experienced a change in leadership and new direction when Father Adolpho Nicolas was elected as Father General, the religious superior of all the Jesuits around the world. In this role, he has brought great energy and enthusiasm to Jesuits and their colleagues, and he is particularly committed to the work of higher education.

Last spring, Hal Baillie and I had the privilege of participating in a gathering of leaders from Jesuit institutions across the globe held in Mexico City. In his keynote address, the Father General displayed a keen sense of contemporary culture, noting that he is the first Jesuit General to use email and surf the Web. In doing the latter, he is far more tech savvy than I. As he looks out on our world and reads the signs of the times, he sees both the potential and pitfalls characteristic of your generation. He rightly worries for you about what he terms the “globalization of superficiality.” By that phrase he means a willingness to settle for snappy answers to complicated questions. As an antidote, he urges young to follow the advice of his predecessor to “... let the gritty reality of this world into [your] lives, so [you] can learn to feel it, think about it critically, respond to its suffering, and engage it constructively.”

Hearing his call for action against this tide, my mind went quickly to you, students of The University of Scranton. I was filled with pride and confidence on account of the education your received here that you are ready to meet this challenge. As women and men educated at The University of Scranton, you are able to reach deep down things and discover there the dearest freshness. Let me expand.

While I acknowledge that we at Scranton are not immune to the “globalization of superficiality” there is something about this place that defies the post-modern predicament in which we find ourselves. In short, this community, and you especially, are unapologetically authentic and are blessed with the capacity to start and sustain friendship.

Let me address your authenticity – the reality that I have come to love in my years at Scranton. From the day that your class arrived, for example, you have exhibited a fresh-faced openness and genuine warmth. I have rarely seen a class so readily embrace one another and the University. You brought with you an unbridled energy. Now let me be the first to say, as a resident of the corner of Mulberry and Quincy who was regularly on the early morning receiving end of that energy, that it has its downsides. In a weird way, I will miss my window onto the wacky world of Mulberry Street as I watched – and more frequently heard – you make your way home – from so many – shall we call them – celebrations. While you weren’t always at your best in the wee hours, you sure as heck were real. No pretense, no posing. Good college friends enjoying each other’s company.

I will also never forget your engagement with the real world around you, and celebrations such as the 2008 presidential election when you voted in record numbers, and how the campus erupted upon the announcement of the results. Then there was the 2009 Phillies-Yankees World Series – the equivalent of civil war on campus. As a native of the Delaware Valley, I was disappointed in the outcome, but happy when game six ended.

I don’t mean to suggest that your authenticity and talent for friendship only manifested itself in the best of times. You stretched and struggled together in your years at Scranton. You learned the enduring lesson that friendship is hard work. There is nothing easy about engaging authentically with another, really engaging. While you certainly leveraged technology to stay in touch, Tweeting, Linking In, and all those postings on “You Face” or whatever you call it, it was obvious in day-by-day ways, in real time, that you let one another in. That takes a willingness to be vulnerable.

One of my greatest pleasures in my years here was teaching some of you. In an experience that I am sure my faculty colleagues would find familiar, I was moved again and again by your intellectual honesty and your ability to admit what you didn’t know. Such an admission is where learning begins and it too speaks of your openness to embrace what is different, what is new, foreign and unfamiliar.

So many of you did this kind of embracing in the thousands of hours of service to which you committed yourselves. Father General is unwavering in his belief that such service is integral to your Jesuit education. You went across the city, the nation and the globe with open hands and open minds and returned with broken hearts. You will never be the same nor will you ever imagine your place in the world as you once did.

Imagining one’s place in the world is also an important aspect your Jesuit education. For Saint Ignatius Loyola discovering the power of imagination, especially in the context of prayer, was akin to discovering spiritual dynamite. By using his imagination, he equivalently blew the lid off old ways of conceiving God and God’s work in the world. Imagination enabled him to feel God’s love in his own life and in the life of the Church in the world. In his Spiritual Exercises, the foundational expression of Ignatian spirituality, imagination is the tool that equips and inspires us to discern the work God most wants us to do.

In your years at Scranton, you have been equipped and inspired this way. Our incomparable faculty, so dedicated to your success, has labored tirelessly to call out the best in you. They are learned liberators sharing with you their wisdom and expertise so that you might be freed from constraining boxes of thought. Others on campus, administrators, the staff, coaches, moderators and mentors, shared in this sacred work. Always remember the gratitude that you owe them. I am convinced that the longer and further you go from this campus this gratitude will deepen all the more. It is hard, if not impossible, today to estimate the changes worked in you these past four years. Only time and distance will provide you that perspective.

So, what can you know today, poised to receive a Scranton degree? You know now that you inherit a nearly 500-year-old spiritual and educational tradition that sets you apart and sets you on fire. Phrases such as ‘cura personalis’ and ‘magis’ are, I hope, more than rhetorical flourishes for you now. As women and men educated in the Ignatian tradition, you know God’s unconditional love for you in your uniqueness. You understand that the right response to such love is profound gratitude. Grateful for all that God has done for you, you respond by striving for God’s greater glory and the well-being of humankind.

Your education at Scranton has been about so much more than the accumulation of information. In fact, the word education, as we commonly use it, doesn’t really capture what happens on this sacred ground. Your time here has been formative, transformative. A word inscribed on the statue of St. Ignatius on campus expresses it best – metanoia – a time of turning. Turning toward new ideas, new methodologies, new paradigms, and, most importantly, new people.

Take time to count the ways in which you are different than you were four years ago. Take stock of the new you – the person who was been shaped in ways subtle and dramatic, the person who now welcomes what is to come.

Eight years ago, I came here as an English professor. Let me end where I began by sharing a favorite poem that aptly expresses my appreciation for you and for all that you have done for one another and for the University.

It is by a favorite poet, Mary Oliver, and is entitled “What is the greatest gift?”

"Could it be the world itself-the oceans, the meadowlark,

the patience of the trees in the wind?
Could it be love, with its sweet clamor of passion?
Something else-something else entirely holds me in thrall.
That you have a life that I wonder about
more than I wonder about my own.
That you have a life-courteous and intelligent-that
I wonder about more than I wonder about my own.
That you have a soul-your own, no one else's-that
I wonder about more than I wonder about my own.
So that I find my soul clapping its hands for yours more than my own."

Today, my soul is clapping its hands for you, and it always will.

Thank you.