Transforming Ourselves, Transforming the World: Justice in Jesuit Higher Education

Conclusion: Further and Deeper

Conclusion: Further and Deeper david mcmenamin In his landmark speech on the Commitment to Justice in Jesuit Higher Education at Santa Clara in 2000 cited so often in this book, Peter-Hans Kolvenbach expressed his belief that from 1975 to 2000, Jesuit higher education had ‘‘made considerable and laudable Jesuit efforts to go deeper and further’’ in the commitment to the faith that does justice, a commitment that was made explicit in Decree 4 of the 32nd General Congregation of the Society of Jesus. He goes on to say that ‘‘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.’’ The mention of Decree 4 is not merely coincidental to this book, it is at the heart of it. The conferences that led to and included the 2000 Santa Clara conference and to subsequent conferences at Loyola University , Chicago, John Carroll University and most recently Fairfield University, were all a response to one question, posed at a meeting held in 1998: As the twenty-fifth anniversary of the 32nd General Congregation approaches (in 2000), how has Decree 4 been brought into play in the area of Jesuit higher education? The contributions to the present book show how that ongoing task has progressed since then and yet, as Dean Brackley indicates in his introduction with a nod to Kolvenbach’s earlier statement, we should ‘‘harbor no illusions’’ that the task is completed. If we are to understand that task as continuing to go further and deeper, the comments made here are intended to point out directions and areas of depth that might be followed or explored as ways in which educators at Jesuit colleges and universities might proceed. Two areas suggest themselves for serious consideration as we go forward: in terms of further, the concept of conclusion: further and deeper 317 ‘‘social projection;’’ in terms of deeper, the question of faith as it relates to promotion of justice. Further As the contributions in this book as well as the many programs at the various campuses indicate, Jesuit institutions are certainly going further , at least in the geographical sense. Reaching into neighborhoods, countries, and continents that are not our own; sending our students, faculty, administrators and staff on immersions, are certainly valuable for many reasons. But their very existence begs the question of what is accomplished by them other than their educational value for those who participate? This is not to gainsay the value of that objective, but it is to ask how the university projects itself into society to contribute to a just world. The participants in these trips, as well as service learning programs, are certainly transformed by them, but to what extent is the world transformed as a result? In his keynote address at the justice conference hosted by John Carroll University in 2005, Brackley identi- fied ‘‘social projection,’’ the way the university or college projects itself into its community (local and otherwise) as a measure of how the university works for justice in concrete ways and as one of the higher standards demanded of Catholic education. We need to be careful in this regard, as the way this is done needs to be in a manner appropriate to the university as university. Brackley describes this as ‘‘all those means by which the university communicates , or projects, knowledge beyond the campus to help shape the consciousness of the wider society.’’ We might also think of this as the ways in which the university contributes its knowledge and expertise so as to assist the communities in their own work of building more just societies . The danger in even aspiring to such an objective is turning the university into something it is not: a relief organization, a social work agency, a political party or a church. But in the case of Jesuit colleges and universities, it cannot fail to take into account the Catholic and Jesuit identity of the institutions and what that implies—or requires. In Ex corde ecclesiae, John Paul II says that the Catholic university must ‘‘demonstrate the courage to express uncomfortable truths, truths 318 d. mcmenamin that may clash with public opinion but that are also necessary to safeguard the authentic good of society’’ (no. 32). Having extended our reach into Latin America...