Santa Clara University

Anyone who knows me knows that I loved being at Santa Clara, and am very proud to be an alumna of this great Jesuit school. I loved studying philosophy, and liberal arts, and especially Humanities, as taught by Christiaan Lievestro. Dr. Lievestro was the first person besides my own father who tried to help me learn to align the history, art, music and literature of a period, and to recognize cross-currents from one author to another, across different languages and cultures. I first fell in love with philosophy by learning from Austin Fagothey SJ, who was by then an SCU institution of higher learning, and awesome self-discipline and clarity. I was graced that the university allowed me to take a course about Teilhard de Chardin taught by Fr. Fagothey in the spring of my sophomore year-- they let me take it because I was going to be away in Vienna for Junior Year, and he would not teach it again till the year after I graduated. Fr. Fagothey had a bit of the old man's falling in love again with God, as he read Teilhard with us. It was a priceless thing, to be in his seminar. I also loved studying under Fr. Timothy Fallon SJ, who taught me metaphysics. In those days, we had to go to the professor and ask to be admitted to their class. So when I asked, I already knew that I would be leaving for the Peace Corps in South America two weeks after graduation in June. And this class was for the last quarter of my time at SCU, in the spring of my senior year. So I asked Fr. Fallon if Metaphysics would be helpful to me in Paraguay. And he answered graciously, with the full force of his leprechaunish humor, "My dear, it's the only thing that will!"
I am very grateful for being taught about Bernard Lonergan, and the metaphysics of Lonergan's "Insight". I took the book with me to Paraguay, and I still think of the basic premise, once in awhile, that "being is the objective of the pure desire to know." And I think of how he presented the way there is a heuristic structure of knowing, and that increased knowledge is pushing back the frontier of the unknown little-by-little, as the data and knowledge pour in.
Today I got the Santa Clara Magazine, and the goodbye note from Fr. Locatelli. He is going to Rome, to be the secretary of higher education for the Jesuits, which is the only organization which currently has a worldwide system of schools and universities. He will begin to coordinate a global structural network. In the weeks ahead, there is going to be a summit among Jesuit educators, addressing some of the themes for faith and justice from within education. The themes Fr. Locatelli says they will address are pretty instructive:
1) migration and refugees
2) faith, understanding and interreligious dialogue
3) religion, science, secularism and the new atheism
4) ethical capitalism and the realities of poverty and inequality
5) eco-justice and sustainability
6) youth and social networking

I am excited to hear about this work, and how those dynamic Jesuits move world education forward. In the same issue of the magazine, there is an article about Leon Panetta, another SCU graduate, and taking on the CIA, and the hope to make the interface with Congress and the world the best possible fit. It pleases me that they also published my letter lauding Sharon Kugler, who is the head chaplain at Yale, for her excellent ministry, and for being a good woman who models "the change we wish to see in the world". The note from Patrick Finley, about Professor William Sheehan was also wonderful.
God bless Santa Clara, God bless America, and God bless the whole world!