The negative comments
of alumni in the summer 2002 issue of Holy Cross Magazine regarding
the lay attire of "The New Jesuits" pictured
on the spring cover may be saying more about the attitudes
of the writers than the appropriateness of the attire itself.
Times have changed radically since the days when older
Holy Cross grads recall strict discipline, daily Mass,
weekly sodality and the familiar sight of cassocked jebbies
walking the lanes of a thoroughly Catholic all-male campus.
In some ways, I think, that was a culture so narrowly Catholic
that it instilled in me a kind of hubris that caused me
to feel intrinsically different from my non-Catholic fellow
human beings. It certainly gave me a confident religious
identity, but now, in retrospect, I feel it had a darker
side that limited my ability to understand and appreciate
human cultures and religious views quite different from
my own.
Increasing competition among today's colleges compels
Holy Cross to stand tall in a secular arena where academic
freedom strictly rules. To do so requires a balancing act
between maintaining educational excellence and being identified
with a central religious doctrinal authority not widely
known for promoting freedom of thought. To tone down the
more overtly religious but not essential appearances on
our campus does not strike me as abandonment of true Catholic
values.
Returning to my 50th reunion last year, I found many changes
from the old days and liked most of them. A much wider
variation of skin color and accents was evident, and of
course, the graceful presence of women students and faculty.
As for the absence of black robed jebbies walking the campus
lane, it seems to me that the universal Priesthood of the
Faithful, female and male, lay and Jesuit, attired suitably
for learning as a student or presiding as a professor in
a classroom, is alive and well at Holy Cross.
Bill McAuliffe '51
San Diego, Calif.
It was a
delightful surprise to find the feature article on Dr.
Anthony Fauci s story of his definitive place in the
ongoing battle against HIV/AIDS—the worst pandemic
disease in the history of the human race. I was surprised
because,
for the past 20-plus years of this global epidemic, I
have not seen any article, essay or notation of how this
epidemic
has affected the Holy Cross community in the number of
alumni who have died from HIV or alumni who have worked
as health care professionals to bring hope, compassion
and justice to the lives of people infected and affected
by HIV/AIDS. Why these many years of silence?
As a person who has been involved in the epidemic since
1987 as an RN, activist, organizer, caregiver and founder
of a Catholic Worker house of hospitality for homeless
people living with AIDS, I applaud the breaking of this
silence with the article on the distinguished career of
Dr. Fauci. He is one government official and physician
who really did learn how to listen to the cries of the
poor, the pain of the outcast and the intelligence of the
activists when, due in large part to endemic cultural and
religious homophobia, few ears among the government bureaucracies
were open to any of those voices. For too many years, the
doors of the power brokers and politicians where slammed
shut and the cries ignored. Tony was different. He listened,
he heard, he learned and he acted in a way that began an
unprecedented historic change at the FDA and NIH in the
way new drugs are investigated, researched, approved and
made available to people with life threatening diseases.
He made room at the tables of power for the affected/infected
with HIV when there were no invitations or seats at those
tables, thereby breaking fossilized models of health care
policy decision-making. He helped to open up a path of
liberation and healing for people who felt disempowered
and patronized by a health care system more concerned about
profits of insurance companies than with the justice of
universal health care for all residents of this wealthy
nation. Thanks Tony.
Michael Harank RN '76
HIV/HCV Coordinator/Highland
Hospital
Oakland, CA
P.S. I live in the only county in the United States (Alameda
County in northern California) that has declared itself
in a state of emergency due to the rising numbers of men,
women and children (especially people of color) who are
infected by HIV. If there are any alumni who would like
to assist me in a campaign to purchase a large Catholic
Worker house of hospitality for the care of the homeless
with AIDS here in Oakland, Calif., please contact me at
the following address: 6575 Heather Ridge Way, Oakland,
CA. 94611 or email me at mharank@earthlink.net
