|
I n t h e T r e n c h e s
Loyal at Loyola
By Nathan J. Jun
|
This Rock
Volume 10, Number 1
 February 1999 
|
|
|
I first met Ignatius Loyola in 1993, 437 years after the beloved saint returned to his master. At the time I was a high school freshman who had grown disillusioned with the faith after nine years of ambiguous parochial schooling. My relationship with the Church was grounded in culture and family tradition rather than love for Christ. Moreover, my catechetical training had rendered me skeptical of a Church that seemed weak and conciliatory. These misgivings eventually gave way to full-fledged atheism.
All of this changed when I discovered Loyola at Saint Ignatius High School (Cleveland, Ohio), an institution renowned for its commitment to religious and academic excellence. Once I enrolled I was initiated into a secret world where autocratic Jesuits traded phrases like "ad majorem Dei gloriam" and "viri pro aliis." Little by little I discovered the true Church whose existence for me had been relegated to footnotes and sentimentality. I came face to face with Christ the teacher who commands rather than suggests; with an ecclesia possessing of truth rather than good ideas; and with a soldier-saint who had dedicated his life to "the greater glory of God."
The Jesuit fathers were noticeably different from the religious educators of my junior high and elementary schools. They taught unequivocally; they spoke of tradition, orthodoxy, and the honor that comes to a young man who commits himself body and soul to Christ. They were pious, geared toward the acquisition of truth, and marked by a sense of humor. These latter-day sons of Ignatius had squared their shoulders against prevailing opinions within the Church and the whole world, and for this reason they became heroes in my eyes. By my senior year in high school I had renounced my former nihilism.
Brimming with newfound faith, I decided to continue my education at one of the great Jesuit universities: Loyola University Chicago. Three hundred and fourteen years after Ignatius’ death a beautiful campus bearing his name had been constructed on the shores of Lake Michigan. Were he alive to walk its glowing acres, Ignatius would doubtlessly thank God that such a paradise had been erected in his honor. When I first beheld this campus I marveled at the way in which the buildings seemed to exude the ingenuity of the Jesuits—the way the very trees seemed to stand as monuments to the glory of God and his Church. Here my training under the Jesuits would come to fruition.
Within a few months I learned that Loyola University had far more in common with the parish school of my youth than the orthodox Saint Ignatius High School. Non-believing professors openly criticized the Church. Clergy and theologians extolled the virtues of "respectful disobedience." In this environment I became aware for the first time of the lamentable divisions which beset the whole of the Catholic world. Furthermore, I realized — much to my chagrin—that the same order that produced my high school teachers had also spawned some of the most contumacious clergy within the modern Church.
I seriously considered leaving Loyola. Gradually, however, I discovered faculty, alumni, and other students who were similarly disillusioned. I befriended older Jesuits who bemoaned Loyola’s decline and were eager to work with "new blood." Inspired by orthodox movements on other Catholic campuses like Notre Dame and Georgetown, we banded together and founded in early 1998 a group called the Edmund Campion Society. Our chosen patron was a Jesuit martyr who refused to give up his beloved England to Reformation heresy. Like Saint Edmund, we resolved to fight the good fight for Loyola—to preserve its Catholic identity and restore it to its former prominence.
The going was somewhat slow for the Society. Though we benefited from the leadership of Dr. Dennis Martin, an assistant professor of theology, we were little more than a rag-tag bunch of students and priests. Most people were unaware of our existence; those who were tended to pigeon-hole us as a raving right-wing group. In the spring of 1998 we launched our first major program, Catholic Faith Week. It included lectures, a public recitation of the rosary, and an exquisite Latin vespers (featuring the noted schola cantorum of Chicago’s Saint John Cantius parish). Though many of these events were sparsely attended the Society succeeded in making its presence known on campus.
I was elected president of the society following Catholic Faith Week. My goals for the forthcoming academic year were to heighten the influence of the Society and to garner increased support from the student body and the administration. Though we were disheartened by the apathy of the university community, my compatriots and I enjoyed success in the fall semester of 1998. We sponsored well-publicized lectures by two eminent Catholic intellectuals, Dr. John Finnis from the Universities of Oxford and Notre Dame, and Dr. Janet Smith from the University of Dallas.Both lectures drew large crowds and helped to emphasize the mission of the society and promote our presence on campus.
Due in large part to our outspoken support of the Holy Father’s statement Ex corde ecclesiae (1990) we have been met with hostility on campus. Earlier last year University Ministry sponsored a float in one of Chicago’s "gay pride" parades. When I argued in Loyola’s student newspaper that this action had undermined Church teaching, the university at large reacted with vitriol. Not only was I castigated for weeks in the newspaper but my life was threatened by numerous anonymous phone calls and e-mail messages. To this day I am astounded that a letter advocating fidelity to the magisterium caused such a violent uproar at a Catholic university.
We have not allowed these unfortunate happenings to thwart us. As the second semester begins we eagerly await our second annual Catholic Faith Week. The crowning event this year will be a lecture by Francis Cardinal George, archbishop of Chicago. We look forward to his visit, especially because he is an outspoken advocate of ecclesial control over the universities. Moreover, we hope to engage our opponents in peaceable dialogue, in the interest of avoiding any further mean-spirited conflict.
The Edmund Campion Society will continue to fight for the vindication of Loyola University Chicago. We pray that, by God’s grace, Catholic universities throughout the world—as well as the orders that administer them—will renounce their doubt and renew their obedience. Only then will they come to a newfound understanding of their mission: to teach rather than to contradict, enlighten rather than deceive, and seek the truth with a mind to the greater glory of God.
Nathan J. Jun is a sophomore at Loyola University Chicago.
|
Catholic Answers
