An Open Letter to the Hierarchy of Boston College:
Greetings Sisters and Brothers:
On this the Sunday we celebrate the Solemnity of Corpus Christi, I reach out to you in a time of great global upheaval because I have been distressed by your communications and your actions. However, I warmly received your invitation for advice and support. I was encouraged that the second letter from the office of the president was signed by others including John Butler aka "Fr Jack" because he helped me to understand and receive the Love of God. At first, I was saddened that you were not listening, that you had so hardened your hearts that you refused to see the continuing movement of that Love rolling forward, as it has for generations before us and millions of millennia before our earliest ancestors. The words of Deuteronomy 29:4 came to mind, But to this day theĀ LordĀ has not given you a mind to understand, or eyes to see, or ears to hear. I believe that you want to learn to listen better. When I was a student, Fr Jack spoke often of developing our Christian virtues while we ālive in the tensionā of all things, including conflict, privilege, birth, love, loneliness. While I was a student, Fr Jack was willing to sit and listen to me through both of our tears and it is with this trust and agape that I ask you to read my letter.
Ā Right now, the tension that we so often shy away from has again been exposed on a camera. Perhaps video is a version of reality we are more willing to believe because it minimizes human bias while registering what is in view and earshot. We have a tendency to trust our technology more than each other. Stop-motion photography emerged into motion-picture videos because Eadweard Muybridge wanted to win a bet on whether all four feet of a horse came off the ground at the same time. We were not sure how horses ran because they move at a rate our eyes cannot process. We have learned to press pause, slow down, rewind, replay, so we can better digest something or figure out how it works. By capturing multiple stages of a horseās gallop, we discovered that indeed the horse does appear in one frame to be suspended in mid air, feet tucked underneath. However, the breakthrough from that picture only makes sense within the context of the entire project.
Ā Most things that seem effortless from afarāplaying an instrument, sleight of hand tricks, various dancing stylesācan be learned by slowing down and taking the time to learn step by step. So it is with becoming a better version of ourselves, closer to the Way in which God envisions us capable. It takes humility to stand in front of a mirror and recognize, Everything I am, I have learned from my surroundings. In my repetition, I have adopted it. Whether healthy or hurtful, we have consumed what we knew to be available and what we thought we needed.
Ā From the speed of the dragonflyās wings to the movements of a mushroom, we now live in such a miraculous age that we can see in way we could before barely reach with our most imaginative dreams. We have been called for ages, since before our faith emerged, to follow the Grandest Dream, the Dream Dr. King brought back to our attention when you were young. Where have you gone since then? How have you worked to widen the embrace of a church and a university that dares continue to call itself catholic, that is āwholeā or āuniversalā? I sincerely hope you will welcome this question as something you will bring to prayer, not as any condemnation.
Ā I am grateful for my Ignatian-informed spirituality, especially as I have learned it from the context of Salvadorans. It has given me profound graces of discernment and courage to follow my desire to do what is right and just. Conversations with my professors and friends in the service learning ministries fueled my curiosity and left me with wisdom I continue to heed. More than anything, I am grateful for the relationships I forged at BC. Those friends set the bar for me and I love them all dearly. It is after hearing so much frustration with the leadership of our alma mater that I write this to encourage you to open your ears and hearts and pray for your own strength, courage and humility.Ā
When we hear from anotherās experience, it allows us to tread more lightly because we become more aware of how we may affect another, even unknowingly. Thomas Berry encourages us to join the rest of Creation in becoming a mutually enhancing presence to the natural world. I received so much of my emotional education as a student from protests and retreats in which I participated and events put on by organizations that uplifted students like the Thea Bowman AHANA and Intercultural Center and the Womenās Center as well as from various lecture series. My experiences while employed by BC served as examples of healthy mentorships that I continue to cherish, with the exception of my time working with BC Dining, whose workers do not receive the respect and dignity they deserve. All of these relationships have formed me in my faith.
I say this because you know that while Boston College has many outstanding qualities, there are also many moral blind spots in its very foundation that need to be corrected. Currently, many voices have informed you that it does not seem that you are truly listening to their request for you to examine your own consciences. You know what you need to do already and we want you to feel like you can take the financial risk of slowing down, especially during a global pandemic, to breathe. You need to pause so that the health and safety of the entire Boston College community will be protected against the virulence of both racism and covid19. We all need to slow down and pray.
Before you ask survivors to recount their complex experiences of racial trauma, it is imperative that you do your homework first by learning from the work already available to you thanks to people such as Resmaa Menakem. Doing so will provide you with greater awareness and support you in continuing to listen to the uncomfortable truths and to affirm, validate and learn from the people who offer them to you. I believe this is your desire. Such awareness will also help you as you continue to expand the reach of the Heights with efforts like the Pine Manor Institute and the forthcoming school of engineering so that all will truly feel welcome. I am ever grateful for what I have received from my time and relationships at Boston College. It is time to make the humble shift to listen to the voices you have helped develop for over a century and a half.Ā
You employ brilliant faculty and staff. May I suggest you take some time to imagine the process Pope Benedict XVI underwent with the power of the Holy Spirit that led the Church to elect our first pope from the Global South? Perhaps this may look like appointing an interim administration that draws from the diversity of our school community so that you may be more available to the task in front of you. In the meantime, you could have a discernment retreat so you may better share in Christian praxis. Pray, receive spiritual direction and spend time studying a couple of books like Knowing Christ Crucified: The Witness of African American Religious Experience by M Shawn Copeland (2018) and University Ethics: How Colleges Can Build and Benefit from a Culture ofĀ EthicsĀ byĀ JamesĀ F.Ā KeenanĀ S.J. (2015). Spend some time in the company of He. This is what is important right now.Ā
Our community wants you to recognize different perspectives than the ones you are used to so you can better serve those in your charge. We must all have the humility to ask for strength and clarity so we can see how we have hurt others in our thoughts, words and deeds, in what we have done and especially in what we have failed to do. I had just turned fifteen when I first witnessed the Boston College community asking you to do better. That was in 2006 at my brotherās commencement, when a person with an open record of human rights atrocities was awarded an honorary degree, despite the outcries and letters sent to you. Since then, I have been encouraged by this community to listen and act according to the Christian values I am always being taught. The Gospel is a story of love overcoming the forces of death. Life is a constant invitation to join the rest of creation in bending the arc of the moral universe. In other words, we are called to commit to doing better everyday. We must denounce these same forces of death that murdered our Messiah because we believe in the Resurrection.
As professed Christians, we do not fear poverty, or misfortune, because we recognize that God loves and cares for all of Creation, regardless of where we exist in the universe. We also know that God hears the cry of the people and will judge those who are unjust, as they have treated others, which is emphasized explicitly in Matthewās Gospel (13:13-15, the Sermon on the Mount, 18:21-35, 25:31-46). We live two thousand years after Christ and still we implicitly uphold systems that legally execute innocent beings because their existence has been shunned, deemed as less important than the comfort and security of the powers that be. Christ, in words and deeds, worked to abolish the forces of death that simultaneously sought to destroy Him. We profess His Resurrection as the triumph of Godās Love.Ā
This is the tradition into which I was born, raised and educated. The Bible, I learned, teaches us how to read it. As shown in the opening, competing Creation stories, there is always more than one story that gets at the truth. We emerged from the universe as vulnerable creatures and we have maintained a fiction that we can protect ourselves from all harm as long as we build greater defenses. Jesus teaches us to let go of this desire to control, to give up our power and trust that God will take care of us regardless of our fancy technology, our financial instruments and man-made creations. Before the State legally lynches Him, He shows us how to pray. In repeating and ritualizing this, we commit to doing Godās will on Earth as it is in Heaven. He shows us how to defend ourselves against temptations, that we need isolation and nature to help still our minds from the everlasting urgency of the moment. Most of all, Jesus shows us how to love our neighbor as explained in the parable of the Good Samaritan. This is what is shared with us directly through Scripture, but can also be learned from the lives of Dorothy Day and Martin Gugino. I can no longer accept that Boston College will not live up to its mission in fear of the backlash from its benefactors. It is time for those who hold the power to listen to the wisdom that reverberates across the campus and the world. I will continue to pray that your imagination may be free to see more than you thought possible. May we ask for Godās grace as we continue to contemplate and celebrate the Real Presence of the Body and Blood of Christ, given to us so that we may confess our sinfulness and join the choirs in Heaven in proclaiming Godās Love for all.
