[MUSIC PLAYING] Good evening. I'm Karen Kiefer. And I'm the director of The
Church in the 21st Century Center. And thank you for coming. Thank you to our
co-sponsors this evening, the School of Theology
and Ministry, the theology department, and the university
communications team. They have played such a role
in putting this event together. And for that, we thank them. I'd also like to
thank Nicholas Burns and our panelists for their
participation this evening. You're in for a treat. The Church of the
21st Century Center was founded over
15 years ago to be a catalyst and a
resource for the renewal of our Catholic Church. And we continue that promise by
providing resources and events like this evening. There are a couple
of housekeeping items that I just want to get to. When you came into the theater,
you were given an index card. The card is for you to fill out
a question, a question that we might be able to
ask our panelists. So if you fill out a question,
I ask that you take the card and then pass it
in to the middle, so that we can collect
the cards in the middle of the program in baskets. So we'll come down each aisle. OK, so that's first. Second, we are live on Facebook. So text any of your
friends and family members and let them know. Now, for those people
that have said to me, I'm not on Facebook, you can
go to the BC C21 website. That's bc.edu backslash c21. And, again, this
program is live. Don't you just love technology? Also, we're videotaping
this event this evening. And the video of this event
will be up on our website, again bc.edu backslash c21, next
week to share with others. I now have the great
privilege of introducing the visionary of the C21 Center
and our 25th president, who has been serving Boston
College for the past 22 years. Let's welcome Father
William P. Leahy. [APPLAUSE] I join Karen in welcoming you to
this Church in the 21st Century event. And I'm also delighted
that so many of you can be with us tonight. Our discussion and panel,
I think, is most timely. The Pennsylvania
Grand Jury report earlier in the
summer about decades old cases of clerical
sexual abuse, the alleged misconduct by
former Archbishop McCarrick, and the inability of
the American hierarchy and Vatican officials
to agree on new policies to address sexual abuse
by priests and bishops have taken a serious toll
on the Catholic community in our country, leaving too
many Catholics hurt, angry, and questioning their continued
involvement in the Church. I regard this evening as
a two-fold opportunity to not only reflect on
our faith, its origins and evolution and
what nourishes it, but also to consider our
connections with the Church and the Catholic
community around us and how they might
be strengthened. Certainly, our faith
and sense of what it means to be a Catholic
and part of the Church do not depend on one
person or one event, but they have been and continue
to be shaped by family, prayer, sacraments, relationships,
and service of others. I look forward to hearing from
the individuals on our panel tonight. So let me introduce
our moderator and put the program
in his capable hands. He is a 1978 graduate
of Boston College and was commencement speaker
and an honorary degree recipient in 2002. Much of his life
has been devoted to service of our country and
to international diplomacy. He has been US ambassador
to Greece and NATO, an undersecretary of state
for political affairs. Today, he is the
Goodman Family professor of the practice of diplomacy
and international relations at the Kennedy School of
Government at Harvard. Please join me in welcoming
Professor R. Nicholas Burns to his alma mater. [APPLAUSE] Father, thanks you. Good evening, ladies
and gentlemen, what an honor to
be with all of you. And the first thing I
want to do is pay tribute to our president of
this great university. He has been a real
leader over the last 22 years in every possible way
and on this issue, this very difficult issue that
we'll be discussing tonight, a true leader. So, Father, thank you for
your leadership and guidance as we go forward. This is going to be a
difficult discussion. I want to thank the Church
in the 21st Century and Karen Kiefer for their leadership
in bringing us together, thank our panelists whom
I'm going to be introducing in just a minute. But I did want to say this. We're meeting because the
Catholic Church is in crisis. And if the Church
is in crisis, that means we're in
crisis as individuals and as a Catholic family. The clergy abuse scandal,
we know about it. We've all reflected about it. We've read lots about it. It's been devastating
to Catholics in the United States
and worldwide-- the absence of
decisive leadership by the Vatican, an absence
of decisive leadership by the American bishops. Ross Douthat, a columnist for
The New York Times, a Catholic, wrote a column recently entitled
"Sheep Without Shepherds." He talks about the sorry
spectacle, just recently, of American bishops
being told to stand down by the Vatican on any
action to resolve the abuse crisis until Rome could meet
first several months from now. And Douthat concluded,
"the Church is in stalemate and confusion, increasingly
unsure of what it teaches, led by men who cannot agree
on how it might and must be cleansed." This is a true crisis of
trust in the leadership of the Church, of our own faith. And we'll examine
that this evening. Many of us here-- perhaps not the
students, because time has passed since 2001 and 2002--
remember the shock and almost the sense of disbelief and anger
about the first revelations that came forward here in
Boston about Saint Julia Parish in Weston, Massachusetts. It's a credit to Boston
College that our university wants to face this crisis
squarely, to discuss it openly, and to find a way forward
for all of us in the Church. Because the Church
is worth saving. We all know that
in our parishes. We know it at Boston
College, given the extraordinarily beneficial
influence of the Jesuit community to all of us
who've been students here, or professors, or staff here. We know it globally,
because the Church is one of the great
global institutions. Of any institution you can
think of in the world today, the Church unites
1.3 billion people in Brazil, and Mexico,
and here in North America, in Italy, in France, in Germany,
in South Africa, and Congo, and Nigeria, in
Japan, and Malaysia. There are Catholics everywhere. There's one church
that unites us. And that church
is frail at times. It makes mistakes,
major mistakes at times. But it's a powerful voice for
human justice, a very powerful voice for the 65
million refugees and internally displaced
people in the world today. And so we know this
church is worth saving. And that begins with us. One final observation before
I introduce our great speakers tonight-- of course, we're
determined to uncover the truth of what
happened, to expose it, and to reform the Church, so
that it may never happen again. But I think it's
important to say that we are talking about
a minority of people in the Church who
committed these sins, who broke the law, who betrayed
a trust that we had in them. The majority are faithful
servants of the Church. The majority are our professors
and our Jesuit community here at Boston College. The majority are the dependable,
hard working people of faith that we encounter in parish
life in Massachusetts and around the country. And so we're very, very
grateful for Father Leahy, for Father Jack Butler. I'm grateful for
Father Tony Pena. He's been my lifelong friend
since he taught my religion class when I was 14 years
old at St. James the Church in Wellesley. He's been my mentor. And you think about Father
Pena, and Father Butler, and Father Leahy, and hundreds
of other Jesuit priests and priests of all
denominations here, they are a powerful
voice for our Church. And we give thanks to them. So we have four people,
two professors here at Boston College, two
students at Boston College. We're going to talk
about this crisis. And let me just
introduce them to you. You have a program. You have their biographies
in front of you. Professor Tiziana
Dearing is professor of macro practice at the
School of Social Work here at Boston College. And she's co-director for the
Center of Social Innovation. And she's going to be
appearing onstage momentarily. We had this worked out. Tiziana, wherever you
are, now is the time to come forward and speak. And here she is. [LAUGHTER] They didn't want me to come--
wait, wait, wait, wait. They were holding me. [APPLAUSE] Let me also introduce to
you one of our students. In fact, he's the
youngest person on stage. He's one of the youngest
persons here tonight. Sean Barry is a sophomore in
the Morrissey College of Arts and Sciences, class of 2021. He's a political science
and history major. He's Navy ROTC. And we welcome
Sean to this stage. And here he comes. [APPLAUSE] Stephanie Sanchez-- graduate
school student in the School of Theology and Ministry
at Boston College. She earned her master's
in social work in May. She'll receive her master's in
theology in a couple of weeks. That's pretty extraordinary. Stephanie, please join us. [APPLAUSE] And last, but
certainly not least, professor of theology, Stephen
J. Pope from the Morrissey College of Arts and Sciences. Professor Pope has
been here since 1988. He is a prolific writer and
thinker about Christian ethics. And he is also
joining us on stage. [APPLAUSE] So welcome, everybody. Here is the order of battle. We're going to discuss two
big issues for the next 40 minutes or so, 45 minutes. And then we're going to go
to you for your questions. And Karen's already told
you, please write questions on the pieces of paper. We'll read them, as
many as we can take. And we'll ask our
panel about them. The first question I want
to address to our panel is about how the church
crisis has affected you as individuals. How has it affected your faith? How have you
struggled with this? What has been your
thought process? Where have you ended up? And the second question, it's a
big question for our community. And that is how do we
move forward collectively? How must the Church respond? How must the Church
evolve and reform itself to regain the trust of Catholics
here in America and worldwide? Tiziana, you're a Catholic. You've led Catholic Charities
here in Massachusetts. In my view, you live
the social gospel. How has this affected you? And, welcome. I appreciate the question. And I actually
want to start by-- it's a two part question. How did it affect you? And how did it
affect your faith? Right. And I think it's
important to note that I believe part
of the reason I became the first woman to run Catholic
Charities in the Archdiocese of Boston was a
result of the crisis. I think it was part of-- not all of, but part of--
what led the Archdiocese to decide that it was important
to put a woman in that very visible leadership role. And I was that first woman. And that then led to a very
acute and specific experience in running one of the social
ministries of the Church while being female,
which was very much a part of the experience. Does that make sense, the
dimension of the experience? And I actually think it's
really important to note that, that it is part of the
reason that the Church and the Archdiocese
recognized that it was time to embrace female
leadership in a very specific and present way. So for me, personally,
I was 36 years old. It was a large organization. We were going through
a financial crisis as a result of both the sexual
abuse scandal and the adoption crisis that happened
for Catholic Charities. And about six months
after I came on, we experienced the
economic downturn of 2008. So it was a profound time. And what was
interesting about that is that then required great
faith, I think, to do that work and attempt to lead and
be of service in that way. So I think that's important
to note on the personal side. And then in terms of my faith,
I want to be really clear. It didn't affect my faith. It tattered my relationship with
the institution of the Church. And it is a relationship that,
I think, is tattered now, but that's different
than my faith. And it didn't affect my faith. I am angry more
than I'd like to be. I am continuing to have
a gender experience as I engage with
my faith in a way that I'm not always looking
to have a gender experience. And as a mother, who had her
first child less than 12 months into the scandal, and then
the second child choosing to baptize them both in the
Church in those early '00s, it affects me as a parent. But that's a multifaceted
set of experiences, and the thing that holds
constant in all of it is my faith. Tiziana, you're
professor of social work, obviously, here at BC. My daughter's one
of the students in that program, the Graduate
School of Social Work. Do you take some solace
that, despite the anger and frustration that I think
everybody feels, that you've described as part of
the social gospel, very much part of the Church,
especially the Church that we grew up in some decades
ago as young kids, you can actually put your
faith into action every day? Does that help you
get through this? That helps me get
through everything. I don't mean to be glib,
but that is the engine and the meaning of life. And that's why, despite these
crises, my faith isn't shaken. Because that is the
engine and meaning of life to be of service to others. To fulfill in my daily choices
the solidarity and deep understanding of our
shared human dignity is where meaning comes from. It happens that the social
work profession, in particular, embraces a set of principles
in the profession that are utterly consistent with
Catholic social teaching. And I find that profound. But that's the meaning
of everything for me. So I think the short
answer is yeah. Thank you very much. Sean, welcome. I was thinking about you today,
how I would introduce you. I reflected on the fact that
your whole life as a Catholic has been lived with this
crisis as a backdrop. I mean for the students here. Because this was first revealed
in a big way in 2001 and 2002. And so that's a special burden. It takes courage for
you to be here tonight. How has this affected
you as a Catholic? You grew up in the Church. How would you answer
that question? That's actually
something that I was going to mention
when I started, when I was thinking about
this question is that this is the life
that I was born into, that the Church is in scandal. And it's disheartening. And I think that it
doesn't mean that there weren't problems earlier. It's just about
the age we live in and the speed with which
information travels. But something that I realized
is that as you get older in this kind of environment,
your world begins to expand. And that the things that
were distant from you and these experiences
and the news starts to become the stories
and the personal narratives of people that you know. And one example of that
would be that this summer I got to know a student who
had been directly affected by what's happening in
the Church right now. And at first, your
first reaction is anger. And it's a lack
of understanding. You're not even able to at first
emphasize with that person, truly, because of
all of that hurt. And you don't want
to take away from that individual experience. And then as you start to
learn more things about maybe affects, communities nearby
you, those names of towns that you hear on
the local news, you start to think, oh, actually,
I know people who work there. And I know people who go
to church at the dioceses. And everything just
starts to really sink in. And I think that my
first response was rage. Tiziana, you mentioned how
anger and how you still have this anger there. I think that I've
let go of it now, but my first response is rage. I remember when I
first identified this, I was sitting in mass. And they were doing
the collection. And all I could
think of going to put my dollar inside the
collection basket was, where is this money going? Is this going to
actually help the poor? Or is this going,
because of mistakes that the Church
has made and will they continue to make them? And to speak to the faith
part of your question, my faith hasn't been shaken. If anything, it's grown. Because I've realized that,
despite all of this anger and despite all of this
rage, I would much rather turn to forgiveness, ways
that we can grow and change as an institution. Because my faith
is not the Church. The Church is an
institution that mobilizes my faith, that
has brought it to me, that has educated me into it. And that's not invaluable. But at the same time,
that can be changed. It makes mistakes. And it's not easy. I still have anger as well. But I think that it's my duty. And just learning more
about your family's history, too, you realize that
these are things that have been going on for a while. And that doesn't mean that it
can't change in the future. And, Sean, can I just ask-- I mean, obviously, you
had Catholic education. You had a family
life as a Catholic. I know that was
important to you. Has being at Boston College
just this last year and a half been helpful to you in
maintaining that faith on this campus? Tremendously. When I was growing up, my
father had this expression when I would ask him why do
we have to go to mass today. I would just want to go home
and change after my soccer game. Or why can't I just
open my presents at 7:00 instead of
8:00 after mass? And he would say that
I felt the same way when I was a little kid. But, someday, it
just starts clicking. And I think that that was
a good way of putting it. Because I don't think that
it doesn't just click. There's times when you feel
in sync with your faith and not in sync with your faith. And I would say
that until before I came to Boston College, my
faith wasn't always constant. And I that here I really
felt into that identity. And that happened
through conversation with people like
you in the audience through the things
that you're exposed to and a Jesuit education,
such as the school, but also mainly just, again,
conversations, interacting with people, seeing
how other people have similar stories of faith
that you had in your life when you were growing up. Thank you, Sean. Stefanie, I know you've
thought about these issues. You've been at BC as a
graduate student, two degrees, very impressive. Thank you. You've had a lot of
conversations about this. Tell us your story. Yeah. Yeah, no, it's
definitely been something that has been on my mind and
on my heart for a while now. I think as a student who
is pursuing a master's in theology, it's something
that we are constantly wrestling with. And I think it's something that,
as Catholics and as Christians, we're all called
to ask ourselves. You know, what are we
doing in this Church? How are our hearts being
moved in this moment? And so it's really allowed me
to take the information I'm learning in the classroom
and really think about, OK, like, what does this mean to
be a Catholic in this time? And I think that's
something that I've had to really take to heart
into conversations and mentors. I mean, even this weekend,
I was home for Thanksgiving with my family and talking
to them and saying, you know, mom, dad,
like, what is this like for you and your thoughts? And my grandmother was there. And talking to the people
that are in our lives-- and what does this mean for
us as Catholics and believers in the gospel? But it's absolutely affected
the way in my passion to get a master's in theology. If anything, it's
given me more fire. It's added some fuel to
the fire I would say. And it's allowed me to
really remember, like, why are we serving. Why do we go about loving
every day, to follow Christ, and to live in that love? And if that means that we
need to grow and change with the Church, then that's
what we're called to do. So it's absolutely
been something that has been on my mind and
on my heart and something that we're constantly engaging
with at the School of Theology Ministry, but even
here on main campus. We like to think we're
different worlds, but we're all doing
the same work. And I spend a lot of time
in the Kairos Program. And these are
questions that we're asking with our undergrad
students as well. So this isn't just something
that this is a graduate issue or a professor issue. This is everyone who is
Catholic and desirous to ask these questions. And my students are
asking these questions. And I love to be able
to wrestle it with them. My goal is to challenge them
to ask these questions, to not be afraid to say, what
does this look like for us? And so it's been a real
gift to accompany students in asking questions
about our faith. So, Stephanie, maybe we
could take your experience and just extrapolate
it out wide. Sure. Latinos are becoming, they'll
be the majority of the Church under the age of 18. Yeah. We know that a lot of the
future of the global church is in Latin America-- Yes. --and Africa. How is this crisis
affecting the rest of the world or the world that
you know or the community? Yeah. No, absolutely. Being Hispanic and being
Latina is absolutely something that I hold very
dear in recognizing that a lot of my brothers and
sisters are leaving the Church. While they're holding a lot of
the positions in the growing church, they're also
leaving to other faiths, because they don't feel
nourished by this community. And that hurts me. And I think that should hurt us. And so I think we
need to ask, like, why are people leaving our church? Is it because we're not
reaching out to them? Is it because our masses, our
communities, aren't welcoming? Like, what is it
about this place that people are leaving,
because they don't feel fulfilled by this church? And so that's
something that's really been on my heart of our
each of our populations really being served? Even if we project the numbers
of Latinos and HispanicX, you know, communities,
we have to pay attention to those that are leaving
and joining other faiths, because they don't
feel as connected. And that's certainly
something that, yeah, is going on as well. Thank you. When we get to the
second question, we ought to talk more about the
global nature of this crisis. Sure. Because it's not just
the United States. It's the rest of the world-- Yeah. --that's dealing
with this as well. Thank you very much. Professor Pope,
Stephen, one of the ways I prepared for this
evening, because I am the least knowledgeable
person of the five people on this stage, was to
read a paper that Professor Pope has been writing. He's good enough to
share it with us. And it's an extraordinary
look at the scale and depth of the crisis. And how has this affected you
as a professor of theology, but also you and your faith? In one way, I don't
know what to say. I'm a professor. So I'm supposed to
be good with words and have lots of words
we keep professing, professing, professing. But I really think the
depth of the problem is so profound that
we're just beginning to come to terms with it. I think there are layers of
deception, misplaced loyalty, hidden suffering that we're
just beginning to hear about, especially if we place this
in a global context where a lot of churches
around the world don't have an aggressive press,
an independent government with districts attorney, where
the church is more off-bounds. So I have to say I did and I
do find it shaking to my faith. It's shaking not in
the sense that I'm going to go abandon
the Catholic Church. It's shaking in
that I continually have to wrestle with the
hypocrisy of the Church. It's shaking to me, because
my faith is very ecclesial. It's very churchy in the sense
that I do believe in my heart that the Church was
founded by Jesus. As you know, the
people he picked were a rather unsavory group. And they were not always on
the ball and not always towers of strength. But there are also a lot of
good well-meaning disciples who have their
good days and bad. And I guess that continues. I guess my faith is challenged
on the level of asking where is God in all this, the
question of divine providence. Where is God leading us? It certainly feels to me
like we're in a dark forest and we've lost the trail. And the guys that were supposed
to bring the flashlights forgot to bring them. And we can't see the
stars, because the canopy is blocking us. And we're really
stumbling in the dark. And, yeah, there are
things that have been done that have been really good. The Dallas Charter had some
really important innovations in 2002. But, in some ways,
that's just the beginning as a short-term immediate
solution to the problem of child sexual abuse. But my faith is
also challenged not in the performance of
living up to norms, but on what kind of a
community do we want to be. What kind of a community do
we want the Church to be, can we relate to? Can we find the face
of Jesus in the Church? So that's the, you
know, suspended state I'm in right now and I think
a lot of my colleagues are in. You know, Father Leahy
asked us to be honest. So that's my honest answer. I'm wrestling. I'm struggling. I'm struggling as
a theologian that's trying to convince students to
take Christianity seriously, to see the beauty that
I see in the Church. I'm struggling with adolescents
in the classroom who are living in a world that
is increasingly secular. Our society is in a freefall
regarding religious practice with under 30-year-olds. We're also living
in a society that has a problem, a
rampant problem, of sexual abuse in
any and all industries and domains of human society
from sports to athletics and athletics to
entertainment to academia to the military to politics. You name it. We have a serious problem of
abusing minors and abusing women. I don't think we're getting it. I really don't. I think there are a lot
of well-meaning people, but I think we really
do have a crisis. And it's an ongoing crisis. And I think the
crisis we see now is pointing to problems that
have existed for a long time. Professor Pope,
thank you for that. I think we needed to hear about
the dimensions of the crisis. You've given us a good
description of it. As a faculty member,
as a theologian, how has it affected
your work since 2002? Has it changed the
trajectory of what you thought you would be doing? Has it led you down
different roads? Are there answers here? Maybe start thinking about
this second question. If church in the 21st
century was the response by Boston College, the
right response in 2002, the logical question is,
what's our response now as we see the crisis is
deeper than we thought? Because of the grand jury
report in Pennsylvania, because of the revelations
about Cardinal McCarrick that were shocking,
how has it changed you as a professor or your field? And what's the way
out of that forest? The second part of that's a
lot harder than the first, the way out. I told you I'm feel
like I'm in the forest. But what this has convinced
me of is of three things. First, I think we really
need to listen to victims. I think we need to have a way of
hearing the stories of victims and not rush to
superficial assurances, not rush to promote
forgiveness too early, not to minimize what the pain
is that they've gone through, and not to underestimate
the pain of the shame that they feel as
people who were abused. So that's the first thing. We need to listen. I mean all of us. I think it's a mistake to say
the hierarchy is a big problem. There are challenges there. But every person has to be
open in their heart to listen. The second aspect
of it to me is I think I've become more committed
to trying to cultivate empathy in myself and in my students
than I did when I came here. When I came out of
graduate school, I was steeped in discourse
about arguments and evidence and fallacies and, mainly,
how to operate cognitively with precision and rigor. And as I've been
at BC 30 years now, long time, I've
come to see my work more as intellectual
and also spiritual and emotional formation. I want to help people grow
into mature, responsible, spiritually deep human beings. I can only do that if
I'm on the same path. And I can do that
if I can help them and me, my students and
myself, become people of empathy and compassion. Without empathy and
compassion, your reasoning just becomes self-serving
or rationalizing or self-deception. And that's maybe the
most profound problem of this whole
scandal is the depth of dishonesty in the church. So the first point is listening. The second is empathy. The third is I think
we need to have a much bigger imagination
about the kind of community the church can be. I think we're too locked into
assumptions about structures and forms and relationships
without thinking blue sky about what
the church could be and how we in our own lives
as Catholics or Christians can make a difference
on a local level, to take responsibility
with that imagination. So those are the three
things right off the top that I think I've changed
in the course of my time here and largely stimulated by
the crisis that broke in 2002 and continues to
unfold before our eyes. Thank you. I think you've given us a
really good sense that it's not just some in the
leadership that are solely responsible for
responding and fixing the Church. It's everybody in the church
at all levels of the Church. And your idea about
new structures, that gets to reform. That gets to the necessary
institutional reform that I think the
American bishops were trying to think about when
they were told to stop. And I guess that conversation
will now continue in Rome in a couple of months time. And, Tiziana, you've
obviously thought about this. How from your
perspective, building on what Stephen has
said, are there certain elements of reform
that as Catholics we should be thinking about at
every level of the Church? Are there some obvious
things that haven't been done that should be done? How would you address that? I'm going to preface
my answer by saying that one of the frustrating
things about this kind of discussion is this is an
issue of great complexity. And I don't say that to weasel
my way out of an answer, but instead to say
that there are so many dimensions to the answer. And it's hard to acknowledge
and do justice to all of them, right? It took thousands of years
to build the institutions. So a 45 minute
conversation is going to touch the surface
of some of the changes. I will say, you know, I teach
a course on change leadership. And I've done turnaround
as a leader in charge of an organization a
couple of times including, I would argue, at
Catholic Charities. And in those moments,
there are some things that you need to do. And then there are some things
that you need to do fast. So for this
conversation, I decided to focus on a couple of really
practical things and things that I think need
to be done fast. In the early 2000s,
I got asked to and accepted the responsibility
of serving on a committee that I don't think
a lot of people knew was happening, which
was called the Full Financial Disclosure Committee
for the Archdiocese. And it was just as
Cardinal Law was leaving and Cardinal O'Malley
was coming on. And it was a group
of lay people. And our job was to dive into
every corner of the finances of the Archdiocese of
Boston, every corner, look at every number, every
transaction, every use of money and create a pattern
of transparency that then led to the preparation
of the financials of the Archdiocese to
begin to make decisions about how to settle lawsuits. That was, I think, an example
of exactly how lay people begin to become involved
immediately in transparency and accountability in ways
that are fairly profound, are painful, but are
necessary both to shine light and increase trust. So increasing lay engagement
in financial transparency, complete cooperation
with law enforcement and other lay institutions
that will, again, rebuild a sense of trust,
commitment, transparency, and creating partnerships
with lay people in every aspect of
the administration of the institution-- there is the pastoral
dimension of the institution and the administrative
dimension. And one doesn't have to change
any policies, practices, or procedures-- well,
that's not true. One does not have to
change any policies to deeply engaged lay
people in those things like the Full Financial
Disclosure Committee did. And there are two other
things I would say. One is one cannot go
forward with the same team. You can't. Some bishops are going
to have to change. You cannot go forward with
the same team and have a sense of trust and credibility. One has to make those
signals of change. One has to. And I think the last
thing I would say-- and I'm going to
be really honest. I actually said to a colleague-- I saw her at church on Sunday. And I said, I want to
see more women engaged. And I don't have a good
explanation other than, duh. And I need a better way to talk
about it on the panel than, duh, because that is not
in any way sophisticated. And she was like, well,
good luck with that. [LAUGHTER] So I went home, and
I thought about it. And I talked to my 16-year-old. And she said, mom, you
should just say, duh. [LAUGHTER] And you said, duh. I did. And it was effective. So, actually, I was going to
ask you, Tiziana, and Stephanie about this. Clearly, one of the
answers has to be to appreciate the role
of women in the Church, to elevate women in the
Church, to think of women as leaders of the Church. I have two cousins,
Sister Cathleen Toomey in Worcester at Assumption,
Sister Maureen Toomey, Sisters of Notre
Dame in Springfield. They've been 50 years
leaders in the Church, but largely below the surface. Is part of the answer-- I'm asking the two women
on the panel and the men-- that women need to
come forth and lead? You're a young leader. All right, I'll jump in. Yeah. Gosh, there are a lot
of good and holy women who are ready to step up. And our Church has silenced
them or put them down and said, no, you stay there. And I'm really tired of it. I really am. As someone who is about to
complete my second master's degree, I think that we
can do a lot of good work in this Church. And we're not going anywhere. Look, I think that
there's an assumption that, because we're Catholic
women, that it's like, oh, sorry to hear you're Catholic. And, like, I love
being a Catholic woman. I love it. But that also means that I'm
going to step into the shoes. I'm ready to go. Like, there's a lot of
good and beautiful work to be done by Catholic women,
by Catholic sisters, by mothers. And we need to allow
them to jump in. I think we've been so afraid
of what will women do. Or it's like, let the
bishops deal with it, let the Cardinals, let the Pope. And I love Pope Francis. I'm a huge Pope Francis fan. But let's get the
women in the room, OK? I think they've got
a lot of good to say. I would be happy
to be in the room. And I just think that, I mean,
I was raised in a family. I have an older sister. And my younger brother, like,
he's bigger than me, but, like, hear me roar. I think we need that spirit
in our church as well. Thank you. Thanks to both of you. [APPLAUSE] Sean, let me bring you in here
and these are hard issues. Part of the answer
has to be that we need to be
multi-generational in church. The hierarchy of any
institution in our society, including my university,
tend to be older people. But the answers have to
come from the younger people, the middle aged people. That's the entire church. A lot is resting on your
shoulders, not you personally-- [LAUGHTER] --but your generations to
take the Church forward. Is that discussion here
among the religious students at Boston College? And where are some of
the answers on reform? So as far as my
thoughts on reform, I'll touch on that piece. First, I would echo what
Stephen said earlier as far as the importance of
listening, the importance of accountability, and that
that needs to be done quickly. Because the longer
we wait, the less trust that we're going to
have in the Church when this blows over. And then the third
thing is community. And the important thing
with your question is to realize that the
young people in the room and myself, we are a
part of that community. And that when we continue to say
that you're the future leaders of the Church-- and it's not just in the Church,
it's in other institutions as well-- it alienates us from
what we can do now, what we can do
today in that can we influence policies and practices
and those kinds of things. To be honest, I'm not even
as educated as other people on the panel about those things. But the difficult
thing about this panel is that when you
ask this question, like, why am I
still in the Church, you have to grapple with that. I don't know the
answer to that when I was asked to speak
on this panel at first. And I think that the reason
why, I guess one of the bigger aspects of that, is
that I have the power to make small changes, the
small things that you do, whether it be
interactions with people, you know, about
women in the church. My mother is a huge reason
why I'm Catholic right now. And it was always
the small things. It wasn't always
taking me to mass. It would be pulling over
on the side of the road, seeing a man with a shopping
cart with bottles in it to go and collect
for a small change, so he could pay for
a meal and my mom rolling down the window a little
bit, handing him the money, and then just saying,
God bless you. That's what it means
to be Catholic. And those kinds of
small interactions are things that all of us,
the young people in the room, can be doing. And it's not only that we
have responsibility to, but that's something we
should want to engage. Because I know from
personal experiences and from my friends and my
peers that you really grow. And it's so much healthier
for you than staying angry. So that's kind of something that
I would love for the younger people in this room
to engage with me in is that rather than saying we're
going to be the future leaders, recognizing that, but you own
that by being a leader today, right now. So those are my thoughts on it. And thank you, Sean. [APPLAUSE] You know, I really agree
with what would said. It's not enough for someone to
say your future leaders, you and Stephanie. You have to be leaders now. And you are leaders now. You're on the stage
leading right now. One of the advantages that
we have at Boston College is that we believe
that we should be men and women of faith and
we should be in the world. And a lot of our students go
to Jesuit Volunteer Corps. Some of our students
probably worked for Tiziana at Catholic Charities. When I lived around the world,
I saw the incredible power and reach of Catholic
Relief Services as an agent of the
Church to do good things for people who needed the help. Does that help on a
generational basis that there are outlets here to
be Catholic not just in mind, not just in the Church,
the building itself, but in the world, to both
of you who are students? Yeah. I think there are so many
beautiful ways to engage our faith in service
through Campus Ministry, through the PULSE programs. I mean, there are
tons here at BC. Something that I've been
thinking about as well is also being a minister outside
of ministry roles, right? Like, we are not
just called to be Catholics in Catholic spheres,
but Catholics everywhere. That's something that has
really been on my heart, because I'm someone
who I'm looking to apply my faith into social
work practice and places that maybe are not Catholic
headquarters necessarily, but really engaging
with every person. But, yeah, there
are tons of things to do here at BC, the
4Boston programs, Appalachia programs, the Arrupe programs. I know the majority of those
are Campus Ministry related, but are so strong in
allowing young people to see what faith looks
like on the ground and working with
people side by side. Can I just add to that briefly? Please, Sean. Yes. So in addition to all
those wonderful programs, there's also this program
called Ever to Excel, which is for high school mentors. There's the Loyola
House, which is a house of Jesuit
discernment for people who are considering a
vocation in the Jesuits or another religious order. And I want to give
an anecdote here, because I think that it's
important to something we touched on earlier, which
is the idea of community, that we're living
in a secular world and that people
aren't buying in. Why are people
leaving the Church? What is happening? In my role, as president the
Knights of Columbus on campus, we are a fraternal
men's organization. And what we do is we
meet, and we work together as Catholics to discern
those different things. And we always say that when
we do our service projects we work with other people. And we do. We have people who are
Lutheran, Muslims, women work alongside of us. But something that
I realized thinking about the topics
on this panel is that do the people that we
work with that aren't Catholics feel that same sense of
identity with those core values of service, integrity, and love? And the answer was no. So a small thing that
we've been trying to do is that we started this
group called the Our Lady of Guadalupe Volunteers. And to be a member, to be
a volunteer of Our Lady, you don't need to be a Catholic. You don't need to be
a male or anything. You just have to have a
commitment to those values. And I think that the best way
to get people to not leave the Church and to
show them that what's happening with the sexual abuse
and everything, that's not the Church, that's
not what our faith is is to be willing to
take them by the hand and walk with them
on that journey. And if you're not
willing to welcome them to that sense of identity,
to that commitment, to those values, it's
not going to happen. So I think that that's
something that I'm trying to do in small ways is to
be more open to allowing people to accompany me and to fuel that
sense of belonging and being present and there for them
to have those conversations. So at this point
in the proceedings, I have to say we're not
looking at future leaders. We're looking at current
leaders in Sean and Stephanie. Thank you for giving
us some hope, really. [APPLAUSE] We're going to take
your questions. And the procedure
will be that Karen will give me the questions. I will read the questions. We'll ask the panelists
to answer them. And we'll try to get as many of
your questions in as possible. But I want to ask one last
question to all of you. But I'm going to lead
with Stephen and Tiziana, because it gets to reform. Tiziana, you said we
need some new leadership. Stephen, you said, we need
to think about structures. Are our Catholic universities
an example of the way out? My experience here
at BC is that it's a perfect, beautiful
intermingling of the Jesuit community and laypeople and
professors of all faiths and some people who aren't
particularly religious. But the institution works
as a Catholic institution. Can we look within for
some of the answers to the way out of this crisis? Tiziana. I'm trying to be respectful,
because I've talked twice and you've only talked once. You're smarter than I am. Go ahead. [LAUGHTER] Yeah, yes and. This is my sixth year
at Boston College. And one of the things that
has been deeply rewarding is to be in a community
that genuinely believes in men and women
for others and that believes in the
formation of young people to become men and
women for others and has actually established
in its strategic plan formation of the rest of
the Boston College community as well. I take great pride in that. And I think it's
quite important. I think that also means that
we have to constantly challenge ourselves to increase the
diversity of experiences that we encounter,
the openness to men and women from everywhere,
the opportunity to create shared experiences
across difference. And we have the
perfect environment to do that and the constant call
to do more of it as we begin-- begin's not the
word-- as we continue on a journey of fully forming
as men and women for others. And I think this university
and Catholic universities that embrace that mission and
seek the danger of encountering the whole world while doing it
have an incredible opportunity to become of service in
profound and deep ways. Thank you. Stephen? I agree with what's been said. But I think sometimes we
can think about Catholicism and our commitment to the Church
as a numbers game, something like the yield from recruiting
freshman class for basketball or football. And it depends
how many four star athletes you get for the team. And I think that's natural
as a sociological reality that we're a large institution
of higher education. The danger is that we wind up
playing the higher education game on the terms set by
higher education in general. And we can easily lose
what we're really about or what we were about
as a Jesuit school. I'm not saying we're there. But I think there's a tension
between a corporate model of a university and
a university here to train and help people
become mature people of faith and service. In my experience when I was a
kid going to Bellarmine College Prep in San Jose
with the Jesuits, the mantra was faith
that does justice. And it's because people assume
a substance of Catholic faith. And the whole effort
of the Jesuits there was to convince us that
faith has justice implications. And they were very good at it. They had us picketing
with Cesar Chavez and marching and boycotting
[INAUDIBLE] and all that. And it was great. Probably why I'm doing
social ethics now is because of those
Jesuit scholastics. Now, that game is
entirely shifted. The challenge has
changed completely. I see a lot of students
involved in service programs. And it's their idealism
and their goodness and their altruism
that sometimes is very inspiring
to me, what they give themselves to and
the compassion they have for people. What's my challenge, I think
the challenge facing BC, is to show the students
that in that desire to serve and in the love for those who
are the least among us, that's God speaking to them. That's the voice of Jesus
calling them in a quiet way to a deeper recognition
that what they're engaged in is really transcendent. And it's an
elevation of who they are beyond just being
consumers and beyond just being careerists, that there's
something a lot deeper for us. I think service can actually
be misused as something you put on your resume as a
way of getting an internship, as a marker to get you into
the grad school of your choice. And I don't think anybody
does it deliberately here. But I think we need to
be a little bit more careful in peeling away the
misuse of service and altruism and compassion and
try a bit more to talk about faith as the calling to
live in a more real and a more compassionate way. And that's what the
Church is supposed to be. It's supposed to be a community
of people that are real and that are compassionate. And I think that's where we
need to move on a small level at BC, in our core groups, or
our Campus Ministry groups. And they do a very good
job in a lot of ways. And it's also, I think,
where the Church as a whole needs to go. The answer to secularism
isn't service. It's the question,
who do you trust? Is there a goodness underlying
that service has transcendent? [APPLAUSE] I want to thank Stephen and
Stephanie and Sean and Tiziana for a deeply
thoughtful discussion. And we're just getting started. We're going to get
to your questions. But I guess one of my
takeaways from just listening to all of you is that we've
got a monumental job ahead to rebuild the Church and
to respond to this crisis. We're not going to resolve
every issue tomorrow. But you've given
us a start of how Boston College and the people
here can be part of it, and that gives me hope. Thank you. So we'll read as many questions. We'll get as many questions
in as we possibly can. And the first question,
Sean, it's for you. And here's how it reads. So as a young man who
celebrates his Catholic faith, how do you respond to people
who belittle your faith or question its purpose
if that happens to you? Sure. I would say that at BC
it's less likely to happen, but in the general world
that it does happen. And that a sad thing is
is that we, our society, can commonly conflate
religious beliefs to mean idealism and not
mean they're actually engaging with the problems
of the real world. And if anything, my faith is
what gets me through my day to day interactions with
people, my challenges. It gives me courage when
I feel like I'm alone. And I think that the
best way to express that and to tell people that
it's not a silly idea is to take it seriously. And that it's not enough to just
be a Catholic and go to mass and then have this kind
of interior yourself if you're not willing to
actually live that out and share that you live
that out with other people. So it could be something as
simple as if you sit down and have dinner in one
of the dining halls here on campus, like make
the sign of the cross. You don't have to say a whole
grace or anything, maybe something small like that. And then somebody's going
to be like, what was that-- which happened once. What did you say? I said, oh, I just like to say
grace before I start eating. And do I always
remember to do that? No. Or other things-- like, I'm
going to mass right now instead of being like, oh, I
got to go meet a friend, or I'm going to go eat
or something like that. No. Like, I'm going to mass. I'm going to tell you
I'm going to mass. And if people are, like, oh, I
don't understand that, it's not about telling people do
this, otherwise you're not going to go to heaven. Do this, otherwise you're not
going to be a good person. It's about just being open
about what you're doing and the ways that it helps you. It's going to be
different for everybody. But giving that vulnerability
and allowing people to walk with you, they're
going to have a curiosity. They're going to want to
know more whether that leads to them becoming a Catholic,
practicing their faith more, who knows? But they'll be
more open to having these kinds of discussions
going in the future if you're willing
to take that step. Thank you. Here's a second question. My 14-year-old son talks
about becoming a priest. I'm struggling with how
to react to that thought. So, currently, live inside of a
house called the Loyola House. And I learned about the house,
because I did a lot of courses on the Jesuits. And I started to learn about it. And what does Ignatian
spirituality mean? And who are these Jesuits that
are involved in everything from science to mathematics,
arts, history, statesmanship? And I was really curious. And I felt this kind of
calling inside of me. And because of the
central location that faith is in my
life, if I felt a calling to become a priest,
that's something that I would be willing to say
yes to if I felt that calling. The purpose of the
house is to live there and to live in a
community of other people who feel that similar
calling and who would be willing to exploring
and discerning that more. And in the light of this whole
crisis, it's disheartening. Because you think about the
commitment to become a priest is to give your entire
life for something. And in having conversations
with other people who are interested in
this kind of lifestyle or are also seriously
considering becoming Jesuits, it's something
that's on our minds. And, again, it just goes back
to what is the Catholic faith, and what is not
the Catholic faith? Sexual abuse is not
the Catholic faith. It's not the Catholic Church. That's not what you're
giving your life to. And if anything,
the Church right now is in need of
young men and woman and men and women in general
to just step up and be willing to actively discern
those kinds of positions, whether it's to a religious
title such as a priest or a nun, or if it's to become
more involved in leading lay people in that service. So I would say that it's
important to encourage that and to not worry as
long as he discerns that with an open heart. And something my
dad always says is we were promised that there will
be wolves in sheep's clothing. So keeping all those in mind,
I think that's important. Thank you very much,
very thoughtful. Stephen? I was 14 once. [LAUGHTER] I was brought to a
seminary for a weekend at the boardwalk in Santa Cruz. I thought I'll be a priest. I could go to the
boardwalk every day. [LAUGHTER] This is amazing. I was very serious
about becoming a Jesuit. And then I started
dating my wife. And I have two uncles
that are Jesuits. And I've been really, really
inspired by the Jesuits and think it's a great way
of life and very good people. If I were a director of
[? formation, ?] though, I think I would have one rule,
not a hard and fast rule. But my one rule for
entering seminary across the street or
any religious order is you have to have been
in love with someone once in your life
before you enter. I think the underlying
issue of sex abuse has nothing to do with celibacy. It has a lot to do
with emotional maturity and psychosexual integration. And it has to do with dealing
with the difficulty of growing up and the desire for intimacy
and companionship and sex. And unless you
have some awareness of what it is to be intimate
with somebody emotionally, I don't think you know
what you're getting into. I'm amazed that so
many good priests going through the old system
have been able to make those developmental leaps
without the challenge that I had to face
and my friends have had to face to get
some semblance of maturity. But that's the thing
I worry about the most with seminarians. And it's really 14-year-old
is ridiculously young to be thinking about being
a priest in my opinion. But in 10 years, get an
education, fall in love, see what life is. That's the path of James Martin
and a lot of other people that I know in the priesthood. And it makes them, I think,
students say, more relatable. It helps them
understand the people they are preaching
to and counseling and engage with sacraments to
know what they've been through and what it's like. [APPLAUSE] I've been praying really
hard the last 3 or 4 minutes about whether or not to
say what I'm about to say. And I decided to say it. When I was in high school, I
wanted to be a priest, too. Yeah. [APPLAUSE] We're good. [LAUGHTER] Thank you, Tiziana. Third question--
what would you say to a friend who has decided
to leave the Church? I think everyone's
had that conversation. I think everyone here
has had that conversation with somebody in our
family, in our community. Stephanie, what do you say? It's OK. I still love you. That doesn't change anything. I think we can often think
of people leaving the Church as some kind of betrayal. Or, like, how could they leave? We can be upset
when, at times, like, we have no idea what
they're going through. We don't know their story. And the best thing to
do is to sit with them, to accompany them
and say, you know, like, I'm so sorry
if there's anything that has happened to you. I'm so sorry if I wasn't a
good enough friend to you. But I love you. You know, I think
that there's so much to be said about just
sitting with someone and not to be angry and just
really to be genuine and say, I'm here for you if
you ever want to talk or if you ever need anything. I want to still hear about
your life and your faith life and all these things for you. I think that when people leave,
we can also often think, well, you're not Catholic. So, you know, how can
we talk about God? And, you know, I
believe that God is God. And we can engage
in the same way whether someone is Catholic
or not, so, yeah, definitely with a spirit of
openness of transparency. And that relationship
doesn't change. Thank you. Anybody else want to-- You know, four years ago next
month, my mother passed away. And I'm from a
very large family. I'm the youngest of
eight living kids. And at the funeral mass, the
priest said, peace be with you. And every single
one of my siblings said, and also with you,
because it had been that long since they'd been in Church. And it was like this moment
where half the congregation said, and with your spirit. And then you heard this,
and also what do you thing. And, afterward, we
had a conversation in our family about that
moment, right, at the mass and why so many in my
family had left the Church and why a couple
of us had stayed. One of my brothers
is actually a deacon. And I think if you don't develop
at some point in your life a deep personal
relationship with Christ and how it brings
meaning to your life, I think it's easy
to leave the Church. And I think as a
result, one can never judge someone else
for that choice. But I think you can
constantly, if invited, share why that
personal connection is so important to you and
keeps you in the game. Thank you very, very much. The next question
is somewhat related. What about for non-Catholics? Why should I, as a non-Catholic,
join the Catholic Church in a time of scandal? It's a powerful question. How would four Catholics or one
or two Catholics on this stage answer that really
good question? Stephanie's ready. Stephen's thinking about it. I can just read the-- I'm suppressing myself. Stephanie, why don't you lead? Sure. For me, if someone
came to them and said, I'm not Catholic, why
should I become Catholic-- belief in the Eucharist, in
the teachings and the body and blood and soul and
divinity of Jesus Christ. That, to me, takes
over anything that's going on wrong in the
Church, any anger, any hurt. I come back every Sunday,
because I believe in Jesus. Yeah. [APPLAUSE] Thank you. I know that's,
like, a big answer. But, for me, that's like-- That's a good answer. --that's the foundational. That is the heart
of why I'm there, why I'm not going
anywhere is because of belief in the Eucharist. Stephen? I guess my answer would be,
it depends on the person. Of course, who's
making the statement, and where they're coming from,
what they're looking for? I worry about-- I would say joining is
even an odd idea, but-- joining for the wrong
reason, pressured into it, because they're
going to get married, guilt because they've
fallen away, lapsed-- the lovely phrase--
and they want to come back, be confirmed. There are good
reasons, of course. And I think Stephanie put her
finger right on the issue. Is this a community in
which you find Jesus? Is this a community in
which you find Christ? Does joining the Church
give you a sense of peace as well as aggravate you? Because you have
to be realistic. The more you love the Church,
the more aggravated you get. And I do think, for
me, the analogy that makes sense of joining
the Church is just like becoming an in-law
in a dysfunctional family. [LAUGHTER] Your love your fiancee. But, gees, they're nuts,
what nutty relatives. And you got the alcoholic. And you got the guy that's
got a gambling problem. And you've got the guy
that won't shut up. And family reunions
can be hilarious and, also, a nightmare. So I guess what I
want to say is, do you know what you're getting into? This is the human race. It's not some kind of fiction
made up of angels and guys in funny clothes. This is a real human community. It's the whole spectrum. Here comes everybody, right? And if you can love
human beings and find Christ with human beings
in all of our messiness and sin mixed up with beauty,
well, then you're welcome. Come on in. You know what
you're getting into. And if you don't know now,
you're going to find out. [APPLAUSE] Could I just add,
Stephanie and Steven, you know, in my opening
remarks, I said there are 1.3 billion Catholics. And for me, as a person who's
interested in how America relates to the rest of the world
and how the world functions or doesn't, the Church is
a powerful force for good. It's done a lot of damage,
which is why we're here tonight to talk about the damage. But if you think about Catholic
Relief Services helping Palestinians in the West Bank-- 30 years ago, I was on the
West Bank coordinating American economic assistance. And Sister Barbara, that's how
we new her, led the effort. And that was a Catholic
inspired humanitarian effort to help Palestinians live
under, endure the occupation and then, on an even
higher, global plane to see the Secretary of
State of the Vatican, to see the power of the
Vatican in conflict mediation, to see the Vatican
intercede sometimes when the United States
had problems of someone, to be a buffer and a referee. And the last example-- I was just thinking of
listening to the two of you as, I mentioned
before, Father Pena. If you haven't met Tony
Pena, at Campus Ministry and you're a student or
faculty or staff member here, meet Tony Pena, force for good. And he has been for so
many of us individually, but he has for us collectively. So there's a power
in the Church. And I guess I'd say, if a friend
of mine who is not Catholic-- why should I join your church,
that's part of the answer. But I think you've given us an
even better part of the answer. Here's a really challenging
question I think that all of us get and all of us think about. Will we ever see
married priests? If not, why not? Would it make a difference? Can I just add, will we
see women on the altar? Why shouldn't we see
women on the altar? Who wants to tackle that? Tiziana-- We already got the [INAUDIBLE]. --I think you take
the lead on this. I don't believe
we will see either of those things in my lifetime. That's the truth. First, if I've got
my history right, there was a time early
in the Church's history when we did have
married priests. So we have seen it. Yeah. You know, I'm at war with myself
between the practical answer and the other one. The practical answer
is, over time, yes. Demographics, the needs of
the institution, et cetera-- yes. So, yeah, we're going to get
there on probably both based on pure need. I have never, ever
before in my career made a public statement
about women as priests, ever, ever, until
right this minute. There are so many gifts that
so many people bring, so much grace that so many people can
bring in service to others. And I think the real
vision is to allow for all those gifts, all those
perspectives, and all the ways that we can pastorally
care for each other. And my dream would be that
that would the case one day. [APPLAUSE] OK. Thank you. Two more questions. Can I make a quick comment? Please, do. We actually already do
have married priests. We have married priests in the
Eastern-rite Catholic Church. Fair enough. And we have Anglicans that
have become Roman Catholics. They've joined the
church and being able to keep their
wives and children. Pretty nice. [LAUGHTER] We know the gospel is costly,
but it's not that costly. [LAUGHTER] So I think my own
view would be it would be a great boon to the church. Because I know a
lot of people who I teach at BC that would
be excellent priests. And some have even
spoken to me about it and say the obstacle
is that they would like lifelong
companionship and children. And I do think they
have a calling. I think young women have a
calling to the priesthood that they're unable to
exercise in this Church. And it's to all
of our detriment. We're all harmed by that. And I do think it will come. The Church is a
very slow learner. So who knows how
long it will take. But Pope Francis is
already encouraging different regions of the world,
and particularly the Amazon, to talk about whether
married clergy would be helpful in their
areas where there's such a deprivation of priests. So I think it's not
completely unrealistic that this could
happen in our lifetime in some regions of the world. Thank you. We're going to take
two more questions. I have one more question
to read from the audience, and then I have a
final quick question. You all know what it is. We're going to end on that. Give us hope as we leave. But this is a very basic, but
it's a beautiful question. It's a difficult question. Where is God in all
of this for you? I had a conversation
with someone recently. And they said that, you
know, like, I'm religious, but whenever I think about God
or whenever I pray or anything or think about
coincidences in my life, I attribute them to the
universe, instead of God. Because when I think of God, I
think of this superior being. And I don't like that
fact, that he's above. And I thought it was
interesting, because I never saw God in that way. I see God when my friends are
mourning the loss of a loved one, and they stop
in to St. Joseph's Chapel for a candlelight
mass or when, after a hurricane went through
one of my friend's towns, she would attend beach masses
with her whole community. It was a place of
reconciliation. Or when my father
invited a homeless person to come and eat lunch
with us for the diner, those small instances are God. And I think that it's important
to pay attention to them. And the reason why you need
to pay attention to them is because they're very subtle. I met somebody recently. And she was telling me that when
she was deciding to come to BC she was very stressed,
because there is a lot of big decisions. And it was made to seem
as if what college you choose to go to is the biggest
decision you make in your life. And she expressed her
mother that that's not the biggest decision for me. The biggest decision
for me is who I marry. The next day after
that conversation was Admitted Eagles Day
here at Boston College. And the Jesuit who
was giving the talk to the students that day said
that the biggest decision you make isn't going to be
where you go to college, it's going to be who you marry
and what your family looks like in the future. And, of course, I thought, oh my
gosh, like, that's incredible. That's amazing. This is the important part. I asked her, so how is your
relationship with that Jesuit now? Do you stay in touch
and everything? And she said, well, I have
never talked to him about this. And I was like, what? At first, like, how can
you not express this? But what she said
was that, but I know that he gives
the 11:00 o'clock mass every single
Sunday at this chapel. And I always go. And I always sit
there and everything. So I think that the
small things do matter and that that's where
you truly see God. And it has a massive impression
on the people that are sitting in this room around you. And even though they may never
tell you that, it's there. And it's influencing them. So that's what gives
me a lot of hope. Thank you very much. Anybody else? I'll jump in. Please. I'm going to reframe the
question just a little bit, because I'm a graduate
student and we do this a lot. [LAUGHTER] If you don't like
the question, just answer the question you
wish they had asked. I got you. But it's a good question. Oh, it's a great question. Whoever wrote it-- love it. For me, where is God in this? For me, it's more, where
is the spirit in this? Because so many of
the conversations I've had at the Graduate School
of Theology, School of Theology Ministry, with my students
in Kairos, you know, on this side of campus,
I think it really is, where is the spirit
calling me to move right now? You know, what is my next step? I'm in the process
of looking for a job. And so really, like,
I've been asking even in prayer like, OK, Lord, like
where do you want me to serve? Like, where are there
sheep that need to be led? This is something I'm
asking daily of, OK, like, where are the needs? And how can I fill them? I'm so confident that God is
present in this brokenness in this time of grief. And so I don't believe
that God has gone away, but I believe that the spirit
is just a little bit stronger and kind of guiding us. And we just need
to listen to it. Because I think for a while
now we've been like, all right, all right, you can go
sit down, Holy Spirit. But I think we really
need to let the spirit in and say, like, where
are we called to grow? Or, how are the lay people
called to really make noise in the church? I'm so confident in the
power of lay people. That has been so, so clear
to me in the last few months. And so God is with
the lay people. The Spirit is in the lay people. And so how are we called to
really make some changes, make some moves, as
Tiziana was saying? Yeah. Thank you. Stephen? I would add to those
two nice comments. I think the question
isn't to me where is God, because
God is everywhere, the question is on
whose side is God on? And it's not to take away
from the universal love of God to say that God's always
first and foremost on the side of victims and
that, if we want to find out the truth that God
wants us to hear, if we want to be moved with
the compassion of Jesus, we have to talk and, first
of all, listen to survivors and privilege them and not
lawyer up, not act as CEOs, not do damage control, and not
try to get closure too fast, but honor the
victims by listening. And in that, I think, is where
we find the presence of God most challenging
and most profound. Thank you. [APPLAUSE] I wish we had more time. And maybe Church
in the 21st Century needs to take these
people on the road. This has been an
enlightening evening. [APPLAUSE] My takeaways are
what Stephen has taught us, honor the
victims and listen to them, that we've just started,
that rebuilding the Church has to be from the ground up,
that we have leaders right here, the two
people in the middle and the two people on
the ends, and that we do need to rebuild the
structure of the Church, but also something
much more difficult, restore faith and trust that
the people in the Church have with the hierarchy, but
that we're all responsible just as trying to track you. That's what I heard you say. The title of our
session tonight was Why I Remain a Catholic,
Belief in a Time of Turmoil. So we're going to end. And I'm just going to ask
everyone, maybe starting, Stephen, with you. I'll go right down the row. Why do you remain a Catholic? I have to start? Yes. [LAUGHTER] I remain Catholic, because
family affiliation, but deep conviction
that I gained after 30 years in theology
struggling with how can I be a better Catholic. I'm amazed that we're living in
a church in which the Pope is anti-clerical, sort of. What gives me hope
is seeing change, seeing young people that care,
seeing old people that care, seeing people leave the Church,
but still love the Church, realizing that we're
in this together. I get hope from
community above all. The Church is a community
Jesus calls together. And He promises us suffering. So we can see Jesus'
promise is fulfilled in many different
places in the world. But in that hope, in that
suffering, what makes a Christian is we endure
with hope, and patience, and courage. And we have to get that hope,
and patience, and courage from each other. We don't just sit in
our rooms and invent it. We have to get it
from each other. So to me, the hope
we have to establish is to commit ourselves
to community even more on the grassroots and the local
parish level to get involved, to pray in a community, to
live and care for one another, and to show hospitality
for the stranger. Thank you. [APPLAUSE] For me, why I remain Catholic,
this Church is my home. This is my place. I have been raised
in the Church. I've had the great gift
of faith in my family. And I'm not going anywhere,
even though we are terribly broken right now. This Church, yeah,
this is my home base. This is the place I go to where
I fill up for the next week. And so for me, I
can remain hopeful, because I know that Jesus
isn't going anywhere. We talk about
institutional church and the ways in which it needs
to change, and grow, and shift. But God is not changing. God is ever-present,
ever-loving, and ever full of mercy. And so for me, I think
the timing of this panel is so perfect, also, with
Advent right around the corner. There's nothing like
Advent to give me joy, which is so needed. We need joy. We have lost it in our church. And it's coming right back. Get ready. We need to sit in church. We need to pray and
welcome Jesus anew. I find so much hope in the fact
that God makes everything new. And we get to celebrate
that in a few short weeks. So that's really what
gives me a lot of peace and what allows me to stay. Thank you. Thank you. [APPLAUSE] Sean. A lot of times,
this crisis can seem like an utter loss of hope. So another time that I'm,
similarly, recalling right now just thinking about
the last two speakers is that when I was
in high school, I was on a service trip. And the entire time I
was thinking about how I'm just a high school kid. I can't do anything. None of this matters. Three days into the
trip, I found out that one of my English
professors from my high school had passed. It felt utterly terrible. It felt like everything,
all those relationships they had built, were lost. And, you know, like, what now? Nothing matters. And I thought back to a
time when I went to her and I was handing in a test
late or something like that. And I was nervous about it. Before she acknowledged
that, she asked me, how are you doing? And it's something
simple, but it goes to show how she was
willing to step beyond her role as a high school teacher. And what I decided to do
was let's just try this. For the rest of the week,
through prayer and reflection, I decided I'm going
to step beyond my role as a high school student. And I started
engaging with the kids more in classes and
that kind of thing. I felt like it was
for nothing, felt drained at the end of the week. And this little
girl came up to me. And she tugged on my arm
and handed me something. It looked like a rock. I didn't know what it was. And one of the teachers
in the country-- this was in the Dominican Republic. She said that it's a seashell. It's a gift. And this crisis is
forcing me to ask myself, so what is my seashell? What is that symbol that
what you do matters? And I think that in times
of crisis like this, you have a choice to either
engage with these questions, to reflect, to listen,
to take action, to do the small things that
you can through community and belonging to an identity. Or, you can choose to be
consumed by anger and rage. So I'm constantly trying to ask
myself, what is my seashell? What is it that keeps me going? And I think that I invite you
guys to do that along with me. And that's my hope for the
future is that shared dialogue. Thank you, Sean. [APPLAUSE] You have the last word. Last, but not least, huh? So three quick answers-- one parish priests have taken
a beating through this process. But there is no
question that part of the reason that
my faith is so deep are two parish priests, Father
William Fitzgerald and-- while most people don't know
him as a parish priest, I did-- Father J. Brian [INAUDIBLE] And their roles in my
life and in my formation have had a profound
sticking power for my faith. And I want to honor them and
acknowledge them with that. The second thing is my
Catholicism is how I know God. I don't ever want to be
disconnected from God. And my Catholicism,
the sacraments, the practice of
faith and community, mass, are how I know God. So that's the second thing. And then the third thing
is every corner and aspect of my life is animated
by the social mission that Christ handed down to us. [APPLAUSE] So to Tiziana, and to Sean,
and to Stephanie, and Stephen, thank you for your honesty. Thank you for discussing
difficult issues. Thank you for giving us hope. Thank you all for being with us. [APPLAUSE] [MUSIC PLAYING] [MUSIC PLAYING]
