February 2017

The Independent Journal of Opinion at the College of the Holy Cross February 2017

Volume XXIV, Issue IV

Quod Verum Pulchrum sites.google.com/a/g.holycross.edu/the-fenwick-review

Table of Contents

TABLE OF CONTENTS The Importance of the Eucharist......................................5

Greg Giangiordano ‘18 The Culture of Death .......................................................7 James Garry ‘20 Holy Cross March for Life.................................................9

The Progressive Paradigm...............................................10

Bill Christ ‘18

A Conversation with Father Kuzniewski........................12

Bill Christ ‘18 Memories of Father K.....................................................14 Brooke Tranten ‘17

Welcome to Secular Sunday School........................16

Claude Hanley ‘18

Cat on a Fence............................................................19

Stefanie Raymond ‘18

MONDAY-WEDNESDAY: 8-8:50PM (LOWER CHAPEL) THURSDAY: 7:30-8:30 PM (UPPER CHAPEL) FRIDAY: 11-11:50 AM (LOWER CHAPEL)

Freedom is a fragile thing and is never more than one generation away from extinction. It is not ours by inheritance; it must be fought for and defeneded constantly by each generation, for it comes only once to a people. Those who have known freedom, and then lost it, have never known it again.

--Ronald Reagan

The Fenwick Review 2017-2018 Staff Co-Editors in Chief Brooke Tranten ‘17 Claude Hanley ‘18 Layout Editor Audrey Holmes ‘19 Staff Writers Greg Giangiordano ‘18 Luke Lapean ‘19 Bill Christ ‘18 Webmaster Elinor Reilly ‘18 Faculty Advisor Professor David Lewis Schaefer Political Science Cover Art: Stefanie Raymond ‘18

Disclaimers This journal is published by students of the College of the Holy Cross and is produced two or three times per semester. The College of the Holy Cross is not responsible for its content.

Articles do not necessarily reflect the opnion of the editorial board.

Donation Policy The Fenwick Review is funded through a generous grant from the Collegiate Network as well as individual donations. The Fenwick Review is an organization incorporated under the laws of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. We welcome any donation you might be able to give to support our cause! To do so, please write a check to The Fenwick Review and mail to: Brooke Tranten and Claude Hanley P.O. Box 4A 1 College Street Worcester, MA 01610

Mission Statement As the College of the Holy Cross’s independent journal of opinion, The Fenwick Review strives to promote intellectual freedom and progress on campus. The staff of The Fenwick Review takes pride in defending traditional Catholic principles and conservative ideas, and does its best to articulate thoughtful alternatives to the dominant campus ethos. Our staff values Holy Cross very much, and desires to help make it the best it can be by strengthening and renewing the College’s Catholic identity, as well as working with the College to encourage constructive dialogue and an open forum to foster new ideas.​

To the Benefactors: We must reserve the space to offer a heartfelt thank you to our benefactors, without whom The Fenwick Review would not exist. We extend our profound gratitude to The Collegiate Network and the generous individual and alumni donors to The Fenwick Review, for their ongoing enthusiasm and support of our mission.

Mr. Guy C. Bosetti Mr. Robert W. Graham III Mr. Robert R. Henzler The Hon. Paul J. Hanley Mr. Kevin O’Scannlain Mr. Sean F. Sullivan Jr. Dr. and Mrs. Paul Braunstein Mr. and Mrs. Richard Fisher Mr. and Mrs. Thomas W. Greene Mr. William Horan Mr. Robert J. Leary ‘49 Fr. Paul Scalia Mr. and Mrs. Michael Dailey Mr. and Mrs. Daniel Gorman Mr. Paul M. Guyet Mr. Joseph Kilmartin Mr. Francis Marshall ‘48 Dr. Ronald Safko Mr. John J. Ferguson Dr. Thomas Craig MD, MPH, ‘59 Mr. Patrick D. Hanley

Letter from the Editors

Dear Readers, Thank you for picking up a copy of The Fenwick Review.

Just yesterday (2/9), the College hosted a lecture by Professor Kevin Madigan of Harvard Divinity School entitled, “Crusades and Crusaders: History and Historiography.” His talk was billed as “set[ting] the historical context for future dialogue on the Holy Cross moniker.” Mr. Hanley argues at the close of this issue that Professor Madigan, despite his prestige, should not be presented as an authority on the subject.

No matter what his biases prove are, the presentation of Professor Madigan’s viewpoint as historically definitive is deeply troubling. He has published almost nothing on the subject of the Crusades; his work betrays an odious antiCatholic bias; and it is doubtful whether one historian could be the authority par excellence on this highly complicated subject. This makes him manifestly unfit to be this campus’s sole guide to the history and historiography of the Crusades.

Before this discussion continues, we ought to hear from experts on the subject, from a variety of ideological perspectives. The McFarland Center exists to facilitate discussions, not enforce a slanted view of the facts, whichever way it is slanted.

Over Christmas break, the Holy Cross community lost a dear priest, professor, and chaplain in Anthony Kuzniewski, SJ, at the age of 71 on December 19, 2016. Healing has only just begun, and hundreds of the campus community attended an emotional Memorial Mass for Father Kuzniewski on January 31. Father K was a faithful follower of these pages and always made sure to deliver a stack of The Fenwick Review to the Jesuit Community. As such, we have included two tributes to him in this issue. Mr. Christ was kind enough to provide us with an interview he conducted with Father Kuzniewski shortly before his death. Ms. Tranten also provides a few anecdotes about Father Kuzniewski, touching upon his love for his Polish heritage and unashamed vulnerability in his last months. Amongst the many positions Father Kuzniewski held over the years at the College, he served in the distinguished position of Historian of the College. His commitment to historical fairness during the Father Mulledy controversy last year was exemplary. We would do well to honor the fine historian Father Kuzniewski was by approaching historical questions involving the College with good faith, an eye for scholarship, and a well-rounded understanding of religious and historical context.

In addition to our memories of Father Kuzniewski, Ms. Raymond’s pastel of a dark night glimmering with hopeful stars graces our cover. Mr. Giangiordano opens this issue with a reflective explanation of the Catholic theological underpinnings of the reception of Holy Communion. Mr. Garry tackles a political hot-topic in capital punishment, while Mr. Christ follows with a thoughtful take on the inconsistencies of contemporary progressive ideology.

Also included is a page devoted to Holy Cross student participation in the annual March for Life.

Thanks are always due to our benefactors, faithful staff, and our ever-patient printer, TigerPress. And we have much gratitude for you, dear readers, for your willingness to engage fairly with our positions and enlighten us with muchappreciated critiques and complements.

Petite Veritatem, Claude Hanley Brooke Tranten

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The Importance of the Eucharist Greg Giangiordano ‘18 Staff Writer in letting a non-Catholic know that it is inappropriate A friend of mine once told me a story about an to receive Catholic Communion, but that they do not uncomfortable interaction that she had directly after know why. They do not know the theology behind a Catholic Mass. She, being Lutheran, was curious the Sacrament, and that their ferocious manner about Catholicism, and how Masses differed from prevents honest dialogue from happening between Lutheran services. So, one Sunday, she attended Mass the two parties. In fact, many Catholics do not know in the chapel with one of her Catholic friends. She the theology behind the Sacrament of the Eucharist, saw the Liturgy of the Word, experienced a priest’s and wrongfully think that it is simply a symbol of homily, witnessed the Preparation of the Gifts, and, Christ’s Sacrifice, as most non-Catholics do. It is my finally, watched the Consecration of the Eucharist. hope to provide some clarity on the mystery of the When it came time for Communion, she, not wanting Eucharist, so that Catholics truly know what it is that to stand out, went up the This interaction was not a they are receiving and so that aisle and received the non-Catholics understand why Eucharist. After Mass, unique experience of my it is inappropriate to receive the another girl whom she friend: many people, who Catholic Eucharist. knew but with whom To understand the she was not particularly are genuinely curious about significance of the Eucharist, friendly, approached her the Catholic faith, have made it is important to be familiar and asked if she was with the event of the Last Catholic. When my friend this honest mistake, and Supper in the Gospels. The replied that she was not, have found themselves at the Gospel writer Matthew gives she was mortified when account of the Last Supper, this girl began berating business end of a Catholic’s an and it goes as follows: “While her quite aggressively for they were eating, Jesus took misplaced wrath her mistake, saying that bread, and when He had given what she did was very thanks, He broke it and gave it to his disciples, saying, insulting and disrespectful to Catholics and their faith.

‘Take and eat; this is My Body.’ Then He took a cup, My friend, not knowing what she had done that was and when He had given thanks, He gave it to them, so wrong since Lutherans have communion services saying, “Drink from it, all of you. This is My Blood as well, went back to her dorm extremely embarrassed of the covenant, which is poured out for many for and hurt, and had little desire to attend another Mass. the forgiveness of sins” (Matthew 26: 26-28). Many This interaction was not a unique experience Christians interpret and believe Christ’s words to of my friend: many people, who are genuinely mean that the bread and wine are symbols given to us curious about the Catholic faith, have made this

by Christ to remember His teachings and the integrity honest mistake, and have found themselves at the with which He lived His earthly life. business end of a Catholic’s misplaced wrath. This However, to interpret the Eucharist as simply is unfortunate, because it turns many people away a reminder of Christ is to fail to understand what from Catholicism who have a sincere interest in the Christ said at the Last Supper. Christ did not say faith and could, in time, be a convert to the faith. The “take and eat; this is symbolic and a remembrance of fault and trap of the Catholics who commit this error My Body” or “take and drink, this is symbolic and a is that they know they are right (and they are right) 5

God Himself. That is why it is incredibly insulting and disrespectful when a non-Catholic receives the Eucharist: by saying “Amen” and receiving the Eucharist, such a person is vowing that he or she believes in the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist when, in actuality, this person thinks otherwise. To do this is incredibly hurtful to Catholics, who believe that the Eucharist is the pinnacle, the absolute crux, of the Catholic faith.

The Eucharist is the most integral and important part of Catholicism, because it is through the Eucharist that a Catholic can fully participate in the Salvation that Christ offers. Through it, Christ comes to dwell within us, and nourishes and fortifies us with the Holy Spirit. Without the Eucharist, Catholicism simply would not exist: it is the bedrock of the entire faith. It is this that Catholics should recognize when they come forward to receive Communion, and it is this that people outside of the faith need to understand.

remembrance of My Blood.” No. Christ said “this is My Body…This is My Blood.” Christ made it clear that the bread and wine actually become His Body and His Blood. According to St. Thomas Aquinas, the bread and wine becomes God in their essence at the Consecration, even if there is no outward change in their physical substance. So, when Catholics receive the bread and wine during Communion, they should do so with the knowledge that they have taken God into themselves. He or she has become a living tabernacle for Christ.

When a Catholic comes forward to receive the Eucharist, the priest lifts the Host before the recipient and says “The Body of Christ.” The recipient then responds with “Amen.” Amen is a Hebrew word meaning “So be it.” When the communicant says this word, the communicant is stating that he or she fully believes in the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist and therefore fully believes that he or she is accepting, not a symbol representing or remembering God, but

The Culture of Death James Garry ‘20 We find ourselves in a political climate that is arguably one of the most divisive in our nation’s history. If the recent presidential election offered one lesson, it would be that the gulf between liberalism and conservatism is a gaping, seemingly ever widening one. With common ground vanishing at an alarming rate, and with it whatever political cohesion necessary for a sound society and system of governance, finding an issue upon which both sides can come to a consensus is an increasingly paramount priority. The issue of the legality of capital punishment stands out as a clear contender; a political question that can, and ought to be resolved, without the need of plunging too deeply into today’s ideological fray of irreconcilable differences. Capital punishment is a base and morally unacceptable institution on both a philosophical and pragmatic level, and can be analyzed as such from both a Conservative and Liberal perspective.

Philosophically, the use of the death penalty should be utterly without refuge in the American political climate. It certainly should have no foothold amongst the political left. For those who claim, at by their own description, to be principally concerned with the protection of human rights, the notion that the state has the authority to end the lives of felons, even those convicted for the most heinous of offences, simply cannot be rationally held. Those who deem the state’s coercion of medical professionals into violating their consciences a “human right,” should surely be able to recognize that the right to life is even more fundamental.

Conservatism should offer an even more effective rebuttal. With its robustly developed conception of the rights of an individual as superseding the rights of the state, and its vehement opposition to unchecked government authority, state sanctioned slaughter should be entirely incompatible with right wing thought. Conservative Catholics in particular, who

cherish the core ethical notion that a human life is intrinsically valuable, and replete with a significance beyond measure, cannot reasonably support the implementation of capital punishment.

Even if one were to play devil’s advocate, and set aside the moral and philosophical debate as to whether the execution of those who have been convicted of committing serious crimes is acceptable, it nevertheless remains obvious that the death penalty is a defenseless institution. From a financial perspective, capital punishment is irrational. Although proponents of the practice often claim that executing an inmate is less costly than imprisoning them for life, this claim has no basis in fact. Figures published by the Kansas Judicial Council’s Death Penalty advisory committee indicate that the average cost of successfully condemning a convict to death is approximately $3.9 million per case. Similarly, in a report entitled Financial Costs of the Death Penalty, Idaho’s joint legislative oversight committee maintained that the appeals process for a death sentence typically consumes more than forty times the amount of taxpayer dollars that an appeal against a long prison term. Proponents of Capital Punishment similarly claim that the mere presence of the death penalty discourages individuals from committing serious crimes and thus contributes to the lawfulness of our society. This argument is cardboard. A 2008 study done through the University of Colorado concluded that the vast majority, almost 90% of criminologists in the United States do not consider the death penalty to have any deterrent effect.

The most damning feature of the implementation of capital punishment, however, is the alarming rate at which innocent people have been executed. A crucial study from Stanford University sheds shocking light on the grim nature of the situation. According to their statistical analysis, an “indefinite” hold on all executions would lead to the

Philosophically, the use of the death penalty should be utterly without refuge in the American political climate

The Eucharist

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exoneration of approximately 4% of inmates currently sitting on death row. An alarming number of innocent citizens are executed every year by our government, a fact that alone should discredit capital punishment.

When fully examined, it is clear that the continuation of the death penalty lacks even the remote semblance of a cogent justification. It is wholly without rational support on both a moral and pragmatic level. Nevertheless, both Nebraska and Oklahoma voted to keep the practice alive in the 2016 elections. It’s continuation remains a mystery. Even more mysterious is its prevalence among states that contain strongly pro-life populations. The cognitive

dissonance between these two stances is deafening.

The answer to this puzzle lies in the unfortunate fact that capital punishment’s survival does not depend on moral or pragmatic reasoning; it thrives off of the authoritarian tendencies in our society. These tendencies tempt us to seek a feeling of safety and security at the expense of our own values and the relinquishment of individual rights. They must be resolved if our ideals would survive.

HOLY CROSS AT THE MARCH FOR LIFE

Sponsored by Holy Cross' Students for Life, members of Students for Life, the Society of Saints Peter and Paul, and the Fenwick Review traveled to Washington, D.C. and participated in the March for Life on January 27

The Culture of Death in art

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Special thanks to Father Paul Scalia, priest of the Diocese of Arlington, VA, and co-founder of the Fenwick Review, for meeting with the group

February 2017 The Fenwick Review

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Bill Christ ‘18 Staff Writer

The Progressive Paradigm

Recently, members of the Democratic Party have attempted to dispel their association with the term “liberal.” By calling themselves progressives instead of “liberals,” constituents of the Left have positioned themselves as advocates for an adaptive society.

They believe that America’s culture and communities should adapt and evolve into a more “advanced” form along the lines of Darwinian evolutionary theory.

Concerning the Constitution, many progressives have deemed it proper that the law should be interpreted as a “living” document so that it could be redesigned to include current social issues. Progressives do not limit evolution to law but also to the communities that define America. The argument of the “living” Constitution follows the same Darwinian beliefs that are central to the core tenants of progressivism.

But not all Darwinian talking points are held equal by progressives. For modern progressives, the ideal economic structure closely aligns with Senator Bernie Sanders’ agenda of wealth redistribution.

However, if progressives truly believed in social Darwinian theory, they would accept the application of “survival of the fittest” to economics. Rather than maintain the status quo of our quasi-free market economy, progressives desire more state economic involvement so that the economically weak can improve their position. While this is commendable, the Darwinian notion of competition should apply by extension to business and financial situations. When engaged in competition, all parties are motivated for success and, while only one can win, most parties can advance their position. This theoretical inconsistency is symptomatic of progressive thought because progressives like to choose portions of Darwin’s teachings while discrediting his other tenants. They find the best narrative that support their claims and

ignore subsequent information that challenges it.

If progressives truly believed in Darwinism, then they should apply the science-based ideas equally to economics and society instead of just society. Like any ideologue, progressives who discredit part of Darwin’s canon are more concerned with advancing their position than actually believing in their own ideology.

But progressives do not think like this. Instead, they emphasize their ideology rather than a subsequent subdivision of society. Currently, the majority of the media unites behind the mantle of progressivism rather than journalistic integrity that is needed for a free society. In a January 18, 2017 New York Times article entitled “‘Learning Curve’ as Rick Perry Pursues a Job He Initially Misunderstood,” journalists Coral Davenport and David Sangerjan wrote that Rick Perry’s understanding of nuclear energy came with a learning curve. For the man who has governed the second largest geographic state for fourteen years (the longest in Texas’s history) it is slanderous to assert that Perry had no knowledge of nuclear energy when at least two nuclear power plants reside in the state. Granted, Perry completely forgot the name of the department he is now slated to run back in 2012 when he said he wanted to cut it, but he certainly has more knowledge about nuclear energy than he is given credit. On December 14, 2016, Perry issued a statement when it was announced that he would be serving as the Secretary of Energy in the Trump administration. He stated that he “look[s] forward to engaging in a conversation about the development, stewardship and regulation of our energy resources, safeguarding our nuclear arsenal, and promoting an American energy policy that creates jobs and puts America first.” If the 2016 election cycle proved anything, it is that journalists should stay clear of their political agenda when reporting the news, but this is hard to do when progressivism is your North

Star.

For progressives who pride themselves as feminists, it is laughable that only a few of them have congratulated Kellyanne Conway for being the first successful female presidential campaign manager.

Rather than hold Conway as model of success, progressive feminists are quick to chastise the nowpresidential advisor because she represents a different viewpoint. In light of the recent Women’s March in Washington DC, feminists have been quick to exclude pro-life women because they fail to conform to their form of progressivism. For progressives, you can be anything as long as you maintain strict adherence to progressive ideology. For a group so supportive of different viewpoints, progressives actually maintain that the only acceptable viewpoint is their own. For progressives, it does not matter if you are Christian or Jewish as long as you adhere to the practices of the enlightened few, you are acceptable. But once a Christian or a Jew contradicts the acceptable practice

of progressivism, that person is vilified. Consider any Christian who supported Trump, or any Jew who opposed the Obama administration’s last minute affront to Israel at the UN in December 2016.

Within the past decades, the polarization between both parties has grown exponentially. Is there any doubt that this could not be traced back to the growing numbers of ideological conservatives and progressives? Polarization can be attributed to the uncompromising nature of both ideologies and how each side wants to emerge victorious. Despite hypocrisy surrounding the right, progressives epitomize it. After all, was it not progressives who promised to accept the results of the 2016 if they lost?

After blaming the Electoral College, Russian hacking, and fake news, Democrats are still struggling to come to terms with how their candidate lost. Maybe, their defeat was due to voters seeing the flaws behind the progressive ideology?

For modern progressives, the ideal economic structure closely aligns with Senator Bernie Sanders’ agenda of wealth redistribution.

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The Women’s March on Washington, January 21st, 2017

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A Conversation with Father Kuzniewski Bill Christ ‘18 Staff Writer

The following are transcribed sections from an interview with Fr. Kuzniewski on November 16, 2016. The interview was conducted as a student assignment in the History Department’s seminar, “History of Holy Cross.” Minor edits for brevity’s sake have been made by the Editors.

WPC: Was there anything in your childhood that made you become what you are today?

Fr. Kuzniewski: Believe it or not, my grammar school in Milwaukee was a parish school. It was the largest; it was the largest, primary school in the state of Wisconsin that had twentytwo hundred children in it from kindergarten to eighth grade. And our classrooms had between fifty and fiftyfive students per class. So the sisters were a little bit hardpressed to meet the varying needs of the students and I was often tasked. As one of the better students, I was often tasked, especially in the upper grades to consult the slower kids, almost as a tutor for them in materials of the course. And my nickname was Professor Anthony.

by the founder of the Catholic Worker when God was calling me to be a Catholic worker and yet I had a Ph.D. from arguably the best History program in the country? And it took a while and I finally realized what I had seen in that talk was a…I saw a human being, Dorothy Day who had spent her whole life trying to understand who she was and trying to express that self in her, in her vocational career. And that my call was obviously not to be Dorothy Day, but to be Tony Kuzniewski, and to be that person as fully and completely as I could.

And that my call was obviously not to be Dorothy Day, but to be Tony Kuzniewski, and to be that person as fully and completely as I could

WPC: How did you become a Jesuit?

Fr. Kuzniewski: The novice director let a group of us go see Dorothy Day give a talk. She was speaking in Rhode Island at a girls’ high school. And I, the novice director let a carload of us go down and hear her talk and I was so deeply moved by her talk that I could hardly speak in the car on the way home. It just touched me to the very roots of my being. And then I had to sort that out. Why I was so deeply moved

Fr. Kuzniewski: Well sure, I, you know, one of the big goals of Jesuit education is the studentteacher relationship is mentoring and I appreciate it, my mentoring relationships with students very much here. And recognizing that mentoring is a two-way street, there is a wonderful insight into Pat Conroy’s book, The Losing Season, in which he talks about a professor who was a mentor for him at the Citadel and [Conroy] talks to a professor his senior year and says pretty much ‘You know how much I love your class’, and the professor said that it was mutual. Yeah, but Pat Conroy says, ‘You found me, I was lost and was lost and needed kind of direction and purpose in my life.’ And he said, ‘no, we found each other, we found each other.’ And I always thought that mentoring was a two-way street where the student and the professor find each other. I mean, I’m assuming I’m not a mentor for every student I’ve ever had, but I am to some of them and I do find it something, that the student needs

something that I can offer him or her and he or she has something to offer me in return so it very much goes both ways.

WPC: Ok, you’ve had a lot of jobs here at Holy Cross. I’ve just been wondering what has been your favorite job?

Fr. Kunziewski: Teaching History! And I would also say, I guess, athletic chaplain. I’ve had less, I say less pleasure from, administrative jobs, although I did okay as Chair of the History Department for a couple years. I was also Rector of the Jesuit community but I was…that was a service I was happy to give, but the things I’ve done that have tended to light my bulb have always been my relationship with the students.

WPC: Ok, you mentioned some of your courses. What have been your favorite classes to teach at Holy Cross?

Fr. Kuzniewski: Well, that’s hard to say. I’ve really enjoyed them all. You know, I’ve taught American themes over the years, and for a long time, when John Kennedy was part of the memories and lore of families, I taught a Themes course called “Kennedy to Watergate” which was a wonderful opportunity to examine change over a fifteen-year period of time. There was also… I’ve enjoyed teaching the “Heroes” course which I took on later, as a result of the “Kennedy to Watergate” course was actually, I remember a first0year student saying; ‘We envy your generation because you had heroes in your time, like Martin Luther King, but we don’t have living heroes that inspire us the same extent.” So that’s why I started teaching a course on American heroes...

Father Kuzniewski

WPC: Transitioning slightly, you dedicated Thy Honored Name to the students of Holy Cross. Could you describe that relationship?

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Brooke Tranten ‘17 Co-Editor in Chief

Memories of Father K

Memory can be spotty, fickle, and rosecolored. It also invites greater reflection upon itself and the present. Father Kuznewski had a prodigious memory and often used it to catalogue countless little stories, some humorous, some not, for use in his classes, chaplaincies, and homilies. Anecdotes, while not crystal balls and certainly not the modus operandi of academic historical studies, help us get to the heart of the matter in history and in other walks of life. Father K knew this, and so I intend to tell a few stories about him as a priest and professor.

“My name is Father Kuzniewski; you may call me Father K. I don’t mind if you write ‘Father K’ on your papers. But if you ever introduce me to your parents, you say, ‘This is Father Kuzniewski’. I’m not just a letter.” While Father K is mostly known for his love of Abraham Lincoln and the Civil War by those who have taken his classes, he was also Polish and intensely proud of it. Knowing that I have a devotion to Pope St. John Paul II, he told me the story of the time he met the Polish pope at Harvard in 1974. He first irreverently noted that he fell asleep during Cardinal Wojtyła’s talk, mostly because the Cardinal’s English was barely understandable. As a fellow Pole, Father K thought it only right he introduce himself to Cardinal Wojtyła.

As he shook the Cardinal’s hand, he told him that he was a Jesuit and wanted to study in Kraków within the year to work on his Polish. Cardinal Wojtyła immediately perked up, looked directly into his eyes and wagged a finger in his face, “You must ask your Provincial first!” Mr. Kunziewski (he had not yet been ordained) stammered a reply that his Provincial had in given him permission. Cardinal Wojtyła then took a step back, opened his arms and bellowed, “Then I velcome you!”, and enveloped the young Jesuit into a crushing bear-hug. In telling me the

story, Father K also recalled that his feet were lifted off the ground for more than a few seconds. He also added that he was technically a third-class relic after that for a while, though he was quick to assure me that he had in fact changed clothes and showered since 1976.

I once ran into Father K outside of his office toward the end of the fall of 2015 and he, frankly, looked awful. I asked him how he was doing. He shook his head as he looked at the ground and said, “Oh, Brooke, I am weary.” While taken a bit aback, I appreciated his admission of vulnerability. We are so accustomed to thinking of our friends, our professors, and our priests as invincible. We do not want to burden anyone with our personal problems or embarrass our friends, or, the worst of all, ourselves. Looking back on some conversations I had with Father K about the illness and death of Pope St. John Paul II, the more I am convinced that Father K took the Polish as his model in suffering. He was honest, but never complained.

He remarked that both he and Pope Francis suffered from sciatica and then changed the subject in order to show me some photographs he had taken on what would be his last visit to Poland and Germany. During one summer, he said Mass with tears on his cheeks for the repose of the soul of his former mentor, Father Prucha, at Marquette. “Paul was 94 and suffered greatly at the end”, he told me.

Even after learning all this from him, I looked at his barren office door in the History Department, stripped of his Lincoln posters and “K” puns, with a cerebral sense of darkness and a pit in my stomach.

I was lucky enough to have Father Kuzniewski as my spiritual director for the five days of the Spiritual Exercises. He let me talk as much as I needed as reprieve from the days of silence. He also had an edge as a spiritual director that I never expected. He was not about to let me get away with

We do not want to burden anyone with our personal problems or embarrass our friends, or, the worst of all, ourselves

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anything. I said something especially ludicrous once and he nodded, gave me what can only be described as The Jesuit Glare, and told me to cut the crap. The Glare worked and the five days were the better for that. He was tough when he needed to be and I find that is becoming a lost art among our clergy. It is a skill to be used sparingly and at the proper time. It requires discernment, maybe even unadulterated Ignatian discernment. One of the Corporal Works of Mercy is Admonishing the Sinner. We Catholics need our spiritual directors, indeed our religious practices, to be tough on us, as the imitation of Christ is anything but easy. As a Catholic priest and a Pole, Father Kuzniewski understood this. The Poles have a great devotion to Our Lady of Częstochowa, a little Byzantine icon attributed to St. Luke the Evangelist, and they ask for Our Lady’s intercession during times of strife. Our Lady of Częstochowa was featured on the front of Father Kuzniewski’s ordination prayer card.

I recall a homily that Father K gave about Servant of God Walter Ciszek, SJ, a Polish-American who did twenty years in the Gulag and wrote a masterful memoir about it, With God in Russia. I also remember a homily or two about the reality television show “Naked and Afraid”, but I digress. On Father Ciszek, Father K first mused why anyone in the Jesuits thought it was a good idea to send a Pole to minister to the Eastern-Rite Catholics of Russia, but they also knew better than to argue with a stubborn Pole.

Ciszek is, unfortunately, largely forgotten in American Catholic history, though he is legendary among Eastern Province Jesuits. In that same homily, Father K also mentioned Ciszek’s considerable reputation as a spiritual director, mentioning he did his best to empty himself to those who came for his guidance as Father Walter did. And there were many who came to Father K to ask for his guidance, and many who still do after his death.

I do not presume to know Father Kuzniewski any better than any of his students or colleagues did.

I am sure there are many who have heard the some of the stories that I have told, most likely multiple times.

I knew Father K mostly as a priest and professor and so cannot speak to his sports chaplaincy. The reality of his death has still not sunken in for me, and for much of the Holy Cross community, I suspect. The first news of his cancer to when we learned of his death just before Christmas came too fast. As such, these anecdotes that I have told are muddled and incongruous. When we heard that his illness was so serious, a group of us students organized a weekly Rosary for his healing by the intercession of Servant of God Walter Ciszek. Ciszek needed a miracle to qualify for beatification, after all. It was beautiful to welcome a quite a few athletes and Father K’s students to pray with us. God decided not to grant Servant of God Walter that miracle, but we still pray nonetheless.

This College will not be the same without you, Father Kuzniewski. Iść z Panem Bogiem.

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Welcome to Secular Sunday School

Claude Hanley ‘18 Co-Editor in Chief

It is a commonplace among the “Jesuit-but-notCatholic” types to claim that “Holy Cross teaches how to think, not what to think.” A college does not teach the catechism; it teaches you to question the catechism. We critique narratives here; we don’t create them. Or at least that’s the story we tell ourselves. But if it’s true, I’m afraid I can’t explain the McFarland Center’s latest program.

This week, the McFarland Center hosts a lecture

by Professor Kevin Madigan of Harvard Divinity School entitled “Crusades and Crusaders: History and Historiography.” It is intended to “lay a historical context for future dialogue on the Holy Cross moniker.” As it is phrased, this claim attributes authority to Professor Madigan -- his will be the definitive historical view that shapes the ensuing discussion.

Establishing the historical background is reasonable; the Crusades are a controversial topic, and scholarly debate on the subject remains heated.

They involved a vast range of issues, including the tangled mess of East-West relations, the rise of Islam, and Papal supremacy.

Before we can consider our identity as Crusaders, we must understand a little of their complexity. This will provide the basis for mature arguments both for and against the nickname.

This exchange, no matter its conclusion, will influence how Holy Cross identifies itself. The task of setting the historical context, then, is of the highest importance. It must be done correctly and thoroughly.

It requires scholars who fairly represent the different viewpoints on the Crusades. Since Holy Cross is a Catholic college, historians favourable to the Church should have a voice; since it embraces a great many non-Catholics, the debate should embrace the critics of the Church’s conduct. It should feature historians of the Medieval period who study the Crusades. At least, that seems evident to a poor undergraduate:

anyone who has written a history paper knows that you never take a single source as authoritative, without checking qualifications, analyzing bias and understanding the counter argument. With these observations in mind, the sheer audacity of identifying Professor Madigan as the authority becomes evident.

In the first place, he has published less about the Crusades than Betsy DeVos has about education. A scan of his Curriculum Vitae, readily available from the website of Harvard Divinity School, reveals as much. His published books examine how the Medievals interpreted scripture, and occasionally descend to ill-informed polemics against the Vatican in World War II. Next on the CV are articles, and they are no different: Madigan studies scriptural exegesis, and traffics his anti-papal screed at every opportunity. As we progress down the CV, we at length arrive at book reviews, those most authoritative works of scholarship. It is here that we come upon Professor Madigan’s sole published work about the Crusades: a 2-page book review, published 17 years ago in a left-leaning Protestant publication with a readership somewhat larger than The Fenwick Review’s. There is also a small blurb on the subject in his recent textbook; it is shorter than my last term paper.

It is possible that professor Madigan has recently made a serious study of the Crusades, and has yet to release it. That would negate the previous point, but it could never make him an authority. His book reviews and magazine articles reveal a startlingly antiCatholic reading of history. His study of Venerable Pius XII, whom he dismisses as “essentially dualistic or gnostic,” practically oozes with vinegar. Madigan particularly attacks Pius’s alleged inaction during the Holocaust. But what the professor calls the “odious, everyday antisemitism” of Pius XII finds no confirmation in fact. As one historian notes, the Pope “saved the lives of more Jews than all

This is noxious ideology. It betrays the purpose of our education.

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February 2017 The Fenwick Review

other churches, religious institutions and rescue organizations combined.” Throughout the war, he helped smuggle Jews out of Italy, and directed the Church across Europe to provide material aid to the victims of the Holocaust. When Madigan describes the Pontiff “blithely fingering his rosary...while the SS were rounding up more than a thousand Roman Jews,” he imagines the kind of alternative facts that do Steve Bannon proud. When he writes of the “Evil and destructive cultural presuppositions” of the Catholic Church, he makes a farce of intellectual neutrality.

By condemning the Church on the basis of scant historical evidence, Madigan allows ideology to contaminate his scholarship. This stands as a devastating indictment of his credibility. His judgments cannot be authoritative, for they have lost touch with reality. And yet, we ask him to pass judgment, and to deliver the definitive understanding of the Crusades.

His view should be heard, of course; it is always best to hear the harshest critic. But his interpretation of the Crusader is neither neutral nor definitive. As his work on Pius XII proves, Madigan makes a living by demonizing the Catholic Church. This builds prejudice into the process of historiography, and shuts down the discussion before it can even begin. Since the other side will not be heard, “discussion” has become a front for rank duplicity.

Finally, the College’s decision to call a single scholar definitive is simply bad history. If we convince ourselves that expertise does not matter, and that slavish ideology does not contaminate scholarship, this fact alone still damns Madigan’s authority. One cannot do history in a wholly neutral fashion; every

event included in a narrative, every source consulted, involves an act of personal judgment. Madigan’s historiographical predilections are particularly egregious; but even those who are motivated by a genuine concern for truth cannot totally remove their prejudice from their scholarship. This does not mean they should not be heard. It does mean, however, that every voice on one side of the debate should be balanced by another. Intellectual rigour and concern for truth create a duty to hear every side. When it sets up a single figure as the authority, the College manifestly fails in this duty.

Professor Madigan is an unreliable historian of the Crusades. His only publication on the subject appeared in the pages of an ideological little magazine which might as well line a canary cage. His depictions of the Catholic Church belong in a gossip column, not a history book.

No single expert could do the job properly; an ideological polemicist out of his depth is manifestly unqualified.

When it puts him forward as a source, the College does not seriously intend that his opinions will ground a robust, coherent debate on the subject.

Some professors on some committee in some conference room have already made the decision; now, they simply must pick the right facts to justify it. When they present professor Madigan, they occlude open debate and demonstrate a repulsive aversion to the truth. They prove that they do not care about educating serious thinkers, or teaching us to form an opinion; they care that we mimic their thoughts, and accept their opinions. Accept the thoughts of petty bureaucrats, but never form your own, they tell us. Conform the truth to fit your ideas, not your ideas to match the truth. This is noxious ideology. It betrays the purpose

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of our education.

The solution to all of this is simple: give us a real debate. Let Madigan speak, of course; that is a first principle of the intellectual life. But present the other side, too. In the heart of New England, where there are more colleges than anywhere else in the country, experts should not be hard to find. Church historians and medievalists, along with scholars of Islamic history and interfaith relations should be welcomed, in order to provide a broad array of perspectives on the historical phenomenon of the Crusades. This debate concerns our identity as a College: our tradition is wound up in our moniker, and that tradition is important. The questions being raised effect how the College comports itself in the future. So let them be raised, discussed, and answered properly. We are not a secular Sunday school. We are a Jesuit college, the heir to a venerable academic tradition. We should act like one.

Cat on a Fence Stefanie Raymond ‘18

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December/January 2017 The Fenwick Review

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