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A few days later, walking back from visiting Father Duminuco in the nearby hospital, our superior, Vincent T. O’Keefe, S.J., former vicar general of the Jesuits, had an asthma attack. Or so we thought. It turned out to be more serious. He needed surgery on a heart valve plus a double bypass, which was done on June 21. His recovery at the New York Province infirmary progressed well enough for him to enjoy the celebration of his 50th anniversary as a priest on Aug. 24. Our senior editor, John W. Donohue, S.J., had celebrated the same anniversary in June, along with our Father Minister, James Stehr, S.J., who has been a priest for 25 years. Not to be outdone, John Gallen, S.J., our peripatetic liturgist, also celebrated 50 years as a Jesuit in August.
Although Father O’Keefe will be returning to America House as soon as his recovery has progressed sufficiently, his term as superior ends this year. In the meantime, Father Duminuco, who had to cancel his teaching schedule in Italy and Poland while he mends and undergoes physical therapy, was tapped to act as superior. He will hold the reins until January, when we will welcome back to the community as superior Robert A. Mitchell, S.J., whose career has included service as provincial of the New York Province of the Jesuits, president of the U.S. Jesuit Conference and president of the University of Detroit-Mercy. Most recently he was president of Le Moyne College in Syracuse, N.Y., where as a young priest he had been a teacher and dean after his return from studies in Louvain and later in Strasbourg.
Another transition hit us with the sad departure from America of James E. Brogan, who has been a wonderful colleague and an efficient and knowledgeable assistant editor. Jamey came to us after a stint teaching at St. Aloysius in Harlem as a member of the Jesuit Volunteer Corps. As a member of Phi Beta Kappa at Georgetown and a graduate of St. Joseph’s Prep in Philadelphia, he enjoyed a thorough Jesuit education. He is now moving to Weston Jesuit School of Theology in Cambridge, Mass., where he was awarded the J.V.C. scholarship. He will be joining other laypersons who are studying for the master of divinity degree, which he will use in teaching or pastoral ministry after he graduates. We wish him well and will miss him.
In the staff listing to the right of this column, longtime readers will
Did this seem strange to me? Not at all. As a student at Haverford College in Pennsylvania, I attended what was known as Fifth Day meeting. The whole student body trooped over to the meeting house adjacent to the campus for the regular Thursday morning hour of meditation. I was too immature at the time to appreciate these gatherings, as were many other undergraduates. Since Thursday was the day Time magazine arrived, one could hear the rustle of turning pages in the midst of an otherwise prayerful silence.
After Haverford, it was still a long time before I had any real sense of Quaker spirituality. It began, curiously, following my entrance into the Society of Jesus. I began to read the works of Quakers like John Woolman, who spoke out against slavery in his travels through the colonies. His journal, published in 1773, helped to confirm me in a lasting attraction to spiritual autobiographiesas did the journal of George Fox, an early leader in the Society of Friends imprisoned in England for adhering to his faith.
From their beginnings in 17th-century England, the Quakers have long been committed to the cause of justice. John Woolman’s outspoken objection to slavery is just one instance of that commitment. An English Quaker, Elizabeth Fry, led the way in prison reform in the 1800’s; her compassionate work among women prisoners, in particular, was groundbreaking at a time when they were treated with great cruelty, packed into dungeons with their children.
Concern for peace, too, is a major part of the Quaker tradition. The often-reproduced versions of The Peaceable Kingdom were the work of a Quaker artist, Edward Hicks; their theme is taken from the passage in the 11th chapter of Isaiah that speaks of the leopard and the lamb lying down together. The day I attended the 15th Street meeting, a woman rose at the end of the hour to mention a vigil for peace to be held that afternoon at the great arch on Washington Square.
As a further sign of its commitment to social justice, a building next to the meeting house hosts a year-round shelter for homeless men and women.