jesuits central and southern - fall 2014

A Parish on the Border

Fa l l 2014

jesuitsCent ra l and Sou the r n

Reviving the Novice Pilgrimage • Learning from the Poor

2 Jesuits | FALL 2014

Dear Friends,Welcome to the Central and Southern Province. For those of you who had long

relationships with the Missouri or New Orleans provinces, this new name probably does not roll trippingly off the tongue. Even many of us Jesuits stumble over this title. It lacks so much of the historical resonance that New Orleans or Missouri automati-cally called forth.

While we may trip over the name, the birth of this new province, stretching from Miami to Denver and including Belize, has occurred with remarkable ease. So many people contributed that I cannot begin to list them. Even more touching for me as the new provincial, however, has been the generosity of spirit that people have displayed in responding to the call to serve in this new and massive province. Those asked to serve on the staff have often simply said, "Whatever you ask, I will do." St. Ignatius, who so valued obedience, no doubt smiles.

At vows on Aug. 16 and at diaconate ordinations on Oct. 11 and Oct. 18, men of this new province gave themselves through vows or the promises of ordained ministry to serve the Lord by loving his people. The awkward name cannot detract from the way in which Jesuits and those with whom we labor continue and renew our Jesuit works.

The head of the Society of Jesus, Fr. General Adolfo Nicolás, created this new province to enhance our ability to respond to changes in our world. The many talents and deep zeal I’ve seen position us well to answer his call. Nor can I forget the conso-lation I have experienced in meeting so many of you who support us by prayers and gifts. From the first joint celebration of the jubilees of Jesuits in New Orleans through so many local celebrations, your fidelity to the work of the Society confirms us in our desire to preach the Good News to our society.

You probably know well many of our ministries, but Jesuits also reach out now through social media and the virtual news site, The Jesuit Post. They offer the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius in new ways to those who might not have the opportunity to visit a retreat house. Fr. Jeremy Zipple soon will move to New York City to create video content for America magazine's website.

The hunger for the Gospel remains great, and our new context provides exciting new ways to reach out to others. We thank you for your generosity as our companions on this continuing mission. The name of the province may change, but the creativity and zeal that Jesuits have brought to this region since the 17th century remain, by God’s grace, the same. Again, welcome to the Central and Southern Province.

Fr. Ron Mercier SJProvincial, USA Central and Southern Province

message from the provincial

Fr. Ron Mercier

contents

Jesuits Central and SouthernVolume I • Number 1

Fall 2014

EditorThomas Rochford SJ

Associate EditorCheryl Wittenauer

DesignerTracy Gramm

Advancement DirectorJohn Fitzpatrick

Jesuits is published and distributed by the Jesuits of the Central and Southern

Province of the Society of Jesus.

Please address all correspondence about stories to the editor:

[email protected]

Address all correspondence about address, memberships, and

requests to the Advancement Office: 4511 West Pine Boulevard

St. Louis, Missouri 63108-2191 Email: [email protected]

14 feature stories

10 | El Salvador Martyrs 25th Anniversary

12 | New Start, Past Service Celebration in New Orleans

14 | A Parish on the Border Sacred Heart in El Paso

20 | Novice Pilgrimage Fr. Dick Perl Revived Practice

24 | Spirituality Learning from the Poor

26 | Teatro la Fragua at 35 Peace in Honduras

4 | Jesuit News

8 | In Memoriam

28 | Formation: Brian Strassburger

29 | At Work: Matt Ruhl

10

26

20

Cover photo: Fr. Ron Gonzales blesses a parishioner after Sunday Mass at Sacred Heart Parish in El Paso, Texas. (Photo: Thomas Rochford SJ)


transitions

Two Take First VowsSean Ferguson and Aric Serrano have begun philosophy stud-ies after making first vows as Jesuits Aug. 16 at the novitiate in Grand Coteau, La., in front of friends, family and fellow Jesuits. Ferguson is studying at Saint Louis University and Serrano is at Fordham University.

Three Enter the NovitiateMatt Hearley, William Manaker and

Christopher McCoy entered the novitiate at Grand Coteau, La., on Aug. 15.

McCoy, 19, gradu-ated from Regis Jesuit High School in the Denver area and stud-ied computer science for a year at California Polytechnic State University in San Luis Obispo before joining

the Jesuits. He volunteered at soup kitchens, homeless shelters, day care centers and inner-city elementary schools, and attended the March for Life as a senior in high school. He said his Kairos retreat at Regis Jesuit was transformative.

Manaker, 22, earned a bachelor’s in philosophy and Catholic studies from the University of St. Thomas in St. Paul, Minn. While in college, he tutored philosophy and studied abroad in Rome with a Jesuit chaplain, whose example helped inspire his decision to join the Society. He was a teacher and mentor for the Tenley Achievement Program in Washington, D.C., and worked at a Boy

Scout camp. Hearley, 18, a Regis

Jesuit High gradu-ate, volunteered at the Tennyson Center for (abused, neglected and at-risk) Children, and is an Eagle Scout. He said Jesuits at his high school

and those he met on a mission trip to Belize inspired him to join the Society. He enjoys running, backpacking, mountain-eering, playing guitar, fishing and reading.

Three Take Final Vows Three members of the Central and Southern Province have pro-fessed final vows at ceremonies in Chicago. Fr. Mark Bosco pro-nounced final vows on Aug. 31 at Loyola University Chicago, where he teaches

English and theology. Fr. Michael Caruso, president of St. Ignatius College Prep, professed final vows Oct. 19 at Holy Family Church in Chicago. Also on that day, Fr. John Cunningham, physics professor at Loyola University Chicago, professed final vows at Loyola.

Christopher McCoy

William Manaker

Matt Hearley

Aric Serrano (left) and Sean Ferguson

Fr. Michael Caruso pronouncing final vows in Chicago

FALL 2014 | Jesuits 5

Men to be ordained process into the Church of St. Ignatius Loyola in Chestnut Hill, Mass.

Seven Ordained as Transitional Deacons

Bishop Joseph Tobin leads Rev. Mr. Pepe Ruiz through the ordination rite.

Jesuit Michael Barber, bishop of Oakland, presides at the ordination Mass in his diocese.

Five members of the Central and Southern Province were recently ordained as transitional deacons in the Church of St. Ignatius Loyola in Chestnut Hill, Mass., near where they are studying theology at Boston College. Bishop Joseph W. Tobin officiated at the Oct. 11 ordination Mass.

Two other Central and Southern Province members, were ordained as transitional deacons on Oct. 18 at Oakland"s Cathedral of Christ the Light. Michael Barber, the Jesuit bishop of Oakland, Calif., officiated.

Rev. Mr. Joseph Hill, a native of Phoenix, Ariz., graduated with theology degrees from Oxford University in England and the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome before entering the novitiate in 2004. During his regency, he taught theology at Jesuit High School in New Orleans. He studied theology in Belo Horizonte, Brazil.

Rev. Mr. John Nugent of Houston received a psychology degree from Texas A&M University. He entered the novitiate in 2004, then studied philosophy in St. Louis and taught chemistry at Jesuit College Preparatory School in Dallas.

Rev. Mr. Ronny O’Dwyer, a New Orleans native, went to high school in Denver and received a degree in philosophy from Catholic University of America. He received two master’s degrees from Saint Louis University and taught at De Smet Jesuit High School in St. Louis.

Rev. Mr. Pepe Ruiz, a native of Ciudad Juárez,

Mexico, studied at Instituto Tecnológico y De Estudios Superiores De Monterrey and then entered the novitiate at Grand Coteau, La., in 2004. He studied philosophy at Saint Louis University and taught theology and Spanish at Strake Jesuit College Preparatory School in Houston.

Rev. Mr. Carlos Esparza of Dallas received

a degree in computer science from Harvard University before entering the Society in 2004. He studied philosophy in the Bronx and theology in Berkeley. He taught mathematics at Strake Jesuit College Prep in Houston for his regency assignment.

Rev. Mr. Randy Gibbens, a New Orleans native, received a degree in agronomy from Texas A&M University. He entered the Society in 2004, studied philosophy at Saint Louis University and taught biology and theology at Jesuit High School in Tampa.

All seven will spend the rest of the year continuing their theology studies while getting pastoral experience in preparation for being ordained priests on June 13, 2015, in New Orleans.

Rev. Mr. Vincent Giacabazi was born in Peoria, Ill., and graduated from Saint Louis University before entering the Society in 2005. He taught at De Smet Jesuit High School in St. Louis before beginning theology studies.


news briefs

Largest Alumn Corps GroupThe 20 young men and women

in this year’s Jesuit-sponsored Alum Service Corps make up the largest group of volunteers in the program’s 24-year history. The volunteers are giving a year of service as teachers, tutors, and coaches to six Jesuit schools in the Central and Southern Province.

More than half of the volunteers attended both a Jesuit high school and a Jesuit university.

The Institute of Jesuit Sources, which has helped bring Jesuit history and spirituality to life, is moving from its long-time home on the Saint Louis University campus to Boston College. The move to Boston College’s Institute for Advanced Jesuit Studies should be completed by December.

The Institute publishes English-language editions of the fundamental

documents of the Society of Jesus and supports Jesuit scholarship on a wide range of topics, publishing the work of more than 50 authors.

The move is expected to bring deeper financial resources and collaboration with Jesuit graduate students from around the world who are studying at Boston Collelge's School of Theology and Ministry.

Institute of Jesuit Sources Moving to Boston College

Fr. John Padberg has directed The Institute of Jesuit Sources since 1986.

Cristo Rey Experiments in Failed NASA Launch

Eight graduates and eight seniors from Cristo Rey Jesuit in Houston made history when two of their experiments were selected for launch through space to the International Space Station.

They were the only high school students in the country to be invited to send a real-world science experi-ment into orbit with the space station. The program is through the Center for Advancement of Science in Space.

Fr. Brian Reedy was on a faculty team that led the students to imagine, design and complete the experi-

ments involving slime molds and lipids. The rocket exploded seconds after launch Oct. 28 from Wallops Island, Va.

The corporation, Dresser-Rand, covered the costs of Cristo Rey Jesuit students and faculty to attend the NASA launch.


Pope Francis and Jesuit Tertian Instructors Fr. Michael Harter took part in a meeting in Rome with other Jesuits who serve as “tertian instructors” working with young Jesuits in their final stage of formation. Father General Adolfo Nicolás attended many of the group’s sessions, but the highlight of the meeting was Aug. 8 when Fr. Nicolás and the instructors concelebrated Mass with Pope Francis in his chapel at Casa Santa Marta. The occasion was the 200th anniversary of the restoration of the Society after the Suppression.

Former Rockhurst University President Fr. Robert Weiss has received the university’s Magis Award. Rockhurst, St. Louis University High School and Jesuits of the Central and Southern Province presented it in August, a few days before his 90th birthday.

Named for one of the core Jesuit values, the Magis Award was cre-ated by a group of St. Louis-area Rockhurst alumni and honors an outstanding member of the campus community who lives in or is from the St. Louis area.

Weiss, of St. Louis, has degrees in education, philosophy and theol-ogy from Saint Louis University.

He is a decorated World War II vet and longtime national chaplain

Belize SummitSaint Louis University recently

hosted a conference aimed at iden-tifying ways that SLU faculty and students can provide training and support for Jesuit works in Belize.

In May, a group from SLU visited St. Martin de Porres parish in Belize City. Months later, a delegation from Belize including educators, Catholic leaders and staff of St. John’s College, a Jesuit high school and junior college, came to St. Louis for the conference.

Fr. Christopher Collins, who helped plan the summit, said the goal is to deepen relationships between Jesuit institutions in St. Louis and Belize.

Plans under way include the offering of online SLU courses to St. Martin’s staff and a practicum in Belize for SLU education students.

Other ideas being considered include fostering economic develop-ment through SLU’s business school, and providing health care through the nursing and medical school.

Fr. Bob Weiss Receives Rockhurst’s Magis Awardfor the Rainbow Division Veterans Association.

He led Rockhurst from 1977 to 1988 through a period of change and progress that included the establishment of the Executive Fellows MBA Program, the University’s school of manage-ment and the partnership with Research College of Nursing.

He is a longtime supporter and board member of organizations such as Our Little Haven and Boys Hope Girls Hope.


in memoriam

Fr. Ralph E. VonderhaarRalph Vonderhaar died June 16, 2014 in St. Louis

after nearly 71 years as a Jesuit. He was 88. The Omaha, Neb., native entered the Society of Jesus in 1943 and was ordained in 1957.

He taught physics, chemistry and mathematics at St. John’s College in Belize, and math at St. Louis University High School for 24 years. He also helped with maintenance and repair projects including at the Jesuit summer lodge in Fraser, Colo.

He also did occasional sacramental ministry at local parishes and frequently celebrated early morning Mass for the Franciscan Sisters of Mary.

Fr. Maurice “Mo” MurrayMaurice “Mo” Murray died July 11, 2014, in St. Louis

after nearly 62 years as a Jesuit. He was 79. The St. Louis native entered the Society of Jesus in 1952 and was ordained in 1966.

He was very concerned about racial equality, and during studies, was actively involved with groups seeking racial minorities’ access to public accommodations and fair housing.

He held a doctorate in mathematics and taught at Rockhurst University in Kansas City, Mo., Regis University in Denver and St. John’s College in Belize City. He served in Belize from 1981 until 2014 as a teacher and associate pastor at St. Peter Claver Parish in Punta Gorda and 30 surrounding villages. He had functional use of the Mayan language, Q’eqchi’ (or Kekchi) to enable his ministry among Mayan language speakers.

Fr. Vonderhaar Fr. Murray Fr. Grollmes Fr. Weber

Fr. Eugene E. GrollmesEugene Grollmes died July 23, 2014 in St. Louis after

nearly 63 years as a Jesuit. He was 82. The Seneca, Kan., native entered the Society of Jesus in 1951 and was ordained in 1964.

He was the dean of studies at Regis University in Denver and the assistant dean of studies at the College of Arts and Sciences at Saint Louis University. He worked to strengthen the academic rigor and religious identity of Catholic univer-sities through his writings and conferences he organized.

He wrote poetry and other published works.Beginning in 1992, he served for more than 20 years as

a chaplain for student athletes at SLU, providing support and encouragement to them and their coaches.

Fr. Jacques L. WeberJacques Weber died Aug. 17, 2014, in Houston, Texas,

after 77 years as a Jesuit. He was 94. The native New Orleanian entered the Society of Jesus in 1936 and was ordained in 1949.

He taught at Jesuit High School in Dallas and at Strake Jesuit College Prep in Houston and later served as rector of Jesuit High School in Shreveport, La.

He was the associate director of the Office of Continuing Adult Education in Houston and also worked as an adult educator, conference speaker and consultant.

He worked at parishes in Houston, and gave retreats and days of recollection.

Fr. Jarrel D. “Patricio” WadeJarrel “Patricio” Wade died Aug. 28, 2014, in El

Progreso, Yoro, Honduras, the Central American nation where he lived and worked for nearly half a century. He was 81 and had been a Jesuit for 62 years.

The native of Duncan, Okla., entered the Society of Jesus in 1952 and was ordained in 1965. His only assign-ment in the U.S. was as assistant principal and Latin teacher at Kapaun High School in Wichita, Kan., from 1959 to 1962.

From 1967 until he died, he lived and worked in the state of Yoro, Honduras, which was a mission of the former Missouri Province before becoming part of the Jesuits’ Central American Province. He was a missionary, superior of the Honduras Mission in the 1970s, and episcopal vicar in Yoro, as well as pastor in El Negrito, Yoro, Honduras. He was instrumental in founding Radio Progreso, Instituto Tecnico Loyola and Instituto San José.

Fr. John Francis SnyderJohn Francis Snyder died Sept. 13, 2014, in St. Louis

after 73 years as a Jesuit. He was 96.The Marshall, Minn., native, a member of the Wisconsin

Province, entered the Society of Jesus in 1941. He was ordained in 1955 and spent his Jesuit career in the Upper Midwest, Missouri and New York.

He taught at the former Campion Jesuit High School in Prairie du Chien, Wis., at Marquette University High School and Marquette University in Milwaukee, and served as its director of public relations. From 1972 to ’82, he was assistant director or director of White House Retreat in St. Louis. He spent the next seven years as vice president and


Fr. Wade Fr. Snyder Fr. Jacques Fr. Harmless

president of the Gregorian University Foundation in New York, and later served as vice chairman of the foundation’s board of trustees.

From 1996 until 2010, he was a pastoral minister at Saint Louis University.

Fr. Ernest “E.J.” JacquesErnest “E.J.” Jacques died Oct. 8, 2014, in New Orleans

after 61 years as a Jesuit. He was 80.The New Orleans native entered the Society of Jesus in

1953. He was ordained in New Orleans in 1966 and spent most of his Jesuit career as a teacher. He taught a variety of courses at Jesuit high schools in Dallas, New Orleans, Shreveport, La., and Tampa, Fla., and at Spring Hill College in Mobile, Ala.

He also taught Scripture to adult learners and future deacons and served as a chaplain and pastor.

Fr. J. William Harmless J. William "Bill" Harmless died Oct. 14, 2014 in Omaha,

Neb., after 36 years as a Jesuit. He was 61. The Kansas City, Mo., native entered the Society of Jesus in 1978 and was ordained in 1987.

He taught theology at Spring Hill College in Mobile, Ala., John Carroll University in University Heights, Ohio, Creighton University in Omaha, Neb., and Villanova (Penn.) University and served on the board of directors of Villanova’s Augustinian Heritage Institute.

He contributed much to scholarship on St. Augustine and early monasticism and was internationally renowned in his field.


faith and justice

Anniversary

B ringing the Jesuit martyrs of El Salvador to life in portraits

may seem like a daunting task for a college student, but artist Mary Pimmel-Freeman found a way to create an intimate bond with her venerated subjects. She worked on her canvases in her Rockhurst University townhouse, and before long the six Jesuits, who had been murdered because of their work for social justice and the poor, were dubbed “the padres.” The name stuck.

Pimmel-Freeman first learned about the 1989 murders of the Jesuit professors and two laywomen at the University of Central America — the UCA — through Rockhurst’s social justice club. “I heard a little bit about their story, but I was curious to know about who they actually were, which was the inspiration for under-taking the project,” she said.

Pimmel-Freeman created the paintings in 2006 for her under-graduate thesis. “Painting the Jesuits allowed me to know them in a pretty intimate way — they were still the martyrs and they were still role models, but I felt like I could under-stand them and feel closer to them. I wasn’t intimidated by them as much because they were just the padres.”

But before ever picking up her paintbrush, Pimmel-Freeman immersed herself in the lives of the martyrs, reading about them and traveling to El Salvador for an alter-native spring break trip. “Being there

25thof UCA Martyrs

Nov. 16 marks the 25th anniversary of the murders of six Jesuits and their housekeeper and her 15-year-old daughter at the

University of Central America in San Salvador, El Salvador.

By Becky Sindelar

Paintings: Mary Pimmel-Freeman


and seeing all the pictures made it come to life for me,” she said.

When it was time to paint, she would sit with everything she had researched about the person. She also used prayer. “I would pray to the Jesuit,” she says. “I would pray a lot before starting the painting, and then during the process of painting, I would try to focus on expressing what I felt was the essence of their personality or their work.”

For Pimmel-Freeman, color played a large part in highlighting each martyr’s personality. For instance, she used purple as the main color for the portrait of Jesuit Father Ignacio Martín-Baró. She combined blue, to represent his academic side, and red for his artistic side, as Martín-Baró was a psychologist who also played guitar.

“They said if you saw him on campus, he might not even realize you were there; he was very focused on his work. But when he ministered in the rural parishes, he would come to life and play the guitar and he was completely different. He had these two seemingly opposite parts of him that came together in a holistic way of living his calling,” she said.

The painting of Elba and Celina Ramos, the mother and daughter who were murdered along with the Jesuits, features red roses. After their deaths, Elba’s husband and Celina’s father, Obdulio Ramos, who worked as a security guard on campus, planted roses in the garden near where their bodies were found.

Pimmel-Freeman views the paintings as puzzle pieces that fit

together to express an overall mes-sage of the El Salvador martyrs. Today, the originals are displayed on Rockhurst University’s campus.

“I love the connection between social justice and art,” says Pimmel-Freeman, who served as a Jesuit Volunteer after her Rockhurst gradu-ation and then received a master’s in social justice from Loyola University Chicago. She’s been inspired to explore the connection between

was assassinated while celebrating Mass in March 1980.

The martyrs project “made it feel possible to connect my passion for social justice with my art,” she said. “I physically had the ability to express what I wanted to express, and I could do it in a very powerful way.”

Pimmel-Freeman also said that her connection to the martyrs has changed over the years. “They’re really dynamic — people see them

spirituality and the arts at her job at the Jesuit-run Casa Romero in Milwaukee that aims to strengthen families in the city’s Latino com-munity. She’s currently working on a portrait of Óscar Romero, the Salvadoran bishop who spoke out against poverty, social injustice and the killings and torture during El Salvador’s civil war, and who

Peace activists and Jesuit-related groups gather annually at the School of the Americas at Fort Benning, Ga., to advocate for change in the U.S. military training of Latin American soldiers such as those who killed the six Jesuits and the two women. In 1997, protestors massed at the gates of Fort Benning.

as heroes, which I think they are. I think too, the more that I painted them, the more I realized these are totally ordinary guys — ordinary men called to live extraordinary lives and to give an extraordinary sacrifice.”


Jesuits Celebrate a New Start,

Past Service

A fter eight years of meetings, countless studies and

careful preparation, the Jesuits of the Missouri and New Orleans provinces came together for three days of prayer and celebration to mark the beginning of the Central and Southern Province.

On July 31, the feast of St. Ignatius, Fr. Doug Marcouiller and Fr. Mark Lewis transferred leader-ship to Fr. Ron Mercier as the first provincial of the new Central and Southern Province in a private ceremony at Jesuit High in New

Orleans. During the Mass, the decree establishing the province was read.

Father General Adolfo Nicolás said in the decree, “I pray together with all members of the Central and Southern Province, through the intercession of Our Lady, the Mother of God, and Blessed Miguel Agustín Pro, that the Lord will bless and make fruitful our humble desires and projects for his greater glory and for the good of souls.”

After the Mass, Marcouiller and Lewis were presented with memory

(Top, left) Fr. Mark Lewis (left) and Fr. Doug Marcouiller (middle) received memory books of photos and comments from Jesuits they served as provincials. Fr. Ron Mercier (right) led the applause. On Aug. 1, Jesuits and friends gathered in the dining room at St. Charles College in Grand Coteau, La. (Top, right). Jubilarians (above) came together on Aug. 2 at Holy Name of Jesus Church in New Orleans.


new province

books filled with pictures and notes of gratitude for their leadership gathered from the Jesuits they have led for the past six years.

On Aug. 1, more than 150 guests assembled for a special Mass and luncheon to fête jubilarians and welcome Mercier at St. Charles College in Grand Coteau, La., home to an assisted living community for senior Jesuits, the novitiate for the new province, and the Jesuit Spirituality Center. College rector Fr. Jim Bradley delivered the homily and co-hosted with the novices and Jesuits in residence.

The next day, more than 500 benefactors and friends came

together at Holy Name of Jesus Church in New Orleans for the first feast of recently canonized Jesuit St. Peter Faber, one of the first com-panions of the Society of Jesus. The Mass commemorated the provinces’ unification and honored 37 Jesuits celebrating ministry milestones.

Fr. John Padberg, who is celebrating 70 years in the Society of Jesus this year, gave the homily in which he noted the fact that this year’s jubilarians marked 1,975 years of ministry. Jesuits and guests later enjoyed a jazz reception at Loyola University’s Danna Student Center.

The new Central and Southern Province is home to 400 Jesuits

working in 13 states, stretching eastward from Colorado and New Mexico to Florida, south from Kansas and Missouri to the Mexican border and Gulf Coast, along the Mississippi River from St. Louis to New Orleans, and the Central American nation of Belize. In his first letter to the members of the new province, Mercier said, “St. Peter (Faber) poured himself out finding new ways to move people to deeper love of Christ. Let us ask him to pray that God may bless the new Central and Southern Province with that same apostolic creativity and zeal, and also with many vocations to reach the people of our day.”


pastoral ministry

E l Paso, Texas, wedged between the U.S. and Mexico, has always been on the frontier. The city

traces its growth to the railroads that arrived in 1881 as west Texas developed farming, ranching and mining after the Civil War.

The Italian Jesuits who founded the Church in this area had to develop new institutions with few resources. Headquarters in Naples, Italy, were far away.

That spirit lives on in the DNA of the local church, according to Fr. Ron Gonzales, an El Paso native and pastor of the Jesuits’ Sacred Heart Parish. “It has to be that way,” he said. “Out here you are on your own, far away from New Orleans.”

Story and Photos by Thomas Rochford SJ

Sacred Heart: A Parish on the Border

The best-known El Paso Jesuits invented programs to fulfill unmet needs. Fr. Carlos Pinto, known as the Apostle of El Paso, was the most prominent of a group of Jesuits from the Naples Province of Italy, who were driven out of their homelands during the Revolution of 1860 and became missionaries in the American West. From the rectory at Sacred Heart, Pinto and the Jesuits served faith communi-ties up and down the Rio Grande

A statue of Fr. Carlos Pinto (right). Fr. Ron Gonzales (below) celebrating Mass in Sacred Heart Church


Valley and on both sides of the border. Under his lead-ership, the Jesuits built 14 churches and seven schools between 1892 and 1917.

Fr. Anthony J. Schuler was the first bishop of El Paso and the only Jesuit U.S. bishop in his time. He entered the Society of Jesus in 1886 at Florissant, Mo., studied at Saint Louis University and taught in Denver at Sacred Heart College, later to become Regis University.

Fr. Harold Rahm served at Sacred Heart Parish from 1952 to 1964. Known as the “bicycling priest,” Rahm left a legacy of nonprofits inspired by his work including an outreach center for gang members and other at-risk youth, an employment office, a thrift store, a credit union and homes for young people. Every morning, he delivered breakfast to the elderly on his bicycle.

From 1964 until his death in 2006, Fr. Rick Thomas

directed Our Lady’s Youth Center, which expanded its ministries to the poor in Juarez, Mexico, in such areas as nutrition, physical and mental health, and education.

Recent pastors, Fr. Rafael Garcia and Fr. Eddie Gros, continued that tradition and Sacred Heart Parish remains a busy place. Its office is open seven days a week to serve the needs of parishioners in one of the poorest neighborhoods in the nation.

Fr. Don Bahlinger (left) blesses a woman who just received food through a food bank (above right), one of the many lay-led ministries in Ciudad Juarez (above) that were founded by Jesuits at Sacred Heart Church in El Paso. A market near the church (top right) shows the mix of U.S. and Mexican cultures.


According to the U.S. Census Bureu, the neighborhood around the parish has a 64 perceent poverty rate. The city of El Paso estimates the unem-ployment rate in that area is 29 percent, triple that of surrounding cities. Only 18 percent of adults in the neighborhood have high school degrees.

The parish is the closest U.S. Jesuit ministry to the Mexican border. Pedestrians on the bridge over the Rio Grande that divides the U.S. and Mexico can see the Sacred Heart tower as soon as they exit customs, only a few blocks away. Sacred Heart has a long and trusted relationship with parishioners who are undocumented. It welcomes newly arrived migrants and reaches out to unaccompanied minors in detention.

The El Paso port of entry receives the second- highest number of people crossing into the United States at its border, second only to the one in San Diego. The city is a frequent crossing point for illegal entrants.

Congregating on streets around the church are laborers hoping to get work for the day. The first arrive around 4 a.m. looking for field work followed by later arrivals looking for construction work. A third group seeks cleaning or painting jobs.

On Fridays, a group of volunteers staff La Dispensa, the parish food bank. Fr. Mike Chesney works with eight volunteers in the St. Vincent de Paul program. The volunteers assess the needs and deliver emergency help to people.

The parish even runs its own restaurant, La Tilma, housed in the gym of the former youth center. The res-taurant does not make money, but Gonzales thinks it gets people involved in the parish.

Barbed wire (top) marks the immigration control area on the border, with the Sacred Heart Church within sight. Fr. Mike Chesney (above) preaches at Sunday Mass.

Traditional sacramental work keeps the four priests busy celebrating Masses in Spanish and English, hearing confessions and visiting homes. Parishioners are respectful and grateful and ask the priests for blessings after Mass.


Fr. Frank Renfroe (top, left) blesses a woman after Sunday Mass. Fr. Ron Gonzales, the pastor, (top, right) in the sacristy before Mass. The parish runs its own restaurant, La Tilma, (above) as a way to bring people together.


The many demands for help easily could overwhelm.The Jesuits tried to help people with bus tickets, but can-celed the program when the need exceeded resources. Each month, the parish’s operating expenses exceed its revenue by $5,000. Benefactors make up the difference and are key to the parish’s survival.

The parish collaborates with area agencies rather than trying to do everything itself. In one such partner-ship, an agency screens renters and manages apartments that are owned by the parish.

The parish provides liturgy and sacraments to Catholics on both sides of the border. Many who come for early-morning Mass live in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, but work in El Paso.

Like many parishes, Sacred Heart has a school, but its students are economically disadvantaged adults.

Volunteer Arturo Benitez teaches a class that prepares people for the citizenship exam.

Jaime Garcia directs the Centro Pastoral that offers courses, including computer training for adults in several well-equipped labs.


The Centro Pastoral, housed in a former high school, offers a variety of adult courses in computers and preparation for the citizenship exam. Sacred Heart is known as a safe place with effective programs and caring staff concerned about both documented and undocumented people.

The center recently received a $1.5 million gift from local benefactors that will serve as an endowment to generate funds for the parish’s education services.

As pastor, Fr. Gonzales brings a wealth of experience from his service in Jesuit parishes in Houston, Grand Coteau, La., and San Antonio. He does not want to rely only on older parishioners who have been the backbone of Sacred Heart. He hopes that a new retreat program that highlights service will spark involvement by newer parish-ioners and continue the parish’s legacy of innovation.

The Jesuit community (top) enjoys a moment of rest as they eat together. Classes in the Centro Pastoral teach computer skills (left) that prepare people for better jobs and show how to make crafts (above) for sale.


Revived Pilgrimage Sets a Jesuit’s Path

A s a 14-year-old, Dick Perl hitchhiked from home in the St. Louis suburbs to classes at St. Louis

University High School and back. He couldn’t know that seven years later, as a post-novice who struggled with committing to Jesuit life, he’d thumb his way through a historic pilgrimage that changed his life and cast his future.

When Perl finished novitiate in August 1968, he couldn’t decide whether to take first vows, that initial commitment to the Jesuits that traditionally follows two years as a novice. So, his novice director, the late Fr. Vincent J. O’Flaherty, wondered if reviving the lost practice of novice pilgrimage would help Perl decide.

Perl, now 66 and a Jesuit for 48 years, is believed to have pioneered the revival of Jesuit pilgrimage, a practice that 16th-century Jesuit founder Ignatius of Loyola found transformative and required of his followers. Yet, the practice had gotten lost over the years. Before Perl’s journey of a lifetime in 1969, novices did not venture far from the walls of the novitiate.

“When I finished the novitiate in August 1968, I went into the juniorate without taking vows,” Perl recalls in a reconstituted journal of his experience. (He lost his original journal years after his pilgrimage, somewhere in Central America.) “Toward the end of that school year, I was still undecided about taking vows, and around April or May, Vince came up with the idea of sending me on an Ignatian pilgrimage to help me make up my mind. The idea is that I would make my way to the Shrine of Our Lady of Guadalupe in Mexico City and come back to St. Louis on my own, during a period of 10 weeks.

“Ignatius’ idea is that a man would do this with absolutely no financial resources in order to teach him to rely on God.”

O’Flaherty explained it himself in a letter to Perl’s parents on May 6, 1969. “I’ll bet you’re wondering what this is all about,” he wrote, “so I’ll get to the point right away.

“ . . . It began to occur to me several months ago that given Dick’s particular situation, it might be a very good thing for him to get away from the seminary setting and from his group, to be on his own, for a while. One of the novitiate “experiments” which St. Ignatius calls for in our Constitutions, and which has been used hardly at all in our times, is that of pilgrimage.

“ . . . This whole idea may sound very unusual to you, coming as it does from a man who was not at all in

By Cheryl Wittenauer

Starting pointSt. Louis

Paducah

Memphis

Jackson

Grand IsleGalveston

Monterrey

Mexico City

Puerto Vallarta

MEXICO

NEW MEXICO

WYOMING

SOUTH DAKOTA

IOWA

El Paso

San Antonio

Albuquerque

TEXAS

Denver

Rapid City

COLORADO KENTUCKY

TENNESSEE

MISSISSIPPI

LOUISIANA


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favor last summer of Dick’s floating down a few miles along the Mississippi on a raft. But, as is the case with a number of these young fellows nowadays, I think Dick needs a taste of adventure, a chance to make it on his own for a while, a rather radical break — for a time — from the rather secure and sheltered life that he has lived so far. I feel that, if it is God’s Will that Dick be a Jesuit, he will be much happier and more settled in our life if he has had this taste of adventure. And, from what I know of St. Ignatius, I feel that he would approve of this sort of “experiment” for a young man like Dick. I have, of course, talked the idea over with our provincial, Father Sheahan, and he approves of it.”

Perl left on Friday the 13th of June in 1969, the summer of Woodstock and a year after a bloody turning point in the Vietnam War called the Tet Offensive. Perl carried a small pack, $150 cash and a letter from O’Flaherty. He had two years of high school Spanish, and the begrudging approval of his mother. The novice master dropped him off at a highway outside St. Louis, gave him a hug and told him to return in 10 weeks. Then he drove off.

“I stuck out my thumb, and thus began the pilgrimage that was going to ultimately change my life, giving a direction to it that I had never anticipated,” Perl recalled.

Perl’s account of that summer reads like a Mark Twain telling of the exploits of Huckleberry Finn,

in the tradition of classic road stories like Chaucer’s “Canterbury Tales” or Fellini’s “La Strada.” He spends

his first night on the covered porch of a hardware store in Paducah, Ky.; gets a job delivering newspapers while staying with a fundamentalist Christian family in Memphis, Tenn.; and encounters a mean Rod Steiger-looking cop with a pronounced paunch in Jackson, Miss., who calls him “boy,” and threatens to throw him in jail. In New Orleans, he pays six bucks for a “skid-row place” near Canal and Bourbon streets, tastes his first beignet, listens to music at Preservation Hall, and fends off an offer of sex from a man who promised to show him the town. “At 21, I was beginning to learn the ways of the world,” Perl wrote.

He heads to Grand Isle, La., where he finds work as a deck hand on a boat headed to an oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico. It’s dark. He’s tired, and 5-foot waves leave him puking and miserable. The captain tells him to stay awake and keep talking as he steers their way back by the stars. He misses Hurricane Camille, which took more than 250 lives, by only a few weeks. He later lands in Morgan City, La., where he connects with a shrimping job in the bayous, earning $20 for two days of work.

Rare photos of the Mexico pilgrimage (above and opposite page) were provided by Dr. Stephen Sontag, who was backpacking through Mexico when he met Perl. They reconnected this year.

“People were very good to me, generous throughout the pilgrimage.

God was watching over me, taking care of me.”


Perl marvels at the generosity of strangers he meets along the way. His request for day-old, half-price donuts at a bakery in Louisiana is rewarded with a dozen fresh glazed donuts given for free by the woman behind the counter.

On the beach at Galveston, Texas, two teen-agers find Perl trying to sleep on the sand, and invite him to a family beach house where they prepare a bed for him, but not before one of the boys’ mother grills him about what he is up to.

“I tear up now thinking about it,” Perl said. “People were very good to me, generous throughout the pilgrim-age. God was watching over me, taking care of me.”

He enters Mexico at Reynosa without as much as a passport, a bottle of water or a sleeping bag, and takes a bus to Monterrey, falling to sleep his very first night out-side of the States on bare ground, on the side of a moun-tain overlooking the city. His high school Spanish, “the

most practical course that I had at St. Louis U. High,” he later writes, is a trusty companion, helping him find toilets, get directions, and ask for rides and places to stay including the bench of a courtyard jail in Tamuín where authorities let him sleep for free one night.

In Rio Verde, he got a meal and a bed at the home of an American couple that informed him about the national scandal at Chappaquiddick in which a young colleague of Sen. Edward “Ted” Kennedy drowned after a party. In Arroyo Seco, he was a guest in the home of a family who invited him and others from the neighborhood to watch the Apollo 11 moon landing on July 20, 1969.

The Pilgrimage Experiment, as it is now called at the province's novitiate in Grand Coteau, La., has become a regular part of the routine of novice life. First-year novices make the pilgrimage in mid-winter, right after they finish working together in social agencies in Kansas City, Kan. The novice master gives each novice $5 and a one-way bus ticket to a destination that fits each individual. During the two-week pilgrimage, a novice begs for food, shelter and transportation.

A young Dick Perl with his mother, Gloria Perl, who was not keen on her son going on pilgrimage


One of Perl’s most memorable rides was with a Mexican trucker who from his cab signaled him to jump in as he slowly navigated a steep grade along a narrow and winding highway to Mexico City.

Running alongside the truck’s cab, he hoists himself onto the running board, grasping at a door handle to steady himself and finally climbs in and closes the door.

“I said a very heartfelt ‘Gracias,’ which was meant not only for the driver but also for God for helping me to make this rather dangerous transfer safely,” he wrote.

In Mexico City, which Perl describes as a “humunga urban area of 8 million people in 1969,” he locates a Jesuit school of theology where his mail is being held for him. The Jesuits offer him a place to stay but Perl declines. Instead, he walks downtown and settles into a doorway where he reads letters from home. “I only read one or two, and suddenly broke down in tears as I thought of all the people back home who loved me and were praying for me,” he wrote. “I was thankful it was raining so hard and that there was so much traffic, because no one could hear my sobbing. It was then that I decided to bend my self-imposed rules and return . . . to stay with the Jesuits.”

The next day, Perl took a bus north of the city to the Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe, a shrine to the

spot where Mary is said to have appeared to a Mexican peasant in 1531. He remembers thinking that the pil-grims’ practice of approaching the shrine on their knees was superstitious.

Over the next four days, Perl spent hours in the basilica praying, watching, attending Mass and observ-ing the parade of pilgrims processing to view a precious cloth, or tilma with the image of Our Lady. What he ear-lier thought was a superstitious practice he found himself doing. He ambled on his knees more than 200 yards to the tilma.

“And there I prayed to Our Lady of Guadalupe, thanking her for these four special days,” he wrote.

“And I asked her to guide me, not only safely back to St. Stanislaus in Florissant, but also to guide me as to what to do with my life.

“And she did not let me down.”Perl’s return trip included travels in Puerto Vallarta

with an American backpacker, a bus break-down somewhere in rural Mexico, an overnight stay in a jail in Tepic, a train ride over the scenic Copper Canyon, and re-entry into the U.S. via El Paso. He has a chance encounter with a Catholic sister from Florissant in Chama, N.M., hops freight trains in Wyoming and South Dakota and gets arrested in Iowa.

Perl made his way back to Florissant just before

nightfall on Friday, Aug. 22, 1969, a full 10 weeks after he was sent on his way 45 years ago. He would not take his first vows for another year, when he chose the vow name Richard Guadalupe Perl, and went on to spend 32 years of ministry in Central America. Today, he does pastoral ministry with Hispanics in Kansas City, Mo.

“Something happened to me down there,” he said. “My world opened up. I was trusting in God everyday. God did take care of me. It just happened to be a jail (sometimes).

“When I entered the Jesuits, I had no dream of becoming a missionary. The pilgrimage opened my eyes to the rest of the world.”

Fr. Dick Perl with young Mayan parishioners in Belize where he continued the parish work he did for many years in Honduras

Read Fr. Perl's journal at:jesuitscentralsouthern.org/features

M O R E we bON THE


ignatian spirituality

Learning from the PoorBy Thomas Rochford SJ

F or the past three years, Anne Osdieck has been praying with homeless or recently homeless men

and women in St. Louis. The retired high school art teacher and Ignatian Volunteer Corps member has long been interested in Ignatian spirituality and has read a great deal about it. The poor are teaching her even more.

“It is a gift to be part of their sharing,” she said. “They inspire me to do what they are doing.”

Osdieck was a volunteer at St. Francis Xavier (College) Church when she was asked to help start a retreat program for the homeless like the one Jesuit Fr. Bill Creed pioneered in Chicago. Attempts to imitate the spirituality program at College Church faltered until a move to St. Patrick Center in downtown St. Louis put the program right next to the people.

The College Church was too far away from the people it wanted to invite. The homeless and formerly

homeless take part in various programs throughout the day at St. Patrick Center, one of Missouri’s largest pro-viders of housing, employment and health services. The center fills an old office building in downtown St. Louis.

Two mornings a week, Osdieck goes around the lounge at St. Patrick with other facilitators looking for people to participate in the prayer sessions. They invite men to the Monday session and women to the Thursday session. On average, six persons agree to join them in a small meeting room where they gather around a conference table.

The facilitator begins with a meditative prayer to help people get in touch with their feelings and try to be open to meet God. Each session has a theme such as gratitude, fear, suffering, forgiveness, grace or compas-sion. All of the participants, including volunteers such as Osdieck, share their own experiences related to the

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folio headingWhen people are stripped of every-

thing, they have nothing else to do but look back at life and see that things were not working. They remember a better life when they were younger, and want to get back to that. They change.

“They have all these things in the past, but now they realize that grace has helped them change,” Osdieck said.

One man recalled being at the point of death and praying, “God, I know I deserve everything that has happened to me, but if you let me live, I will change.” He did.

One participant, Diane, was depressed and angry with everyone in her life. Her children were with their father and she couldn’t see herself moving forward. She came to the spirituality meetings every week and eventu-ally began to change. She got an apartment and found a job to support herself. She began to communicate with her children. She told Osdieck that the prayer group helped her change from the self-absorbed person she was to an outgoing, hopeful person who turned out to be a great model for the other women in the group.

“God is so good! I don’t have a bed,

but it doesn’t matter. I have all I need.”

A moment of change for a man named Gary came while he was in solitary confinement in prison. He felt forgotten by the authorities and in the silence of a cell, decided that his life had to change. He knew what his life had been until the age of 11. He had parents who went to church and raised him right. When his parents died, he moved in with an aunt who provided him a place to sleep but little else. He floundered on his own and ended up in prison.

In solitary, he decided to stop what got him into prison and get back to what he was like earlier. He was talking to God the whole time, and he got it straight. That’s the way it was going to be.

Anne Osdieck

Continued on next page

theme. The hour-long session ends with the Serenity Prayer.

Osdieck reflected on how the ses-sions have influenced her own faith life. She said that frequently men and women in the group will say they like to spend a little time each evening thinking back over the day to see where God was present.

“That’s got a name,” Osdieck said, referring to an Ignatian practice called the Examen. “I know how to do that, but I don’t do it.”

One of the participants, Al, a part-time school janitor, couldn’t afford his apartment last summer. He rented a self-storage unit and slept in that with some of his belong-ings. It was safer than sleeping on the street, he explained; you just need a good flashlight. In August, he started working again, and moved back into an apartment.

“God is so good!” he said. “I don’t have a bed, but it doesn’t matter. I have all I need.”

Osdieck recalled a session on the topic of affirmation. Another participant, Tim, was working on ending his addiction. “Here’s what I think,” he said. “When the good thief asked Jesus to remember him when he got to paradise, it was like the Father’s affirmation of everything Jesus had done, everything in his ministry. Jesus knew that all was well at the end.”

Osdieck recalled that a woman in the group was struck by the fact that Jesus was born homeless and how she likes to imagine she was present in the Gospel stories. That made Osdieck think of the Ignatian method of praying through the imagination.

Another Ignatian insight came when Pat, a disabled vet who just got his own apartment, talked about being successful in life until negative thinking got him in trouble. He is more aware of this tendency, and chooses instead to be positive.

This sounds like the fruit of the first week of the Spiritual Exercises, which are designed to help people put their lives in order so they are free to respond to God. Many of the stories the participants shared came from their struggle to put their lives in order.

One thread that ran through the sessions was a keen sense that they are now in a graced place compared to where they once were. They may have lost their parents or been in an abusive relationship. A number of the men served time in prison. Most have struggled with addictions.


When the guards finally came to let him out of solitary, he said, “Leave me here a while longer; I’m not done yet.” Once he got out, he was a different person and changed his life radically.

Vernon was also in prison but his decision to change was less dramatic. He just decided he’d had enough. “My life was never going to be any good until I stopped drinking and drugs,” he said.

Now, Osdieck said, he is a facilitator of one of the men’s groups. He tells his story to others who struggle with addictions and other challenges. He tells them about what his life is like now, rich, not with money or things, but in freedom and control of his life. He has gotten to know his daughter and grandson, something he had no time for before.

“He is a wonderful example to other people in the group who are trying to give up drinking,” she said.

Osdieck marvels at the participants’ insights and how they arrived at them.

How did they learn to pray this way? How did St. Ignatius learn? Perhaps the experience of extreme poverty, of having nothing to stop them from getting to what really matters, is common to both the founder of the Jesuits and those she meets at St. Patrick Center. Maybe Ignatius was able to discover it once his pride and privilege were shattered by a cannonball in a mili-tary accident, forcing him into solitude, reflection and eventual conversion.

“Ignatius discovered it and put words to it, but God created each one of us and is present inside, down deep in this place we have to get to,” she said. “The homeless get there faster; they don’t have anything else.

“Nobody told them how to pray; they just learn it on their own because they don’t have stuff cluttering up their lives,” she added.

Osdieck said she has learned not to judge anyone because of his or her appearance. Rather, she tries to get to know people to reveal the beauty inside.

After awhile, it becomes hard to distinguish the volunteers from the homeless, she said.

She also has learned to pray differently. “I know more about how God cares for people,”

she said. “I can see him working in people’s lives. When I see him active in someone’s life who has nothing else, then I know him better. They would like bus passes and lunch, and they get those, but they meet Christ and he is all that they need.”

A Jesuit-founded music and theater troupe in northern Honduras dedicated its 35th season to

peace in the violence-scarred Central American nation.Teatro La Fragua, founded and directed by Jesuit Fr.

Jack Warner, marked its 35th anniversary of bringing theater to the people of northern Honduras by sponsoring a two-month long season of theater and music this summer at its base in El Progreso, dedicating it to a “Honduras at peace.” In addition to Teatro’s performance of plays, other theater groups, musicians and dancers were invited to perform so that there was a different production every weekend.

One of Teatro’s alumni, Herlyn Espinal, was murdered the first weekend of the season. Espinal worked with Teatro from 2001 to 2005 before becoming a TV news reporter in San Pedro Sula, a city on the coast that is especially dangerous. His unsolved murder joins those of others closely associated with Teatro: a former actor-director murdered in 2006; a former choreographer and ballet instructor, and the husband of Teatro’s bookkeeper, both murdered in 2010; and Teatro’s technical director, murdered in 2012.

35th Season Dedicated to Peace in Honduras

Ignatian Spirituality


international ministry“The Temporada (theater season) is a

prayer of petition for a Honduras at peace,” Warner wrote in a letter to friends and donors. “But it’s hard to see any hope that the prayer is being answered.

The country where Jesuits from the former Missouri Province have worked since the 1950s has one of the world’s highest homicide rates, according to the U.N. Gang-related violence underlies the flood of Honduran children attempting to find shelter in the United States.

Warner recalled composer/conductor Leonard Bernstein’s thoughts on the role of an artist in the wake of John F. Kennedy’s assassination in 1963.

“This will be our reply to violence: to make music more intensely, more beautifully, more devotedly than ever before,” Bernstein said.

“We hope that Teatro La Fragua is a worthy disciple of Bernstein,” Warner added.

Warner is trying to develop a paying audience in El Progreso to support Teatro in the future beyond the con-tributions of U.S. benefactors whose support is critical.

Warner, 70, earned a Master of Fine Arts in directing from the Goodman School of Drama in Chicago in 1978. Since the Missouri Province ran the Jesuits’ mission in

Honduras, Warner decided it was the right location for developing a people’s theater company, Teatro La Fragua, or Theater of the Forged, “as in a blacksmith’s forge,” he explained.

“I like the image . . . taking ideas and cultural realities and forming them into a shape that can be seen, heard and experi-enced; the forming of people and forming of ideas, and by doing so, giving people a reflection, an image of who they are and

their own reality. Hamlet uses the image of holding a mirror up to nature.”

Warner launched Teatro with a parish youth group in Olanchito but eventually moved it to El Progreso, the nation’s third-largest city that for years was the com-mercial center for banana farms. Today, the city is better known for its clothing sweatshops, but a former dance hall of United Fruit Co. serves as Teatro’s performance venue when the troupe isn’t on the road. The hall is about the size of an off-Broadway theater.

Warner directs actors in their late teens and 20s, most of whom joined the theater after participating in acting and staging workshops Teatro offers at parishes and schools. The troupe spends half the year rehearsing and performing strictly scriptural material, dramatizing

Gospel stories for the Christmas and Easter seasons. The other half of the year, they work on secular material with a social message such as Grimms’ Fairy Tales or popular folk stories from Europe and Latin America.

Teatro La Fragua has toured Central America, Mexico, Colombia, Spain and the U.S., and was the subject of a PBS documentary. The theater’s mission is to stimulate the creativity needed for problem-solving, and to enable Hondurans to show themselves and the world their culture’s worth, beauty and power even as globalization ranks some as inferior. Warner’s work echoes a Jesuit tradition of working with people on the margins of society.

Fr. Jack Warner


formation

Brian Strassburger: Preparing to be a Global CitizenBy Cheryl Wittenauer

B ecause of a “corporate gypsy” dad, Brian Strassburger and his family lived

in several U.S. cities before sinking roots in Denver when he was 10.

The pattern of his early life, he said, was “very formative,” and prepared him unwit-tingly for a Jesuit life, “where our home is the road, our mission is to be sent, where it’s about apostolic availabil-ity and mobility.”

“You can withdraw and say the world is unstable, why move out to make friends, and become indepen-dent,” he said, “or you can throw yourself into it, enjoy where you are while you’re there, immerse yourself in that place.”

Strassburger, 30, who entered the Society of Jesus in August 2011 and is in his second year of First Studies at Fordham University in the Bronx, has chosen the latter path. He’s drawn to a Jesuit life of many possibilities; he’s already living it.

He completed his philosophy requirement at Fordham in one year, having minored in philosophy as an undergrad, and is in his first year of a two-year master’s program at Fordham in international political economy and development.

The interdisciplinary program prepares individuals for careers in international development, non-govern-mental organizations, and such institutions as the World Bank and United Nations. His classmates are former Peace Corps and other NGO volunteers, people who have lived in or are from throughout the world. It reaches into his passion and excites him. He was accepted into the program several years ago when he was discerning his life’s vocation, but ultimately declined it.

After high school at Regis Jesuit in Denver and four years of studies in math and philosophy at Saint Louis University, where he was a Presidential Scholar, he was an Augustinian Volunteer, raising funds for clean-water projects in Nicaragua, helping orphaned and neglected boys and adults with AIDS in South Africa, and working at the Augustinians’ mission office in Philadelphia.

He had applied to the Fordham program a few years earlier while discerning whether he should enroll or pursue a Jesuit life. Little did he know his Jesuit superiors would encourage him to pursue the very degree he thought he had given up forever. “What more

evidence do you need of God in your life?” he asked.At Fordham, he’s plugged into campus ministry and

helped lead a men’s retreat. He’s also doing some pastoral care at a long-term care facility in the Bronx, a “poor and forgotten” borough of New York City with much diversity, poverty, violence and theft, he said. In the midst of it is Fordham, a beautiful, gated oasis in an urban jungle, and the New York Botanic Garden and Bronx Zoo.

Strassburger said it’s exciting to be preparing for involvement in the global society while knowing that Jesuits work locally and around the world.

“Whether in my own province with Belize, or the Jesuit Refugee Service including in South Africa where I have connections and interests, there is something creative and new,” he said. “That’s what excites me.

“As someone who grew up in a lot of places, I’m attracted to the fact that you don’t meet many Jesuits who have worked one job in life,” he said. “I like that I can be involved in a diversity of ministries.”

As he nears completion of his master’s program in December 2015, he will discern the next step with the guidance of his superiors.

He said it’s been very consoling the last few years to receive the confirmation that he is at the place where God has invited him to be.

He said people often ask him about the sacrifices that come with vowing to live in chastity, poverty and obedience. But they also bring freedom and “a lot of life and joy,” he said.

“The vows are meant to counsel us, to guide us in our faith journey, to bring (us) closer to God. That’s what it’s all about. It’s not without challenges and hardships, but there’s a sense of comfort knowing you’re on a path toward God and God is accompanying you.”


at work

F r. Matt Ruhl got a taste of Jesuit life at a young age when Jesuits in Denver

agreed to let the Regis High School student live in their community. Ruhl’s parents requested the unconventional arrangement after pulling the youngest of their 10 children out of his junior year at Rockhurst High School in Kansas City, Mo., and into Regis when they moved to Vail, Colo.

He stayed with the Jesuits during the week, then hitchhiked up to the mountains on Friday afternoon to spend the weekend with his parents.

He continued on at Regis University and after graduation in 1981, entered the novitiate. At first, he wanted to pursue a career in literature, his undergraduate major, but he began to reconsider as he watched televi-sion news stories about the troubles of U.S. cities. He was viewing them from a world away in Belize, where he taught at St. John’s College in the years after novitiate and philosophy studies.

His interest in cities grew, and after ordination in 1992, he was assigned to a parish in one of the poorest cities in the U.S. – East St. Louis, Ill.

“I only briefly wanted to go to graduate school, but then the parish bug got into me, and here I am,” he said.

He moved on to pastor an inner-city parish in St. Louis, St. Matthew the Apostle, which Jesuits have staffed for years.

“As a young Jesuit, you want to do the most good,” he said. “Our inner cities were hellacious. I thought, ‘there’s a place I could make an impact.’ Then I got into black spirituality, and I was attracted to that, and to Dr. King and Malcolm X, the way they preached and taught.”

As a pastor, Ruhl said he finds the most satisfaction in “moments when someone rejoins the Church, and is happy, or makes a great confession.

“The most attractive thing to me is to see someone’s life turn around, and they find Christ in a mature, joyful way. That’s why I do what I do.”

He returned to Belize in 2011 to become pastor of St. Martin de Porres Parish in Belize City, a tough but important assignment.

“If you are going to talk about social justice or evangelization, then that little square mile around St. Martin’s is abso-lutely ground zero,” he said. “Nowhere else is worse than right here. According to the United Nations, Belize is the third most

deadly country on Earth, and about 80 percent of the violence happens in one square mile around St. Martin’s.”

The pastor said the violence comes from “the gross disintegration of the family, the remarkable poverty, the despair. People who are happy don’t go around killing each other.

“Two years ago, I buried five murdered murderers between Ash Wednesday and Easter week. In one month last spring, I buried five people who died from murder by arson, murder by gun, suicide, AIDS and leptospirosis (a bacterial infection caused by eating food tainted with the urine of a rat). This is just a picture of how violent life is here.”

Although most of St. Martin’s parishioners are poor, the parish also attracts affluent people from outside the parish boundaries.

“Like almost every Jesuit inner-city parish, it is a parish of destination,” he said. “I have millionaires and I have homeless people in the congregation. They appreciate good music, thoughtful homilies, and affable priests.”

Although St. Martin’s is in a challenging neighbor-hood, Ruhl hopes it can have a “profound impact” on the city, diocese and nation starting with its 770 school children and 500 parishioners.

Ruhl is the solo priest at St. Martin these days and said he’s never worked so hard in his life. But he remains optimistic.

“I see the sun rising,” he said. “It is getting better. In the past year, we have transformed the physical campus with trees, gardens, grass. Thanks to St. Louis benefactors, we have a counselor, a counseling center, computers and extended-day programs. At St. Martin’s, you can only go up, and we are going up, and that’s what keeps me feeling good.”

Matt Ruhl: Optimist Jesuit in Tough NeighborhoodsBy Thomas Rochford SJ


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Companion of St. Francis Xavier ($1,000 to $4, 999 per year)Mr. John D. AbelnMr. and Mrs. Robert B. Anderson, Jr.Anonymous Jesuits 2014Mrs. Patricia Ann AntonelliMr. and Mrs. Thomas G. AuffenbergMr. William M. BarbieriMrs. Katherine BergeretMr. and Dr. John T. BlattnerMr. and Mrs. Ronald P. BriggsMr. and Mrs. Thomas R. ButlerDr. Jesus L. ClimacoMr. Richard L. ConlonMr. and Mrs. Leo P. DresselMs. C. Dolores FernandezMr. and Mrs. Mark FrederickMr. and Mrs. Peter M. GehanMs. Jane M. GiseviusMr. and Mrs. Arnold A. GriffinMs. Mary W. HanleyMr. and Mrs. Steven J. Hanley, IIRev. William C. HanleyDr. and Mrs. Stephen J. Herbert

In the Advancement Office, we understand that we acknowledge a donor when we send a thank you letter and we recognize donors when we list their names in a publication. It is important to do both.

We are grateful to all who support the Society of Jesus through their gifts of prayer, time and resources. Unfortunately, there is not sufficient space here to list the names of all of our donors. Those not listed here can be viewed at the Central and Southern Province website at jesuitscentralsouthern.org/supportus

Thank you for your support,The Central and Southern Province Advancement Team

jesuit companions

John FitzpatrickAdvancement Director

Dr. and Mrs. Francis J. HoraistMr. Sergio and Dr. Diane LagunesHon. and Judge Harry T. LemmonMr. and Mrs. Harry J. LongwellDr. and Mrs. George E. MahaMs. Carol MaloneMr. and Mrs. Frank D. McVayMr. Wiley L. Mossy, Jr.Mr. and Mrs. Herbert W. MundhenkeMr. and Mrs. Joseph C. Murphy, Jr.Mr. and Mrs. Robert E. Murphy, Jr.Mr. and Mrs. Mike OgdenDr. Michael J. Prejean, Sr.Mr. Jerry Taylor PriceMr. and Mrs. James A. RiegerMr. and Mrs. James A. SchwaiMr. and Mrs. George G. ShawMr. and Mrs. Gerald F. Slattery, Jr.Mr. Robert M. TynanMrs. Evangeline M. VavrickGus Fabrication, Inc.Immaculate Conception ChurchLoyola University MinistrySt. Elizabeth Seton Catholic Church

Companion of St. Peter Faber ($500 to $999 per year)Mr. Robert C. AndersonMr. and Mrs. Stephen L. BackesMr. George A. BannantineDr. Robert P. BlereauMr. Thomas R. BlumMr. and Mrs. Gary R. BraddockMr. and Mrs. Richard O. CampbellMr. Salvadore J. ChristianaMr. and Mrs. Gregory L. ConnerMr. and Mrs. Steven O. CordierMr. and Mrs. Edwin L. DemerlyMr. and Mrs. Daniel P. DidierMr. and Mrs. Thom M. DigmanMr. and Mrs. David DoeringMrs. Jane G. DunnMrs. Adrian G. DuplantierMr. and Mrs. John J. EbelingMr. and Mrs. James D. Faust

Mr. and Mrs. John R. FitzgeraldMr. William J. FortuneMr. and Mrs. A. J. GlaserMr. and Mrs. Russel C. HibbelerMrs. Georgianna M. HigsonMrs. Mary A. JolleyMr. Wayne C. JonesMr. and Mrs. Paul T. LerchDr. and Mrs. Donald MartinezJudge Michael O. McDonaldRev. Mark D. McKenzie, SJRev. Msgr. Louis J. MelanconMr. and Mrs. Jack MerkelMr. and Mrs. Roger MeskerMr. Jose F. MontesMr. and Mrs. Vernon H. Moret, Sr.Mr. and Mrs. Hicks B. MorganDr. and Mrs. Frank C. MorroneRev. Robert E. Murphy, SJMr. Michael E. NolanCol. Charles H. OckrassaDr. and Mrs. Sergio G. PreciadoMr. and Mrs. Bernard A. Purcell, IIIMr. and Mrs. Chris R. RedfordMr. Vernon J. RotertMr. and Mrs. Dennis L. RousseauMr. and Mrs. Gavin RyanDr. and Mrs. Lucio SanchezMr. and Mrs. Thomas W. SantelMr. and Mrs. Jack S. Schroder, Jr.Mrs. Marilyn C. SpohrDr. and Mrs. Kevin T. ThorpeRev. E. Corbett Walsh, SJMr. Michael O. WarnerMr. and Mrs. Mark A. WhiteheadMs. Anita M. XavierImmaculate Conception School Builders ClubSaint Dominic Savio ParishSaint Jude Catholic ChurchSaint Theresa Catholic ChurchSt. Raphael ParishThe May Foundation


jesuitscentralsouthern.org/supportus

Many of us feel compelled to make a difference and leave a lasting impact on the people we love and the world we will leave behind.

The search for significance and the desire to plan for the future lead many to ponder their legacy.

Thomas Rochford SJ

An Easy Gift to Make

A charitable bequest is a donation written in a will or trust that directs a gift to be made to a qualified exempt charity upon death. One benefit of a charitable bequest is that it enables donors to further the good work of an organization they support long after they are gone. Better yet, a charitable bequest can help save estate taxes by providing an estate with a charitable deduction for the value of the gift. With careful planning, families also can avoid paying income taxes on the assets received from an estate.

Learn more about a charitable bequest and other gift planning ideas. Send us a note in the envelope in this magazine or contact us online at:

Would you consider

including the Jesuits

of the Central and Southern

Province in your estate

plan through a

charitable bequest?

What kind of legacy will you leave?

Jesuits Central and Southern4511 West Pine BoulevardSt. Louis, Missouri 63108-2191

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P A I dSt. Louis, Mo

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You receive this magazine three times a year, but you can connect to the Jesuits of the Central and Southern Province every day—just visit our website to keep up with news about Jesuits who have touched your life.

jesuits central and southern - fall 2014

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