Where's the Values?

Boston College is an esteemed Catholic University that draws upon Catholic and Jesuit traditions in it's efforts to educate students from a religious belief system. Founded in 1863, by the Jesuits, Boston College enrolls 9,000 undergrads with 4,700 graduate and professional students. It is currently ranked 37^th among national universities.

The Society of Jesus -- the Jesuits – are an order of religious men who did not choose monastic life but instead went out to encounter and transform the world, committed to "finding God in all things." In the educational area, they developed an approach seeking to integrate intellectual excellence and religious commitment, one concerned with character as well as mind, that valued knowledge, transcendent values, community, and service to others.

That being said, the college is currently embroiled in controversy over it's decision to invite Condoleeza Rice as the commencement speaker this year. Protests have broken out, voices have been raised, and one professor has even resigned because of the invitation.

.......Rice's actions as secretary of state are inconsistent with the broader humanistic values of the university and the Catholic and Jesuit traditions from which those values derive..... Simply put, Rice is a liar.......She has lied to the American people knowingly, repeatedly, often extravagantly over the past five years, in an effort to justify a pathologically misguided foreign policy.

The public record of her deceits is extensive...... Like the president whom she serves so faithfully, she refuses to recognize her errors or the tragic consequences of those errors to the young soldiers and civilians dying in Iraq. She is a diplomat whose central allegiance is not to the democratic cause of this nation, but absolute power.

This is the woman to whom you will be bestowing an honorary degree, along with the privilege of addressing the graduating class of 2006. It is this last notion I find most reprehensible: that Boston College would entrust to Rice the role of moral exemplar...... It is the content of one's character that matters here -- the reverence for truth and knowledge that Boston College purports to champion.

Rice does not personify these values; she repudiates them. Whatever inspiring rhetoric she might present to the graduating class, her actions as a citizen and politician tell a different story.........what lessons do you expect her to impart to impressionable seniors?.......That it is acceptable to lie to the American people for political gain?

As stated by the President of Boston College, William P. Leahy, on the college website - “Boston College endeavors to educate a new generation of leaders for the new millennium - men and women who will be capable of shaping a new century with vision, justice, and charity--with a sense of calling, with concern for all of the human family.”

If that is so – how does Rice fit in? Seems like the professor has a good point.
Posted on The Human Stain