Mike Williams, Andy Rota, and Phil Micele serve during Mass in St. Mary’s Chapel.

Fr. Agustin Anda of St. Columbkille’s Parish offered an Extraordinary Form Mass in St. Mary’s Chapel on the feast of the Dedication of St. Michael the Archangel. Assisting Fr. Anda at the altar were Fr. Gary Gurtler, S.J., and servers Michael Williams, Philip Micele, and Andy Rota. The Gregorian propers and the Ordinary were sung by the Cathedral of the Holy Cross choir, Schola Amicorum, who also sing regularly at St. Columbkilles’ First Friday Masses and at other traditional Masses throughout Boston. Though the Mass was not extensively publicized, approximately 30 people, many of them students, were in attendance.

To many unfamiliar with the traditional Roman Liturgy, the Mass offered a stark contrast to their typical experiences. The free standing altar normally used for daily Masses at St. Mary’s was moved, and Fr. Anda faced the same direction as the people, towards the chapel’s elegant high altar. The Mass was done entirely in Latin (with exception of the sermon and concluding prayers), with much of it being sung by the Schola. The use of bells and incense, frequent genuflections, elaborate vestments, and Communion received kneeling and on the tongue, also are all things rarely seen in the liturgy since the Second Vatican Council. Though this is the case, fidelity to the Council’s documents does not at all require a dislike for liturgical beauty, but rather a love for it, a fact more and more BC students seem to be discovering.

The liturgy, as the conciliar document Sacrosanctum Concilium says, is “the summit toward which the activity of the Church is directed; at the same time it is the font from which all her power flows”. Such a statement only serves to affirm the ancient Christian maxim “lex orandi, lex credenda”, loosely translated as “the law of worship is the law of belief”. All the Church’s activity must be directed towards the sacred liturgy, because the sacrifi ce of the Mass is the same sacrifice as that which took place on Calvary, and nothing but Jesus Christ and His redemptive work can be at the center of Christian belief and practice. Likewise, all the Church’s power flows from this work of redemption, as the Mass is the application of the fruits of Calvary to the souls of those present.

For these reasons, it is apparent that the Mass ought to be celebrated and attended with utmost reverence and devotion, and treated as the Theo-centric act which Christ instituted it to be. If the most sacred act of the Church is turned into a platform for innovation, disobedience, and self affirmation, the sacrifice of the Cross being renewed there will cease to have meaning in the lives of Christians. The fruits of such disregard for the Eucharistic sacrifice can be clearly observed in the decline of priestly vocations and the widespread doctrinal confusion that has occurred in recent years. Conversely, dioceses and religious communities which stress reverence and beauty in the liturgy find themselves struggling quite less with the problems which have arisen throughout the Church over the past few decades. Where the lex orandi is properly followed, the lex credendi is both loved and obeyed.

Such a correlation cannot be ignored if there is a genuine desire to maintain BC’s Catholic identity. The graces which flow from reverently-celebrated and devoutly-attended Masses will serve to excite a deeper love for the truth among students and faculty alike, and to cast out unsound doctrine. As Fr. Anda discussed in his sermon, there is a grave crisis in the Church and in society, but there are also reasons for hope, namely, the desire among young people for liturgical beauty. If the work of doctrinal restoration continues through liturgical rebuilding, there is reason to believe that Boston College will one day become the great Catholic university it aspires to be.

Dedicated Eagle fans Matt Flynn (A&S ‘13) and Matt Twomey (CSOM ‘13) line up for College GameDay, held in the Dustbowl as the football team faced the FSU Seminoles.

Chris Fowler, Lee Corso, Kirk Herbstreit, and Desmond Howard came to BC on Saturday for College GameDay, marking only the second time in 23 years that the show has aired from Boston College.

First airing in 1987, the show spent six years in the studio before going on the road in 1993. BC fi rst welcomed Game- Day back on September 17, 2005, for Boston College’s first game in the Atlantic Coast Conference, after they moved from the Big East Conference. That matchup featured #8 Florida State versus #16 Boston College (interestingly enough, both College GameDay appearances at BC have come when the Seminoles are in Chestnut Hill.)

The GameDay location of each Saturday is usually the location where the big game is being played: the marquee matchup. This game usually has one or two nationally ranked teams.

Neither Florida State nor Boston College are nationally ranked, so why is it that College GameDay aired from Campus Green when #8 Oklahoma was playing at #17 Miami (Fl).

The answer can be found in what BC stands for… Boston College or Beat Cancer? As Lance Armstrong said in a video message to Mark Herzlich that aired during the show presented by Home Depot, “I love the fact that this weekend BC doesn’t mean Boston College, it means Beat Cancer. I cannot say it any clearer and couldn’t agree any more.”

A “Gold-Out” was planned for when the Seminoles came to play in Alumni Stadium, although not the traditional “Gold- Out.” This time the “Gold-Out” was to support cancer.

The “Beat Cancer” campaign has resulted in the gold “Beat Cancer” t-shirts selling like crazy in the bookstores, at the stadium, and online. Mark Herzlich has the BC community behind him, and his story of battling Ewing’s Sarcoma, a rare cancer, has put BC at the focal point of college football, at least it did for one rainy day.

SuperFans stood in the pouring rain for two hours while the show aired, hoping to appear on ESPN, if only for 15 seconds while wearing an orange construction hat from Home Depot or if only to have their homemade signs shown off to the sports’ world (two of the best signs of the day: “Ponder this, Bowden… Retirement,” and “Eagles Soar Past Noles.”)

No surprise, Herzlich came to the stage in Campus Green, and the loud crowd went silent as a video montage of him played on the big screen. As he was interviewed for the live segment, fans cheered the loudest when he talked about his return in an Eagles’ uniform next season.

Messages to Mark from Lance Armstrong, Tedy Bruschi, Jon Lester, and Butch Davis, current head football coach of the North Carolina Tar Heels, aired during the segment. Herzlich said he has received tons of encouragement from people, including a phone call from Bruschi two days prior telling him to be proud of being a survivor. He also revealed that his doctor is 99% sure he is now cancer-free.

Proud survivor of a stroke, Tedy Bruschi later came out of the orange GameDay RV and made his own appearance on the stage: a much applauded surprise to soaking wet SuperFans.

When it came time for Saturday Selections, the most popular part of the show where Corso and Herbstreit make their predictions of which teams will win the top games, including the game location they are at, Bruschi smartly chose the Eagles over the Seminoles.

Herbstreit also wisely predicted that the Eagles would come out victorious, but Corso put on the head of Chief Osceola, FSU’s mascot, indicating he thought the Seminoles would win; This was, of course, greeted with intense boo’s from the fans in gold.

Corso should have put on the head of Baldwin because the Eagles won the thrilling game. Maybe we won’t have to wait another four years for College GameDay to come back to BC if the Eagles keep winning like this and proving doubters wrong.

Hopefully next time, they’ll come under better circumstances: not when one of our players is fi ghting in the battle of his life, but when we are the marquee matchup of a Saturday in college football.

Several Boston College students star in the upcoming musical, The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee.

The Contemporary Theatre group of Boston College is currently rehearsing for the musical entitled The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee, which will be performed October 29-31.

Directed by senior Juergen Kloo, the musical’s cast includes nine Boston College students, ranging from freshman to seniors. The show is completely student directed and produced, and features music and lyrics by William Finn, book by Rachael Sheinkin, wonderful choreography, and hilarious comedy.

“There’s no department help at all, it’s all students-from the actors to the stage managers to the design team,” Kloo said.

The show focuses on a spelling bee at Putnam Valley Middle School. Six fifth graders, all equally nerdy and quirky, show off their spelling talents and compete to win the bee.

Vice Principal Doug Panch is played by senior Joe Mahar. Sophomore Cynthia Beckwith and senior Dan Fabrizio play spelling bee contestants Olive Ostrousky and William Barfée, respectively.

However, the show also begs for audience participation. Unlike most musicals, The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee selects several audience members to come up on stage and compete in the bee. Therefore, this calls for quite a deal of improvisation from the actors.

“So much of the comedy is improv,” says sophomore Allison Russel. Russel plays the role of Rona Lisa Peretti, a middle-aged woman from Putnam County, and previous winner of the bee, who acts as moderator for the contest.

Joining Russel is BC theatrical veteran Pat Conally. Conally plays the role of Mitch Mahoney, a security guard in charge of escorting spelling bee losers off stage. The junior has already starred in five productions here at BC, and is anticipating another great success.

“The music in this show is just unbelievable. (William) Finn is a great composer,” Conally stated. “But I think the audience will also get a kick out of their participation in the production. Our performance feeds off them in a really direct way.”

About four audience members are called on stage and are thrown into the world of Putnam County. They become fifth graders vying for the same trophy as the actors, and are asked to spell words, some easy and some absolutely impossible. However, at many times, the cast distracts the audience members through hysterical songs and dances.

This unique aspect of the musical requires a great deal of concentration and quickness from the actors.

“It is so hard to not laugh when some of the improvisation lines are said,” added Allison.

According to the director, Boston College is the first school in Massachusetts to perform the musical, and also the first school to perform it in a thrust theater.

“The rights to perform the show just became available in August, so I jumped on the opportunity” Juergen explained. “I really wanted Contemporary Theater to do something funny this year.”

Although Kloo has been involved with the Boston College theater department in the past, this is his first production that he is directing here at BC.

The show will be presented with a full orchestra accompaniment on October 29-31 in the Bonn Studio, the black-box stage located within the Robsham Theater Arts Center. Tickets can be purchased through the Robsham Theater ticket office.

The UGBC office located in 21 Campanella Way

The Undergraduate Government of Boston College recently released a very basic form of its budget for the 2009-2010 fiscal year. Although the budget allocates over a half million dollars, the Microsoft Excel spreadsheet is comprised of only 17 rows and two columns. This is definitely a start in terms of transparency, especially since UGBC seems to have plans to update how much money has been spent and how much money remains throughout the year. The real problem with the budget, however, is that so much of it is already tied up in events and programming that happens year in and year out.

The Student Programs Office provides programming resources for student clubs like the College Republicans and the History Club. This allows groups of students with similar interests to pull University resources together to put on campus events to which all are invited. SPO has no procedure to help students who are not attached to a specific club or organization who want to do programming. Additionally, even if, for example, a student from the History Club wants to bring in a speaker, like say Curt Schillins, who has nothing to do with the History Club per se, that student has no resources to put together the event. Speakers are just one example. Students could be thinking about student activities and other events which are a little more participatory.

UGBC seems like the perfect place for students to go if they do not have the backing of an official group or organization for an event. Unfortunately, a large percentage of UGBC money is already tied up in the same places every year. Just under 67% of the budget is tied up in administrative expenses, communications, and yearly UGBC events such as university speakers and the fall and spring concerts. Another 20.6%, or $111,000, is given to ALC and GLC.

It is completely understandable that these two groups garner money from UGBC because they would not exist if they did not. Spending 20.6% of the budget on two groups that comprise vast minorities of the BC population (there are not readily available numbers for gay and lesbian students but only a shade over 28% of students are estimated to be ethnic minorities) seems to be a little extreme. This problem is compounded by the fact that ALC does not make enough of an effort to be revenue neutral. Several groups on campus are successfully revenue neutral, including The Heights and The Observer. Students should demand that ALC make similar efforts, especially since a former UGBC Vice-president admitted, “With just a little effort, ALC could undoubtedly break even on the year.”

Perhaps revenue neutral may not happen anytime soon, but should students at least ask for a token effort to be made? If ALC fundraised just 10% of its budget UGBC would save $8,000 each year, more than most clubs are given through SPO.

Adding to the problem is the propensity of the UGBC Senate to give to the same programs and events each year. Giving $500 of $1,000 to the Vagina Monologues, an event which is actually in the green each year, or to the same service trips, does not allow for enough creativity in the student body. Perhaps these are not examples of undergraduate government waste, but at the very least I would make the argument that some of this money could be better served when spread around to students looking to bring new events and ideas to campus. The UGBC should either set up an additional department dedicated to students looking to bring events to campus without the backing of a club or increase UGBC Senate funding with the stipulation that only a certain percentage of the funds can be allocated to the repeat recipients of UGBC funding. This would allow for greater creativity and self-initiative in the student body while using our money in the best way possible.

PRETTY IN PINK: Participants of the Making Strides Against Cancer Walk of Boston congregated in Boston as a part of the day’s acti viti es at the Hatch Shell on the Charles.

Boston College’s second annual Pink Week, an event sponsored by Colleges Against Cancer (CAC) and BC Health Services, consisted of numerous events to raise awareness for breast cancer.

The goal of Pink Week was to raise awareness of the importance of cancer research and to educate the student body about breast cancer.

BC Senior Michelle Stern is the team captain for Boston College Beating Cancer in the Making Strides Against Breast Cancer Walk. As a member of CAC, which is the collegiate affiliate of the American Cancer Society (ACS), Stern was an integral figure in organizing Pink Week. When asked how students could get involved with cancer awareness, she responded that students “should educate themselves [about cancer] and pass on the information to their family and friends. There are so many resources out there, including Health Services and the Internet.”

Aside from Pink Week, CAC has many other awareness events planned for the rest of the school year. These include the Great American Smoke-Out in November, where information is distributed encouraging students to quit smoking. Also, in the spring, plans are underway for distributing sunscreen samples to raise awareness for skin cancer.

Stern also stated that the ultimate goal for CAC is to have monthly events for different cancers.

Some highlights of Pink Week include “Paint the Campus Pink,” where the Million Dollar Stairs were decorated with pink ribbons and flyers could be seen all over campus with breast cancer facts – such as that one in eight American women will develop breast cancer over the course of their lives.

Later on in the week, free pink lemonade was distributed thanks to BC Dining Services. Lee National Denim Day followed where students were encouraged to wear denim and pink to show support for breast cancer awareness.

T-shirts are also independently being sold for the cause for $7. Last year, 300 were sold. Stern feels that Pink Week has been a success. She affi rms, “People definitely seem to remember it from last year.”

The Making Strides Against Breast Cancer Walk, the concluding event of Pink Week, is being held in downtown Boston along the Charles River. According to their website, the event has already raised $1,398,314 online.

Stern’s team expects to donate $2,000. The walk is 5.7 miles and tens of thousands of people are expected to participate; last year 38,000 individuals were involved.

On February 12 and 13, the American Cancer Society and BC are hosting a Relay for Life at the Plex. According to the website, “teams camp out overnight and take turns walking or running around a track while listening to live entertainment, munching on donated food, and playing games.” Teams consist of friends, family members, or anyone else.

Raising cancer awareness was also a key facet of the BCFSU football game. To honor Mark Herzlich’s battle against Ewing’s sarcoma, t-shirts were designed with his number, 94, and the words “Beat Cancer.” The shirts are still available for purchase at the bookstore for $20. All profits generated from the shirts will be donated to the ACS for Ewing’s sarcoma research.

GLC member participates in NCOW event

Boston College celebrates “National Coming Out Week” (NCOW) this week.

Founded in 1988, NCOW has been celebrated at Boston College for at least a decade, according to BC junior Kelsey Gasseling and senior Larissa Belcic, president and vice president of the Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender, and Questioning Leadership Council (GLC).

NCOW originated as National Coming Out Day, which was started to commemorate the 1987 “First National March on Washington for Lesbian and Gay Rights,” an event that over 500,000 people attended.

These marches originated from the gay rights movement in the United States and achieved a large, successful turnout due predominantly to the efforts of American politician and gay rights activist, Harvey Milk, who was assassinated in 1978.

Gasseling and Belcic believe that the purpose of NCOW is consistent with the values of a Catholic and Jesuit institution of developing the “whole person.”

“[NCOW] strives to welcome, celebrate, and accept the whole person by encouraging students to leave behind ignorance and prejudice and truly love themselves and others,” Gasseling said.

Boston College Spokesman Jack Dunn agrees that NCOW has a place at BC. “As a Jesuit, Catholic University we value the dignity of all of God’s children and are committed to providing a welcoming environment for our GLBTQ students. Discussions regarding sexual orientation and its relationship with the Church are welcome and consistent with our role as a university,” Dunn said.

“Boston College, as a whole, has been very supportive of its GLBTQ and Allied community’s participation in National Coming Out Week,” Gasseling said. Gasseling and Belcic  insist that NCOW is about promoting love and acceptance. They hope that students feel welcome to ‘come out’ for whatever it is that they are passionate for, and to free themselves from the constraints of ignorance-based limitations.”

As part of NCOW, the GLC will host an open-mic night on Tuesday, a musical performance by a bisexual Chinese-American band on Wednesday, a “guess who’s gay” event on Thursday, and a dance on Friday to close out the week.

Corrected: 10/28/2009

Team WakeSmart, the 2009 competition winners

Every company begins with a few people who have a good idea. However, having a good idea is pointless without capital to transform the idea into reality. The Boston College Venture Competition encourages students to develop their ideas while teaching them how to obtain the capital they need to turn their ideas into reality.

The Boston College Venture Competition motivates groups by rewarding the three best teams with ten thousand, three thousand, and two thousand dollars of seed money, respectively. This is the fifth year that the competition has been held.

It is hoped that this year’s field will exceed forty teams, compared to the thirty-six teams from last year. Over 100 people attended the kickoff meeting, proving increased interest in the competition.

Teams vying for this money will be judged by a group of veteran entrepreneurs. In past years, the group of judges has consisted of some of the most successful graduates from BC. Most of the past judges have at least one successful start-up under their belts. Some are partners at successful venture capital firms, who are paid to evaluate ideas similar to their own. One notable past judge, Professor Mike Naughton, is both the Chairman of the Department of Physics and co-founder of Solasta, a venture established by several Boston College physics professors to market a discovery of the department’s research lab.

The depth of knowledge associated with the competition extends beyond just the judges to successful BC alumni who serve as mentors to the competing teams. The mentors are available to teams to aid in preparing a full business plan.

BCVC opens students’ eyes to a world of opportunities outside of the normal scope of business careers. CSOM senior Brett Witrick, the Chair of the competition’s Executive Committee, believes that the competition would have a “significant impact on the career path of participants in two ways. One, teams may go on to pursue the growth of their business and two, people may alter their career path and try and get into the venture capital and private equity industries because of what they learn at some of our events.”

Past BCVC winners have attained success beyond the competition; web-based businesses Eagle Nites and College Mogul both continue to grow post-competition.

College Mogul’s product is a web site aimed at helping other college students launch their own businesses. They provide a public forum for evaluation of fledgling businesses, giving new firms both publicity and feedback.

During the competition, organizers bring in speakers to teach teams the fundamentals of entrepreneurialism. Past years have seen insiders such as Larry Begley, a former CSOM Professor who co-founded the venture capital firm .406 Ventures. He shared tips and tricks about being a successful entrepreneur with the aspiring competitors. This year BCVC will host Shawn Broderick, manager of TechStars Boston, a seed-stage investment fund. He will lead a seminar on “How to Write a Business Plan.”

Other groups associated with BCVC include WePay and WakeSmart. WePay, an innovative financial services firm founded to help groups pool money, was created by one of the founders of BCVC and is currently seeking additional funds from the west.

Last year’s winner, WakeSmart, developed a method for determining the optimal time to wake a person up based on their sleep cycle. Their mentor worked for Sequoia Capital, the same company that funded Google, Apple and YouTube. WakeSmart consisted of a partnership between a Yale and BC student, an expansion of students’ networks encouraged by the competition.

For more information, see the BCVC Facebook page. Participants are required to declare interest by October 9th.

Former U.S. Ambassador to the Vatican, Mary Ann Glendon during the “Politics as a Vocation” speech.

Glendon began by reflecting on the “relationship between the calling to politics and the calling to philosophy – the two vocations that Aristotle called the most choice worthy.” She said that “Cicero and Edmund Burke would qualify under both headings.”

She explained that both Cicero, an orator and politician during the late Roman Republic, and Burke, an eighteenth century Irish born politician in England, “emphatically gave priority, unlike Aristotle, to politics as the more choice worthy” vocation when compared to philosophy, because politics was the way in which philosophical ideas were put into action.

The lecture was more than a history lesson though. Glendon explained that “what interests me, in connection with Cicero and Edmund Burke, are the great numbers of young men and women who come to law school saying they want to go into politics, and…something happens so that by the time they graduate they change their minds and they will give you a lot reasons … [but] the most intelligent and principled young men and women say they turned aside from politics after wrestling with questions like these: How can I handle politics of personal destruction, or is politics such a dirty business that I would become contaminated… would I betray my principles to the point where I might even lose my soul as I endeavor to get and keep public office?”

This question of politics and personal values is one that Glendon has been forced to wrestle with in her own life. Less than six months ago, Glendon was to receive Notre Dame’s Laetare Medal, considered one of the highest awards given to American Catholics. However, when it was announced that President Barack Obama, a vocally pro-choice politician, would be giving the university’s commencement address and receiving an honorary degree, Glendon decided to decline the award.

In her April 2009 letter to Fr. Jenkins, President of Notre Dame, she explains that commencement “is not the right place…in disregard of the settled position of the U.S. bishops—to honor a prominent and uncompromising opponent of the Church’s position on issues involving fundamental principles of justice.”

Glendon said she thought it “might be interesting to interrogate the biographies of people like Cicero and Edmund Burke, to see how they dealt with problems that are in many respects similar…to those our students have faced, especially the more difficult ones: how far can you go in compromising before losing sight of everything that got you into politics in the first place?”

Burke, for example, had to balance his Irish Catholic heritage with political success in a Protestant England hostile to Catholics. Cicero was forced to balance his love of republican values with political opportunity in an increasingly authoritarian Roman government.

To conclude her lecture, she asks what Ernest Fortin, a theology professor at Boston College and co-founder of the Bradley Lectures, who passed away in 2002, would have thought of this topic. Quoting from one of his writings, she says he would have offered another option to traditional philosophy and politics that “is between a philosophy that owes its highest dignity to its status as the handmaiden of theology and one that refuses to bow to any higher authority.”

The lecture was followed by a question and answer session, and later with dinner and discussion at the McElroy Faculty Dining Hall. Glendon will be back on campus in the spring to help wrap up the year of Bradley Lectures by chairing a round-table discussion on the works of Fortin.

To the Editor:

In Regards to the Article,“Can I, as a Caucasian, be a Part of Your Group?”

1. What came first, the cultural group or the “ethnic pack?” When one spends a large portion of time with a club, cultural, musical, religious, or otherwise, one tends to bond closely with the other members, forming something called a friendship.

2. Has the author considered that groups of white friends, and the predominantly white school at that, may be just as intimidating to minorities as the minorities are intimidating to the author.

3. The author has been on campus for all of three weeks at the publication of her article. She has been alive for 19 years at the most. What she has seen in her life and her time here at BC is limited and could use some broadening. The causes of the cultural divides at our school and society at large are more complex than we, that is to say, the author and me, can comprehend at our level of experience, education, and development.

As a member of a culture that is in many ways homegrown American, and yet in other ways, decidedly not, and as a minority who has reached out to both white and non-white BC, I can generally refute her article. All in all, it seems as if the author blames minorities for the lack of intercultural connection at Boston College rather than taking a look in the proverbial mirror. When it comes down to it, we’re all to blame.

Yes, even though you are white, you can join my group. If you’d like, I would be glad to give you a taste of life at Boston College for minorities.

Please shoot me an e-mail if you’re interested: jacob.ishibashi.1@bc.edu.

Sincerely,
Jacob Ishibashi

The system works on computers and some phones. On a computer, it shows a map with bubbles for each bus. The phone system has written information about the bus locations.

With the system, students can specify which bus line they need. The information for the Newton bus line and the Commonwealth Avenue line is displayed separately. The system even shows an early morning Law School line that runs direct from off campus stops to Newton Campus.

THE WHEELS ON THE BUD GO ROUND AND ROUND: The BC Bus drives down Beacon Street.

The company that runs the system, Transloc, comes out of Raleigh, North Carolina. They run similar bus tracking services at numerous universities, including Harvard University and our ACC rival, N.C. State.

The Transloc system is intended to reduce the amount of time students need to wait for buses by allowing them to identify exactly when a bus will arrive at their stop. This should allow students to time their transit more efficiently.

UGBC worked for several years to bring this system to BC. They invested a signifi cant amount of money into it in the hopes that it would improve the experience students have with transportation.

Some, however, have raised the question of whether the system was worth the investment. After all, the buses are supposed to run on a regulated schedule. The system also does not work on all cell phones, even if they have some form of web browser. Some students have even noticed inaccuracies in the bus times.

Having lived on Newton freshman year, I can say the bus locator system is certainly an improvement to transportation at BC. Although the buses are supposed to run on a regular schedule, it is diffi cult to tell when they will arrive at any given stop. Traffic and other factors affect how long it takes to get between stops and throw off the schedule.

Knowing exactly when a bus will arrive allows me to time when I leave my room. I can check on my computer to see when a bus is approaching Main Gate and leave in time to arrive with the bus. After spending far too much time in my past three years here waiting endlessly for buses to arrive, this knowledge is immensely valuable.

For the freshman living on Newton Campus, this feature is particularly useful. Students heading to class no longer have to leave incredibly early or worry about missing the bus. One Newton RA said his residents use the bus tracker all the time.

As far as accuracy goes, I have not noticed any problems. The map on my computer loads well on all the web browsers I have. All I need to do is find the stop I want and see where the closest bus is. While I have still missed the bus after checking, this is entirely my fault for not timing the walk to the bus stop well.

I tried using the system on my phone, but the web browser did not have the right capabilities (I have a regular phone with a limited browser, not a Blackberry or iPhone). As long as I am within reach of the Boston College wireless network, however, I can use my iPod. This works well and as long as I refresh the page the information is incredibly accurate. I walked up Commonwealth Avenue towards Main Gate and read as it told me what direction the bus was heading in and whether it had left the College Road stop or not.

Blackberry users have reported similar accuracy with their system.

This system makes travelling on the BC bus lines a much better experience. Students no longer need to wait for a long time at bus stops guessing when their bus will arrive. And once the weather starts getting cold and snowy, this is one change that will be even more appreciated.

The David L. Lawrence Convention Center, located on the Allegheny River in Pittsburgh, is where the G20 Summit convened. Courtesy of Federatedinvestors.com

World leaders met in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, on Friday, September 25th for the G-20 Summit to discuss global economic issues. Also discussed was the recent financial crisis that began in the United States last year and has since sent most of the world into a severe recession. In attendance were world leaders from both rich and economically growing countries such as China in order to discuss ways in which to best prevent future economic depression.

At the Summit, leaders announced that the group of eight big industrial nations – the United States, Britain, France, Germany, Japan, Italy, Canada and Russia – will now be expanded to a group of 20 countries including China, India, Brazil, South Korea, and South Africa. This is intended to incorporate many developing countries with strong economies to help fight the global downturn by engaging in an aggressive stimulus package with the United States and Europe. China and other Asian countries were also promised a greater stake in the International Monetary Fund and World Bank since their emerging economies will be important to the world’s economic success.

The group of 20 countries decided together at the Summit that each country must submit its policies to a “peer review” from other world governments in order to better monitor the way governments control their economies. Given the situation of the present economy, world leaders who had previously avoided disclosing their own national economic practices, now collectively agree that there needs to be some type of monitoring to prevent the same thing from happening in the future.

One of the most important agreements made during the Friday negotiations was that all 20 countries must require higher levels of capital at banks and other financial institutions in order to create a buffer against huge losses or unexpected disruptions in the market. They unanimously agreed for stricter regulations on financial institutions. Although some countries differed on views of how to keep capital reserves high, all present agreed that it was a necessary measure in order to improve the economy and cash flow.

Also addressed were the huge bonuses given to executives that had contributed to the financial crisis. The United States and Britain found the caps on bonuses proposed by France to be too strict; they instead backed a plan that would allow the payout to occur over a longer span of time. By the end of 2010, they are planning to have devised policies concerning the distribution of huge bonuses that will assess why some businesses, one year ago thought too big to fail, in fact did.

President Obama told The New York Times, “We have achieved a level of tangible, global economic cooperation that we’ve never seen before.” The feedback from the Summit has been extremely positive by most experts’ standards, even though an immense amount of protesters swarmed the streets of Pittsburgh during the convention. The manner in which the organization has embraced the developing countries as important to global trade is a step toward improvement of the global economy. A senior US administrating official was quoted by The Wall Street Journal saying, “It’s a reflection of the world today…its basically pulling international cooperation into the 21st century.”

Dr. Esfandiari, above, spoke to BC students about her internment in an Iranian prison.

While on a family visit in 2007, Dr. Haleh Esfandiari was imprisoned and forced to endure eight months of detainment in Iran. She recently came to Boston College to share her experiences.

Dr. Esfandiari is the current Director of the Middle East Program at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars and an Iranian intellectual who has focused her life on studying and fighting for women’s issues among other social and political issues in Iran.

The presentation began with an introduction from Boston College political science professor Ali Banuazizi. Dr. Esfandiari took the floor and thanked those who fought for her release. She then progressed into the recount of her detainment.

“My odyssey started on the 30th of December, 2006. I had gone to Iran to visit my mother. That week was a very normal week. I said goodbye to her on the 30th. For those of you who know Tehran, December is a month when it snows. So, the roads were snowy, it was dark and we headed for the road at 1:30 AM,” Esfandiari said. “Halfway through the airport, we saw a car sort of tailing us. Then, the car came and pushed us to the side, we had to stop, and within a second three men carrying knives jumped out of the car.”

Dr. Esfandiari dismissed this initial incident as a typical robbery; she was robbed of her plane ticket and passport. Soon after, she began the process of applying for a new Iranian passport. During the passport application process, Dr. Esfandiari became aware that something was wrong.

“The next day I went and started applying for a new passport. Within two to three days I found out that this was not your normal robbery,” Esfandiari said. “I was asked to meet with a passport officer whom turned out to be a member of the Intelligence Ministry, and the questions had nothing to do with issuing a passport.”

The member of the Iranian Intelligence Ministry questioned Dr. Esfandiari as to her work with the Wilson Center, her husband’s work, her grandchildren’s names, and so forth. The trouble only snowballed afterwards.

“Then, I received a phone call asking me to go to the Intelligence Ministry. I became alarmed and very frightened for two reasons. Firstly, because I knew that falling into their clutches means there isn’t going to be an end. Secondly, people have gone into that building and not come out.”

Dr. Esfandiari was then interrogated about alleged anti-Iranian government plans in which the Iranian Intelligence Ministry accused her of being involved. Dr. Esfandiari endured eight months of interrogations; of these eight months, she spent 105 days at Iran’s notorious Evin prison.

“I got into a car and they took me to Evin prison. I was blindfolded and led by a female guard, a condition that became part of my daily life at Evin. I must tell you that [being] blindfolded is not only disorientating, but it’s very humiliating. You are dependent on someone else, just like a child,” Esfandiari said.

“The woman guard took me to my cell, and I heard the door click shut, a quiet click for her, but to me, a click that resounded like thunder,” Dr. Haleh Esfandiari said, as she recounted the details of her incarceration in Iran to the group of Boston College students and faculty.

During her incarceration, Dr. Esfandiari faced other degrading acts. However, she stood strong. “In prison, I decided that I wasn’t going to succumb to despair. I knew that I was much stronger than they are, so I never showed my emotion to them,” Esfandiari said.

Iran’s Evin prison is notorious for being the site of many tortures and killings. However, Dr. Esfandiari received no physical harm. After the Intelligence Ministry was unable to bring up any evidence against Dr. Esfandiari, she was released from Evin. She remained at her mother’s house for 10 days, then left.

“I sat on the plane waiting for the take off,” Esfandiari said. “When I heard that door click, I knew that this time, it was the sign of my freedom.”

Contraception is covered under BC Health Insurance

Boston College’s optional health insurance plan, Blue Care Elect Preferred (PPO), contains “Family Planning” under the list of services covered by the policy. A call by The Observer to Blue Cross Blue Shield confirmed that under these services include doctor’s visits related to family planning, contraception, and “in some instances birth control pills.” According to Koster Insurance Agency, INC, Boston College’s insurance agent, these services represent a “bundle,” or a group of benefits that the provider optionally selects to be part of a larger package.

In order to obtain birth control or contraceptives, a student would have to pay a $20 visit fee, and 20% of the cost of any prescribed contraception or birth control pills. The remaining 80% is picked up by the insurance company. Surgical abortions do not appear to be covered by the BC policy, but neither Blue Cross Blue Shield nor Koster Insurance Agency could rule out the possibility of surgical abortions being covered under the policy without a more thorough examination of its guidelines.

The Boston College Plan does meet the Minimum Creditable Coverage Standards (MCCS) for Massachusetts, but this minimum coverage standard does not require family planning services. Instead, it seeks to cover preventative visits, prescription drugs, emergency hospital visits, and a financial plan based upon the percentage of costs insured, not a plan that caps out after a certain dollar amount. According to the Koster Insurance Agency, covering contraceptives and birth control is “not required by the State of Massachusetts.”

University Spokesman Jack Dunn commented that “graduate students can purchase health insurance while studying at BC. The Blue Cross plan is a comprehensive health insurance plan that provides a wide range of services that the students are free to choose from or reject at their own discretion.”

The BC health insurance can be waived by students if they have adequate health insurance through their employment or families. Belmont Abbey, in North Carolina, recently made headlines for its lawsuit involving female employees demanding coverage for contraceptives. It is unclear whether or not the freedom of religion clause in the first amendment would disqualify religious institutions from being compelled by the state to offer services which conflict with their religious duties.

Boston College is one of only four Catholic universities that have been found to cover contraception and birth control in their health insurance policies for students. Fordham, DePaul, and Holy Cross are the other three, while other notable Catholic universities, such as Georgetown, Notre Dame, and Xavier University have health insurance programs which do not cover procedures that threaten life.

It is unclear what, if anything, BC will do in order to ensure that its health insurance policy conforms to its duties as a Jesuit institution. It is equally unclear which experts on Catholic ethics and Catechism were consulted about the insurance plan before it was implemented.

Research done at the Cardinal Newman Society, Jesse Naiman, and JP Bonner contributed to this report.

[CLICK HERE FOR AN UPDATE ON THIS ISSUE]

Reeling from the recession and left overextended in a changing world of communication, the United States Postal Service (USPS) was placed on the Government Accounting Office’s “high risk” list after a loss of over $7 billion last year. It now faces a government-mandated restructuring. Nine Boston branches face review, including still-profitable offices at BU, MIT, Tufts, and Babson.

“I heard about the review… a few weeks ago,” said Kristoffer Munden, Vice President of the College Democrats. “The College Democrats decided to move forward with a letter writing campaign.” The Save the Post Office campaign has so far been publicized mainly through online social media. “Early next week, we will print the letters individually then mail them to Postmaster Holland…we’re confident that [he] will value our opinion.”

Postmaster James J. Holland was sympathetic but reiterated the need for reorganization. “No final decision has been made regarding the future of the BC post office,” he said. However, “mail volumes continue to plummet as expenses increase. BC post office revenue, customer visits and total transactions have decreased significantly over last year. We believe that these trends, unfortunately, will continue.”

No American Postal Workers Union officials could be reached about the issue, as the entire roster of officers was attending a conference in Las Vegas. However, President Moe Lepore has attempted to whip up support at MIT and BU with a fervent form letter to the editor, in which he accuses “those in positions of authority” of “deficient financial practices”.

Lepore does raise an important point when he asks, “if the Postal Service is supposedly bleeding money, why would it consider closing a profitable operation?” The BC office generated roughly $100,000 in profit for USPS last year.

“There may be a valid point there, as far as being in the black, but you have to look at the trend as well. If you own a business that’s losing 10% per year, do you wait until you’ve lost 90%, or do you do something about it now?” asked Ann Powers, Communications Officer of USPS Boston.

Furthermore, argued Postmaster Holland, the USPS’ mandate has nothing to do with reaping profit in the cities. “The Postal Service is tasked with providing regular and effective service across the nation in all communities, urban and rural.” If revenues in Boston have dropped sharply, then revenues in rural areas have fallen off a cliff. “The world is changing rapidly. Communication in today’s world has certainly shifted from written communication to electronic…We expect that mail volume will continue to decline over the next 5 years.”

As USPS readied itself for a continuing decline in business from recession and changing communication practices, Moe Lepore was not giving up without a fight. “In mid-September we will be leafleting your campus to further inform you of our collective plight,” he promised to the MIT Tech and BU Daily Free Press.

“There has been some minimal distribution of fl yers from the union on our campus,” reported John Hawkinson, News Editor of The Tech. “The lifetime of a postered flyer is approximately 1/2 week, and I’m not aware of there being more than one round of such flyers.”

As the union continued its stand, Munden has advice for BC students who want to get involved. “In addition to signing the letter, students should use the post office, and tell their friends that it actually exists.”

The BC insurance policy covers contraceptives and birth control pills for students and condoms for Jesuits.

The “Seagle” cheerleaders are showing up in Irish green for the half time shows. Apparently they want to be confused with the Notre Dame cheerleaders. This is incomprehensible considering how ugly ND’s cheerleaders are.

The BC post office might be closed down for a lack of traffic, sparking outrage amongst certain student groups. With the current pace of the post office, we might see the doors closed for good in about ten years.

Coach “Jags” was fired from the Tampa Bay Buccaneers for disobedience just one season removed from his firing from Boston College for similar reasons. The Superior General of the Jesuit order reportedly placed a personal phone call to Jags asking him to join the Jesuits, claiming that he would be a five-star prospect.

A Jesuit at a St. Ignatius Mass recently called for lay preaching after the Gospel readings. If you think that a lay person without seminary training can preach just as well as you can you are not providing a testament to how “open” the Church is. You are providing a testament to how much your homilies suck.

A man in Istanbul threw his shoe at the head of the IMF to protest international capitalism. The shoe was Nike.

The circumstances surrounding the 2004 vote were pretty obvious. John Kerry, a U.S Senator from Massachusetts, was the Democratic nominee for President. Mitt Romney, a Republican, was Governor of Massachusetts. The Democrats in the State House and Senate were worried that if Kerry became President, Romney would appoint a Republican to fill Kerry’s Senate seat. To prevent this from happening, they voted to change the existing law so that if Kerry became President a special election would be held to determine his successor. Although this vote was clearly politically motivated, it was reasonable.

Less than six years later, the Democrats have undone what they did in 2004. In a sudden change of conviction, Massachusetts Democrats have decided that the Republicans were right in 2004 and that the Governor should fill all vacancies. Isn’t it great that we finally have politicians who will admit their mistakes and seek to correct them? Not so fast!

Not surprisingly, the circumstances were different this time around. For starters, Deval Patrick, a Democrat, is Governor of Massachusetts. Additionally, a vacancy already existed in the United States Senate as a result of the death of Senator Ted Kennedy. To make matters even more interesting, Senator Kennedy, a political icon in Massachusetts, left a letter in which he expressed support for changing the law in order to allow Governor Patrick to appoint his replacement.

Prior to the passing of the bill, which passed both houses with less than a day’s worth of debate, there would have been a special election held in January to determine who would have served as the interim replacement for the late Senator Kennedy. On the surface, this appears to have been a reasonable proposition. So, why were the Democrats in such a hurry to change the law?

As I’m sure many of you already know, Governor Patrick appointed Paul Kirk, a liberal democrat, to replace Senator Kennedy in the United States Senate. Senator Kirk is now immediately eligible to vote on legislation. Although state Democrats have tried to disguise their underhanded actions as an issue of representation, in reality their motivation was purely political and had absolutely nothing to do with the well-being of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.

It had everything to do with providing Democrats with a filibuster proof majority in the United States Senate, which will allow President Obama to rush his agenda, especially his health care proposal, through Congress before the midterm Congressional elections. There is little doubt that state Democrats folded amidst the pressure to act quickly, which came from the party’s leadership in Washington D.C.

The effort put forth by Massachusetts Democrats to change this law was an example of cowardice, hypocrisy and political maneuvering. The Democrats have used their overwhelming majority in the state legislature in an attempt to manipulate national policy. They have bypassed and ignored the voice of the people of Massachusetts and deprived them of the right to vote in a special election.

If the Democrats truly were convinced that they made a mistake in 2004, then they should have changed the law going forward so that it would not have affected the current vacancy. Unfortunately, they would have never even dreamed of doing this because their vote had absolutely nothing to do with principle.

As for Senator Kennedy’s letter, there was understandably a good bit of emotional pull to carry out his wishes by allowing Gov. Patrick to appoint his successor. However, Senator Kennedy was undeniably a partisan and clearly had universal healthcare in mind when he wrote the letter. This may sound a harsh, but Senator Kennedy’s wishes should have been completely irrelevant. Laws of succession exist for a reason, and whether or not these laws fit the political agenda of the predecessor should be immaterial even if the predecessor’s last name is Kennedy.

It is unethical for Massachusetts Democrats to change this law to meet their political objectives. Hopefully the people of Massachusetts will see through this political ploy and vote those who seek to play political games with the law out of office.

Whether it is the girl with the awe-inspiring singing voice who skillfully juggles the Honors Program and a great boyfriend, the “really, really ridiculously good-looking” guy who went home at the end of the kegger with the girl you were eying all night, the kid who does not buy the books and shows up to class only for the mid-term and final and still gets an A, or the football player—just because he is a football player and your athletic endeavors are limited to solo cups and a ping-pong table, we have all been there.

Previously, something that might have comforted us was the old adage, “Well, at least you have your health.” Thanks for the support, Mom, but unfortunately, thanks to the new threat of H1N1 on campus, our health may no longer be able to satiate us in times of jealousy and self-doubt. Although the University has put forth a great amount of effort not only to spread awareness about swine fl u but also to educate the community about prevention of the virus, multiple cases have already been reported and the numbers are growing.

Part of the problem with the lack of consciousness on campus regarding H1N1 can be attributed to the means through which the administration has chosen to communicate the pertinent information. If one were to happen across the main page of the Boston College website, the link to swine fl u information is a small maroon rectangle that, to those of us who lack technological savvy, appears more like a decoration than a useful resource. Moreover, after one has signed in, the main page of Portal has no direct links to any of the three main BC swine fl u documents: the Academic Protocols, the Guidelines for Season Flu and H1N1 viruses, or the latest Update.

Even worse, another one of the ways BC has tried to inform students about the threat of swine fl u has been e-mail. What is the likelihood that many people actually noticed that in their inboxes, let alone read it? Considering I also receive e-mails from BC about parking when I don’t have a car, the probability that many students were able to distinguish that this e-mail was important—and then took the time to scrutinize its contents— is slim at best.

While the free hand sanitizer distributed by the Office of Residential Life has certainly come in handy, college students are not the most discriminating individuals when it comes to free stuff. Just because we have Purell with a BC logo, does not guarantee we will consciously use it to prevent the spread of germs. We may just use it after touching something really gross, like used napkins left on a table in Eagle’s Nest or helping our friends after they drunkenly drip fro-yo from Lower all over our futons.

I will be the first to admit that I have jealousy issues when it comes to people who have the immune systems of oxen. They never seem to suffer from the common cold, don’t sneeze like maniacs when the flowers start blooming in April, don’t require gloves and hat when it falls below forty degrees (Celsius), or don’t think swine flu is a serious threat. Someone could sniffle in O’Neill and I, who prefer to study in Bapst, will end up under the weather for two weeks.

For all the other students on campus like me, I am asking everyone to please, please, be more careful. H1N1 affects people under 25 in greater numbers than people over 64, according to data collected since the April 2009 outbreak. Cover your mouths when you sneeze or cough, both of which the Center for Disease Control classifi es as the most common means though which germs are spread. As the cap of a Snapple bottle has taught us, a single sneeze releases 40,000 aerosol droplets at a rate of 100 miles per hour. That is an awful lot of airborne germs for one measly “Achoo.”

Also, stay away from your friends who are sick! There is a new phenomenon called a “Swine Flu Party,” where a group of healthy people will hang out with a person with H1N1 to build up their immunity. As the CDC explains on their website, this will not work. Even if you personally don’t get sick, you may transmit the germs to other people who weren’t cool enough to be invited to your f u fiesta. Seriously, save your partying for the weekends.

If you are the one who becomes infected with H1N1, please understand no means no. That means no going to class, no being around other people, no physical contact. Nobody will be impressed if you show up to class with swine fl u, nobody will think you’re a warrior for being out in public with a contagious illness, and nobody will thank you if you get them sick.

For further information on what you can do to protect yourself and others during flu season, visit the Center for Disease Control website or simply follow that little maroon box on the BC homepage.

Unfortunately, the University’s lackluster response and the pathetic failure of the faculty panel/discussion on birth control midway through last semester fell miserably short of expectations. On a campus run by the most intellectually-elite order of Catholic priests with the excess of resources flowing from the various departments and offices at the University, there is no reason Boston College should not host a colloquium on birth control in light of Pope Paul VI’s encyclical letter Humane Vitae.

The debate on campus has – and still does – fail to mention many arguments and aspects of birth control with broader implications than those in the dorm room. For example, the philosophical relations between sexuality, birth control, and the human person have nowhere been mentioned.

There are questions that need to be explored, such as: What does it mean to be a sexual being, and is our humanity inhibited, enhanced, or affected in anyway by the blocking of our procreative processes? Do Catholics (ideally) save themselves for marriage because the Pope says so, or because doing so is in accordance with a life of virtue, the fulfillment of what it means to be human? Are there sociopolitical reasons for strengthening the core unit of society – the family?

The long-term effects of abortion and contraception are being felt in more places than college campuses. While the birth rate in the United States is just barely enough to replace the death rate, certain demographics therein are slowly inhibiting pregnancies and aborting themselves out of existence, such as the African-American community. Other nations similarly suffer insufficient population-replacement rates.

Austrian chemist Carl Djerassi, who was awarded the National Medal of Science by President Nixon for pioneering the oral contraceptive pill, lamented in January of this year his work in the field.

He holds himself somewhat responsible for the 1.4 children per family birthrate in Austria, a crisis he claimed to be worse than obesity. The Austrian newspaper Der Standard quoted him as saying that continental Europe sees “no connection at all between sexuality and reproduction.” The sociological problem of a country which cannot replace its own population is the greatest catastrophe of modern Europe, Djerassi explained.

The current era is the only one in human history which has seen absolutely no connection between sex, procreation, and love. It is conceivable, and indeed quite common, to have sex without love, or even to procreate with neither sex nor love due to sperm banks and in vitro fertilization.

Simultaneously, the positive aspects of expressing or promoting the virtue of chastity are likewise being ignored. For example, does chastity and monogamy within the context of marriage correspond to what each and every person needs? Is there something about being human which requires chastity as a formative tool to work towards our perfection? Need sex within marriage be the “repressing” of desires or the fulfillment of them?

In addition to these philosophical questions, there are practical aspects of chastity, too. Uganda, a country which has successfully implemented abstinence policies to halt the spread of AIDS, has been incredibly more successful than other African nations which have had relatively negligible success with a focus on condoms.

Further, a stable, secure family bonded by love and solidified in the profession of marriage has been the key to every viable citystate throughout human history. This truth was the wisdom that allowed ancient Greece and Rome to flourish as they did.

Moreover, Paul VI, in Humane Vitae, saw the crisis that would be caused by the lack of chastity and divorce between procreation and sex. The depths of his insight have yet to be exhausted in their entirety, but what better time or place to begin exhausting them than a prestigious Catholic university such as Boston College?

These preceding paragraphs serve as a reflection and grounding on which an academic inquiry can be built. Birth control is thus the center of a major crisis in modern times. Yet Boston College seems extremely reluctant to comment on the issue in all its complexities, facets, and challenges. With its resources, especially from the Church in the 21st Century and the incredible strength of our Philosophy Department, Boston College has the ability, indeed the duty, to host a colloquium about birth control.

Failure to do so would be a disservice to the student body, the intellectual needs of the school, and the Catholic Church at large which continues to struggle over this issue. On behalf of a curious student body and a Church in need, we at The Observer demand such a colloquium.

Roger Robinson, president and CEO of Conflict Securities Advisory Group, has helped develop a financial terrorist watch list, which compiles information about companies who currently engage in business with countries suspected of terrorist involvement, such as Iran. At its highwater mark, Conflict Securities advised investment holdings totaling approximately one trillion dollars, lending advice to groups ranging from the New York Police Union to multiple state pension funds.

Robinson takes a two-track approach to his financial strategy. First, he stresses the asymmetric risk, or risk which is not accounted for in a stock’s price. Usually, with everything else equal, a high risk stock will have a lower price than a low risk stock. Robinson does not believe that companies who do business in terrorist sponsoring states have an additional risk factor subtracted from their stock price. Second, Robinson believes that there is a moral obligation for investment companies to disclose when they buy stocks of companies that do business in terrorist sponsoring states.

Conflict Securities Advisory Group (CSAG) researches businesses with publicly traded stocks and looks for potential links to terrorist-sponsoring states.

The greater the stake a business has in a terrorist sponsoring state, the more ardently CSAG warns against investment. “There are already divestment campaigns in a dozen states,” says Robinson, “but we refrain from advocating for divestment. We simply present the information and let businesses decide what to do.”

There are certainly a few challenges to be overcome with CSAG. With a relatively small staff, thorough research on all companies doing business with terrorist-sponsoring states is difficult. “Firms don’t usually advertise when they’re doing business in Iran or North Korea,” admitted Robinson. To compensate, CSAG subscribes to foreign business journals and newspapers, which generally report on American companies opening new operations.

Robinson has experience working with financial foreign policy, leaving Chase Manhattan to join the Reagan Administration in early 1982, at age 32, as the Director of International Economic Affairs. Robinson’s article in the Washington Quarterly, entitled Soviet Gas: Risk or Reward?, caught President Reagan’s eye in July of 1981, and Reagan convinced him to join government service soon afterwards. Robinson met with the president four to five times a week as the two worked on a strategy to bring down the Soviet Union. Robinson wrote several National Security Decision Directives, or NSDDs, including several which mapped the specific strategies to be used to stop the influx of available credit to the Soviet Union.

While ambitious, Robinson’s plan was particularly difficult because of the secretive nature of NSDD-75, which created the fi nancial master plan for the Soviet takedown. “There were only twelve people in the loop in the United States,” Robinson remembers, “it created the framework for the Soviet takedown.”

The crux of Robinson’s plan was to squeeze off Soviet credit by pressuring allied banks to stop lending money to the Kremlin. President Reagan bought the plan, claiming that he always knew the Soviet Union was not financially independent. “I don’t care how you do it. Just do it,” Robinson says Reagan told him. Even now, Robinson seems awed by Reagan’s instructions, remembering that his plan “wasn’t a rollback of the USSR; it was the literal takedown of the Soviet Union.”

The United States ended up excluding six major European countries from the U.S. market, which Robinson admits created a “major dispute” between the allies. “It was war with the allies because they were underwriting the Soviets, and furthermore Western governments were giving the Soviets loans at a full percentage point and a half less than the market value. This closed a 15 or 16 billion dollar deficit, about half of their operating budget.”

Robinson’s plan saw fruition two days before the formal collapse of the Soviet Union, when the USSR defaulted on over 90 billion dollars of Western debt. “Our plan was almost intuitively obvious,” Robinson claims, “but as far as I know we never had an international banker in national security before me, and that’s why I think international fi nance is still a very neglected part of national security.”

I have never had to write an open letter to the BC community in my four years here. Together, we have often engaged in crucial, productive, and sometimes heated dialogue over the years. We have found common ground whenever possible, listened to all points of view, and trusted that each person’s opinion was based upon what they thought was honestly best for the college as a whole. We now have a situation before us that threatens this spirit.

In the September 22nd issue of The Observer, an article appeared entitled “Can I, as a Caucasian, Be a Part of Your Group?”. I understand that this article stirred up a fair amount of controversy among the student population. Regardless of your view on this article, I think that we can all agree that the conversation that surrounds it is one that the BC community needs to have. We need to know why BC is one of the worst universities in the nation when it comes to interracial relations. It is a black eye for the school and we, the students, need to take proactive measures to change the status quo.

Unfortunately, this conversation has taken an ugly turn with threats being leveled against the author, a freshman, who is understandably taken aback by the situation. Whether or not you agree with what the article said, I once more believe that we can all agree that all people have a right to articulate their point of view without fearing for their personal safety. I am not going to outline the specific threats in this publication, but I will call on leaders of the BC community to stand behind this letter and call for respect and civility in this matter.

I have come to love and respect the people on this publication that I have grown so very close to over the past four years. I see them as my brothers and sisters and would do anything for them. As such, it pains me incredibly to see this happen to one of my writers. This has to stop, and it has to stop immediately. From the time of this publication forward, any threats or harassing e-mails to the writer will be reported immediately to the Boston College Police Department.

Since I have taken over as Editor-in-Chief, this publication has made a strong commitment to dialogue. I have previously met with members of the Global Justice Project, the President of College Democrats, and we will continue that commitment. In the two days after the publication of this issue, I will be meeting with the co-president of the Cuban-American Students Association, the AHANA Caucus, and any other minority student group which asks for my time. Additionally, I have already committed to a panel on race-relations sponsored by the Student Programs Office and Dean Karl Bell on October 26th.

Thanks so much for reading The Observer.

Michael Karl Reer
Editor-in-Chief
bcobserver@gmail.com

The bill plans to fix the high cost of health care by making it more affordable, increasing healthcare coverage for children, computerizing patients’ health records, researching better treatments for illnesses, and investing in prevention. While this all sounds grand, what cost does the president want Americans to pay? Already over eight trillion dollars in debt, we must evaluate whether the reform is worth the cost. Moreover, the cost for this “fix-all” bill is unknown. Some say it could be more than $630 billion, while others say it won’t cost us a dime. Ultimately, if we don’t know the cost of the reform, we don’t know how much we’ll save.

The president claims that he, “will not sign health insurance reform that adds even one dime to our deficit,” yet analysts question how this is even remotely possible. Obama plans to not add to our deficit by letting the wealthy and middle class pay for most of it. Obama’s Healthcare Reform Bill cannot possibly help the economy. In fact, all evidence proves just the opposite. We must keep in mind that the health care industry is part of the American economy. By dismantling it, faulty as it may be, we are dismantling, or possibly even destroying, an entire industry.

The bill also plans to mandate health insurance. By doing so, about 100 million Americans would have to switch to a more expensive government designed health plan. Americans that don’t receive adequate insurance coverage will be required to purchase one or be fined (a tax equal to 2.5% of their income) until they do so. This clearly violates Obama’s promise to let people keep their current health insurance.

A study at MIT by Amy Finkelstein suggests that the dominance of insurance itself has almost doubled the cost of healthcare. So by expanding coverage, we would also be increasing the cost of healthcare. Making health insurance compulsory would make it easier for anyone to get coverage, which is beneficial for Americans with chronic diseases but would, at the same time, increase the cost for young, healthy Americans.

There are only two ways, according to CATO, that the bill would help the economy. One way would be not mandating health insurance; however this would defeat the purpose of the reform. Another way would be increasing funding to alleviate healthy individuals of high costs, which means that the government would have to provide the funding (increasing the deficit).

All in all, the president’s Healthcare Reform Bill is unrealistic. There is no way that Americans will want to risk paying more in taxes and in healthcare when they are not guaranteed that the reform is worth it. The bill would not only have drastic repercussions on the American economy but also spark political disputes over what should be covered and what should not.

The original Liturgical Movement found its roots in the 19th and early 20th century, promoting, among other things, the recovery of authentic worship in the liturgy of the Church through, for example, a restoration of Gregorian chant as the standard for liturgical music. Scholars also considered reforming the liturgy in light of the study of then-recently discovered patristic texts, including Hippolytus’ Apostolic Tradition. The Second Vatican Council, especially in its Constitution of Sacred Liturgy Sacrosanctum Concilium, transformed this general scholarly movement into an offi cial and explicit need for reform of the Church’s worship. Sacrosanctum Concilium stressed that the point of this reform was “that the Christian people may more certainly derive an abundance of graces from the sacred liturgy.” The forty years following the council gave rise to a completely vernacular, versus populum celebration of Mass, let alone countless illicit and invalid liturgical deformations. With the current collapse of a once life-giving Catholic culture, one must question whether the intentions of Vatican II were implemented with fidelity.

His Holiness’ allowance of the celebration of the Extraordinary Form of the Mass, which has given sustenance and life to Catholic culture since the 6th century, is nothing more than an act of pastoral care for the whole Church. Certainly, reconciling with the Church the schismatic Society of St. Pius X, which rejects the reformed liturgy, is an undeniable goal of the letter. Furthermore, the motu proprio in part was written specifi – cally to give freedom to groups of the faithful who, as the Holy Father described in an accompanying letter to bishops, had a “deep, personal familiarity with the earlier Form of the liturgical celebration” as a fruit of the original Liturgical Movement. These groups could not obtain permission from their local bishops due to their fears that the celebration of the 1962 Missal would undermine the authority of Vatican II.

However, the Holy Father ultimately intends with a wider celebration of the Missal of 1962 to bring about an unofficial “reform of the reform” of a deformed Roman liturgy. In other words, Benedict seeks to restore continuity with the liturgical Tradition of the Church. Rather than relegate the matter to theoretical liturgists, Benedict seeks to restore this living Tradition by a living practice of an accurate expression of it in the Extraordinary Form of the Mass. By having more of an opportunity to pray or celebrate the Mass as celebrated before the untidiness of the latter 20th century, both the laity and priests alike have an opportunity to experience fi rsthand its unique graces. The ultimate hope is that having Masses celebrated according to both the 1962 Missal and the 1970 Missal in parishes will bring about a better understanding of the need for reform of the former and a more reverent, educated, and Tradition-conscious celebration of the latter.

Why call this “reform of the reform” an authentic expression of the pastoral nature of the Council? As mentioned above, the council sought reform of the liturgy primarily so that Christians would receive greater graces from its celebration as the life-source of the Church. However, as evidenced by the collapse of Catholic culture in the late 20th century, the graces have not been fl owing as hoped. Even those who attend daily Mass, including many students at Boston College, will admit a certain lack of spiritual fulfillment from the liturgy. The problem must be in the source. Thus the allowances granted by Summorum Pontificum are aimed at the benefit of all who receive their spiritual sustenance from the liturgy of the Church.

Two years after Summorum Pontificum, numerous Catholic faithful have experienced deepened spiritual fruit from praying and celebrating both forms of the Mass. Philip Micele, A&S ’11, explains that “the reverence and beauty of the traditional Mass has helped me to remember that people are made to love God above all things,” bringing him joy and even “more enthusiasm for service than I had” upon fi rst coming to Boston College.

As the reverent celebration of both forms of the Mass continues to proliferate, including at Boston College, expect the graces of the New Liturgical Movement to flow only more freely.

The team entered the 2009 season with predictions that it would establish itself in sixth place in the league by the end of the season. These predictions came alongside the fact that eleven seniors departed from the team last season. Yet despite these crucial losses, eight letter winners and three starters from last season’s squad have returned.

Despite the youth of this year’s squad, veteran Head Coach Ed Kelly, after 22 years of coaching Boston College men’s soccer, has remained optimistic.

“We have to be cautious in the sense that we have a lot of young kids,” he said earlier in the season. “We have to keep an understanding that there will be a learning curve and a lot of teaching and development will be required. It’s a good class, but they’re young so we have to be patient.”

The youth of the team may explain the season’s major upswings and downswings and their 5-5 record. The fi rst four games left the squad with three losses and one victory, one of those losses against #7 ranked Maryland, a conference rival.

However, after this shaky start, the team kicked into high gear over the next week and a half, winning the next four games in a row. One of these victories was over non-conference member Boston University, who before Boston College’s upset was ranked #14 in the nation. The score at the end of this upset was 1-0 with sophomore midfielder Edvin Worley scoring the team’s only goal in the 57th minute of the match.

Another of those four victories came against conference member Duke. Before Duke’s loss, their squad was ranked #11 in the nation. Freshman midfielder Colin Murphy and freshman forward Kevin Mejia were the heroes of this huge victory, each scoring one of the goals in the 2-0 victory.

After these four victories, including the two major upsets, Boston College moved up to #14 in the nation. Though holding onto that ranking has proved too diffi cult of a task for the mens’ squad.

The team’s impressive winning streak ended, beginning with back-to-back losses against unranked Siena and against conference rival North Carolina State, who is ranked #24 in the nation.

Since that time of blown-out hair and neon leggings, BC football has had 17 offensive linemen drafted into the NFL. It has produced its fair share of big uglies as BC are a stepping stone to the NFL for o-linemen.

However, we’ve been missing that guy that defenses have to gameplan around. Every good offense has at least one guy that makes the opposing defensive coordinator an insomniac during game week. Our history of pedestrian receivers has limited our offenses. Even in the year that could have been, 2007, our golden boy quarterback’s leading receiver was his halfback!

Therefore, it was, and has been, imperative for BC to recruit receivers. And finally, the coaching staff has landed one, or so we think. On September 15th, Shakim Phillips pledged his commitment to Head Coach Frank Spaziani (although not officially until early February). Phillips is a senior at DePaul Catholic High School in Wayne, New Jersey. Rivals.com has rated Phillips as the 37th best overall prospect in the nation, assigning him four out of a possible fi ve stars. He is rated as the fi fth best receiver in the nation, and the second best player in New Jersey.

They have described him physically as “wide, thick-shouldered and a thin waist similar to Terrell Owens. Phillips has really big hands and lean legs that could use some additional muscle mass. He has the body to take punishment over the middle.”

Phillips was also named to the Army All-America team, potentially one of only two BC players to ever make that distinguished team (Brian Toal being the other).

I chatted with John McKenna, the head coach at DePaul, and he said that Phillips is a tall, strong kid with great hands. He said that Phillips chose BC because of the comfort level with the coaches. McKenna remarked, “BC and DePaul have a great relationship. Bill McGovern also is a great recruiter and Shakim felt very comfortable with him.”

With Rich Gunnell and Justin Jarvis graduating in May, the Eagles will be left with a shortage of receivers. Colin Larmond, Clyde Lee, Billy Flutie, Ifeani Momah (likely redshirting this year) and Jonathan Coleman will be the returning wideouts. Although McKenna said that the BC coaches haven’t yet told Phillips how he will be used next year, it wouldn’t be unrealistic to think that he could see some serious playing time, especially due to his physical prowess (6’2”, 200 lbs).

Although BC has been cursed by four-star prospects before, there are many reasons to believe that Phillips will be different. Phillips was pursued by many of the football factories, as he picked the Eagles over Georgia, Tennessee, West Virginia and Wisconsin (he had to cut his list down from 29 schools).

Hopefully he and incoming freshman QB, Chase Rettig (threestar out of San Clemente, CA) develop a nice rapport and bring the Eagles offense to a new level.

While the future is still uncertain and it is tough to project the career of a 17-year-old, things defi – nitely look brighter at the wide-out position with Phillips coming to BC.

From the very start of the recruiting season, BC had two glaring needs: wide receiver and quarterback. They may have satisfi ed them both. With continued solid line play and a young, dominant defense, Phillips may be just what the doctor ordered to get the team over the hump, which Tom O’Brien said was impossible.

To be sustainable is to be able to endure. Travel back a few thousand years to before the advent of the catalytic converter, the steam engine, or agriculture to when humans were mainly hunter-gathers. During that time period humans were a nomadic bunch, following herds and gathering what they could from the flora around them. Human populations at this time were relatively low, and we made a negligible impact on Earth. We were engaged in a sustainable relationship with nature.

Time went forward. We began to settle as we developed agriculture and began to domesticate animals. Early on, our forms of agriculture and animal farming were fairly sustainable. We planted multiple crops which complemented each other ecologically, and we took advantage of the web of life to produce our meat: Sun and rain grow the grasses and legumes, cows eat the grasses and legumes, chickens clean up after the cows, what’s leftover enhances soil fertility, etc.

As time went on we strayed from the natural order of symbiotic relationships that nature has developed so perfectly. We began to monocrop, and manufacture fertilizer with the use of not solar energy, but the energy from finite fossil fuels. This pattern of straying from the natural order continued with a few hints of the environmental degradation which could and would come: see Cuyahoga River.

In time, we realized that the Earth was not an inexhaustible reservoir of resources for our use. We began to set aside particularly beautiful areas of the country as protected areas. Soon we had a vibrant national park system. We began to see the effect man-made pollution had on our water and air so we enacted the Clean Air Act and the Clean Water Act in the 1970s. We began to understand the importance of maintaining a diverse community of plant and animal species, so we enacted the Endangered Species Act.

These actions were all done in recognition that our previous way of life was not sustainable. As scientific research continued into the current century, we began to notice other ways in which we were living in an unsustainable manner. We realized that fossil fuels were finite, so we began to invest in solar and wind energy. We realized that the concentration of carbon dioxide in our atmosphere was increasing, which leads to an enhanced greenhouse effect. The list goes on.

The sustainability movement is a popular movement whose only goal is to improve the quality of life on Earth for all of us. It is easy to become shortsighted. To see those who serve to gain from the movement financially as the leaders and architects of the movement would be ignorant to the history of the movement. Superficially, sustainability may seem to inhibit our unbridled growth as individuals and as a society. We may not be able to cut costs as easily, but what costs are we cutting? Monetary costs, for sure. But what costs do we subsequently incur as a society when we all ignore the effects of our “cost cutting” measures on the environment? It would certainly be easier for General Electric, and cheaper, to dispose of their toxic waste directly into the Hudson River-and that is precisely what they did for a long time. Now they and we have realized what a flawed decision that was, and they are attempting to rid the river of the contaminants that they released into it.

Sustainability is a movement built on the recognition of how nature works, and that no matter how much we may think we have conquered nature, we will always owe our success and failure as a species to the environment that we live in. If we destroy our environment, we destroy ourselves. This fact is what compels and implores us to act to protect it. To sustain it. To do so we must understand the effects of our actions, however small or seemingly innocuous. There may be times when we have to make sacrifices in order to ensure the rich biodiversity that is slowly eroding, and to ensure a high quality of life for as many as possible. But we have made them before, and there is no reason why we can not continue to in our attempt to live more harmoniously with the world around us.

The conference had been a few years in the making. James Francis Cardinal Stafford, President Emeritus of the Apostolic Penitentiary, and prior to that, Archbishop of Denver, originally conceived the idea and Sean Cardinal O’Malley OFM Cap, Archbishop of Boston, agreed to have the conference in the Archdiocese. The planning then fell to Rev. Arthur Kennedy, rector of St. John’s Seminary.

Conference attendees came from all over the United States, Canada, and Germany. It began with a talk by Marc Cardinal Ouellet, P.S.S., Archbishop of Quebec, who spoke on contemporary values and challenges to the practice of clerical celibacy.

He said that secularization, a general decline in morality, and the sexual revolution have made the idea of celibacy incomprehensible to the minds of many. In addition, the creation of a “parallel academic Magisterium” which is in confl ict with the Church’s teaching confuses some of the faithful.

Addressing the question as to why the priest should not change its policy simply in order to ensure all an have access to the Eucharist on Sundays, the Cardinal said that if there was to be a change, it would need to be one of proper discernment, and not of caving to a culture that does not understand the Christian message.

Speaking of the value of the practice, he noted that virginity was not an Old Testament value and that it was the “historical and eschatological” situation which arises in the person of Christ that changes this. He cited the Council of Elvera in 306 which said that priests who were married were to remain continent.

Diving more deeply into theology, Cardinal Ouellet states that to understand the priest as a representation of Christ is to understand why he must be continent and male. In the way that Christ is the Bridegroom to his Bride the Church, the priest is also a Bridegroom. He encouraged the Latin Church to not borrow from the East but to renew her own traditions. Ouellet’s talk was followed by evening prayer, a wine and cheese reception served by some seminarians, and then a dinner at the seminary.

Participants were then bussed to Our Lady Help of Christians in Newton where Archbishop Vigneron of Detroit spoke publicly on “Christ’s Virginity: Model of Celibacy and Service for the Diocesan Priest.”

The talk, steeped in phenomenological language, explained why the fact that exceptions are made to the rule of celibacy and therefore it cannot be a necessary requirement, it nonetheless remains essential.

Saturday began with morning prayer followed by Mass celebrated by Cardinal O’Malley, featuring a beautiful quartet. This was followed later in the day by talks given by Rev. Dr. Stefan Heid, who is Professor of Liturgy and Hagiography at the Pontifi cal Institute for Christian Archaeology, speaking on celibacy in the early Church, and Dr. Paul Vitz, whose talk was titled, “Psychological Consequences of Common Sexual Practices.”

The final talks were given by Rev. Richard Gabuzda, S.T.D., from the Institute of Priestly Formation in Omaha, and Cardinal Stafford himself.

This was followed by a formal dinner, once again served by some seminarians. On Sunday, Mass was celebrated by Cardinal Stafford, featuring the St. John Seminary choirs.

The conference was considered a success, and the talks given at the symposium will be turned into a book in the near future.

The proceeds of the Pops on the Heights concert provide the funds necessary to grant scholarships to Boston College students. Since the concert first began seventeen years ago, 623 scholarships have been granted to 292 students, according to Renee LeBlanc, the Senior Associate Director of Alumni Programs and the coordinator of the concert. “The $2.1 million is on par with the money raised in past years,” she said.

The concert provided a lively and entertaining evening for the attendees, who enjoyed not only the exuberance of the orchestra, but also Bernadette Peters’ performance. The renowned Broadway singer and actress performed numbers from her extensive Broadway career, including Gypsy and Into the Woods. The performance also featured Boston College’s own University Chorale.

The Pops on the Heights Concerts were originally the idea of Jim Cleary, a Boston College alumnus from the class of 1950 who, according to LeBlanc, had a very close relationship with both the University and the symphony. Eager to expand Boston College’s scholarship fund, he approached then-University President J. Donald Monan, S.J. with his idea for the Pops Scholarship Gala. The Pops on the Heights Concerts began in 1993.

Cleary now holds a position as Trustee Associate, and he is the Chairperson of the concert. Renee LeBlanc credits the success of the scholarship galas in part to Cleary’s hard work and dedication. “Our chairman is a passionate supporter of BC. . . . He is one of our hardest-working alumni volunteers,” she said.

Another reason for the success of the Pops on the Heights Scholarship Gala, says LeBlanc, is its presentation during Parents Weekend, when the excitement of the new school year and the visitors on campus bring many people to the concert. The Pops on the Heights Concert is a “feel good event for parents, alumni, family members, and friends of Boston College,” she said. LeBlanc also considers it “unique,” as it never fails to entertain audiences and is one of few events at Boston College that provides such significant contributions for the scholarship fund.

Approximately 8,400 people attended the Pops on the Heights Scholarship Gala this year.Ticket prices ranged from $50 to $100, and included a gourmet picnic dinner. A number of corporate sponsorships of $10,000, $25,000, and $50,000 afforded guests a private cocktail reception and preferred seating. These donations provide the foundation for the scholarship money raised through the galas.

Thanks to the “driving force of Jim Cleary” and the generosity of alumni, parents and friends of Boston College, the Pops on the Heights Scholarship Gala once again provided the money necessary for numerous students to receive an education at Boston College.

The Pops on the Heights Scholarship Gala is at the forefront of efforts to provide need based financial aid to students hoping to attend Boston College. Together with the private donations of Boston College’s benefactors, the financial burden of attending college is reduced for hundreds of students each year.

The conductor of the Boston Pops Esplanade Orchestra is Keith Lockhart, who has led the orchestra since 1995. The Boston Pops have been entertaining audiences since the late nineteenth century. Past guest performers at the Pops on the Heights Galas have included Brian Stokes Mitchell, Linda Eder, and John Williams, who was present for the fifteenth anniversary of the concerts.

LeBlanc says that she is now eagerly looking forward to the continuation of the Pops on the Heights Scholarship Gala in the future, as each concert is an event which brings together the Boston College community for a worthwhile cause.

Alexander began her lecture through an appraisal of those individuals who came before her – such influences as Walt Whitman, John Hope Franklin and W.E.B. Dubois. She read aloud Whitman’s “I Hear America Singing,” which illustrates the commonplace activities in the lives of such distinctive and disparate individuals. The poem reflects the belief that there is no harmonious and monolithic America that is “beyond race” – and that is how it should be, for our differences should be cherished.

Throughout the lecture, Alexander stressed the importance of African American studies in higher education. This curriculum was first implemented 40 years ago, and the anniversary provides us with a lens through which we might examine both the progress and current position of the field.

African American studies first gained its institutional footing as a discipline due to the protests and civil disobedience – such as sit-ins – that an ambitious and youthful generation devoted itself to.

Alexander delivered a stern warning against turning our backs away from the archives, especially at such a time as now when the humanities are under attack. She discussed the notion of personal responsibility, urging everyone to become caretakers of the tradition and to sustain an ongoing conversation from within. Furthermore, with the increased dismantling of the dominant literary studies comes space for African American studies to enter into the fray.

Alexander lamented what she terms the “cost of racial thinking.” She referenced the poet Paul Lawrence Dunbar who had perceived white audiences that were concerned only with fulfi lling the racial stereotype through writing with an African American dialectic and tone.

Alexander challenged what most take for granted – historical texts. As a means to show her point, she mentioned the poet Natasha Tretheway, whose “Southern History” narrates her own high school education as a blatant disregard for the record of racial prejudice. The poem, which Alexander read aloud, detailed being taught Gone with the Wind in the 1970’s – more so, being taught it as a true account. The stereotype is quite evident in one line: “a slave stood big as life: big mouth, bucked eyes, our textbook’s grinning proof – a lie my teacher guarded.”

However, Alexander argues that there have been those moments in which the African American community has completely disowned these racial stereotypes. For example, just read through Alice Walker’s The Color Purple, concerning a black woman’s uphill struggle against racist white culture. Or take Zora Neale Hurston and her work How It Feels to be Colored Me, regarding self-discovery and cultural appreciation during such turbulent times.

Alexander fi nished her presentation by imparting a personal story. She discussed sending her children to Nature’s Classroom and the double-edged sword of the education received there.

On the one hand, the children learned social truths of that time period through the “Underground Railroad game” – the clear-cut benefi t of such multicultural education.

However, to her dismay Alexander also discovered that the children had sung the song “Jump Down, Turn Around, Pick a Bail of Cotton.” Although the faculty had the best intentions in mind, it failed to appreciate the backbreaking servitude and racial stereotype that the song stood for – the negative consequence of racial ignorance.

Alexander finished by reiterating one fundamental concept to live by: “You only hurt yourself by not educating yourself.”

Dr. Ospino began the evening by situating the experience of Latinos within the larger context of U.S. Catholicism, which is undergoing significant transitions. “U.S. Catholics know,” he said, “that something is happening.” He pointed out three particular phenomena. First, Catholic communities are experiencing rapid demographic change. In just a few decades, Hispanics have come to constitute 40% of the total Catholic population in the U.S. In the area of priestly ministry and religious life, the Church faces some unsettling facts: 91% of religious sisters, and 75% of priests are at least 60 years old, and most of the rest are 50 or older. Alongside these developments are some interesting sociological transitions. In the 1950s and 1960s, Catholics entered the middle class and moved to the suburbs, leaving behind their urban neighborhoods and parishes. At the beginning of the twenty-first century, though, the Church is experiencing a reversion “back to barrio and city,” Ospino said, through growing urban Hispanic populations. These transitions demand that “hard questions” be asked: how are Hispanics to be served, how is the Church to evangelize today, and what role will Hispanics play?

Dr. Nancy Pineda-Madrid spoke about the “spiritual resources” that Latino Catholics offer U.S. Catholicism. She described some of her own experience growing up in El Paso, Texas, with what she called a “borderlands vision.” She went on to describe popular religious practices of Hispanics, defining “popular” as that which comes “from faithful Catholics marginalized by Church authorities.” She characterized the Church as “hostile” to Latinos. She cited such practices as the carrying of images of saints and the building of altars in homes. It is difficult to see, though, in what ways these practices could have represented the protest of an oppressive Church. In fact, they seem to suggest the opposite. Regardless, Pineda- Madrid summarized the relevance of these experiences and insights for U.S. Hispanics in terms of tolerance and the hope that Catholics might “expand their vision of what it means to be human, and learn to accept one another, and thereby form a more peaceful, Godly world.”

Dr. Roberto Goizueta situated the evening theologically by describing the origins of U.S. Latino/Latina Theology. Specifically, he referred to the Second Vatican Council’s document, Gaudium et Spes, in which the bishops wished to say, according to Goizueta, “if we want to know what it means to be Christians today, we must look not to heaven but to the signs of the times” (the Council document itself reads: “In every age, the Church carries the responsibility of reading the signs of the times and of interpreting them in the light of the Gospel…”). He described the development of the “preferential option for the poor” in Catholic Social teaching.

He went on to describe the theological method employed by those who articulate a particularly Latino theology. Theologians in the 1970s and 80s held that “what you see in the Bible is influenced by where you stand,” Goizueta said. He asked, “what might theology look like if its text is not simply words on a page, but instead the ‘text’ of lives lived today?” Experience and practice thus yield insights to which theologians must pay attention. Theology, he explained, develops as any intellectual project does: in the form of an ongoing conversation.

Goizueta briefly referred to the need to “bring the great Catholic theological tradition into engagement with people’s lives.” Perhaps the evening’s reflections would have benefited from a more extensive consideration of this essential element. For experience obviously teaches lessons about life. But Christian theology goes further; it brings something more than what is already present in us. Theology reflects and develops from the starting point of sacra doctrina, a “holy teaching” or “sound doctrine” that brings to the world something beyond the gleaning of insights from collective experience. It is certainly worthwhile to reflect on experience, but Christianity must bring something more, something its own, on which we can rely and in which we can finally place our trust. In the last analysis, theology answers the question, “who is Jesus?” and, having answered that question, teaches us how to live. Jesus is revealed as “the Christ, the son of the living God.” Our theology indeed must be expansive, must grapple with the signs of the times, those present realities “on the ground.” But it must also look to first things, to heaven, to the articles of faith, and allow them to transform minds and hearts. It must allow creatures to reunite with their Creator, their Father, through his Son, Jesus Christ.

According to its website, Catholics Come Home is an apostolate that creates media messages and broadcasts them “in order to inspire, educate and evangelize inactive Catholics and others, and invite them to live a deeper faith in Jesus Christ, in accord with the magisterium of the Roman Catholic Church.”

CCH has two prominent vehicles for evangelization, television messages and an extensive website. The first message was televised in 1998, inspiring thousands of Catholics to return to their parishes. Ten years later, during Lent 2008 and the six subsequent months, 92,000 Catholics “came home” in the Diocese of Phoenix, AZ and Corpus Christi, TX alone.

“CCH was founded after I received a calling while on a Catholic men’s retreat. God invited me to use the advertising talents He gave me, to serve the Church. Since then, my life has been an amazing adventure! When we are open to doing God’s will, and invite Him to use us to spread His Good News, many lives will be transformed…including our own!” Peterson recently said in an email interview.

Peterson is very enthusiastic about the future of the foundation. “CCH plans to air coast to coast in 15 other dioceses and Archdiocese, from Sacramento to Providence, from Chicago to Colorado Springs. Even Australia is working on implementing Catholics Come Home!”

The homepage of the CCH website offers three starting points, “I used to be Catholic, why should I come home?”, “I’m not Catholic, I have questions about your faith”, and “I’m Catholic, I’d like to help”.  From there, the answer can be found to virtually any question that could be raised.

“At Catholics Come Home, we promise to always give you the honest truth, with nothing held back. We won’t shy away from difficult subjects, nor will we refrain from pointing out the many beautiful, wonderful, and even miraculous aspects of the Catholic Church.”

When asked what college students can do to help CCH, Peterson responded, “The mission of the Church is to evangelize the world. But nearly 70% of Catholics worldwide do not even attend Mass. To answer the Holy Father’s call for a New Evangelization, and usher in a “new Springtime of Hope” we need to invite our friends, relatives, and neighbors home to the Catholic Church.

“BC students can specifically help by visiting the CatholicsComeHome. org website, ordering the free book “Rediscovering Catholicism”, sharing the website with others, and financially supporting the airing of more Catholics Come Home ads on popular television programs across the country.”

Peterson and the CCH website explain that the cost of producing television messages is very low in relation to the number of lives the messages touch, “100,000 people returned to Church, for an investment of only $2 per soul.” CCH relies on donations to carry out its immensely important mission.  There are several ways to contribute, including donations and purchases of books, magnates, and other materials for evangelization.

The CCH foundation has substantial goals for the years to come.  “In 2010, with the support of many faithful Catholic families, and hopefully some Catholic foundations, Catholics Come Home plans to air on the main national TV networks and in the most popular TV programs! This will help heal our culture and bring countless families home to the loving arms of the sacramental Church,” Peterson explained. The website also asserts that, “If every Catholic brought one person into the Church each year, it would only take only three years to be a totally Catholic society.”

The Leadership Team for CCH includes three American Bishops and a Cardinal, as well as many well-known lay theologians and philosophers, such as Scott Hahn, Christopher West, and BC’s own Peter Kreeft. “CatholicsComeHome. org is a powerful sacramental, a means of grace. It is a willing, waiting taxi to take us home, to our home away from Home, the Catholic Church, the Mystical Body of Christ,” said Kreeft.

Tom Peterson is also the founder of VirtueMedia, Inc., an educational apostolate dedicated to promoting the sanctity of life.

To find more information about Catholics Come Home and the answer to any questions about Catholicism, visit www.catholicscomehome.org.