A journey is surrendering oneself to the river. A journey teaches us where we fit in this large world. I am increasingly convinced that this is what the Jesuits have been trying to communicate with their retreats, classes on “Engaging Catholicism,” and cura personalis rhetoric.
The task is simple: 48 hours of rehearsal, 10 days left in production, four performances. It is tech week for the theatre department’s production of Dreadful. With a mixture of necessary hope and certainty, you know that it will be anything but. You begin—as with all great endeavors—with caffeine.
When my tour guide said that Boston College is “only as Catholic as you make it,” they may have been reflecting a true reality for many students. As a Jew and a member of the LGBTQ+ community, it has not always been true for me. When I first learned that BC refused the creation of a student funded LGBTQ+ resource center on the grounds that doing so would compromise the University’s “Catholic values,” I was astonished.
I found it a curious sign of our times that when I emailed the former president of the Boston College Republicans, a student group on campus, to invite an interview to speak on free speech and other issues, their president, Thomas Sarrouf, expressed hesitancy.
It was not an unexpected response. I suppose I may be the sort of person to whom they would be wary of speaking with.
To begin, I’ll assume you are like me. This is to say that you’re a neurotic, and you just happen to be the type of neurotic who dreads decision-making. Simple questions of either/or — either you could take Painting I: Foundations next semester or that 3000-level required-for-your-major class — are life-changing confrontations. These confrontations come…
