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Looking Back: Celebrating 50 years as a Jesuit in the Seattle Times

December 19th, 2011 |

Fifty years ago, in 1961, Jesuit Father Patrick Howell entered the Society of Jesus at Sheridan, Ore, the novitiate for Jesuits in the Northwest.Today, Fr. Howell is the rector (religious superior) of the Jesuit Community at Seattle University and professor of pastoral theology. In this piece for the Seattle Times, Fr. Howell looks back upon his time as a Jesuit and his own travails.

A recent graduate of Gonzaga University, I was only 21, but my peers, most of whom had entered directly from a Jesuit high school, such as Seattle Prep or Bellarmine Prep in Tacoma, considered me one of the “old men.”

The years pass swiftly, but they have been full of grace and certainly much more joy than sorrow.

I was blessed with first-class opportunities for advanced education. After initial studies in spirituality, prayer, Jesuit tradition and a dose of Latin and Greek, I studied philosophy and English literature at Boston College.

Then came three years of high-school teaching at Jesuit High in Portland. I survived the trials and testing by high-school boys and grew to love the personal interaction and challenge of teaching English, creative writing and poetry and advising the high school newspaper.

This “formation” period of teaching in high school probably accounts for why most Jesuits are such good teachers and homilists. Survival demands that you develop rhetorical skills and a flair for the dramatic — even though it’s not native to your personality — in order to grab the attention of 28 sophomore boys for 50 minutes each day…

But another significant portion of my life has been spiritual care of those who have suffered severe mental illness.

All this arose as a surprise, when I suffered a psychotic breakdown myself at age 35 and then recovered through excellent psychiatric care and the good graces and support of family and friends…

This “grace” led to an amazingly rich ministry with people with mental illness and their families.

Years ago, Jesuit Father Michael Buckley, in an address to Jesuit seminarians asked, “Is this man sufficiently weak to be a priest?”…

Why weakness? Because, according to the Epistle to the Hebrews, it is in this deficiency, in this interior lack, in this weakness, that the efficacy of the ministry and priesthood of Christ lies. “For because he himself has suffered and been tempted, he is able to help those who are tempted.” (Hebrews 2:18)

I think, after 50 years, I can rejoice in being “weak enough” to allow the grace of Christ to shine through and carry the load.

More of Howell’s life as a Jesuit can be found in this piece in the Seattle Times.

Posted in Colleges and Universities, Education, High School, Vocations |

Tags: Bellarmine Prep, Boston College, Gonzaga University, Jesuit, Jesuit Father Patrick Howell, Jesuit High Portland, Jesuits, Seattle Prep, Seattle University, Society of Jesus |

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Jesuit Appointed Vice President for Mission at Gonzaga University

May 11th, 2011 |

Author: Kaitlyn McCarthy Schnieders

Jesuit Father Frank Case has been named to the position of vice president for mission at Gonzaga University in Spokane, WA, and will start at this position on June 8. The position was previously held by the interim vice president Jesuit Father Steve Hess.

Case, a former provincial of Oregon, served in Rome as Regional Assistant for the United States at the Jesuit Curia Rome (1990-2005), and as the General Secretary of the Society of Jesus (2005-2008). Since 2008, he has served as the Jesuit Assistant for the Business and Law Schools at Seattle University.

The Vice President for Mission serves as the President’s chief adviser on matters related to Jesuit and Catholic institutional identity. A primary responsibility of the VP for Mission is to ensure that the faculty and staff of the University have opportunities to learn about and deepen their understanding of the institution’s educational mission and their part in fulfilling it, as guided by its Mission Statement and the University’s Strategic Plan, and as reflected in the documents and decrees of the Society of Jesus and the Catholic Church.

To read the full announcement about Case’s appointment, please click here.

Posted in Colleges and Universities, Education |

Tags: Gonzaga University, Jesuit, Jesuit Father Frank Case, Jesuits |

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New School in the Sudan Offers Renewed Hope

September 16th, 2009 |

Author: NJN Editor

As 183,000 students return this fall to the campuses of the 28 Jesuit-affiliated colleges and universities, many will find themselves standing blurry-eyed in the campus coffee house ordering a triple shot, nonfat, no foam venti latte to help keep their eyes open during their first morning lecture hall class of the semester. For the students at Gonzaga University in Spokane, that latte not only helps them make it through their Statistical Analysis 101 class, it also helps students 7,600 miles away on the campus of the Catholic University of the Sudan.

Watch an Interview with Fr. Mike Schultheis on the progress of the Catholic University of the Sudan.

The pilot program, called the African Outreach Donate a Latte, was started last year and allows Gonzaga students to donate $2 from their dining program’s funds to the Sudanese school in Juba that opened its doors last fall to its inaugural class of 35 students. Thousands of dollars were raised last year via the Donate a Latte program for the new Catholic university, providing much needed materials such as books and even building materials for the school. For Jesuit Father Mike Schultheis, vice chancellor of the Catholic University of the Sudan, Gonzaga’s coffee for charity initiative also keeps him connected to his home province of Oregon, even though he’s been working in educational apostolates in Africa for more than 30 years.

“My hope would be to see programs like Gonzaga’s be replicated at other Jesuit colleges and universities in the United States,” said Schultheis. With educational opportunities in the country being among the worst in the world and adult literacy below 30 percent, Schultheis realizes that the Catholic University of the Sudan is a critical component in moving the country forward after almost 25 years of civil war. The decades-long conflict left an estimated 2.5 million southerners dead and an estimated 4.6 million displaced.

The Catholic Bishops’ Conference established the Catholic University of the Sudan as a centerpiece of their national program to help the country recover from decades of violence, famine and mass displacement of people. The vision for the university and its development goes back even farther, to half a century ago, soon after Sudan’s independence from Britain in 1956. The idea for the university was discussed again when former Sudanese president Jafaar Nimeiry met with Pope John Paul II in Rome in 1983, just months before a civil war broke out in the county and dashed the university project yet again.

With a peace agreement between northern and southern Sudan signed in 2005, refugees began to return from exile and rebuild their communities. But the challenges were almost overwhelming with the need to develop basic institutions of governance, to construct roads and health clinics, to build schools and to train personnel with skills and expertise to manage and provide basic services to the populace. The Bishops recognized that the Church was called to assist in building the new Sudan.

“The Catholic University of the Sudan, as a national institution, is a dream long deferred,” explained Schultheis. “Still, the bishops recognized the need for higher level education for Sudanese who spent years as refugees and had little hope of gaining access to public institutions.”

In February 2007, the Sudan Catholic Bishops’ Conference brought Schultheis, who has a background in economics and has administered schools in Ghana and Mozambique, into the project planning to help steer the creation of a master plan for the school that was intended to shape and guide the development of the university over the next few years.

Incorporating some of the best features of existing universities, including Jesuit schools in the U.S., Schultheis’ master plan developed a model of constituent colleges in three different locations for the Catholic University of the Sudan. The master plan proposed a faculty of Arts & Social Sciences in Juba, the principal city of southern Sudan, with programs in Economics and Business Administration, Information & Communications Sciences & Technology and Social & Religious Studies. The second faculty in Agricultural & Environmental Sciences opens this month in Wau. Their campus is designed to address issues of restoring the fertility of the soils and increasing food productivity. The third faculty will be in engineering with plans to locate it in the oil rich middle region of the Sudan. The engineering programs will be tailored to train students in the skills required to build roads, to understand the geophysical sciences and to manage the development of Sudan’s rich natural resources, including petroleum

“There’s a strong scientific base to the curriculum, a strong mathematical and science base,” said Schultheis. “We want to train students to be rigorous, to do analytical work and to really contribute to the development of the future of the Sudan.”

The Juba campus students completed their first year in early June of this year and those 34 students began their second year of studies this month along with a new incoming class, bringing the total student body to over 90 students. They come from every diocese and state in the Sudan, with more than three-quarters Catholic.

“We look to train a generation of men and women who are competent technically but also are committed in terms of values. And part of the values has to do with the values of Catholic social thought,” said Shultheis.

With the campus of Agricultural & Environmental Sciences opening this month in Wau, Schultheis can proudly exclaim that “the baby has been born!” As he quotes the biblical passage on the birth of John the Baptist, Schultheis asks “what will this baby become?” and sums up his thoughts on the future of the school with “the hope that what is born will become an active and a vigorous young institution that offers great hope for all of Sudan.”

Tricia Steadman Jump is the Managing Editor of National Jesuit News and the Media Relations Manager for the Jesuit Conference.

by Tricia Steadman Jump

As 183,000 students return this fall to the campuses of the 28 Jesuit-affiliated colleges and universities, many will find themselves standing blurry-eyed in the campus coffee house ordering a triple shot, nonfat, no foam venti latte to help keep their eyes open during their first morning lecture hall class of the semester. For the students at Gonzaga University in Spokane, that latte not only helps them make it through their Statistical Analysis 101 class, it also helps students 7,600 miles away on the campus of the Catholic University of the Sudan.

Watch an Interview with Fr. Mike Schultheis on the progress of the Catholic University of the Sudan.

Fr. Michael Schultheis, SJ Looks Forward to Second Year for The Catholic University of The Sudan from Jesuit Conference USA on Vimeo.

The pilot program, called the African Outreach Donate a Latte, was started last year and allows Gonzaga students to donate $2 from their dining program’s funds to the Sudanese school in Juba that opened its doors last fall to its inaugural class of 35 students. Thousands of dollars were raised last year via the Donate a Latte program for the new Catholic university, providing much needed materials such as books and even building materials for the school. For Jesuit Father Mike Schultheis, vice chancellor of the Catholic University of the Sudan, Gonzaga’s coffee for charity initiative also keeps him connected to his home province of Oregon, even though he’s been working in educational apostolates in Africa for more than 30 years.

Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in Africa, Colleges and Universities, Education |

Tags: Africa, Catholic University of Sudan, College, Education, Fr. Mike Schultheis, Gonzaga University, Jesuit, Sudan |

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