Then there are those religious authorities who were gloating over their success in having that dangerous man Jesus wiped out. After all, Jesus’ way of seeing the world, his preaching and actions seemed so alien to their compulsion to maintain the status quo. Their fear of anything new and different frightened and threatened their religious purity. They needed at least to silence him but better to have him executed. And at no time did those religious authorities allow Jesus to speak, to defend himself.
At no time was Fr. Julio ever able to speak and to defend himself in front of modern local and provincial religious authorities. When some board members, never happy with his or any Jesuit’s appointment as president, could not silence him legally, they turned in the dead of night to religious authorities to carry out their nasty act. Such an action is what thinking people expect from Iran and North Korea. It is that narrow and dysfunctional mindset and behavior that troubles so many alumni and friends of the college. Do these religious authorities or new administrators think we are so foolish as to believe their actions helped the college? Or helped to model for students and neighbors an honest, legal, ethical – need I say moral – behavior?
Without tears shed as Peter shed tears, the religious authorities keep the college shackled. Without those tears Wheeling College will remain under populated, unable to attract alumni dollars and will ultimately surface to be the first of the 28 Jesuit colleges to be cut loose.
Larry Catraro
