Winter 2023 Stories

By Aaron Willis

Director, Bannan Forum & Ignatian Formation
Ignatian Center for Jesuit Education
Santa Clara University

In an intellectual tradition, a fundamental tension exists between ideas and their application in lived reality. This tension often shaped conversations across two separate faculty cohorts: one engaging with the “point” of Jesuit education and the other examining the nature of economic and labor justice across the Catholic intellectual tradition. During these conversations, faculty often struggled with statements about justice or educational values emanating from the Jesuit, Catholic tradition and how individuals and institutions, including our own, act in practice.

The essays that follow seek to tease out these tensions in a variety of ways. In the classroom, and beyond, the authors in the Fall 2023 issue of explore are working toward their own understanding of how we might put theory into practice. The aforementioned conversations often centered on how we might connect our actions with the theories of justice that animate our shared work in Catholic higher education and as citizens of the world. There is no simple or single answer, but what the essays in this issue make clear is that in conversations about our diverse experiences and understandings we can begin to see an array of possible actions.

For many, the Jesuit, Catholic university is exactly the place where these tensions should be explored and hopefully resolved. A thread that runs through the essays is the understanding that values or theories that don’t represent or engage with lived realities will fail to hold relevance for individuals and institutions. Our claims of what it means to be inspired by the Catholic intellectual tradition and Ignatian values must be judged by the actions that shape, and emanate from, our campuses. For students, staff, and faculty the integrity of our institutions as  places committed to educating students capable of making the world a more just, humane, and sustainable place is dependent on a clear connection between our actions and our values.

Like any rich tradition, the Jesuit, Catholic tradition that underpins the mission of Santa Clara University often has areas of internal incoherence. Notions of justice and equity abound across texts inspired by the Catholic intellectual tradition, yet assumptions about gender roles and norms or the relationship between work and wisdom in the Bible can undermine claims of equity and justice. Yet for all its contradictions and failings, this tradition has a role to play in informing our practice. The image of contemplatives in action, a central one for the Jesuit tradition, shapes how we might think about theory and practice coming together. Diverse and sometimes contradictory ideas can open new avenues of understanding—this radical inquisitiveness can, for instance, create new perceptions about our relationship to the natural world. Yet, what is done with those new perceptions and knowledge is the measure of what has been learned. A critical aspect of Ignatian pedagogy is that after reflection and contemplation comes meaningful action. 

To do this we might borrow imagery from Sally Vance-Trembath’s essay: We should think less like a monarchical papacy making pronouncements and more as an institution focused on conciliatory ways of proceeding. Working with our students and each other through different lenses with different forms of communicating can help to bring Catholic social teaching to life. This dialogical approach creates a vision of theory and tradition deeply rooted in lived reality—one that allows for various means of exchanging ideas, and understands that what will make our theories and values relevant outside of our bubble is how we collaborate and communicate to bring them into being.

A second thread throughout these essays is the related question of how we make the insights and ideas of the Ignatian tradition alive and accessible to our students. The authors in this issue make clear that we must create space for students, faculty, and staff to understand the Ignatian tradition in a way that allows them to draw on it as a lifelong resource that can meaningfully inform practice. Forming students to become contemplatives in action on and beyond campus requires that we are humble in our approach. Yet as educators we have to be confident in our role as catalysts to open up new perspectives for our students. If we are able to enhance their abilities to see reality in ways that combine their ideals with the subtleties and contradictions of reality, then their intellectual engagement with the world will develop habits of real transformative influence.

As several authors bring to our attention, one of the benefits of Ignatian pedagogy and the Catholic intellectual tradition is that they offer a framework and precedent for this ambitious vision of teaching and learning. As Ezinne Ofoegbu points out, an Ignatian educational framework encourages practices of critical reflection, dialogue, and
solution development. The presence of these three characteristics inspires faculty, staff, and students toward actions, ideally geared toward justice, that put Ignatian values into practice. What all the essays that follow agree on is that the relevance of Jesuit education and the ideals within the Catholic intellectual tradition are measured by their influence on the lived reality of our students, our colleagues, and the wider world. Endless discussion of the values and their meaning will not advance and maintain the Catholic intellectual tradition or the Jesuit educational tradition. The living praxis of this tradition is the only thing that will sustain it as a force in the world. 

Aaron Willis has served as the director of the Bannan Forum since June 2018. Willis received his B.S. in political science from Santa Clara and earned his doctorate in history from the University of Notre Dame. Prior to joining the Ignatian Center, he taught in the history department at Santa Clara University.