In answer to your question about strong influence
from my Jesuit teachers, I can't point any finger at any one.
But the people there collectively made a great impression on me.
I did like Frs. John Butler, John Conklin, Leo Pollard, Reggie
O'Neill-they're all dead now. Fr. Larry Herne in my third year
was very impressive. All the kids in the class just thought he
was the greatest, and he was. You could say that he was the first
among equals, since they were all good. Anyway, when I graduated
from B.C. High, I had decided I was going to join the Jesuits.
So I went off to Baghdad in a group of eight
scholastics and Fr. Charlie Crowley. He's now here in Campion
Center. We went by ship from New York to Beirut. It was on a very
nice, even XXXluxurious cruise ship. It took us nineteen days
to go across with stops here and there for tourism. When we got
to Beirut, we had to wait for a few days. We then had a long,
500-mile overland trip by bus to Baghdad. It was a real adventure.
By the time we got there, we knew that we were in a remote place.
It had been a long trip.
Of course, it was a small and rather confined
group there at Baghdad College. Obviously, there would be gloomy
days, and, at times, there were differences of opinion, but there
were never any real divisions. Somebody described life at Baghdad
College as "nine months on twenty-six acres." Though
there wasn't much to do in the city, you had public transportation
right from our door. When I got back after ordination, the new
Al-Hikma University and its community were not very far away.
We would go there occasionally and have dinner in their garden.
And, of course, they would visit us from time to time. All that
was rather nice and balanced out our hard work.
We didn't think the our expulsion from
Iraq would be that abrupt. It took us two or three days to transport
things from Al-Hikma to Baghdad College. This included chapel
supplies and a lot of books. The Al-Hikma Jesuits couldn't get
into their library or even their own offices in the school buildings.
But they managed to get some of their records.
When they left, they went on several flights-Lufthansa, Air France,
etc., but no American airlines. In any case, Fr. Ray Powers, the
principal, and Fr. Jack Carty, the rector. said, "We can't
cancel the school for their departure, but we're not going to
forbid anybody from going to the airport if he wants to. We'll
just make arrangements to cover your classes." So I was down
at the airport at 5:30 that morning. And, though it was pretty
well known that the government officials didn't want any sort
of display at the airport, and the students of Al-Hikma were even
told that if they went to the airport they'd be arrested, they
and the alumni just thumbed their noses at the government and
went to the airport. When I got there myself, there were already
about three hundred of them milling around, waiting for the first
group to fly out. The security police were powerless to stop them.
