Got the following in my email today; note it is addressed to Mrs. DiMaggio (?) but it was sent to me by DJDEASE@stthomas.edu. My comments follow:

Dear Ms. Dimaggio,

I want to thank you for writing to me about remarks made by graduating senior Benjamin Kessler at the undergraduate commencement exercises May 20 at the University of St. Thomas and his subsequent apology.

I was present at the graduation ceremony and heard Mr. Kessler’s speech. I do not believe it was appropriate for him to use our Commencement event as a venue for his comments. There is no question that he was speaking sincerely and upholding Church teaching, and there were certainly many ways that Mr. Kessler might have dealt with the subject of “selfishness” from a Catholic perspective that could have been edifying. However, to berate his classmates on what was to have been a joyous occasion of celebration and congratulation was not appropriate and was hurtful to many of our students and their families.

After reflecting on the matter Mr. Kessler has apologized. As you know, he issued a statement on Monday (May 22). I included the statement in a column that I wrote the same day for Bulletin Update, which was distributed via e-mail to all St. Thomas students, faculty and staff as well as many parents and alumni who are on the Bulletin distribution list. A copy of my column follows below, and I hope you will read it in its entirety.

A number of people have asked if any administrator screened Mr. Kessler’s speech in advance. We did not. Past graduation speeches by Tommie Award winners at spring commencement and by senior class representatives at winter commencement have been non-confrontational. Consequently, we felt no reason to take any steps this spring in reading an advance text of Mr. Kessler’s speech. We will carefully review our procedures in this area before our next commencement exercise.

Again, I want to thank you for sharing your thoughts with me.

Sincerely,

Reverend Dennis Dease
President
University of St. Thomas

Well, Fr. Dease, thanks for the response. Here’s the most troubling part of this letter: “there were certainly many ways that Mr. Kessler might have dealt with the subject of “selfishness” from a Catholic perspective that could have been edifying” . Why is this troubling? Because of a couple of things. One: the subject of edification. I ran away from Protestantism because of the continuous edification. Edification is great but there’s a heck of a lot of challenging stuff out there. I joined the Catholic Church in part because of catechists who aren’t afraid to stand in front of a group and talk about an unpopular Church teaching. The Church doesn’t pull punches talking about the evils that exist in the world. Two: On the subject of selfishness. I think Mr. Kessler was trying to help people to realize that there are seemingly “small” examples of selfishness in their own lives. In other words, it’s easy for us to see selfishness when we look at profit margins of a big corporation, or people who are on the welfare dole who refuse to get a job, or people who are going after as much sex as possible. Mr. Kessler, it seems, was trying to point out how even as good, pious Catholics, there are still ways in which we are selfish, and, according to the polls, a big number of “good” Catholics are contracepting. He didn’t take the easy way in pointing out selfishness, he took the hard path. What do you think?