ARTICLES

Exile

FAITHFUL JESUIT TOLD TO LEAVE USF

By George Neumayr

The California Province of Jesuits has told Father Cornelius Buckley to leave the University of San Francisco for a period of two years -- a surprise move that has dismayed students, graduates, and many San Francisco Catholics, including the Archbishop of San Francisco William Levada.

According to USF sources, the reason for Buckley's exile is that key Jesuits at USF view him as a "divisive influence." "He has rattled too many cages...The Jesuits resented his calls to remember the Jesuit identity," says a USF source, speaking on condition of anonymity.

A source with ties to the Jesuits admits that Buckley's loyalty to traditional Jesuit practices led, at least in part, to his banishment: "The younger Jesuits felt intimidated by Buckley's wearing of the collar and felt that his lifestyle -- namely, his wearing of the collar, his saying of mass, his hearing confessions -- wasn't conducive to the kind of community they wanted to live in."

Fr. Edward Stackpoole, rector of USF's Jesuit community, given an opportunity to clarify the Buckley matter, refused to do so. "This is sort of a private matter.... It is not for publication," he said to the Faith. Fr. John T. Mitchell, the excecutive assistant to John Privett, the California Provincial, also declined to provide an explanation.

This is not the first time the Jesuit order has punished Buckley for orthodoxy. In 1979, the Jesuits placed Buckley under a ban of silence, killing his popular column in the National Catholic Register. His last published column had satirized rank liturgical abuses and oddities at a University of San Francisco mass: "primal screaming," "25 minutes" for the Kiss of Peace, a "Sufi dance during the Offertory." The ban of silence on Buckley continues to this day.

Stunned USF students and alumni, meanwhile, are petitioning the Jesuit order to permit Buckley to stay in the Bay Area. A letter-writing campaign was underway at press time, aimed to show the California Provincial that "Fr. Buckley has not been a source of division, rather he has built a strong and lasting community of faith in San Francisco," reads a letter sent out to USF alumni.

A native of the Bay Area, Buckley has established deep roots in the San Francisco Catholic community. In addition to his regular pastoral work on the USF campus and at adjoining St. Ignatius Church, he serves as a chaplain to the Carmelite Sisters, the San Francisco Courage Chapter, the Knights of Columbus, St. Brendan's parish, and the local county jail.

"There are people who won't do what he does," says a USF alumnus. "He is up at 4 a.m. He celebrates 6:25 a.m. mass, hears confessions at 7 a.m, hears confessions at 8 a.m., hears confessons at noon and he says 10 p.m. mass for the USF students. He is available 24 hours to students as a spiritual adviser. He gives his personal number to students and Public Safety....He makes himself available when students can't call Jesuit Community at night...Plus, he celebrates Sunday mass at St. Brendan's and performs weddings and baptisms all the time."

Recent graduate Frank Olmes wonders, "Who will hear confessions? It shouldn't say in the St. Ignatius bulletin, 'Confessions available.' It should say, 'Fr. Buckley is available.' What other Jesuit is doing as much as Fr. Buckley? He is a pillar of the community."

USF student Chris Ambul says that "nobody saw him as divisive," but as one of the "most dedicated Jesuits they have." He adds, "Essentially what the Jesuit community is saying is that they know better than the students."

Ed McFadden, a USF alumnus who is a senior editor at Reader's Digest magazine, says that "it is a tragic day when a priest like Fr. Buckley, who for decades has shown the true meaning of serving selflessly, is forced to walk away from so many people that he is helping.... I think this will have a chilling effect on the Jesuit order."

"At a time when vocations for the priesthood in general and the Jesuits in particular are down it is disheartening to see that outwardly it appears that the Jesuits don't seem to be interested in diversity within their order. It is a sad day for Roman Catholics."

Ironically, Buckley's forced departure from USF coincides with his recent recognition from the school for 25 years of service as a tenured professor of history. He is one of the "respected professors on campus," says long-time USF philosophy professor Desmond Fitzgerald. "I thought of him as the conscience of the [Jesuit] community. Maybe that was the problem."

USF's history department is "furious," a department official confides, acknowledging that the department has sent a letter of protest to the Jesuits.

The St. Ignatius Institute, a USF Great Books program loyal to the official teachings of the Church, is also reeling from the Jesuits' action. Buckley was the last full-time Jesuit in the Institute, teaching numerous courses and serving as a resident chaplain on the dormitory floor for St. Ignatius Institute students. Institute officials declined to comment on the Jesuits' motives for removing Buckley from USF. However, a non-Institute USF adminstrator, expresses the possible impact of the decision bluntly: "They want to destroy the Institute."

Fr. Stackpoole, according to a Jesuit community insider, detests the St. Ignatius Institute, calling it the "laughingstock" of the Jesuits nationwide. Fr. John Schlegel, USF's president, also views the Institute warily. Though Schlegel has denied responsiblity for Buckley's transfer, his reservations about Buckley are common knowledge on campus. "Buckley has got to go," said Schlegel after a run-in with Buckley, confirms a Xavier Hall official.

Historian James Hitchcock, author of The Pope and the Jesuits, sees the treatment of priests like Buckley as ironic and hypocritical. Intolerance, Hitchcock told the Faith, is now justified in the name of liberalism.

"A Jesuit can sit around his community telling everyone how terrible the Pope is. He can write articles strongly attacking papal policy.... And nothing happens to him. In fact, if anything he gets promoted. But if you question the prevailing policies within the society of Jesus itself, you are in terrible trouble.

"The generation of people who are in authority today in the Jesuits and elsewhere are people who themselves rebelled 30 years ago and demanded free speech, demanded rights and got them and essentially beat down the old traditional system of authority and obedience. And now that they are in authority they are more dictatorial in their tactics than the old superiors ever were."

It is unclear where Buckley's new assignment will take him. The Jesuit order has suggested that he work in St. Louis at the Jesuit archives as a translator. But, according to multiple USF sources, San Francisco Archbishop William Levada "is encouraging Buckley to stay in San Francisco."

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