Reflection by the President

President Jan Cervelli delivered the reflection below on August 23, 2018 at the Opening Mass of the Holy Spirit in O’Laughlin Auditorium. The occasion offered President Cervelli a chance to comment on the clergy sexual abuse and its related cover-up documented in the Pennsylvania grand jury report, praying for the victims and saying the Saint Mary’s community stands in solidarity in condemning the unconscionable acts and the failures of leadership in their wake.

This past weekend, we welcomed incoming members of the Class of 2022, transfer, and graduate students to campus. Their unbridled energy joins an enthusiastic chorus of young people committed to the greater good. They have big ambitions of becoming business leaders, doctors, teachers, mothers, politicians, and so much more. Their passion, determination, and spirit of service give me hope in these troubled times. As we heard in the reading, there are many gifts given by the Spirit. We count on all our students to push themselves beyond their comfort level to understand the changing world and to find their voice to affect positive change.

The report on the grand jury investigation into clergy sexual abuse and its related cover-up is heartbreaking and unconscionable. Words cannot adequately express how deeply these moral and legal violations strike at the heart of the relationship between the Catholic faithful and the Church leaders who have failed them. We, the Saint Mary’s community, stand in solidarity in condemning these acts and the failures of leadership in their wake.

We pray for those who suffered abuse and recognize that now, more than ever, we must build bridges and love others to bring change in our Church, and the world. We pray also for the guidance of those in power to devote themselves to the care and protection of the most vulnerable and to pursue a path of transparency and reconciliation. Only through such a commitment to compassion and healing can the Church that we hold so dear be preserved and restored.

Saint Mary’s students, faculty, staff, and alumnae are called to raise their voices and address injustice. We gain inspiration, courage, and wisdom from the Sisters of the Holy Cross. The Sisters are women throughout the world whose prophetic mission of Jesus to witness God’s love for all creation, moves them to reflect on the signs of the times, discern needs, and respond.

It gives me hope for the future, to look at our past. Saint Mary’s women — guided by the Sisters of the Holy Cross — are equipped to address the needs of our Church, our communities, and our world — for the greater good.

As I travel the country, I meet incredible alumnae who have followed in the footsteps of the Sisters, women who enrich and strengthen their communities. Women who advocate for social change, who write legislation, who minister as leaders in the Church — women of action. The world needs more women educated in the Saint Mary’s tradition.

I call on each and every one of us to step up, to partner with parishes and dioceses, families and communities, to take action. We must remain steadfast in making certain the atrocities of the past are not repeated.

I thank our students, for living our mission, grounded in our core values of Faith/Spirituality, Learning, Justice, and Community. I thank our faculty, staff, and alumnae for being a positive force for change, and I thank the Sisters of the Holy Cross for their leadership grounded in service, sacrifice, and selflessness.As today’s First Reading from Corinthians says, “For as the body is one, and has many members, and all the members of the body, being many, are one body; so also is Christ.” Paul emphasizes our diverse gifts and the only Spirit who distributes them.

Let’s not turn away from the difficulties we encounter, but use our talents to complete the whole, to build up the Body of Christ, regardless of the hardships, difficulties, and struggles we encounter.

Let’s keep in our hearts the psalm we sang, “Send forth your Spirit, O Lord, and renew the face of the earth.”