Friendly Sons of St. Patrick, Los Angeles

Father John Jenkins

March 17, 2007

Bishop Zavala, Mayor Villaraigosa, Commander Erhret, Lt. Col. Spann, Sheriff Baca, Dr. Steve Sample, Dr. Jean–Lou Chameau, Dr. Brian Henderson, Tom Larkin, Ignacio Lozano, Rick Hernandez, Rob Maguire, and many other distinguished guests: The more I read this list of names, the more important I feel to be here.

Happy St. Patrick’s Day!

St. Patrick doesn’t have much say anymore about what we do in his honor. But Fr. Sorin did.

In the 1860s, Notre Dame’s founding President, Fr. Sorin, banned student celebrations of St. Patrick’s Day on the Notre Dame campus because he believed they had become too rowdy. One of Fr. Sorin’s successors maintained the ban, but he died in office, and his dying words were, “Be good to the students.” So the next President of Notre Dame, Fr. Patrick Colovin, restored St. Patrick’s Day celebrations. He was beloved. Then removed. Fr. Sorin, still superior general of the Holy Cross Order, forced him out.

My policy on St. Patrick’s Day celebrations on campus falls somewhere in between Fr. Sorin’s and Fr. Colovin’s.

I try to get out of town.

Thank you for inviting me here to southern California, which is a choice spot for Notre Dame recruiting. I’m not just talking about football players—I’m talking about all our students. California ranks fourth among the 50 states in the number of students it sends to Notre Dame. So the warm ties between LA and ND are not just based on good friendships; we’re family. And I know we have many ND alums and families here tonight. Go Irish!

Many wonderful universities are represented here tonight—Cal Tech, UCLA, University of Redlands. I want to take a moment to formally acknowledge and thank our friends from the University of Southern California. Three years ago, when I was told I was to be the next president of Notre Dame, I wrote Dr. Steve Sample and asked if I could come meet him. Over the last 15 years, there has been no more successful president in higher education than Steve Sample. I have asked him for his advice, and he has given it freely and generously, and Notre Dame and I have benefited greatly. Steve and his wife, Kathryn, have become good friends. Dr. Sample, Notre Dame thanks you for your leadership and your friendship.

This USC–ND football rivalry is something we cherish at Notre Dame. Two teams, so good, so eager to take on the best, that in the days before air travel, they would take the train for days just for the privilege of playing each other.

Of course, sending students on a four–day train ride both ways to play a football game didn’t strike some people as the best way to give students a college education.

That’s why we invented planes.

But I’m getting ahead of myself. Now, let me say here that while I am very, very fluent in the ND–USC rivalry, I want to credit the terrific USC–Notre Dame commemorative report for the finer points of this history.

As some of you may know, Gwynn Wilson, from the USC Athletic Department, took his wife to Lincoln, Nebraska, in 1925, where ND was playing Nebraska on Thanksgiving Day. He just showed up in Lincoln, and Coach Rockne saw him and said, “Gwynn, what are you doing here?” Rock was about to find out.

After the game, Wilson and his wife hopped the train with Rockne and the team back to Chicago, and Gwynn put a 3½–hour pressure talk on Rockne, pitching a home–and–home series. Rockne just kept saying no. The team was already going all over the country. They were traveling so much, they had picked up a new nickname: Rockne’s Ramblers. They just couldn’t add another big travel game to their schedule.

Meanwhile, Wilson’s wife was off having tea with Bonnie Rockne. She told Mrs. Rockne how well USC treated its guests, and what a warm welcome Notre Dame would receive in sunny, southern California—especially compared with the frosty reception they received in Nebraska.

After Rock went back to his berth and heard from Bonnie, he casually returned to the train car, chatting here and there with the passengers, pretending not to have any special purpose in mind. When he finally came to where Gwynn was seated, he said nonchalantly, “Now what did you say about a home–and–home series?”¹ This ushered in the tradition of Notre Dame getting double–teamed by USC.

The first game of the series took place the following year. Coach Rockne and his players departed on a Monday, and they used every minute of the trip from South Bend to Los Angeles to get his players ready to face the Trojans. Author Murray Sperber writes that, during the four days and nights the ND team spent on the train, Rockne had his players jump out at stops and do drills, greet all the local Notre Dame fans, jump back on the train, and keep moving. This train ride west became a cherished biennial tradition for Notre Dame—and people were eager to be part of it. A person on one of the trips once marveled that the train was a complete moving city, with a doctor, sportswriters, wives, children, and “a Bishop who says Mass.”²

That’s how this rivalry began, and it has spawned so many national championships, so many Heisman Trophy winners, and so much history on both sides. USC was the last game Rockne won…and the last game Rockne lost. The first time Notre Dame Stadium was ever sold out…was the first time USC ever came there to play. There was a period in the rivalry, from 1966 to 1982, where in 17 games, Notre Dame won only three times. But each time ND won, we won the national championship. The true greatness of this rivalry is that it features fierce competition, tempered by respect and admiration. It’s the kind of competition you find between brothers. More intense than other fights, but filled with more affection. In a world where winning at all costs has dragged some people down to real hostility, we do it differently. On behalf of the Notre Dame family, I want to thank the USC family for 80 years of thrilling football–—the way it ought to be played.

On this St. Patrick’s Day, I want to celebrate with you the Irish heritage that has been such a positive force in the life of our country. But I’d like to do so from a rather personal point of view—by telling you something of the impact of the Irish character in my life and family, and in our University.

As you know, Notre Dame was given its name by founder Fr. Edward Sorin, a French priest of the Congregation of Holy Cross. But nearly all of Fr. Sorin’s successors have had Irish ancestors; the student body has always had a very strong Irish presence; and the campus a strong Irish flavor. At Notre Dame today, we have the Keough–Naughton Institute for Irish Studies, with distinguished scholars of Irish literature, language, history, and society. Notre Dame is the largest center for the study of the Irish language outside Ireland. We have an international study program in Ireland, which I oversaw as associate provost. Above all, Notre Dame was shaped, and still is, by the deep thirst for learning of the Irish people—guided by a deep faith in God and enriched by a love of community.

Our sense of community, for which I believe we are justly well known, is built on a bond of common values. The more I travel, the more I find that even among those who did not go to Notre Dame, even among those who are not Catholic, there is a special expectation, a special hope, for what Notre Dame can accomplish in the world. They hope that Notre Dame will be one of the great universities in the nation, but they also hope that it will also send forth graduates who, grounded in certain moral values, can provide leadership on some of the world’s toughest problems.

We welcome those expectations.

We believe the world needs a university grounded in a commitment to love one’s neighbor, to debate how we, in prosperous societies, will respond to the grinding and dehumanizing poverty in which much of the world lives.

We believe that the first duty of education is the formation of character. Yet we are also profoundly committed to world–class teaching and research—because the capacity to serve our neighbor is magnified many times over by the knowledge and discovery that comes with scholarly excellence.

It is not always seen as intellectually sophisticated to be religious in this age. Yet, especially in this age, I tell our students, we at Notre Dame must not be afraid to be different. If we are afraid to be different, how can we make a difference in the world?

So we strive to seek God, study his world, and serve his people. We also do our utmost to instill in our students a resilient hope in response to whatever challenges or obstacles the world presents. There could hardly be a more Irish trait than resilience, or rising above adversity. And so at Notre Dame, whether we’re of Asian, African, European, or Latino ancestry, we’re proud to call ourselves the Fighting Irish.

Fighting Irish

It’s an interesting question how people from such diverse backgrounds came to identify themselves with a nation and people that many had no ancestral relationship with at all.

Again, with thanks to Murray Sperber, the nickname “Fighting Irish” had been embraced by some and opposed by others when, in the 1919 Scholastic, the University magazine, a letter appeared from an alumnus who criticized the nickname because, he said, many players were not of Irish descent. Others rushed to defend the phrase, with one alum writing, “You don’t have to be from Ireland to be Irish!”

At this point in the debate, almost magically, Notre Dame received a campus visit from a famous fighting Irishman. This Irishman had been arrested, convicted, and sentenced to death by the English, then given amnesty, jailed again by the English, then escaped from jail, and finally came to America and to Notre Dame to ask our support for freedom for Ireland. This Irishman’s first involvement in the political revolution had been to join the Irish Volunteers and get elected captain of the Donnybrook Company. That really was the name!

The visitor was the future president of Ireland, Eamon de Valera, and he was welcomed as a hero. I’m willing to bet this visit tilted campus opinion in favor of “The Fighting Irish.”

A few years later, ND President Fr. Walsh said in a statement, “The university authorities are in no way averse to the name ‘Fighting Irish’ as applied to our athletic teams….I sincerely hope that we may always be worthy of the ideal embodied in the term ‘Fighting Irish.’

As Mary McAleese, the current president of the Republic of Ireland, said at Notre Dame’s Commencement last May, “The language you use here, the ‘Fighting Irish’…what we actually mean mostly when we talk about it is an indomitable spirit, a commitment, never tentative, always fully committed, to life itself….That indomitable spirit that always sought to dig deep to find the courage to transcend, to keep going….that’s really the spirit of the Fighting Irish.” The spirit of the Fighting Irish is as good an explanation as any why this small island—and those who came from it—had such a big impact on the world. This influence was not due to great wealth, for in past centuries the Irish were largely poor, and sometimes desperately poor. It did not come from military conquest, for Irish military adventures regularly met with defeat, frequently tragic defeat. It did not arise from political institutions, for what bound the Irish around the world was not a political system but the cords of a common culture.

The riches of the Irish, the sources of their strength, are simply in the virtues and character of Ireland’s people.

I came to know these virtues through my very Irish mother, Helen Condon, and her very Irish mother, Julia Ford Condon. My mother had an unwavering belief in the surpassing importance of family, friendships, and community. She could not get enough of family. She had 12 children. Now, at age 76, she enjoys the company not only of her 12 children, but also of 38 grandchildren, each of whom she considers the brightest, most beautiful child she has ever met.

Our home was always full of life, activity, games, and laughter. It was also crowded, chaotic, and full of the usual squabbles of children. Often one of her children or a friend would suggest that it would perhaps have been prudent to have a family of a more reasonable size. She would think a bit, nod, and reply, “You may be right. Whom would we do without?” That was a conversation–stopper.

My mother was also a person of deep faith. In fact, her faith was in some ways an extension of her belief in the value of family and community, for her relationship with God was simply the friendship that anchored every other relationship. My mother was a very practical person, and so, when faced with a major challenge or difficulty, she did the most practical thing she could think of: She prayed. She once lost her wedding ring, and, after looking through the whole house, she decided that more serious measures were needed. She prayed through the intercession of St. Anthony, patron of lost items. Then she looked out the window at the pile of ash in the bin where we burned our trash She went out armed with a spoon and sifting pan. The first spoonful of ash produced the ring.

Finally, my mother was a person who knew tragedy in her life, but learned to respond with resilient hope. She grew up on a farm, and when she was 12, her father was crushed and killed by a thrashing machine. Her mother, my grandmother, was left with three children to raise. She was forced to sell the farm and use the proceeds to start an upholstery store. Her partner fled with the money. She had to begin again, and worked in a hospital to support the family. She never made much money, but she gave my mother more than enough of the things that mattered. And she raised three successful children. When my grandmother, toward the end of her life, came to live with us, I did not hear a single complaint about it from her, or from my mother. In fact, my brothers and sisters all remember something quite special. In those days, every evening at 5 o’clock, my grandmother would take a seat, pour herself some of her Irish whisky, sit there surrounded by her grandchildren, and start singing “Danny Boy.”

It had been a good life.

As we celebrate the Irish heritage, we celebrate the character of a people: a people who knew great hardship, tragedy, and displacement. Yet it is a people who responded with a deep commitment to their community, an abiding faith, and a resilient hope that surmounted whatever obstacles came in the way.

We are the friendly Irish, who cultivate community and friendship; the Irish of faith, who are committed to prayer; and the fighting Irish, who rise above adversity and meet challenges with hope. For most all of us here of Irish blood, these are the only treasures our ancestors were able to take with them from their homes in Ireland. Luckily, in the end, not much more was needed.

As we spend an evening savoring what is special and distinctive about the Irish character, it is good to recognize that all these highest aspects of the Irish character are truly gifts of human character—that divisions of race, region, and religion are not enduring; that each of us was created by God for union with God; and that the greatest of all fighting Irish are those fighting for peace.

A week ago Wednesday, the people of Northern Ireland voted for a new provincial assembly that gives new hope for power sharing among Protestants and Catholics. For this to succeed in the land of our ancestors, there has to be deep and profound forgiveness, a willingness to let the pain of the past go, and embrace the gospel admonition to love our neighbor—even if our neighbor doesn’t always love us back.

We who are Christians have a special and profound rationale for loving in spite of difference: We believe every human being possesses the dignity of being made in God’s image and likeness. Few places offer such an opportunity to see this truth than this city of the angels. In the Catholic archdiocese of Los Angeles, Mass is said in over 70 languages every Sunday. The great diversity of our Church gives us a special chance to see that, yes, God made us all different, but He made each of us alike in our capacity for heroic virtue.

So, on this Day of St. Patrick, let us remember that while Patrick was the patron saint of Ireland, he was not of Ireland. He did not first come to Ireland by choice; he was kidnapped in Britain and taken there. He did not at first live freely there, but was kept as a slave. But even as a slave, he exercised a freedom that can never be taken away—in the privacy of his own mind and heart, he prayed, and he prayed. When he returned to Britain and to his family, his heart could have hardened toward Ireland. But it did not. As he became a priest and took up missionary work, he saw visions of children by the Western sea, who cried to him, “Come back to Erin.”

And so he returned to the land of his captivity, to spread the message that gave him freedom, and the first person he planned to seek out was the chieftain who had held him a slave—to repay his cruelty with the gift of the Gospel. This is the St. Patrick we celebrate today. The St. Patrick who, in spite of the pain of his past, came back to Erin, and gave us our faith. If we could apply even a part of his teaching, we could change the world. Thank you, and happy St. Patrick’s Day.

1. All of this from the report, “Fifty Years of USC–Notre Dame Football.”
2. These are two different stories from Sperber’s book Shake Down the Thunder. The jumping–out–at–stops comes from the 1926 trip (pg. 221), and the “complete moving city” comes from the 1930 trip (pg. 343).