Page 40 - Gonzaga at 60
P. 40
Sponsored cycle for is not just, compassionate or Chrisian.’
a primary school in While rejecing the ‘romanicism’ of idealists who reject their own group or class, he
Dagoretti, a suburb of
5
Nairobi, in 2001 coninues :
‘All insituions and individuals must seek ways to remedy this state of afairs’
and, speaking of Gonzaga in the paricular,
‘This school will have to coninue to develop a curriculum, a structure and a composiion
that will give its pupils a social experience to develop their willingness to share the burdens
of society, a compassion to moivate them to do so and a charity to enable them to be a
force for social unity.’
His words relect the soul-searching, menioned earlier, concerning the validity of Gonzaga
in the light of the Jesuit sense of mission. It is in the same general terms that Peter McMenamin’s
aricle challenges the existence of schools such as Gonzaga. And a similar key has oten been
struck by Fr Peter McVerry. And not McMenamin and McVerry alone; remarks by Charles Lysaght,
Garret Sheehan and others relect the early sense of a cosy eliteness, even the opposiion of
some parents to the social objecives of the educaional programme.
Fr Barber’s words must have rung alarm bells. He strikes an important note, however, in
the word ‘coninue’. Therein lies a reminder of what the educaional agenda had been from the
beginning, and a long look at the atempts over sixty years to coninue and fulil that agenda is
instrucive.
The students in the early years were obviously afected deeply by the example of their
Jesuit mentors. The respect and admiraion they felt for Fr O’Conor and, especially, Fr Bill White,
is evident in their memories of the ime. To Charles Lysaght, the inal advice of Fr O’Conor to the
deparing Sixth Year, ‘to give and not to count the cost’, was paramount. Garret Sheehan relects
on a teaching of religion that invited us ‘to quesion parish sermons and [freed] us from the
unhealthy aspects of Irish Catholicism’. More germane, however, is his experience of ‘profound
shock that irst night in the playground at Quarry Avenue’ when he and others responded to a
suggesion to give voluntary assistance running the St Bernard’s Youth Club in Cabra:
‘Shatering the comfortable world of Cowper Road. I wondered at the huge gap between
Rathmines and Cabra West.’
The iniiaives to give the privileged Gonzaga pupil an experience that might lead to service
began early, therefore. We will come to its coninuaion later.
The foundaion of a Gonzaga Conference of St. Vincent de Paul, in September 1965
5. Peter Mathews recalls a moment in the history of the Gonzaga Union when a section of its members, aflicted
by a sense of guilt at their wealth and privilege, held a Union dinner, parallel to the oficial event, in the Pronto
Grill]
a primary school in While rejecing the ‘romanicism’ of idealists who reject their own group or class, he
Dagoretti, a suburb of
5
Nairobi, in 2001 coninues :
‘All insituions and individuals must seek ways to remedy this state of afairs’
and, speaking of Gonzaga in the paricular,
‘This school will have to coninue to develop a curriculum, a structure and a composiion
that will give its pupils a social experience to develop their willingness to share the burdens
of society, a compassion to moivate them to do so and a charity to enable them to be a
force for social unity.’
His words relect the soul-searching, menioned earlier, concerning the validity of Gonzaga
in the light of the Jesuit sense of mission. It is in the same general terms that Peter McMenamin’s
aricle challenges the existence of schools such as Gonzaga. And a similar key has oten been
struck by Fr Peter McVerry. And not McMenamin and McVerry alone; remarks by Charles Lysaght,
Garret Sheehan and others relect the early sense of a cosy eliteness, even the opposiion of
some parents to the social objecives of the educaional programme.
Fr Barber’s words must have rung alarm bells. He strikes an important note, however, in
the word ‘coninue’. Therein lies a reminder of what the educaional agenda had been from the
beginning, and a long look at the atempts over sixty years to coninue and fulil that agenda is
instrucive.
The students in the early years were obviously afected deeply by the example of their
Jesuit mentors. The respect and admiraion they felt for Fr O’Conor and, especially, Fr Bill White,
is evident in their memories of the ime. To Charles Lysaght, the inal advice of Fr O’Conor to the
deparing Sixth Year, ‘to give and not to count the cost’, was paramount. Garret Sheehan relects
on a teaching of religion that invited us ‘to quesion parish sermons and [freed] us from the
unhealthy aspects of Irish Catholicism’. More germane, however, is his experience of ‘profound
shock that irst night in the playground at Quarry Avenue’ when he and others responded to a
suggesion to give voluntary assistance running the St Bernard’s Youth Club in Cabra:
‘Shatering the comfortable world of Cowper Road. I wondered at the huge gap between
Rathmines and Cabra West.’
The iniiaives to give the privileged Gonzaga pupil an experience that might lead to service
began early, therefore. We will come to its coninuaion later.
The foundaion of a Gonzaga Conference of St. Vincent de Paul, in September 1965
5. Peter Mathews recalls a moment in the history of the Gonzaga Union when a section of its members, aflicted
by a sense of guilt at their wealth and privilege, held a Union dinner, parallel to the oficial event, in the Pronto
Grill]
