Page 59 - Gonzaga at 60
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GONZAGA AT SIXTY: A WORK IN PROGRESS
dicendi peritus, places a high value on judgment and perspecive. He becomes aware of the kinds
of communicaion that count in interpreing human relaions.
Gonzaga in the 1960s gave us a space in which to think for ourselves. It persuaded us that
as religious believers we had nothing to fear, intellectually, from the sciences or the creaive
arts. We studied Briish, American and European writers without either prejudice or a sense that
their world was beyond our reach. This did not mean we had answers to all quesions or in all
situaions. But we were inoculated against the speciic risk that at university, a year or two out
of school, our faith would fail for want of presige or under the sudden pressure of freedom. A
school can only do so much.
If today I am glad to accept Pope Benedict’s dictum that “the capacity to sufer for the sake
of truth is the measure of humanity”, it is perhaps because I have stood a moment with Hector
at the Scaean Gate as he calls to mind “the Trojan women trailing their long robes”.
That I agree as well that “the quesion of jusice consitutes the essenial argument, or at
any rate the strongest argument, in favour of eternal life”, it is perhaps in part because John
Wilson loved the Homeric dialect; and I was enabled to pick up across the spaces of history the
cry of Hector’s widow:
...O my husband...
You are dead, you who always defended Troy,
who kept her loyal wives and helpless children safe,
all who will soon be carried of in the hollow ships
and I with them...
Philip McDonagh
Class of 1970
Philip and his brother Bobby were both rare in that they achieved entry to Oxford as undergraduates
straight from secondary school in Ireland. They were equally rare in both becoming President of
the Oxford Union, much as so many Gonzaga alumni became auditors of the L. & H. He is currently
Ambassador to Russia (and concurrently to the Central Asian countries), was Ambassador to Finland
(2007 – 2009), the Holy See (2004 – 2007), and India (1999 – 2004) with concurrent accreditaions
in Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, and Nepal. From 1994 to 1999, posted in London, he worked on the peace
process and saw the birth of the Good Friday Agreement. Before that he had assignments in Brussels,
Stockholm, Geneva, and Rome, with sints in HQ in Dublin. quae regio in terris nostri non plena laboris?,
he comments laconically, ciing Virgil’s Aeneid
He is a twice-published poet.
He is married to Ana and they have two daughters Tara and Diya.
GONZAGA AT SIXTY: A WORK IN PROGRESS
dicendi peritus, places a high value on judgment and perspecive. He becomes aware of the kinds
of communicaion that count in interpreing human relaions.
Gonzaga in the 1960s gave us a space in which to think for ourselves. It persuaded us that
as religious believers we had nothing to fear, intellectually, from the sciences or the creaive
arts. We studied Briish, American and European writers without either prejudice or a sense that
their world was beyond our reach. This did not mean we had answers to all quesions or in all
situaions. But we were inoculated against the speciic risk that at university, a year or two out
of school, our faith would fail for want of presige or under the sudden pressure of freedom. A
school can only do so much.
If today I am glad to accept Pope Benedict’s dictum that “the capacity to sufer for the sake
of truth is the measure of humanity”, it is perhaps because I have stood a moment with Hector
at the Scaean Gate as he calls to mind “the Trojan women trailing their long robes”.
That I agree as well that “the quesion of jusice consitutes the essenial argument, or at
any rate the strongest argument, in favour of eternal life”, it is perhaps in part because John
Wilson loved the Homeric dialect; and I was enabled to pick up across the spaces of history the
cry of Hector’s widow:
...O my husband...
You are dead, you who always defended Troy,
who kept her loyal wives and helpless children safe,
all who will soon be carried of in the hollow ships
and I with them...
Philip McDonagh
Class of 1970
Philip and his brother Bobby were both rare in that they achieved entry to Oxford as undergraduates
straight from secondary school in Ireland. They were equally rare in both becoming President of
the Oxford Union, much as so many Gonzaga alumni became auditors of the L. & H. He is currently
Ambassador to Russia (and concurrently to the Central Asian countries), was Ambassador to Finland
(2007 – 2009), the Holy See (2004 – 2007), and India (1999 – 2004) with concurrent accreditaions
in Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, and Nepal. From 1994 to 1999, posted in London, he worked on the peace
process and saw the birth of the Good Friday Agreement. Before that he had assignments in Brussels,
Stockholm, Geneva, and Rome, with sints in HQ in Dublin. quae regio in terris nostri non plena laboris?,
he comments laconically, ciing Virgil’s Aeneid
He is a twice-published poet.
He is married to Ana and they have two daughters Tara and Diya.
