Letter to my former high school: Xavier magazine summer 2011.

I very much enjoyed this edition.

The cover photo really captures the essence of Xavier as I remember it.

Page 2 mentions that military science is now taught by retired Army people.  I hadn't known that.

I'm guessing that fewer applicants was the reason that the military was made optional forty years ago but that was always a factor.  I agree with Justice Scalia that all Xavier students should be members of the regiment but for different reasons.  Now the regiment is an extra circular activity.  For us it was the norm.

I've been thinking about 50th anniversaries such as grammar school graduation, Yankee games and especially Xavier.  In a couple of weeks we'll be reporting for freshman orientation.  I turned 13 in April.  I didn't know anything but I learned fast.  Xavier made me tough.  Other than physical pain nothing intimidated me since then.

I respect Justice Scalia and take pride in his being an Italian New Yorker and especially that he is a fellow Xavier alumnus.  I often mention that as a distinguishing fact about Xavier.  His address was interesting despite his gratuitous remarks about the Viet Nam era and his repeated allusion to the high calling of military service, which he himself did not embrace any more than his hunting buddy former Vice President Dick Cheney who sought and received multiple exemptions.  Chicken hawks is a term sometimes applied to such men.

Scalia also mentioned Cardinal Spellman whom I do not recall favorably:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francis_Spellman#LBJ_and_Vietnam

Spellman was an outspoken supporter of the Vietnam War, to the extent that the conflict became known as "Spelly's War" and the Cardinal as the "Bob Hope of the clergy"...  When Paul VI visited the United States in October 1965, he indirectly rebuked Spellman's hawkish stance by pleading for peace before the United Nations. A group of college students protested outside his residence in December 1965 for suppressing antiwar priests, and he later spent that year's Christmas with troops in South Vietnam.[1] While in Vietnam, Spellman quoted Stephen Decatur in declaring, "My country, may it always be right, but right or wrong, my country".[1] He also described Vietnam as a "war
for civilization" and "Christ's war against the Vietcong and the people of North Vietnam".[1] One priest accused Spellman of "[blessing] the guns which the pope is begging us to put down".[12] In
January 1967, antiwar protesters disrupted a Mass at St. Patrick's Cathedral.[21] His support for Vietnam, along with his opposition to Church reform, greatly undermined Spellman's clout within the Church and country.

Xavier needs to be more cognizant of differing views even from such a distinguished alumnus as Antonin Scalia.  Scalia's snide remarks about The New York Times also did not serve him or his audience well.  I hope dissent is taught at Xavier as well as obedience, conscientious objection as well as military service.  For some historical perspective consider a Jesuit of that Viet Nam era which Justice Scalia remembers so differently than I: Daniel Berrigan

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daniel_Berrigan

Kenneth Matinale, class of 1965