Hope in the Ashes

On a sunny day in June 2021, a trio of Santa Clara University students perform scenes from A Midsummer Night’s Dream, The Taming of the Shrew, and As You Like It. The three Shakespeare comedies seem to lift the spirits of the 17 Jesuits in attendance.

“You have to be a pretty good actor to get it across,” says former Seattle University Professor David Leigh, S.J., 84, who taught Shakespeare. “They did a nice job.”

Among the men lost to the pandemic who also taught young scholars and would have delighted in their successes were Robert B. Mathewson, S.J., longtime principal of Bellarmine College Prep, and Portland-area Greek and Latin teacher Michael Lavelle Cook, S.J.

Then the SCU students recite the Bard’s Sonnet 71, “No Longer Mourn For Me When I Am Dead.” The lines seem to reflect more closely the dark year from which their audience—and the rest of the world below—is emerging.

“Nay, if you read this line, remember not

The hand that writ it; for I love you so,

That I in your sweet thoughts would be forgot,

If thinking on me then should make you woe.”

In these lines, the audience could find memories of departed friends and fellow travelers whose lives, like those of Jesuits everywhere, had been devoted to helping others, often through traumatic times. The virus had turned the tables, though, and no amount of prayers could save the lives of some of these men of faith.

As woe and love, communion in faith and tragedy, past pain and present joy combine so fluidly—how does one reconcile God with such circumstances?

REPRIEVE

Home for retired Jesuits who have served in 10 western states is a four-story building on a 175-acre campus in the Santa Cruz Mountains. It was a Jesuit seminary college from 1888 to 1968, preparing students for ordination to serve as clergy or Catholic academics. And it is where several of today’s residents, including its longtime Superior, John Privett, S.J. began their Jesuit journey, often just out of high school.

Sacred Heart is also known by insiders as “the finishing school,” a place so many Jesuits know they will return to one day, to live out their final years with all their needs provided for—food, rest, medical appointments, recreation, spiritual guidance, and community.

Like many Americans living in retirement homes and assisted-living facilities in early 2020, Sacred Heart residents never anticipated the threat this virus would pose, let alone imagined being shut out from the rest of the world to stay safe.

By early spring, it was clear COVID-19 could be tragic in such care facilities. Yet for almost eight months, the center’s residents remained COVID-free.

By wearing masks and social distancing, banning visitors except the most essential of workers, and having their temperatures and oxygen levels checked daily, the Jesuits at Sacred Heart were able to attend daily Mass, join each other for meals and happy hours, and enjoy bingo games, exercise classes, and walks on the grounds, among other diversions.

In Remembrance

WORDS BY BR. DAN PETERSON, S.J. IMAGE BY TRAVIS NEUMAN S.J.

ROBERT B. MATHEWSON, S.J. was a longtime principal of Bellarmine College Preparatory, and devoted his career to Jesuit secondary education. Fr. Mathewson joined the Jesuits in 1949. Following his ordination in 1962, he earned a master’s degree from Santa Clara University. A few months later, he established the first counseling office at St. Ignatius College Prep in San Francisco. He died Dec. 6, 2020.

BERNARD JOSEPH BUSH, S.J. was ordained a priest June 4, 1965. During his studies, he taught at St. Ignatius College Prep in San Francisco. On occasion, Fr. Bush would accompany James Tupy, S.J. on his rounds as chaplain at Alcatraz Federal Prison. As an unofficial chaplain’s assistant, Bush would stroll through the yard, chatting with some of the more notorious prisoners, including Los Angeles mobster Mickey Cohen, and maintained contact with some of them. In later years, Bush would be one of the speakers at the Alcatraz reunions; as one of the last survivors of that era, he would give a talk on his experiences and offer Mass in the prison chapel. He later taught and counseled at JST, USF, and in Boston. He died Dec. 7, 2020.

JOSEPH JAMES FICE, S.J. was a religion teacher at Jesuit high schools in Sacramento, Los Angeles, and Phoenix, and a retreat director. He entered the Jesuit novitiate at Los Gatos in 1961. As a theology student, Fr. Fice organized anti-war protests against the Vietnam War, and was active in the pro-life movement. He served at LMU and in Sacramento, and spent 26 years as a teacher. He died Dec. 13, 2020.

After two years of studies at the University of San Francisco, SILVANO P. VOTTO, S.J. entered the Jesuit novitiate at Los Gatos in 1962. Studious and with a gift for languages, Fr. Votto listed on his application an interest in “language, literature and philosophy” and competence in Greek, Spanish, Italian, French, German, and Latin. His first assignment was to teach classical languages at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles to young Jesuits, who perhaps did not share his enthusiasm. He studied and taught in Berkeley and in Rome. He died Dec. 16, 2020.

MICHAEL LAVELLE COOK, S.J. entered the Jesuit novitiate at Sheridan, Ore., after graduating high school in 1953. He earned his bachelor’s degree from Gonzaga University and taught Latin and Greek at Jesuit High School in Portland. Fr. Cook completed his theological studies at the Alma College campus of Santa Clara University in Los Gatos and was ordained a priest in Spokane in 1966. He taught at the Jesuit School of Theology and Gonzaga University and was a visiting professor at the Catholic University of Chile in Santiago and Hekima College in Nairobi, Kenya. He died Dec. 17, 2020.

JOSEPH ONEAL MCGOWAN, S.J. was born in a Houston taxi, on the way to the only hospital in town that would care for African Americans. Although he decided to become a priest when he was quite young, Jim Crow laws meant his family needed to leave Texas for him to continue his high school studies in a Catholic school. They moved to Seattle at the suggestion of a relative. After graduation, McGowan studied at Gonzaga University, the Jesuit School of Theology in Berkeley, and Seattle University. He served at Seattle University, taught high school, worked as a counselor, and was a parish priest. McGowan died Dec. 23, 2020.

CHARLES JON (CHUCK) PETERSON, S.J. spent most of his years in service above the Arctic Circle. While studying in Canada he took a 500-mile canoe trip with other Jesuit scholastics from Midland, Ontario, to Ottawa, following the path of the early Jesuit missionary Jean de Brebeuf. He was ordained a priest in Missoula in 1969. Fr. Peterson taught at Copper Valley School in Glenallen, Alaska, and later served in Nome, Fairbanks and Seattle, largely ministering to native populations. He died Dec. 24, 2020.

GERALD V. (JERRY) GORDON, S.J. was a university theology professor and chaplain at Pacific Northwest hospitals—serving in Oregon, Washington, Idaho, and beyond. In 1943, he entered the Jesuit novitiate at Sheridan, Ore., and later studied at the Alma College Campus of Santa Clara University in Los Gatos. He was ordained a priest in Spokane in 1957. Fr. Gordon taught theology at Gonzaga University and Xavier University in Cincinnati. He died Jan. 4, 2021.