HOW A JESUIT EDUCATION SHAPED TIM RUSSERT
Jesuits who teach, assisted by nuns on faculty, don't settle for second best. Their prepared students master opponents' arguments, handle debatable topics fairly, and acknowledge God has the last word. The late Tim Russert, host of "Meet the Press" and NBC Washington bureau chief, who died on Father's Day weekend, showed these characteristics. He never tried to hide his Jesuit education gained growing up in a blue-collar Irish Catholic neighborhood of Buffalo, New York.
I share kinship with Russert because parochial Christian education molded us for the good. The dean of Christian trend-watchers, Martin Marty, who taught at Chicago Divinity School, surveys over 200 religious periodicals. He nominated "The Reformed Journal" magazine, when it was published, as the most incisive, the best informed and the most politically astute of all religious magazines. Many of my college professors wrote for it. Marty said that they sounded so informative, so prepared, and so hard-hitting they qualified as
Protestant Jesuits.
What characteristics do Jesuits, both Roman Catholic and of the Protestant variety, impart to students in parochial schools? In his book
Wisdom of Our Fathers: Lessons and Letters from Distinguished Daughters and Sons, Russert tells of a conversation he had with his son Luke who four years ago entered Boston University as a freshman. "Before I drove off, I gave him some simple advice," recounted Russert in his book. "
Study hard. Laughoften. Keep your honor. I hope I taught him to make good decisions and that I've given him a strong moral foundation to do the right thing. When my life is over, I know that the most important thing I'll be judged on is what kind of father I was." Don't you agree that God has given this Jesuit inspired Christian a high passing grade?
STUDY HARD
Jesuit education doesn't appeal to party boys. The rigors of study, writing, and class participation are too strenuous for the trust fund flunkies who screw up on campus.
On "Meet the Press," Russert mastered his homework on political guests. He hated slackers. After hearing testimonies to his life, work and faith on Father's Day "Meet the Press," when cameras zoomed in on a vacant seat Russert so excellently occupied, I scribbled on a napkin in a coffee shop what distinguished Russert among commentators of things political. He walked a fine non-partisan line that other talk show hosts trip over. Russert said he "questioned aggressively but in a civil manner." How?
His questions were penetrating yet unbiased.
His honesty seldom became strident.
He conducted interviews, not interrogations.
He voiced compelling insights without sounding grandiose.
He exuded enthusiasm without domineering.
He was fair, checking partisan bickering.
It's virtually impossible to excel, as Russert did, without honoring the Jesuit's tough slog of preparation that demands ample time, energy and erudition.
LAUGH OFTEN
Many commentators have noted Russert didn't possess TVs most telegenic pretty face. He caught viewers' attention with riveting, direct eye contact brimming over with zest. Showing habitual enthusiasm on camera, Russert eagerly smiled, like a boy holding a baseball his favorite player has autographed.
Russert's laughter sprung from a solid faith. He took life seriously but not too sternly because he relied upon God. Inside the Washington Beltway, where faith is often dismissed as silly or kept private, Russert told people who were hurting that he would pray for them. They knew he meant it.
Jesus began the prayer Russert memorized with "Our Father" (
Matthew 6:9). God wasn't some fuzzy cosmic energy for Jesus and Jesuit trained Russert. Nor was God a compilation of premier human virtue. God shows a vital interest in our lives. Russert copied God's style by emphasizing that the most important promise a father gives to his children occurs when he repeatedly says, "I love you."
Jesuits laugh in a world made serious by hurt and havoc because God's in the driver's seat. We loosen up when our faith reminds us that God never loses sight of us.
KEEP YOUR HONOR
Jesuit education and its Protestant offshoot teach students to think deeply. These priests supply skills for effectively working in God's world. Plus, the Jesuits inculcate "virtue," strong character traits in their students.
So often we dismiss politics for its slime and sleaze, but Russert saw it as an honorable profession. On "Meet the Press" he stopped chatter and cant from unprepared guests. Nor would he let them strut their stuff or preen with self-absorption.
He mirrored Thomas Jefferson's spirit toward politics. Jefferson wrote a report stating the honorable purposes for which the University of Virginia stands. At the head of the list he wrote, sounding like Jesuit, "To form the statesmen, legislators, and judges on whom public prosperity and individual happiness are so much in demand." Russert, shaped by Jesuit wisdom, cut a Jeffersonian path in the political thicket.
DR. JACK R. VAN ENS, AUTHOR
CREATIVE GROWTH INC.
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