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Ryan urges Christians to participate in public life Veteran Quebec politician Claude Ryan delivered the first annual John J. Wintermeyer Lecture in Christianity and Public Policy last October 27 in Siegfried Hall to a full house that included members of the Wintermeyer family. The series, part of the program of the St. Jerome's Centre for Catholic Experience, was created in memory of the late John Joseph Wintermeyer, former MPP for Waterloo North and leader of the Ontario Liberal Party. "He was publicly known as a fervent Catholic," Ryan commented. "His faith, rather than being an embarrassment to him, helped him to be a better man, a better citizen, and a better public servant." The lecture was followed the next day by the Catholics in Public Life Conference cosponsored by St. Jerome's and the Waterloo Catholic District School Board, with Claude Ryan and Richard Gwyn as featured speakers. Fifty to sixty people attended. Why should Christians, whose main interest supposedly lies in another world, concern themselves with the troubled affairs of the political world? Claude Ryan finds the answer to that question in both the teachings of the Church and his own experiences. A devout Catholic, he was deeply involved in the political life of Quebec and Canada for thirty years: editor of the influential Montreal daily Le Devoir, spokesman for the No side in the sovereignty referendum of 1980, leader of the Quebec Liberal Party, cabinet minister. To place Christian feet on terra firma, he reaches back fifteen centuries to St. Augustine's The City of God. "The true vocation of the Christian is eternal life in the City of God," Ryan concludes, "but this vocation has its beginning in the here and now of his mortal condition on earth." In Augustine's view, the temporal city (the state) is a place where Christians and unbelievers can co-exist in peace, shouldering their share of civic responsibilities and obeying the laws, so long as those laws are just and moral and do not oppose the worship of God. In the 19th century, John Henry Cardinal Newman took Augustine's vision a step further when he wrote of the duty to witness to one's faith not by withdrawing from the world, but by living well in it. Ryan, too, questions whether Christians can stand apart from the world. Many historians believe that totalitarian regimes in the second quarter of the twentieth century might not have been so successful if Christians in those countries had been more concerned at the outset with the defence of human rights than with the selfish protection of their narrow confessional interests. In our own day, economic neo-liberalism challenges our consciences as it widens the gap between rich and poor and squanders the planet's resources. Christians should be strong supporters of human rights, Ryan says, since those rights are founded in the equality of all human beings before God. They should also support the pursuit of social justice, the integrity of our institutions, and the quality of health care, social services, and education. In all this they should aim to "enlarge the way in which social, economic, and political problems are perceived by governments and the people who elect them, so that their moral and spiritual dimensions may z be taken into account in the search for solutions." 0 "Of all forms of engagement in the temporal order, politics is the most important," Ryan says. But Christians must be prepared to work with and respect people who hold views that differ from their own--including people who share their faith but not their political views. (This was something he had to accept during the sovereignty referendum debate in Quebec.) There is no room for absolutes in politics. A Christian politician may be opposed to abortion, for example, but when working with others to shape legislation, he or she may have to consider a compromise that would bring in some form of control, rather than holding out for a total (and unattainable) ban. But in political life, new opportunities for living in accordance with the gospel crop up in every encounter with another person, from colleagues, employees, and supporters to rivals for power and media critics. "If I learn to realize that behind each person is the invisible presence of Jesus, I will be more respectful, more attentive, more understanding, more disposed to help, more forgiving, more humble, less impatient, less inclined to draw attention to my person, more desirous of serving than of being served, more tolerant of differences. I will, in a word, act differently, and that may ultimately be what it means to be a Christian in public life." Students take action Thirty students taking the summer course Spirit in Motion (RS 296A/B) decided to put its theme--moving from the spiritual to the practical in dealing with the environment into action. "It was a wonderful course," says former student Carolyn Morris. "It was inspiring to see how various figures had walked the walk. So I said, `What about us?" After passing the envelope to "buy" an acre of endangered land through the World Wildlife Fund, they found they had about $150, enough to protect three acres of tropical rainforest and three of Canadian wilderness. St. Jerome's students distinguish themselves Four students from St. Jerome's were among the winners of Faculty of Arts departmental awards for distinguished academic achievement handed out at the spring convocation on June 15. The top graduating student in Anthropology was Laura Anne MacKenzie; in Drama, Heather Diane Wilford; in English, Alysia Michelle Kolentsis; and in French Studies, Carmela Carrieri.