Vincentian Chair of Social Justice Inaugural Event

The Chair was formally inagurated during Founder's Week, January 1995 by the Very Reverend Robert P. Maloney, Superior General of the Congregation of the Mission (right). Hisaddress describes the distinctive Vincentian Vision, reviews the Chair's purpose, interprets the current situation of the poor, and offers specific challenges to St. John's University. Father Maloney presented St. Vincent de Paul's global vision and organizational ability as qualities much needed in today's world. He also urged that as a very large metropolitan university with multiple programs and academic resources, St. John's accept the privilege and obligation to work towards justice that is the foundation of true peace and solidarity. The address includes:

• Characteristics of Vincent de Paul
  
• Vincentian Experience of the Poor
  
• Recommendations for the Chair

Inaugural Address by the Very Reverend Robert P. Maloney

Vincent dePaul was an extraordinary man. When he was a boy, he fled from the squalor of his peasant village and for a time he wandered without clear purpose, but finally he decided to give his whole life to God in the service of the poor. When he was 44, he founded the Congregation of the Mission, which even in his lifetime became an international congregation. When he was 52, he founded the Daughters of Charity. They would one day become one of the largest communities that the Church had ever seen. When he saw the crying needs of the poor, he founded the Ladies of Charity and the Confraternities of Charity. During his lifetime he founded 20 seminaries. At the same time he was the counselor of kings and queens and the friend of a great number of the spiritual leaders of the day. In the homily at his funeral the preacher said, "He just about transformed the face of the Church."

Characteristics of Vincent dePaul:

Two characteristics of Vincent dePaul are most striking and relate directly to the Vincentian Chair of Social Justice:

1. Vincent had a global vision. In an era when most people died within a few miles of their birthplace, when transportation was difficult and communication was sparse, he envisioned the poor not just in France but everywhere, and he yearned to go to them. Even in his lifetime he sent missionaries to Italy, Poland, Ireland, Scotland, Algeria, and Madagascar, and he dreamed of sending them to the Indies, to Canada, and to China. Today the Vincentians work in 79 countries and the Daughters of Charity in 84. Countless other groups that find their inspiration in St. Vincent can be found throughout the world.

2. Vincent's genius was that he saw that we must combat poverty together, not just as individuals. For that reason he was always organizing. He gathered together rich and poor, men and women, the queen of France and a poor country girl, priests, sisters, brothers, lay men and women, young and old, from every class of society. Today there are more than a million men and women in Vincentian lay groups, with remarkable numbers of young people joining them each year.
   

St. John's is a university founded in the Vincentian tradition. One can only imagine how Vincent would have utilized the community and the resources here at St. John's University in the service of the poor. He would surely have used his lively imagination to envision what role St. John's might play in creating a more just society in which the needs of the poor are effectively met.

Tonight, as someone who bears the undeserved title of successor of Vincent dePaul, I lay the challenge of poverty before you. What can we do about it together? You have wonderful resources here at St. John's University. Some of you here this evening are corporate chiefs, lawyers, judges, successful businessmen and women. Some are highly educated, creative faculty members. Some of you are energetic young students planning your future. Can we together have a significant impact on this huge world problem, which also shows itself dramatically here in New York City. Let me paraphrase the words that Pope John Paul II once addressed to the Vincentians and direct them to you: "Priests and Brothers of the Mission, sons and daughters of St. John's, search out more than ever with boldness, humility, and skill the causes of poverty and investigate short- and long-term solutions. By doing so, you will work for the credibility of the gospel at St. John's University." As we establish this Chair of Social Justice this evening, I ask your help in carrying out this mandate that the pope has given to all of us.

Vincentian Experience of the Poor:

Let me state three things clearly from the Vincentian experience of the poor.

1. Most people are poor because they have been made poor. I know, of course, that there are exceptions. Some don't work hard enough. Some lack initiative. But the masses of the poor, the millions of poor in Rwanda, China, Albania, Haiti, Somalia, as well as those in the United States, are poor because human folly, prejudice, lust for power, violence, or greed have made them poor. War, oppressive governments, unjust economic structures, low levels of education create huge numbers of poor in the world. The poorest of the poor are usually children, like those with swollen stomachs whom you have seen on television, and their mothers who are struggling to feed them.
   

2. There are human means for eradicating poverty: human intelligence, human energies, wise human use of natural resources. We have some of those resources right here tonight.
   

3. Concern for the poor involves conscience, the inner conviction that we must do something about this problem. Concern for the poor involves creativity. 'Love is creative," St. Vincent once said, "even to infinity" (SV Xl, 146). Concern for the poor involves competence, the information base, the intelligence, the analytic skills needed for formulating wise solutions. Let conscience, creativity, and competence be fully alive at St. John's University.
   

Recommendations for the Chair:

May I make a few recommendations as we inaugurate this Chair of Social Justice:

1. Focus especially on New York City. St. John's, as your own Mission Statement says, is Catholic, Vincentian, Metropolitan. It is a remarkable university with enormous human resources, with 19,000 students, with hundreds of experienced, generous faculty members, with trustees, administrators, and staff members who want to do something for young people today and for the world at large. I urge you: Bring these enormous resources to bear on poverty in New York. Open the eyes of the young to see poverty here on the streets of New York and move them to use their creative powers to do something about it.
   

2. Create a global world view. Offer young people today a vivid vision of the human family to which we belong. Give them an international perspective, so that they see the poverty of their brothers and sisters in Rwanda, Haiti, China, Somalia, or wherever it may be. Help them not just to see it, but to use their minds and energies to attack it. Encourage them to lift up their voices so that they cry out, "No more famine. No more infant mortality. No more refugee camps."
   

3. Use creatively your particular gifts and resources as a university:
   • Research: Discern through this chair: What causes poverty in New York, and how can we root it out?
   • Teaching: Are there ways in which St. Johns can help some of the primary and secondary schools of New York to upgrade the level of education given to students?
   • Networking: Can St. John's work with the dioceses, with the city, with other universities to combine resources in attacking poverty at its roots?
   • The energy of youth: How can the many young people here channel their energies to help the poor?

4. Work together as a university community. An individual's contribution toward eradicating poverty is usually very modest, but 20,000 of you together? That's an army - a huge pool of energy and creativity. Plan together, envision together, and most of all work together.
   

5. Teach a spirituality of justice, a philosophy of justice, a law of justice, an economics of justice, a liberal education (a freedom) founded on justice. The prophet Micah says to all living in the Judeo-Christian tradition: "What does the Lord require of you but to do justice?" (Mi 6:8) It is those who hunger and thirst for justice, Jesus tells us (Mt 5:6), who are ultimately satisfied.

A university, my brothers and sisters, aims to form a well-integrated citizen of the world, a man or woman who is truly free, who faces life creatively with values and vision. I urge you tonight: Let justice be at the heart of that vision. "If you seek peace," Paul VI once said, "do the works of justice." With Paul VI and John Paul 11, say to our society: If you seek liberty, create just laws. Say to society: If you seek a sufficiency of material goods for all, create just economic structures. Here at St. John's, let the vision of the prophets-Amos, Hosea, Isaiah, Jeremiah-roll down from the mountainside and God's impartial love be an ever-flowing stream."

St. Vincent de Paul transformed the world of the poor three centuries ago. I encourage you as a university community: transform our society into a more just one. Let that be the challenge that St. John's University eagerly takes up.

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