Richard O'Neill
He told me to write a paper about the discussion going on in Catholic Intellectual circles about the shortage of Catholic Intellectuals. I resented being given extra work, and I took out my resentment by writing a sarcastic paper: “What is the reason for the shortage of Catholic intellectuals? So-and-so said this; so-and-so said that; and then there was so-and-so who said ‘If all of the hot air that is wasted on debates about where are the Catholic intellectuals were saved for real arguments, it would make one bonfire big enough to burn down heaven!’
During our time at Latin, my class received high-quality teaching in biology from our sophomore biology teacher Brother Donald Geiger, and high-quality teaching in chemistry from our junior chemistry teacher Brother Eugene Meyerpeter. In our chemistry class, we were one of the first classes in the country to take the new Chemical Bond Approach.
Toward the end of our junior year, our class selected our senior class president. Before the campaign I consulted with my junior homeroom teacher Brother Eugene Meyerpeter about whether I should run for president. Brother Meyerpeter told me that, if I believed that I had ideas to contribute to the school, then I definitely should run for president as a method of promoting my ideas. During the campaign, I put up posters setting forth my ideas. I first composed the posters; then, I got my brothers and my sister to make duplicate copies for posting in each homeroom. It seemed to me that the student council president from the year before us, Richard Galones, showed bravery on a certain level, in the sense that he was willing to bravely promote Catholic teaching out in the political world. But, it also seemed to me that politics should not be considered mere applied Catholic teaching. It seemed to me that there were certain autonomous political ideals associated with the American political tradition, and that a political leader should know these autonomous American political ideals and try to give expression to them. This I tried to do in the platform I devised and the speech I gave. At one point in the campaign, John Forhan said to me, “Your approach is wrong.” Apparently, Forhan’s position was that his experience as our junior class president had taught him that nothing gets done in practice in the student council unless some executive officer, or some executive committee, assumes the responsibility of getting something done. My idea was that there might be some way that we could move to a more active democracy than we had been able to practice so far in our student council. The time came for the candidates to give their speeches. John Forhan gave a speech in which he said, “Some people talk about the issues in this campaign; but, there are no real issues; the only issue is good old C.L.” Robert Lamb gave a speech in which he spoke about the importance of developing the whole man. I gave my speech. Robert Sheahen gave a speech in which he said that the other candidates represented the Administration, but he represented the students. I do not remember what the other candidates said. The election was held, and the results were announced. If any of my classmates thought I was a dumb person who did not know that I had won the election, I was not such a dumb person; I merely decided not to make an issue out of it.
Toward the end of our junior year, our new senior class president John Forhan offered me the position of Chairman of the Assembly Committee. During our senior year, I became discouraged at the way I had gone through a third of the year and had not yet held any assemblies, and I decided to resign my position. I mentioned to my father that I had this position in my senior class student council, but I had not held any assemblies yet. My father told me that his company (U.S. Steel) at times distributes movies as a public service; that they had one such movie that tells the Christmas story in the form of works of art. My father got the movie for me, and I turned it over to Donald Hlusak, who had taken over as Chairman of the Assembly Committee, and he arranged for its showing.
At the beginning of our senior year, our classmate Casimir Cudnik decided to start a study group devoted to studying Communism. Casey Cudnik may have thought that we needed to learn about the nature of Communism, about how it is that people fall for Communism, and about what we could do to prevent the spread of Communism. Cudnick invited a group of students who had an interest in intellectual life to join him as members of this study group. These students were himself, myself, and Stanley Osenar, Louis Todaro, and Joseph Eszterhas. We discussed whom we should invite to be our faculty advisor. I was in favor of inviting Brother Donald Boccardi. The other students thought that Brother Boccardi was too opinionated. They thought we should invite Father Eugene Carlen to be our advisor. Father Carlen had a doctorate in sociology. Joe Eszterhas said that “Father Carlen has a fabulous education!” In our study group, we made a little progress at understanding Communism, but not too much.
One morning in senior homeroom, my classmate Stanley Osenar came up to me and said, “This is unbelievable! You will have to come to the coffee shop with me after school and explain to me how you as a Catholic can justify supporting Goldwater!” At one point, during our discussion in the coffee shop, Stanley said, “I am taking a course down at the Cathedral on the pope’s encyclical Mater et Magister, and I can assure you that Goldwater is not a possible Catholic position. It is not only not in the center of Catholic teaching; it is not even on the fringes of Catholic teaching; Goldwater is in no way a possible Catholic teaching!” I might have said, “Goldwater wasn’t intended to be a Catholic position; it was intended to be a political position,” but I could not really say that, because I knew the Church had the right to criticize political positions. The next day, at the end of our Problems of Democracy class, I said to our P.O.D. teacher Mr. William Ternansky, with Stanley Osenar standing behind me, “We were discussing Goldwater.” Mr. Ternansky said, “He has some good ideas, but he is too far to the Right.”
During our senior year Problems of Democracy class with Mr. Ternansky, we were asked to write a paper, in which we made a study of a problem of democracy, and offered our solution to that problem of democracy. I attempted to write a paper about “What Methods Should Be Used in Economics?” A number of years after we graduated from high school, I paid a visit back to Latin, joined the alumni association, and paid a visit to Mr. Ternansky, who was still teaching the class in Problems of Democracy to another generation of Cathedral Latin School students. I undertook to explain to Mr. Ternansky what I was trying to do in the paper I attempted to write for his class. I said that I wanted to determine whether I had any grounds, on the basis of which I might argue with Pope John XXIII’s encyclical Mater et Magister. I said that it seemed to me that the teaching I was getting from the Church was in many ways just the opposite of the teaching I was getting from my own father; and that I considered it necessary to be faithful to both the teachings of the Church and the teachings of my own father.
Finally, the time came for our class to graduate. As I walked across the stage to become a graduate of Cathedral Latin School, I remember receiving a warm handshake from Brother Donald Boccardi.
During our time at Latin, my class received high-quality teaching in biology from our sophomore biology teacher Brother Donald Geiger, and high-quality teaching in chemistry from our junior chemistry teacher Brother Eugene Meyerpeter. In our chemistry class, we were one of the first classes in the country to take the new Chemical Bond Approach.
Toward the end of our junior year, our class selected our senior class president. Before the campaign I consulted with my junior homeroom teacher Brother Eugene Meyerpeter about whether I should run for president. Brother Meyerpeter told me that, if I believed that I had ideas to contribute to the school, then I definitely should run for president as a method of promoting my ideas. During the campaign, I put up posters setting forth my ideas. I first composed the posters; then, I got my brothers and my sister to make duplicate copies for posting in each homeroom. It seemed to me that the student council president from the year before us, Richard Galones, showed bravery on a certain level, in the sense that he was willing to bravely promote Catholic teaching out in the political world. But, it also seemed to me that politics should not be considered mere applied Catholic teaching. It seemed to me that there were certain autonomous political ideals associated with the American political tradition, and that a political leader should know these autonomous American political ideals and try to give expression to them. This I tried to do in the platform I devised and the speech I gave. At one point in the campaign, John Forhan said to me, “Your approach is wrong.” Apparently, Forhan’s position was that his experience as our junior class president had taught him that nothing gets done in practice in the student council unless some executive officer, or some executive committee, assumes the responsibility of getting something done. My idea was that there might be some way that we could move to a more active democracy than we had been able to practice so far in our student council. The time came for the candidates to give their speeches. John Forhan gave a speech in which he said, “Some people talk about the issues in this campaign; but, there are no real issues; the only issue is good old C.L.” Robert Lamb gave a speech in which he spoke about the importance of developing the whole man. I gave my speech. Robert Sheahen gave a speech in which he said that the other candidates represented the Administration, but he represented the students. I do not remember what the other candidates said. The election was held, and the results were announced. If any of my classmates thought I was a dumb person who did not know that I had won the election, I was not such a dumb person; I merely decided not to make an issue out of it.
Toward the end of our junior year, our new senior class president John Forhan offered me the position of Chairman of the Assembly Committee. During our senior year, I became discouraged at the way I had gone through a third of the year and had not yet held any assemblies, and I decided to resign my position. I mentioned to my father that I had this position in my senior class student council, but I had not held any assemblies yet. My father told me that his company (U.S. Steel) at times distributes movies as a public service; that they had one such movie that tells the Christmas story in the form of works of art. My father got the movie for me, and I turned it over to Donald Hlusak, who had taken over as Chairman of the Assembly Committee, and he arranged for its showing.
At the beginning of our senior year, our classmate Casimir Cudnik decided to start a study group devoted to studying Communism. Casey Cudnik may have thought that we needed to learn about the nature of Communism, about how it is that people fall for Communism, and about what we could do to prevent the spread of Communism. Cudnick invited a group of students who had an interest in intellectual life to join him as members of this study group. These students were himself, myself, and Stanley Osenar, Louis Todaro, and Joseph Eszterhas. We discussed whom we should invite to be our faculty advisor. I was in favor of inviting Brother Donald Boccardi. The other students thought that Brother Boccardi was too opinionated. They thought we should invite Father Eugene Carlen to be our advisor. Father Carlen had a doctorate in sociology. Joe Eszterhas said that “Father Carlen has a fabulous education!” In our study group, we made a little progress at understanding Communism, but not too much.
One morning in senior homeroom, my classmate Stanley Osenar came up to me and said, “This is unbelievable! You will have to come to the coffee shop with me after school and explain to me how you as a Catholic can justify supporting Goldwater!” At one point, during our discussion in the coffee shop, Stanley said, “I am taking a course down at the Cathedral on the pope’s encyclical Mater et Magister, and I can assure you that Goldwater is not a possible Catholic position. It is not only not in the center of Catholic teaching; it is not even on the fringes of Catholic teaching; Goldwater is in no way a possible Catholic teaching!” I might have said, “Goldwater wasn’t intended to be a Catholic position; it was intended to be a political position,” but I could not really say that, because I knew the Church had the right to criticize political positions. The next day, at the end of our Problems of Democracy class, I said to our P.O.D. teacher Mr. William Ternansky, with Stanley Osenar standing behind me, “We were discussing Goldwater.” Mr. Ternansky said, “He has some good ideas, but he is too far to the Right.”
During our senior year Problems of Democracy class with Mr. Ternansky, we were asked to write a paper, in which we made a study of a problem of democracy, and offered our solution to that problem of democracy. I attempted to write a paper about “What Methods Should Be Used in Economics?” A number of years after we graduated from high school, I paid a visit back to Latin, joined the alumni association, and paid a visit to Mr. Ternansky, who was still teaching the class in Problems of Democracy to another generation of Cathedral Latin School students. I undertook to explain to Mr. Ternansky what I was trying to do in the paper I attempted to write for his class. I said that I wanted to determine whether I had any grounds, on the basis of which I might argue with Pope John XXIII’s encyclical Mater et Magister. I said that it seemed to me that the teaching I was getting from the Church was in many ways just the opposite of the teaching I was getting from my own father; and that I considered it necessary to be faithful to both the teachings of the Church and the teachings of my own father.
Finally, the time came for our class to graduate. As I walked across the stage to become a graduate of Cathedral Latin School, I remember receiving a warm handshake from Brother Donald Boccardi.