Catholic Relief Services Speeches and Testimony

Ken Hackett's Commencement Address at the University of Great Falls: A Call to Uncommon Courage

May, 2009

Bishop Warfel, Dr. McAllister, members of the Board of Trustees, distinguished faculty, supportive parents, and members of the graduating class of 2009.

When President McAllister invited me to give this address and receive this honor, I was most excited. Great Falls, Montana. I'd been to many beautiful places in the world but never to Montana. In fact I would suggest that most Americans have never had the opportunity to visit Montana—and I'll bet to most Montanans, that is just the way you like it!

But I had a special desire to come to Montana. The man who hired me at Catholic Relief Services in 1971 was a priest from Great Falls. In the late 1940's, shortly after Catholic Relief Services was founded, he was recruited to work in our Berlin office right after the Second World War. They presumed that a Fr. Wilson Kaiser spoke German—he didn't speak a word—but this wonderful priest from Great Falls ran our German assistance operations out of Berlin for nearly ten years before being dispatched to Africa, where he started CRS operations across that continent.

I understand that you embraced a new motto earlier this year; Uncommon Courage. It conjures up all types of emotions and sentiments. University mottos are usually about lofty pursuits of the mind and the search for knowledge and truth. You know, like in the case of University of Montana, Yale, and a few others it's both: Lux et Veritas, light and truth. At my alma mater, the motto is "ever to excel." But you chose courage. And not just courage, but Uncommon Courage. You didn't go for the mind. You went for the gut!

But what is this courage you have embodied in your motto? And more important, what is this Uncommon Courage?

Recently, we have seen two very visible examples courage manifest. We watched on CNN as Captain Philips of the Maersk Alabama surrendered himself to Somali pirates in exchange for 19 members of his crew. Brave, courageous for sure.

Then earlier this we saw Captain Sully Sullenberger with cool determination and all the heroism of a made-in-Hollywood movie, land his plane in New York's Hudson River, saving everyone on board.

There was valor, courage and bravery exhibited.

But for me, I think your motto points to another type of courage. A courage that begins with knowing yourself. Knowing at your core who you are. What influences you. What inspires you. Knowing your limits. And knowing that perhaps you can go beyond them. Knowing yourself allows you to step outside of your comfort zone. It's so much easier to do what's familiar, to surround ourselves with people who don't challenge you, to stay within boundaries that won't threaten you. But there's a word for that kind of living. Borrr-ing!

Breaking out of your boundaries will broaden your vision and enrich your life--even if at times, people might suggest you get your head examined. Let me tell you something kind of crazy I did during my senior year at BC. I was finishing my degree at the business school, doing the requisite interviews with corporations like Standard Oil and AT&T. I was destined for a career, going to an office tower every day wearing a suit with a starched white shirt and black tie. And then one day a buddy and I were walking through campus and we saw a recruiters table for the Peace Corps. And he says, "Hey, let's sign up!" And I said, "Sure, why not?" So we filled out some papers and I promptly forgot about it. A few months later, I came home the night of my senior prom and my mom tells me, "You got a letter from the Peace Corps." I opened it up, and I said, "Mom, I'm going to Ghana….Uh, where's Ghana?" She said, "I think it's somewhere in South America." That leap of faith began my four-decade career in international humanitarian work. And it has been many things….but it has rarely been boring.

Courage involves knowing yourself. Courage itself is also something that is uncommon. We don't see quiet, dignified, simple acts of courage everyday. But more often, we see their absence. The commonplace is to avoid the conflict and confrontation that would be involved in speaking the truth, or speaking on behalf of those who have drawn the short straw. It is more common to stay in our zone of safety. Doing the right thing is always hard. And sometimes, it's dangerous. To be courageous is uncommon. But being courageous I would argue involves understanding ourselves.

Some years back Pope John Paul II wrote an encyclical, "FIDES ET RATIO," Faith and Reason. It is fairly heavy and philosophical. It opens with this statement:

Faith and reason are like two wings on which the human spirit rises to the contemplation of truth; and God has placed in the human heart a desire to know the truth—in a word, to know himself—so that, by knowing and loving God, men and women may also come to the fullness of truth about themselves.

Over 50 years ago, President Kennedy wrote a book "Profiles in Courage" in an attempt to highlight examples of "uncommon courage". Each of these examples highlighted specific situations where individuals —in this case senators—had to stand up against what they believed as wrong or unjust.

And while all of us are called to be uncommonly courageous, few of us will receive publicity for our deeds…few of us will be heralded like Captain Phillips and Sully. That's good. Courage should never be about what other people think. It is about being faithful to who we are. Public acclamation can get in the way of the profound changes that acts of courage can produce in each of us.

Uncommon courage calls us to know ourselves, to reach beyond ourselves, beyond our campuses, beyond our communities, beyond our countries. Uncommon courage calls us to embrace the other, to engage the unfamiliar.

A single act of courage is good. Having the courage to stay on that path over time can be quite hard. This is where faith helps. In today's secular age, having faith can be an act of courage.

These times call for uncommon courage. Recent events have taught us that we do not live in isolation. We are all connected, from the tribal lands of Afghanistan to the rural hamlets of Zambia to these halls of the University of Great Falls. The global financial crisis we are all suffering from has made it very evident that we are all connected. How we live, what we do, how our economy reacts, directly and profoundly affects economies in every corner of the world. If we don't recover economically neither will people in Albania, Madagascar or Zimbabwe.

This very week, we've become aware that if someone sneezes in Mexico City, we may contract the H1N1 Flu.

9/11 taught us a similar lesson. A guy living in a cave in eastern Afghanistan can inflict deadly harm on our nation. And people living in some parts of the world are not sympathetic to our pain and grief. How we act, and how our actions are perceived, impacts people in isolated corners of our world.

My organization, Catholic Relief Services, exists and acts at the inverse of these realities. We act out of an abundance of love, of concern, of caring. Our mission is to build bonds of solidarity between Americans, especially American Catholics, and the extremely poor families we serve overseas. Our objective is to bridge the chasm of culture, of power, of economies that keep us apart. And from this standpoint, I want to tell you that what you do here in Montana, what you do in your bright futures, as you leave this beautiful campus, what you do can have a tremendous impact on our world.

You, yourselves, by your choices, by your actions, can change the world for the better. I know it.

In 1998, you gave a "distinguished alumnus award" to Professor Karl Jorda, who was also your commencement speaker that year. He has served on your Board of Trustees and he graduated from these halls in 1953. But he was not from here. He was born in 1929 to a family that had lived for generations as subsistence farmers in Czechoslovakia. His destiny too might have been to eke out a living from the family farm. But World War II intervened. The Nazis annexed Czechoslovakia shortly before the war and as part of the ethnic German minority, Professor Jorda's family was expelled to Germany after the war.

In Germany, Professor Jorda met a young American exchange student who told him about an organization that could help him come to the United States to study. It was then that Professor Jorda first heard about Catholic Relief Services. We not only were able to help him get a visa, but also a full scholarship to the University of Great Falls. On the ship to America, where he worked to pay his passage, the crew teased him about his future in Montana. "This is the Siberia of the United States," they told him. "Why would you go there when you can be among your own people in New York?"

He was undaunted. For Professor Jorda, Great Falls was the Promised Land, where he would get an education, where he would learn how to be an American, where he would become a man who would make great contributions to society.

He graduated and went on to receive a law degree from the University of Notre Dame. Today, he is one of the world's foremost authorities on patent law, and inductee in the Intellectual Property Hall of Fame and an emeritus member of the University of Great Falls Board of Trustees. And he has given back, becoming a significant contributor to Catholic Relief Services and to this University.

Professor Jorda is representative of the tens of thousands of people of uncommon courage, who came to this country. They have built new lives and worked for the betterment of the world. Professor Jorda is a man of uncommon courage. You are the new Professor Jorda's. You will welcome the future with Uncommon Courage.

Let me conclude with a quotation from the Spanish philosopher Jose Ortega y Gasset, who was born on this day in 1883. He said, "Life is a series of collisions with the future; it is not the sum of what we have been, but what we yearn to be."

As you embark on the next phase of your life today, I want to leave you with three thoughts. They're not terribly profound. In fact your mother told you about them years ago:

Say "Thank You!" Yes, grateful is good! Recognize the contributions of all who have helped you to become the person you are, with all of your achievements and all of your promise. Give thanks for your parents who have supported you, quite literally, through these years of college. Give thanks for the professors of this great university who have guided you through this journey of learning and enlightenment. Give thanks for your friends who you've shared the ups and downs of the University of Great Falls. You didn't do this alone! It often takes courage to acknowledge peoples contributions to you.

Play Nice! It often takes courage to show humility. To show your ignorance. The courageous person is humble and draws lessons from each experience. I have learned from personal experience that the most illiterate farmer in the most isolated village in Africa has something to offer me. The immigrant, the stranger, the one on distant shores can offer us something. Have the courage to open to those new ideas and new ways.

Don't be Afraid! Move beyond your safety zone. Move out of your comfort area to embrace the wider world. Those immigrants who you have seen at the 7-11, they have values of family and faith that are to be admired. Those folks you see on the news in Pakistan, actually have values that they hold dear, just like you. Engage the world, open yourself to others. You will find that it makes you a better person.

Exhibit that Uncommon Courage in a world that needs you.

Oh, and Happy Mother's Day!

Thank you.