Left Face - 1970 - The Xavier Class Lamented By Antonin Scalia - Part VI

"Education in Jesuit schools seeks to transform how youth look at themselves and other human beings, at social systems and societal structures, at the global community of humankind and the whole of natural creation. If truly successful, Jesuit education results ultimately in a radical transformation not only of the way in which people habitually think and act, but of the very way in which they live in the world, men and women of competence, conscience and compassion, seeking the greater good in terms of what can be done out of a faith commitment with justice to enhance the quality of peoples' lives, particularly among God's poor, oppressed and neglected."

Ignation Pedagogy - A Practical Approach - Introduced by Vincent Duminuco SJ - Secretary of Education- Society of Jesus - Headmaster Xavier High Scholl in 1970

To motivate young people to be better citizens.

Current Army JROTC Mission Statement

The war divided every significant class, group, and category of American

American Reckoning: The Vietnam War and Our National Identity

Know where you stand and stand there.

Attributed to Father Daniel Berrigan SJ as shortest commencement speech ever - reportedly delivered at Xavier High School.  Likely apocryphal.

A Metaphor

When I think about the struggle that went on at Xavier High School in the final years of it being in the words of Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia "a thoroughly military academy", I am reminded of the meta-story behind the Repairman Jack novels by F Paul Wilson, who, as it happens, is a Xavier graduate.

Two vast forces are in a long struggle and our planet is a minor trivial prize.  Much of what we see in history is an illusion as there is a Secret History of people supporting either the Ally or the Adversary.  It is not the eternal struggle between good and evil.  Rather it is the very long struggle between really awful and not so bad.

It is a little grandiose, but it is just an analogy and the notion that Xavier was something of a prize to both the Army and the Jesuits is not without foundation.

In 1968, Xavier's military status had been upgraded to "Institute", which apparently was quite a big deal.  It was probably one of the most visible Junior ROTC programs in the country as its students rather than being walled off in the country commuted to school in uniform earning them the moniker "Subway Commandoes" and played a role in the City's pageantry most notably the St. Patrick's Day Parade. Unlike the optional programs in public schools, like the one in Detroit where Ben Carson advanced to cadet colonel, we wore our uniforms every day and the entire school was part of the Regiment.

The Jesuits

And our new Headmaster would be a leading light in Jesuit secondary education designating Xavier a  a pilot school.  Father Duminuco gave the school speeches about his educational theory referring to education in a dynamic society as opposed to a static society.

Many of the younger Jesuits and quite possibly the headmaster himself thought that the military was inconsistent with Jesuit values. My friend Jerry Snee, a year behind me, whose uncle was a Jesuit brother told me that New York Province Jesuits who were not caught up in the  Xavier tradtition did not have an appreciation for the way the uniforms and the Army integrated with the rest of the education.

As anti-war sentiment and action increased young Jesuits, some of whom were under observation by the FBI (Ironically a not uncommon career for Xavier graduates) were embarassed by teenagers in pseudo Army uniforms saluting them in the street.  The idea of military masses struck some as obscene.

The Army

On the Army side, there was Major Smullen, who was a suberb officer and one of the best teachers on the faculty.  He would go onto a distinguished career retiring as a full colonel along with his boss Colin Powell, helping Powell with his autobiography and then serving as his chief of staff at the State Department.  As Bill Smullen, he is the director of National Security Studies t Syracuse University and the author of several books including Ways and Means of Managing Up, which I reviewed here.

Bill wrote me that in response to the anti-military pressure in the school, his tour at Xavier was extended by a year.  He indicated that among some Jesuits there was substantial support for the program. He was a little reticent about the nature of the opposition. After a second tour in Vietnam, Major Smullen would become the public relations officer at West Point.  The Vietnam War speeded up advancement in the Army, but my impression is that Smullen was young for a major, a sign that the Army recognized his value then.  So keeping him on an extra year is a sign that somebody thought Xavier was important to the JROTC program if not the defense of the United States of America.

The Students Especially This Student

Of course whatever conflicts the grownups running Xavier were having were pretty invisible to us and I'm sure my reconstruction is far from perfect.  Nonetheless, the conflict in the larger culture was becoming front and center to anybody who was paying attention.  And our teachers were requiring us to pay attention.  Mr. Moroney, 2-G's English teacher,  required us to get the Sunday New York Times and go through the magazine, the literary section and the week in review.  And some of our required reading such as Catcher in the Rye and Huckleberry Finn had a subversive tinge to it.

I along with some others spent a lot of time at Barnes and Nobles - THE Barnes and Nobles, not some suburban mall emporium with a built in Starbucks but the original store.  And then there was The Strand.

Sometime in the early seventies, there started to be this thing about not whether you were against the Vietnam War, but when you were against it.  There was a Barney Miller episode where somebody tried to make an impression by saying they were against it in 1968.  Dietrich, the intellectual of the group, countered with 1955.  Anyway for me it was early 1968 or late 1967.

I'm sure it was not early 1967 because I remember being confused when Martin Luther King came out against the war.  I always wanted the forces of good to be aligned and remember thinking that Martin Luther King being against the Vietnam War, where we were clearly the good guys, was as confusing as Robert E Lee, chief bad guy in the Civil War, being considered a national hero.

All that reading was bound to create trouble though.  I subscribed to Avant Garde , which seems like it should have a high collectible value nearly fifty years later, but doesn't because nobody threw them away.  I note that in the first issue January 1968 there is an article about American helicopter pilots randomly gunning down Vietnamese civilians. I actually don't remember that article making a big impression on me.  There is also an article the Kama Sutra, with line drawings that are pretty erotic.  That would probably have caught my 16-year-old attention more.

I can't recapture the intensity of feeling that was going on, but the bottom line was pretty simple. It was not a just war, we were not the good guys.

And as happens throughout American history an unpopular war will bring to the fore pacifist traditions that have always been there. As Christian Appy wrote in American Reckoning

This was no longer Tom Dooley's America. More than at any moment in history, Americans had come to believe their nation as capable of evil as any other.  National identity was no longer figured as a kind sailor "bouncing a brown bare-botton baby on his knee." It was more likely to be represented as a napalm-dropping American jet.  American exceptionalism was on its deathbed.

I really don't remember hearing about Dorothy Day even while at Xavier.  Her Catholic Worker had been a factor for decades and its address is within a mile of Xavier, but it didn't enter into our consciousness as far as I knew (I would learn about her at Holy Cross thanks to David O'Brien, a historian).  We did hear about a Jesuit from the New York Province who was influenced by her.

Feeling A Draft?

I don't think it is easy for anybody to be 16,  Like Holden Caufield you start having to face that there are a lot of phony bastards in the world.  But to be 16 in 1968 at a Catholic military school a few blocks north of Greenwich Village was probably extra confusing and I don't think it was just me.

There was the sexual revolution and then there was the just plain Revolution.  I remember our teachers talking about our "military obligation". It is amazing how quickly that concept had entrenched itself after only a quarter century of "peace time" draft.  As I recall it was six years.  Four years active duty could be followed by two years inactive reserve or two years active duty by four years active reserve. National Guard meant six months active and even longer in active reserve with the prospect of being called out to suppress civil unrest.  I have not gone back and researched whether that was real.  I'm just giving you my understanding.

By the time we were seniors, college no longer seemed like an escape.  It really was just a deferral as we knew that there were college graduates who thought they were avoiding the war in 1966 now in Vietnam.  By the time I was a freshman in college, it seemed like the war would never end.  When asked whether I wanted to go to Washington for the big demonstration to end the war right now in 1971, I said that I would go next year without at all being ironic, but I am getting ahead here.

The existence of the draft forced conscientious young men to consider whether the war was justified. This was compounded for me by the sense that the very small taste of the military that I was getting made me think that I was ill-suited for it.  The impression I have gotten from talking to Xavier graduates who did serve was that I may have been a little off there.  Apparently the chicken shit aspects of military life were actually at a higher level at Xavier than in the real military.  If I made it through basic training, there were probably military jobs I would have done OK at. That is neither here nor there, though.

Being anti-war and anti-establishment satisfied my impulses to challenge authority without getting me in any trouble.  One of the ironies of the period was the popularity of the Thoreau quote

If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music which he hears, however measured or far away.

Lots of people were marching to the same different drummer.

Which Side Are You On?

I can't pick the moment when my attitude shifted, but there was one event regardless of how much we noticed it then that was probably most indicative of the great divide.  On May 17, 1968 a group of nine activists broke into the draft board office in Catonsville, MD.  They took 378 draft files and set them of fire with home-made napalm.

The activists were all Catholics.  Among them was a Jesuit from the New York Province - Father Daniel Berrigan.  Father Berrigan's relationship with his superiors in the order was somewhat fractious, but they never threw him out and he never quit.

Through all of this, Dan was fully conscious of being a Jesuit. He was aware it gave him an edge, but an edge that came from the Society's spiritual tradition, especially in the Exercises, and from the responses and respect he got from so many of his brethren. He knew he could be a burden at the institutional level, but that was inevitable. The great moment of course was Pedro Arrupe 's visit to him in Danbury prison. "He knew what nuclear destruc­tion was like ... from Nagasaki ."

That was one of those little details I don't think I learned about until well after my time at Xavier.  Pedro Arupe elected 28th Superior General of the Society of Jesus in 1965 had been in the suburbs of Hiroshima when the atomic bomb fell.

I remember debating the destruction of draft records on the old gym "stairs" (kind of built-in concrete benches around the balcony). We played chess on my miniature magnetic set, a treasured gift from my brother, and talked about the issues of the day or the gossip of the school. One of the kids focused on it being a matter of destroying other peoples property.  My argument was that draft records only served a bad purpose.  I was opposed to the draft not only from an anit-war stand but also on kind of libertarian principles.  The other thing I mentioned was how I had read that draft records were used to persecute homosexuals.  That caused some insulting comments.

Loved That Jacket

I know that I was firmly on the anti-War side by late in my Sophomore year, because of one incident that really sticks in my mind.  One of my favorite articles of clothing in my entire life was my Xavier jacket.  I will never determine the mysterious circumstances under which it vanished some time in the 1990s.  It was pretty ragged by then but then but I kept wearing it somewhat to the chagrin of my family.  The jacket was not part of the uniform.  It was something that one wore when out and about in civilian clothes being true to your school.

The jacket was reversible.  One side was kind of silky light blue with Xavier on the back in maroon cursive.  I never wore that side out.  As I reflect on it, it would have been appropriate if I had belonged to a street gang called the Xaviers. The other side was maroon wool with XAVIER in block light blue letters on the back.  Wearing that jacket I felt like the iconic high school student ready to go have a malt with Archie and Veronica and Betty and Jughead.  Not somebody studying Greek and being taught infantry tactics.

Not being an athlete there would never be a varsity letter to have my mother sew on the jacket, but there was something. Practically over my heart there was sewed my special unit patch - Regimental Supply Corps.  Believe it or not but there is this thing called The Institute of Heraldry responsible for shit like this even for JROTC.  They didn't have the first team on this one.  On a field of gray, black and brown, there were crossed M-14s.  The M-14 was already obsolete and it never became venerable like the M-1 or the 1903 Springfield.  Regardless, I was unaccountably proud of my Supply Corps membership and I thought it was a nice touch.  Keep in mind that I was 16.

A Change In Speakers

I don't know why I was in Central Park that Saturday in late April.  I may have come specifically for that event or it may have been that I had been playing chess and was just following it up with one of my long hikes.  I remember a somewhat obnoxious veteran talking about how ridiculous it was in the Army and that they were required to watch The Gallant Men

One of my favorite show, as it happens, but that was neither here nor there. They hushed him up when the main speaker started.

Originally it was to have been Martin Luther King.  But he had been assassinated earlier in the month.  We had been sent home early due to concerns about civil unrest. Mayor Lindsay was credited with keeping things pretty well under control in New York.  Robert Kennedy's speech is also thought to have been helpful in keeping things calm in Indianapolis.

Things were not so good in many other cities.  According to wikipedia, dozens were killed and thousands injured.  Mayor Daley in Chicago to suppress looting issued a "shoot to kill" order to his PD. When asked about that Lindsay's response was "We don't shoot children in New York City".  Chicago PD would go on to earn some more glory in the upcoming summer.

The Ten Commandments

So the speech was given by Coretta Scott King and included  Martin Luther King's "Ten Commandments on Vietnam"

1.  Thou shalt not believe in a military victory.
2.  Thou shall not believe in a political victory.
3.  Thou shall not believe that they, the Vietnamese love us.
4.  Thou shall not believe that the Saigon government has the support of the people.
5.  Thou shall not believe that the majority of the South Vietnamese look upon the Vietcong as terrorists.
6.  Thou shalt not believe the figures of killed enemies or killed Americans.
7.  Thou shall not believe that the generals know best.
8.  Thou shalt not believe that the enemy's victory means communism.
9.  Thou shall not believe that the world supports the United States.
10. Thou shall not kill.

Yeah, I had to look a lot of this up, but I remember the tenth one like it was yesterday.

I became embarrassed by my patch - the crossed M-14s you know - and even folded my jacket to conceal it.

The Campaign

Senator Eugene McCarthy had challenged Johnson for the nomination in New Hampshire and it didn't take long till I was with him.  In spirit anyway. I think I may have gotten a bumper sticker not that we had a car or anything and definitely a button not that I could wear it on my uniform.  When Robert Kennedy jumped in, I did not switch.  Then there was George Wallace mucking things up with a third party. 1968 was the last time a third party won electoral votes.

On the morning of June 6th, my mother on waking me up told me somebody had been shot.  I knew about that Andy Warhol had just been shot by a radical feminist. But that wasn't it.  It was Robert Kennedy.

My mother made my summer job arrangements again so it was back to Estabrook and Company, but more of a real job rather than an office boy.  I joined the army of "runners" who were a necessary part of a securities system that was still paper based.  Although we were sometimes sent on special missions, the bulk of our duty was to deliver paper stock certificates in the morning and pick up paper checks in the afternoon.  I remember being impressed that NYSE broke the daily volume record set in 1968 - 16 milllion shares.  The back offices were buried in work.

I debated what was going on at the Democratic convention in Chicago with the other  "runners".  More riots as the "Establishment" selected Hubert Humphrey.  Of course, there was generally not a lot of actual running going on.  Most of the guys were pretty old, maybe even older than I am now.  I was designated a "fast man" for the rare occasions when something had to be delivered quickly.

One of the younger guys was a Black Panther, named Fred.  I wish I could recover my conversations with him which were very earnest, but I can't.  I had also landed a  year round every other Saturday job helping Tony Genaro on his bread truck.  On top of that none of the other runners were quite as money hungry as I, so I ended up with a sweet overtime gig.  After the highly trained professional who knew how to run a card punch machine had typed up the days trading, a box of cards had to be carried a couple of blocks to be fed into a reader that transmitted to the home office in Boston. So I got paid to just hang around listening to the clerks trying to get things in balance and reading.  Oh how the money was flowing.

At any rate, it seemed like everybody was pro-war or anti-war. And I was far from the only anti-war cadet that put on the uniform to start Junior year at the still thoroughly military academy on 16th street.

For 1966, the year we first donned uniforms the top pop song for the year had been Ballad of the Green Berets

In September 1968 as we started our third year many of us now corporals, People Got To Be Free was at the top of the charts.

I see now that this will not be the final installment.  There might even be two more.

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Peter J Reilly CPA has been neglecting his tax blog of late.

Being Gay In The Sixties In Antonin Scalia's High School

Many Americans do not want persons who openly engage in homosexual conduct as partners in their business, as scoutmasters for their children, as teachers in their childrens schools, or as boarders in their homes.  They view this as protecting themselves and their families from a lifestyle that they believe is immoral and destructive.

Justice Antonin Scalia (Xavier High School 1953) - dissent in Lawrence v Texas 2003

The mere existence of a Gay-Straight Alliance in a Roman Catholic high school counted as part of the transformation of both secular and religious attitudes toward gays. During the last three academic years, Xavier’s alliance had functioned as a sanctioned school activity, no more or less marginal than the engineering club or the track team. The alliance sponsors activities and events that engage hundreds of the school’s 1,100 students.

New York Times - September 18, 2015

Antonin Scalia when he addressed the Xavier High School JROTC Regiment lamented that military participation had become optional at Xavier.  The Class of 1971, the one after mine, was the last class that had four years of mandatory military participation.  I share Scalia's lament just a bit, but for different reasons, but that is neither here nor there.  This post is something of an interlude in the story sparked by a comment from one of my classmates.

Chagrined as Scalia was about the dimunition of the Regiment I can't help but wonder if he ever learned that Xavier now has a Gay Straight Alliance.  That probably would have made his brain explode.

Sensitive?

In relating an incident from a Military Science class, I mentioned that my classmate Dave Posteraro was a "sensitive kid".  Frankly, I meant this as a compliment, because, the few kids I most identified with, which I have taken to calling the Unclique, united by our devotion to Jean Shepherd, prided ourselves on being insensitive.  A remark to me like "Pete, your father hangs out with a bunch of stiffs" (Because my father was, you know, dead) would just roll off my back.

Dave took it differently.  He thought "sensitive" might be a euphimism for gay. And as it happens, Dave is gay.  Back in the day, it never crossed my mind that any of my classmates were gay.  Being in Manhattan, I was hit on more than my share, I think, but those guys seem to be coming from another universe.

So Dave will be discussing what it was like to be gay at Xavier in the late sixties.  I think it might be helpful by way of context to point some things out about Catholic teaching on sexuality and how that translated to ordinary Catholics on the ground, so I have a lengthy sequel.

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Being Gay At Xavier In The Sixties

by David Posteraro

One of the more peculiar experiences of gay men of my generation is that we had to “pass” or at least thought we were “passing” as straight.  So when I read the adjective “sensitive” I reacted, well, sensitively.  “Was it that obvious?”, I wondered. “Sensitive” is perhaps the kindest euphemism that one might have used in the 1960’s. I guess I was, “sensitive”, that is.

While Americans were fighting in Vietnam I was fighting my own battle between the dictates of my family, church, school on the one hand and, well, my dick, on the other.  The latter won.

I marvel at your vivid memories of Xavier.  Whether indifference at the time or intemperance in the intervening years I have no such memories of ranks, regiments, or routines. My most vivid memory is escaping 16th street, unbuttoning my topcoat, loosening my tie, pushing my hat to the back of my head, lighting a cigarette and walking through the Village.   “What a lark! What a plunge” to quote Mrs. Wolf.  Those are my happiest memories.  Escape from the rigors of the military for which I had no stomach, escape from the always feared exposure of my sordid secret, and into the Village where the poster advertising “The Boys in the Band” gave me  hope that I was not alone.

I suppose what first is to remember that in 1969, sodomy statutes were still on the books in many states and homosexual conduct between consenting adults was illegal. It would remain illegal and punishable as a criminal offense throughout much of my adult life.  That these laws were rarely enforced made them in some ways even more sinister.  In 1986 these laws were re-affirmed as constitutional in the Bowers case and only overturned in 2003.  From the distance of 2016 it seems unthinkable but nonetheless that was the case.

Much is made of the Stonewall riots a few blocks south of our alma mater but at the time (June 1969) they received little press coverage and what coverage there was tended to be sneering. The New York Post’s article carried the title “Queen Bees Are Stinging Mad”.  The Times was less snide but the story remained buried in the back pages.  I was aware of Stonewall but oddly at the time didn’t identify with the protagonists.  A year earlier, however, in 1968 the play “The Boys in the Band” had opened in the Village and I remember reading the reviews and seeing the posters advertising the play in and around the Village.  It was the first time that I thought, at last, there were other people like me in the world even if the descriptions of their lives – “Show me a happy homosexual and I’ll show you a gay corpse” – were anything but hopeful.

That there were other gay cadets (never thought of that but it does have a ring to it I suppose) was certain.  And since that time I have, thanks again to Facebook, reconnected with some of them.  At the time, however, it wasn’t spoken of and if acted upon was not in my experience.  I think some of us found refuge in the “salon” that Miss Salvati maintained in the library office. I forwarded you the memoir that an earlier student wrote about her.  In retrospect she kindly provided what educators today would call a “safe space” for vulnerable teenagers.  That a bunch of teenagers were allowed to debate the relative merits of Maria Callas vs. Renata Tebaldi in the librarian’s office suggests that she, at least, was in on the joke if the rest of us were quietly oblivious. That she later spent much of her time ministering to men with AIDS at St. Vincent’s tells me she had a large group of gay friends some of whom no doubt were alumini of Xavier.

On the other side I remember a firery sermon/talk from Father McGowen on the evils of masturbation one day that was right out of “Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man”.  I remember asking my older brother what he thought of the idea that if one masturbated it would make you go crazy.  He said he thought it was the other way around, that if one didn’t . . .

As I wrote earlier, I wrestled with my own sexuality over the next few years.  I entered the Jesuits along with our Bob Grimes who also had gone to Fordham.  Bob is now the Dean at Fordham Lincoln Center.  He and I used to go to the opera in college but I never thought he was gay.  Others in my novitiate class were.  Pages could be written about the Jesuits and homosexuality.  In an era when being gay was disparaged, and same-sex conduct criminal, the Society of Jesus was a safe retreat for those who were incapable of following the path of heterosexual suburban married life. I don’t say this with disdain.  I’ve known many fine men who were gay and Jesuits.  A vocation appealed to our nobler selves as much if not more than any lesser motives.

I’ve since come to learn that there were many gay bars in and around 16th street but I never was in any of them.

I mentioned Stonewall and much is made in queer history of the importance of Stonewall to the LGBT civil rights movement. I also mentioned “Boys in the Band” but for me, and many of my clannish (as you would say) friends, it was AIDS that changed our lives. Randy Shilts surely was giving a nod to Mark Crowley when he titled his 1987 AIDS memoir “And the Band Played On”.  AIDS made us visible. Literally.

What was it like to be gay at Xavier in the late 60’s?  Lonely.

But as soon as I left 16th street, the Village beckoned and even if I didn’t act on any urges at the time I could see other people like me living openly, outrageously, happily, vividly, and knew, that the light at the end of the tunnel wasn’t an oncoming train.

 I envy the comradery and bravado of your time at Xavier. It seems so funny to me that you have such vivid memories compared to my vague-ish recollections.  Good for you! As I’ve said, when I think of Xavier at all it is of escaping into another world outside those halls. Et in Arcadia ego.

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Afterwords

by Peter J Reilly

I really appreciate Dave sharing his memories.  The transformation in attitudes towards homosexuality in our culture is really kind of breath taking.  Changing views towards racial minoirites and women may seem equally revolutionary, but you can trace those controversies deeply into the nineteenth centrury and before.  You can point to plenty of people calling for racial equality and womens rights in the 1840s, fringe as they might have been.  Gay rights not so much.

At any rate I have added a bit about Catholic teaching on sexuality and how it translated to ordinary Catholics on the ground to provide some more context.

This Is Now

I checked out the current Cathechism and found the teaching is not at all different in its essentials, just in nuance. For example on the subject of masturbation you get.

By masturbation is to be understood the deliberate stimulation of the genital organs in order to derive sexual pleasure. "Both the Magisterium of the Church, in the course of a constant tradition, and the moral sense of the faithful have been in no doubt and have firmly maintained that masturbation is an intrinsically and gravely disordered action.""The deliberate use of the sexual faculty, for whatever reason, outside of marriage is essentially contrary to its purpose." For here sexual pleasure is sought outside of "the sexual relationship which is demanded by the moral order and in which the total meaning of mutual self-giving and human procreation in the context of true love is achieved."

To form an equitable judgment about the subjects' moral responsibility and to guide pastoral action, one must take into account the affective immaturity, force of acquired habit, conditions of anxiety or other psychological or social factors that lessen, if not even reduce to a minimum, moral culpability.

As Father Guido Sarducci puts it - "Masturbation is a cheap sin"

On homosexulaity we have:

Basing itself on Sacred Scripture, which presents homosexual acts as acts of grave depravity,141 tradition has always declared that "homosexual acts are intrinsically disordered."142 They are contrary to the natural law. They close the sexual act to the gift of life. They do not proceed from a genuine affective and sexual complementarity. Under no circumstances can they be approved.

They soften it up just a bit.

 The number of men and women who have deep-seated homosexual tendencies is not negligible. This inclination, which is objectively disordered, constitutes for most of them a trial. They must be accepted with respect, compassion, and sensitivity. Every sign of unjust discrimination in their regard should be avoided. These persons are called to fulfill God's will in their lives and, if they are Christians, to unite to the sacrifice of the Lord's Cross the difficulties they may encounter from their condition.

But not much

 Homosexual persons are called to chastity. By the virtues of self-mastery that teach them inner freedom, at times by the support of disinterested friendship, by prayer and sacramental grace, they can and should gradually and resolutely approach Christian perfection.

Being straight is not exactly a walk in the park either.

 Fornication is carnal union between an unmarried man and an unmarried woman. It is gravely contrary to the dignity of persons and of human sexuality which is naturally ordered to the good of spouses and the generation and education of children. Moreover, it is a grave scandal when there is corruption of the young.

And even when you are married there are challenges

Periodic continence, that is, the methods of birth regulation based on self-observation and the use of infertile periods, is in conformity with the objective criteria of morality. These methods respect the bodies of the spouses, encourage tenderness between them, and favor the education of an authentic freedom. In contrast, "every action which, whether in anticipation of the conjugal act, or in its accomplishment, or in the development of its natural consequences, proposes, whether as an end or as a means, to render procreation impossible" is intrinsically evil.

Some Of It Is Lost In Translation

 The Encyclical Humanae Vitae which made it crystal clear that the recently invented birth control pill would not be a Catholic thing came out during the summer of 1968 making it a big topic in our Junior year theology classes and I could probably use it as a way of illustrating how this all translated to ordinary Catholics.

I have often remarked that the Sergeants were the most colorful members of the Xavier faculty only exceeded by Father Harreis, who had deserted the Wehrmacht after helping occupy Austira and made his way to New York in an adventurous manner.  Rather than teach us German, he regaled us with stories that always started "Ven I vas a young boy in Chermany" and involved things like street fighting with Nazis in Munchen and the like.

None of those guys was the most colorful guy I knew though.  That would be Tony Genaro, whom I worked for on Saturdays as a helper on his bread truck.  He was a character and a half.  One time he decided to try to take advantage of my elite Catholic education to clear something up that was troubling him.  The conversation went something like this.

Tony: Pete, what this thing about the Pope and the Pill.
Me: Well the encyclical Humanae Vitae says that you can't us any artificial methods. The rhythym method is OK, but that's it.
Tony: He didn't mean rubbers did he?
Me: I'm pretty sure rubbers are included in the ban, Tony.
Tony: That's ridiculous.  If you don't use rubbers, every time you have an affair with your wife, she'll get pregnant.

What Is Your CAO Score?

So before you get going on how unCatholic gays are, it might be good to think about the typical American straight male, Catholic or not, and contemplate how many of his orgasms say from Sophomore in high school to qualified for Medicare are Catechism Approved.  It is true that on a percentage base, a typical gay man will score 0 and it is conceivable that somebody like Scalia who fathered nine children might be in the high nineties, but that is probably not very common.  Sorry if this is TMI, but I don't think I would break into double digits.

At any rate, the point of this extensive follow up is to indicate that you didn't have to be gay to have a lot of conflicted feelings about sex in a Catholic high school in the late sixties.  On the other hand, it must have been extra hard.

About Gay Straight Alliances

I kind of wondered a bit about Gay Straight alliances.  I think that my tendency to favor the underdog might have drawn me to such a thing.  I remembered being mocked when in discussions of the draft, I mentioned that one of the objections is that it was used to perecute homosexuals.  As it happens, I knew somebody who had been in a GSA, my son William, who will soon have his degree in Creative Writing and oh how the money will start flowing.  Here is what he had to day.

I don't remember anyone being out in the GSA, so we were more about changing minds rather than outreach. We did a day of silence where we carried around whiteboards to talk with and it was supposed to emulate how a gay person risked themselves if they talked, but everyone took it as kind of funny

Dave On Scalia

I suppose we can close with Dave Posteraro's evaluation of of our most famous Son of Xavier, the late Justice Scalia.

So I suppose some final say on Scalia is in order.  He is, after all, the reason we both started down this path of recollections.

As a lawyer, I found him fascinating although I think “originalism” is hogwash as much as literalism and fundamentalism in biblical  Christianity is pure bunk.  But his dissents, at least, were fun to read.  (In fact he makes much more sense in the Lawrence case than the majority).  But as a gay man,  I think he was an absolute tool.

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David R. Posteraro is an attorney focusing on intellecutal property law.

Peter J Reilly is a CPA who would rather be a writer, but you have to do something to feed your family,

Becoming Part Of The Regiment - 1970 - The Xavier Class Lamented By Antonin Scalia - Part I

But as you know, the tradtion of Xavier as a thoroughly military academy did not survive the antimilitary sentiment of the Vietnam War. I lamented when the school announced that the the Regiment would no longer be compulsory, and I continue to think that was a mistake.

Antonin Scalia (Class of 1953) - Speech to the JROTC Regiment at Xavier High School - May 17. 2011

Scalia At Gettysburg

What ever you might think of the late Justice Antonin Scalia, I have to tell you the guy could give a good speech.  I saw him at the Sesquicentennial of the Gettysburg address in November of 2013, when as part of the ceremonies he swore in sixteen new citzens.  In his speech he mentioned that his father was an immigrant and that his grandmother wanted him to grow up to be President. I thought it odd that he had to mention about the only thing the new citizens would not be eligible for, but nobody seemed to mind.  There was a standing ovation, but, to be fair, it was probably more intended for our new fellow Americans, who had just abjured all allegiance and fidelity to any foreign princes or potentates, than for the Justice.

Scalia Addressing The Regiment

There is another Scalia speech that is even more interesting, to me anyway.  In 2011 he spoke to the JROTC Regiment of Xavier High School - his regiment and mine.  Rather humorously, he led off by recalling his cadet rank - lieutenant colonel, which he took some pride in since his postion in command of the band usually only called for the rank of major.  For whatever it is worth, there was a round of bonus promtions, in my year that caused many seniors to go one rank over what their postion called for and others like me to catch up.

Some Interesting History

One of the things that Scalia alludes to is some history that people now and even back in my day were only dimly aware of.  Referring to the period in the 1890s when particpation in the school's military program became mandatory:

I have no doubt those first Xavier cadets played a small but important role in reinforcing public perception of Catholic loyalty and civic virtue.

Growing up in the metro New York area it was easy to miss that you were living in a Protestant country. Before the 20th century,  Americans fought a war of Independence and something of a redo of that in 1812 and a Civil War of mindblowing magnitude and for centruries contended with the indigenous peoples, but whenever they fought actual foreign countries they were Catholic countries - France, Mexico and Spain.  During the Mexican War, Catholic soldiers for a variety of reasons deserted to the Mexican side and formed the Battalion de San Patricio, still remembered as heroes in Mexico and Ireland.  In the United States not so much.

The special American history books we had in parochial grammar school did not include  much of that history.  We were told about the disproportionate number of Catholics who had died fighting in America's wars and were somehow given the impression that iconic figures like George Washington, Thomas Jefferson and Abraham Lincoln would have been Catholics, if they had just had better educations.

I was more interested in history than most kids and I cound not help but notice that the pre-1776 version of history in our textbooks flew in the face of the common culture, which is something of a Protestant myth. We learned that the Spanish and French, while sometimes mean to the indigenous peoples, were not nealy as mean as the English and that Bloody Mary was much nicer than Good Queen Bess.  Things like the San Patricios and 19th century convent burning were left out.

So the marvelous collaboration between the Society of Jesus and the United States Army in the forming of young Catholic gentlmen that was embodied in the Xavier High School Regiment seemed perfectly consistent.

Joining The Regiment

At least that was the way it looked in September 1966.  The highest rated pop song in 1966 was the Ballad of the Green Berets. By the end of the year, there would be 385,000 American troops in Vietnam. By September enough Americans would have died in Vietnam to fill 10 of the 70 panels on the East Wall of the monument in Washington and I put on my uniform for the first time.

It is very important to note that the school was much more Jesuit than it was military. Operationally, it was probably not that different from St. Peter's Prep, Brooklyn Prep or Fordham Prep.  The big difference from Regis, which Scalia and I both applied to and did not make, was that they were a lot smarter than we were. One of the really magical things about that period was that the most elite high school any of us knew about charged no tuition.

The Xavier tuition at $400 was not insubstantial and then you throw in about $200 for the uniforms and I forget how much for books. They were a real hardship for my mother, but she believed that the "male influence" would be good for me.  My father had died a year before and my brother home after five years of chasing Russian submarines and rescuing astronauts was doing a creditable job, but he would move out before long.  I had formed the notion of going to Xavier from my friend on the block Dave Gallagher, two years ahead of me.  His father, Mr. Gallagher, was very active in the parish and had been my counsellor for the Ad Altare Dei award from the Boy Scouts, which I never quite finished.  Mr. Gallagher had also gone to Xavier.

Start Marching

Freshmen were oriented for a day or two, before school started.  Seniors, who would soon be cadet officers, taught us to stand at atttention and march and about placing brass and gig lines.  Father Dineen, a counsellor type, told us we should realize that those young men were new to authority and should not be too upset by them - a notion lost on my 14 year old mind.

The structure and order of the school was Jesuit and embodied in Father Heavey, the Prefect of Discipline, who struck terror in my heart.  His memory still does. My friend JerrySnee, a year behind me at Xavier, had more exposure to Father Heavey.  Jerry had the peculiar postion of Junior Provost Marsahll, which I won't even try to explain. I told him how even looking back on it, I have trouble, at a gut level, thinking of Father Heavey as just having a job to do.  He indicated that Father Heavey did seem to relish it just a bit too much and that he was a big man who moved very quickly.  The story was that Father Heavey thought more highly of the kids that he had in his office to tune up and was contemptuous of the run of the mill types that he cowed by by his demeanor.

Regardless, the tight structure of the school had a very positive effect in that the teachers who cared to be were quite relaxed and could just coast on the institutional discipline and focus on teaching.

What It Was Like For The Privates

The military as far as freshmen was concered meant wearing the right uniform everyday.  Once a week a couple of cadet officers (all officers were seniors) came into the homeroom to inspect us.  And there was drill. Marching around the armory a few blocks from the school to prepare for a couple of reveiws and parades.  One of the reviews was on Thanksgiving morning as the football team played the big game against Fordham Prep.  It is the oldest high school football rivalry in New York City and having the whole student body out in uniform certainly added to the color.  Although, my friend Tom Burns, when the subject comes up, still bemoans having every family Thanksgiving ruined while he was in high school due to the excessive schlep.

Freshmen were not eligible for promotion.  The deal was that you could pick up two stripes as a sophomore and two more as a junior with the big bonanza of cadet rank coming at the beginning of senior year.  The system changed just a bit as few superior freshmen made PFC.  That rippled upward so that when I was a junior most of the guys I hung with were Sergeants First Class.

The other miltary flavored things were the hall monitors and detention to use more netural terms. Instead of detention we had "jug", a Jesuit high school term derived I read from "jugum" which meant yoke.  At Xavier it took a military turn involving marching around the quadrangle that spearated the two builidings or in inclement weather standing at attention on the seating stairs in the "old gym".  The "old builidng" faced 15th street and the "new building" (which really was pretty new then) faced 16th street as did the church next door, which also served as a parish church.

Hall monitoring was done by "MP"s.  Due to limits in the facilities only half the school could be at lunch or recess at a time.  So it was either Freshmen and Juniors or Sophomores and Seniors, with MPs drawn from the older class and required, I think, to serve one week in three.  Up till my junior year it was an extra random duty assigned to students, as was running jug.  MPs became a special unit when I was a senior, an inherently flawed idea, but more on that later.

Military Memories

At any rate I only have two military memories from my Freshman year.  The one concerns drill.  My memories of drill at the armory are so vague that I cannot even tell you what company I was in or who my company commander or platoon leader were.  I think I was likely in the third or fourth squad of my platoon, possibly due to my height (I was already six feet tall).

What I remember distinctly was an officer who was Asian, pretty uncommon at Xavier, and the seniors who were in the ranks with me who mocked him, in a racist manner.  I remember walking with those seniors and their telling me how the colonel was actually an all right guy and they had gone out with him and even gotten laid (which was a very shocking concept to me).

My interaction with those seniors is indicative perhaps of a flaw in the system that is perhaps not that uncommon.  These guys stood in the ranks with me, because they were, like me, privates.  Their class could not have been very different from mine in regard to the rank compostion of the senior class, which in a particularly inane project I recently analyzed.  In my senior class there were over 220 kids.  The most common rank was first lieutenant. The average rank was a hair below master sergeant.  There were 17 privates - less than 10% of the class.  And those were the seniors along with 28 PFCs who stood in the ranks with the freshmen privates and probably had more influence on them than the cadet officers.  The other thing you need to remember is that the school was in New York City and the kids were not counrty bumpkins, but New Yorkers - bunch of cynical bastards in a goodly percentage, regardless of having been the brightest boys in parochial grammar schools.

Jug

At any rate, my only other freshman military memory is the first time I ever got jug.  It was for being late.  Captain X (the Asian guy) was running jug and he terrified me almost as much as Father Heavey. I think Father Heavey might have showed up too, as it was early in the year. He  had us marching around in the quadrangle.  Father Dineen, the counsellor type, pulled me out and sent me on an errand of some sort.  I was very grateful.

The Faculty

Our teachers were a mixture of Jesuit priests, career lay Catholic high school teachers, young guys who hadn't quite gotten whatever would be the career going and Jesuit scholastics, who were, I think, about half way on their way to becoming Jesuit priests.  Since scholastis, like lay teachers, were addressed as Mister, I'll throw an SJ after their name for clarity.  As Freshmen, we were not exposed to the military science faculty.  There was one active duty officer, the Senior Army Instructor, one or two active duty sergeants and a few retired sergeants.  The latter were the most colorful membersof the faculty with the exception of Father Hareiss, but that is another story entirely.

As fresmen, we did not have military science classes and when not in the gray "summer" uniform wore the schools blue uniform everyday.  Upperclassmen had another uniform issued by the Army that was worn on certain days of the week.  The latter looked enough like an Army uniform that I have this memory of being on the Orange and Black bus one day and having a lady aske me if I was "going back".  I was seventeen.  I could see how it was plausible. Freshmen were part of the Regiment, but not formally enrolled in Junior ROTC therefore not wearing the Army uniform that might cause the uninformed to think they were soldiers - that and them being 14 and all.

The Gold Honor Cord

At any rate, I did well academically.  Our home room teacher in 1-E, Mr. Lux SJ taught us Latin and I got on with him pretty well.  Some kids had a real problem with him. Eddie Kulesza, who lived in Cliffside Park, right next to Fairview, hated the particular day of the week where we did not have Mr. Lux in first period, because it extended the stress through recess.  The mutual fondness that Mr. Lux and I had for one another may have had an unfortunate effect on my future acadmic career but that is a later story.

The "military" implication of my doing well academically was that after the first marking period, the gold cord of first honors became a fixture on my right shoulder.  I have to admit I thought it was kind of cool.

Rumors Of Anti-War

I also don't remember if there was much in the way of anti-war sentiment seeping into my consciousness as 1966 unfolded into 1967,  When I look at a timeline of anti-war activity, the event from the spring of 1967 that I can remember making an impression at the time was Martin Luther King coming out against the war and perhaps there is some of the essence of what made the coming years difficult.

In every conflict, I wanted there to be good guys and bad guys.  I can remember as a kid asking my father and a friend of his how Robert E Lee could be considered a hero.  I don't think the fellows had a really good answer for the budding neo-abolitionist in their midst, but it fed the confusion I experienced when I read in the parochial school history books that the Spanish were the good guys and the English the bad guys and compared that to the TV version of Francis Drake.

In the Civil Rights movement Martin Luther King was the good guys.  I had imbibed a fairly naive unsophisticated anti-racism from my parents and Father McTague, the saint-like curate in our parish that went on to become moderately famous.  So how could Martin Luther King be against the Americans in Vietnam, who were clearly the good guys?  I think at the time I just left it as a confusing detail like Robert E Lee, chief bad guy in the Civil War, somehow being a hero.

It did not take long to get weary of the trouble of dealing with the uniform and it is definitely more fun to watch marching than to, you know, actually march.  So it was clear by the end of Freshman year that I would never be super military, but the unity of values between the Army and the Jesuits remained undisturbed.  And that may well be where to end this part of the story, which will be continued.

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Peter J. Reilly CPA hoped to be an historian, but public accounting has been good to him.