Men for Others

       In 1973 in Valencia Spain, Pedro Arrupe, S.J., the Superior General of the Society of Jesus (Jesuits) stated the following to a group of Jesuit high school alumni: 

Education for justice has become in recent years one of the chief concerns of the Church. Why? Because there is a new awareness in the Church that participation in the promotion of justice and the liberation of the oppressed is a constitutive element of the mission which Our Lord has entrusted to her. Impelled by this awareness, the Church is now engaged in a massive effort to education – or rather to re-educate – herself, her children, and all men and women so that we may all “lead our life in its entirety… in accord with the evangelical principles of personal and social morality to be expressed in a living Christian witness.

 

Today our prime educational objective must be to form men-for-others; men who will live not for themselves but for God and his Christ – for the God-man who lived and died for all the world; men who cannot even conceive of love of God which does not include love for the least of their neighbors; men completely convinced that love of God which does not issue in justice for others is a farce. 

      Although they are Roman Catholic clergy, Jesuit educators and their lay colleagues at Jesuit high schools worldwide would be the first to recognize that, while justice is an integral part of Christian faith, its practice can exist outside that faith.  I, myself, am an alumnus of the University of Detroit High School, a Jesuit high school, who is not a practicing Catholic.  I have aspired, however, to live as a man for others.  I believe my service in the United States Navy was a reflection of that aspiration. 

      The preamble to the Constitution of the United States reads:

 

We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America. 

The people commit to coming together to establish justice, ensure the welfare of all, and protect everyone’s liberty and rights.  People who do these things are men and women for others as defined by Father Arrupe and his Jesuit brethren.  Military personnel who swear an oath to support and defend the Constitution, therefore, are men and women for others as well. 

      This is what makes Donald Trump so objectionable in my view.  He took an oath to preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution which he then violated, by fomenting insurrection, defrauding millions of Americans, egregiously ignoring public health during a pandemic, undermining national security, and subverting the law in numerous ways.  In all of this, he has acted in his own interest and not the country’s.  This is in contrast to President Biden who works for justice every day.  Unlike Trump, President Biden is truly a man for others and it is that quality that makes him fit to be President.