Interview with Father Charles Currie

Father Charles Currie has been the president of the Association of Jesuit Colleges and Universities since 1997. He began his academic career teaching and doing research in chemistry at Georgetown University in 1966. He served as president of several higher education institutions and directed Georgetown University's Bicentennial celebration. I interviewed him during my last week in DC.

What were you doing when you were 21?
I was just beginning the training to be a Jesuit. This was in 1951 so it was a very different world, a very different church. It was a great experience. We had 42 novices in my class; today we’re lucky if we get four or five.

What are your thoughts on the relationship between science and religion?
When I got to St. Joe’s in Philadelphia I had a fascinating 6 years teaching a course in science and theology. And that’s a very interesting field today. It used to be that you would get some theologians trying to do some science or scientists trying to do some theology but there’s a lot more people who have been trained today in both so the quality of conversation and discussion is much better.

Who has been the most influential person in your life and why?
There are a lot of people: Father Tim Healy was a young Jesuit when I was studying in Fordham New York. It was in his room one night that I made my decision to be a priest and I later worked with him at Georgetown where he was President. Of course my parents; they’re both very special people. I attribute any intelligence I have with dealing with women to the relationship I had with my sister. We had a great relationship and I thought that was very formative.

What do you value most in life?
My faith: I think sometimes we take that for granted. It came home to me very graphically once when I was trying to help a woman dying in a hospital. She not only didn’t have any family but she didn’t have any faith and she was desperate and that made me realize how lucky I was to have a faith that puts things together and that personal relationship with God, with Christ.

How did you get to where you are today?
I don’t know how to answer that one except a lot of things were kind of accidental. I guess the first key decision was to become a Jesuit and then the kind of work I got involved in as a Jesuit: higher education. That certainly puts you on a certain path.

What are the main aims of your association?
I see our role as representing the 26 Jesuit higher education institutions to the Church, the Society of Jesus, the other higher education associations, Congress, the Administration. But the role that I think is even more important is promoting collaboration and we do a lot of that.

How do you balance liturgical life with the demands of your job?
Some folks feel that in an administrative role such as this that a priest has to put aside his priesthood. I think that’s nonsense. I don’t think a day has gone by in my role in this job that I haven’t been called on to do something pastoral.

What’s your favourite place in Washington?
I’ve been in Washington over 25 years. I think you have to be inspired by three obvious memorials of Washington, Jefferson and Lincoln. The Holocaust Museum is a very profound human experience. There’s so much cultural life in this city. Washington is my favourite city because there’s so much here.

How did you get involved with the situation in El Salvador?
I knew nothing about El Salvador until I was coming back from Vietnam. The President of Georgetown told me six Jesuits and their two co-workers had just been killed in El Salvador and I organized Georgetown’s response to this. So I had an intensive crash course in El Salvador and Central America and I was privileged to go down there just a couple weeks after the Jesuit’s were killed. That was a very moving time. It’s very much a part of my life now. You know once you get involved with El Salvador you don’t leave. Dean Bradley, a great Jesuit down there – he was one of the ones who took the place of those who were killed, always says the Salvadors will break your heart and then they’ll help you put it back together again.

What advice would you give a young university graduate?
Keep a sense of hope in your power to make a difference. The purpose of education is to develop your imagination; with your imagination you create options for yourself; with those options you have a sense of hope. If you have that imagination then you have the tools to really make a difference in the world.