2024 Faculty Recognition

0:06On behalf of the entire university community, I extend our heartfelt gratitude to doctor Scrofani for his years of dedicated service, prudent leadership, and fidelity to God's plan and the mission of DMU. Thank you very much, father Charles. Monsignor Shea, father Charles, our president. Families of the graduates of 2024, my own family who's here today, and most of all, the graduates of 2024. Today, I have the distinct honor of saying a few words at the wonderful occasion of your commencement and also the occasion of my retirement after 52 as a clinical psychologist. The best of the years were the last twenty here at DMU. Commensions are about the beginning of something, the beginning of your careers.

1:07Retirements are about the ending of a career. Something begins, something ends. But if you look at it, they're actually two sides of the same coin. Every beginning implies that something else is ending, and every ending means that there's something new yet to come. As Christians, we see the world as a series of commencements. And even at the end of life, there's still a very grand commencement yet to come to spend eternity with the Lord. What a beautiful way to see the world. I today would like a few minutes, maybe a few more than just a few minutes, to say some things, that I hope would be memorable to you. I would like to reverse the formula and talk about some of my own beginnings and how I got to where I am as I stand here today.

2:08And, hopefully, plant some seeds for your commencement. So if you'll please bear with me. I was born in nineteen forties at the beginning of the World War two. It was a dark time in history. The world was at war. People wouldn't be sure how that would come out. My parents had been immigrants from Southern Italy, a very poor part of Italy. They came with, just a few years of education. They only had about three years of elementary school education. And in those days, it was the custom to pull young people out of school and start them in the trades. So even as a child, my mother was began as a seamstress, my dad is a cobbler. And they came through Ellis Island. Everyone knows stories like that.

3:02And they worked in the heavy industries in America. And they settled in the middle of a large city, which in those days was referred to as a little Italy. We lived in a basement apartment next to these huge furnaces that heated the whole apartment. And they had very very little to give us as you might imagine. But the one thing that they could give us of great value was our faith. They had a fervent belief that if we carried our faith with us, then anything in our lives, the good times but also the hard times, would somehow make sense. And they were right. That was a great way to get launched. Somehow, they they found the means to send us to this little Catholic school at the edge of the inner city in those days.

3:51The whole city was divided up into fiefdoms. There's Italians and Irish people and African American people and Jewish people and Portuguese people, everything you can think of. And they all went to work at the end of the day together, even though they lived in separate sectors, doing what we would call today the menial jobs. And at this Catholic school, these these offspring to these very poor people got the very, very best education that money could buy. We had this order of young nuns that were, of Irish descent, actually, teaching these young Italian kids and Irish kids and African American kids Really, the best of elementary school education you could imagine in that place in that time.

4:40We also had young priests coming back from World War two. I'd been chaplains and seen a great deal. And so it was a phenomena. It was something I'm not sure exists anywhere in the world today. But to us, it was a godsend and the proof of that was that through the kindness and the encouragement of these young nuns, many of us wound up in universities. Now if you're an inner city kid, the best you could do was go to a university that was local and you could day hop to. It would take us, oh, about an hour and a half on city buses to go way out into the suburbs. I went to a place called Seton Hall University. And in those days, the universities, the Catholic universities were top universities. They were hard to get into and difficult to get through.

5:30And you had to minor in philosophy and theology besides your major. So that the end of my fourth year, I was a Thomist. I saw the world through the end lenses of Saint Augustine and Saint Thomas Aquinas. And that was important then because we had seen the darkness of the world and their way of seeing the world brought light and it brought hope. And the way they saw the human person brought the greatest amount of hope that every person, no matter their circumstances, was made in the image and likeness of God. And so that's who we were and that's what our lens was. My big problem in those days was finding the tuition to get through school. It may not seem much to anyone today, but it was about $1,000 a year to get through university.

6:27And my parents combined, earnings was about 3,000 a year, so there was no way they could help us very much. So at the end of my first year, I had saved enough money to finish call, my first year of college, but I was completely out of money. And the best you could do in those days was get kind of a heavy labor job, a manual labor. And my other five friends who were at university with me all got hired, but they wouldn't hire me for obvious reasons why in manual labor would you hire a person without two fully developed hands when they you could hire someone with two hands. So there I was and I was stuck. How would I go on? How could I possibly go on? And I remember sitting in front of my house, kind of puzzling this out.

7:19I wasn't bitter because that's just the way life was. There was no such thing as entitlement in those days. Rather, there was gratitude. You were glad if you got anything. And I was puzzling and kind of discouraged, and along came a man that I had barely known. He lived at the end of our block, and his name was Salveen Pordi. And he stopped in front of me and he said, hey Phil, I hear you finished your first year at university. And I said, yeah, I did very well. He said, well are you going on? I said, I think not. I just can't seem to find a job. And he said, really? And he mentioned all the establishments that had turned me down and I just kind of blew it off and said they were all filled.

8:02He walked him out 15 more steps and then he turned around. And people were very frank in those days. There there was no such thing as, microaggressions. You said what was on your mind. And he said, let me ask you something. Do you think you can unload steel off the back of trucks with that hand of yours? They said I could. Excuse me. And, he took me out. I'm sorry. Didn't expect this. He took me out to, a place called Otis Elevator Factory, and he said, we're allowed to bring each bring a son or a daughter to do the heavy lifting because the old timers don't like to unload the trucks. And he put me to work, and for the first time in my life, I was working harder than I could ever work unloading steel off the back of trucks.

8:56I couldn't have been happier because, he did that every summer until I finally graduated. So think about that. Parents, they give you far more than they ever dreamed of for themselves. Nuns who gave you the highest education you could imagine, asking very little in return, and a random guy who passes by one day and gives you what you need for a college education. And suddenly, it came alive to me what Saint Thomas was talking about. That was that goodness that was buried inside of people that wasn't some abstract philosophical idea. It was something that was manifested in the action of people. A goodness that came out randomly that was often overlooked. We all see so many bad things that are publicized about people, and sometimes we just pass by these simple good things that we do for one another.

10:01That's that philosophy. Well, at the end of my college career, I thought it was going to law school, but Salgam Porti had moved on and there was no way I could afford law school. So I saw a bulletin, and it was an advertisement for young college students to work in an inpatient unit for adolescent psychiatric patients. And I didn't know much about psychology, but I knew I could do that standing on my head. So I went out there and in three years I mean, three weeks, I should say, I had found my calling. This is something I could do. And fortunately, in those days, they needed graduate students in psychology, so you could get assistantships and traineeships and so forth. And I managed now to get into the science of psychology.

10:50So let me go on. In psychology, I suddenly was taught by these more secularized professors that philosophy and theology was a thing of the past. That was medieval thinking. Now you're going to introduced into the world of science. Well, psychology is a wonderful science. It opens up a whole new epistemology for you and many, many ways to help people as you well know. And so I kind of lost for a while my vision of a Thomistic view of the world. And I now looked at an empirical view of the world. That all held up until my last year, and then something happened. My last year, I was looking for my final intern externship. Sound familiar to both of you? In those days, it was a buyer's market, so the externship you got became the the internship you eventually get.

11:45And I had looked down there on this long list and I had a lot of attractive offers. But the last and considered the least attractive offer was a place right here in Washington called Saint Elizabeth's Hospital. Some of you may have heard of it. And it was once the most famous hospital in the country. It was started in the eighteen fifties. It had a year a hundred years of success and innovation and discovery. But in the nineteen fifties, it became neglected and fell in disrepair. But then there was the war on poverty and they poured all of this money into these underserved areas. And they kind of resurrected this enormous campus. It was larger than most universities that you could find. And suddenly, once again, it had these beautiful lawns and flower beds and fruit trees and berry bushes, everything you could imagine.

12:43But when I stepped on the campus to take the interview, I kind of had the shock of my life. I looked around and I saw some of the most psychotic, most confused, most forlorn, and seemingly unwanted people on the face of the earth. They were wandering around on these grounds. And I remember being shocked at first, but I also kind of felt touched. I had been thinking of going into the Peace Corps to give all of the good fortune that I had had in my life, to give it back in some way. But when I saw these people, something told me maybe the Peace Corps is right here. Maybe something is needed right here. So I stayed. It was a blessing. And my internship, I, like most interns, it was one of the largest internships in the country at the time.

13:35Most interns would pursue the high functioning patients. The ones that were poor were easy to treat, and so you could apply your method, apply your craft, and see results. And I did that, but then what about these other people that were wandering around that didn't seem to get much care at all? And I remember talking to some of the seasoned psychiatrists and they said, well, they're untreatable. They have no insight. You can't do psychotherapy with them. And that's when I realized for the first time that this wonderful discipline of clinical psychology was also quite incomplete. There was something missing. And the thing that was missing was what Saint Thomas was talking about, that in every one of these human beings, there was a core of goodness and dignity that could not be eradicated.

14:27And I felt all you had to do is find it. Well, I'll tell you one quick illustration and then I won't throw on to throw on for too much longer. I would see during the day the high functioning patients so I could learn. And then in the evening, I got permission to sit with some of these so called chronic people. And sometimes something would happen, but sometimes you'd see something that kind of surprised you. It was one person, let's just call him Nick. He was a floridly psychotic young man, excuse me, who could barely make a coherent sentence. He was very anxious. He squirmed in his chair. He was hallucinating. And but I sat with him patiently. And one day, I was walking through across this beautiful campus and he did something that caught my eye.

15:26He had a container and he was going around to the fruit trees and the berry bushes and picking the berries and fruits and putting it in this container. And then he got a hose and he washed them all off. And then he picked some flowers out of the flower bed, which you weren't supposed to do, but he did anyway. And he put them in his container. And of all the 27 buildings that he could have chose, he goes to the most forgotten building on the campus. And it was a little cottage for elderly women, very poor and quite demented, that were warehoused in this cottage. And on a nice day, they would sit them out in the front to get some air and just leave them there vegetating, not doing very much. And he took his container with the flowers and the fruit, and he gave it to these women, and they would light up.

16:18And then he walked away. And I remember seeing that and saying, fancy that. Never imagined that he would ever do that. Several times later, I was passing by and a woman had fallen from that cottage again. And I started started over there, of course, people didn't notice that she had fallen. And he sort of beat me to the punch and he picks this woman up as gently as you would pick up your own grandmother, and he escorts her into this cottage. And then he talks to the nurse, tells her what happens, and he leaves. And I went, well So that night when I saw him after seeing all of my other patients, I pushed all of my incomplete psychology, so to speak, aside and said, let me just meet him where he's at.

17:06And I just looked at him and I said one thing, today I saw you pick up that woman and very kindly bring her into the cottage, and I stopped. And for the first time, he completely composed himself. He looked as sane as anyone in this room. He looked at me with a serious face and as lucid as the day is long, as clear and as rational as anyone in this room, he said, do you realize that they desperately need a great deal of help? And it just knocked my socks off. And in that moment, I saw a glimpse behind this blizzard of psychopathology. I saw a glimpse glimpse of that newness, that goodness, that dignity come through. Well, when you notice something good about someone, somehow they kind of pick up without a word being said that you saw something in them, and they kind of see it themselves.

18:06And I think in that moment, Nick saw it in himself, and he smiled at me. And all of a sudden, it was like a spark. A relationship was formed. We had made contact, and now I could bring in all of my psychology, and I was ready to treat. Well, I'm not gonna tell you that I cured schizophrenia. That's impossible. But what I can tell you is I helped this man have a better life. Thirty two years later, after a full career on that campus, my good friend, William Nordling, called me, and I knew he what he was up to. He and a handful of psychologists had started the Institute for Psychological Sciences. There's about a handful, it's doctor Nordling, doctor Sweeney, doctor Klowicki was there, doctor Palmer, and doctor Muncher.

18:58And they were doing the best they can to hold this place together with rubber bands, you see. They had no funds. And he said, well, come on out. It would be low pressure and you could just teach, some students and you could supervise, and I thought that was a good idea. Well, doctor Nordling is he's just about my best friend and he's a wonderful, generous person. But he has one quality, he can sell snowballs to people in Alaska during the winter. And so I get to this place, and suddenly I'm steeped with twice the work that I have to pay. But you really couldn't complain because everybody was doing the same thing. We're trying to really realize the dictum of John Paul the second, that a good psychology is a psychology that's built on a Catholic conception of the person.

19:51And so we were trying to paste that together with people like doctor Vicks and some some, theologians like doctor Titus and doing it very imperfectly. Thank heavens for the legionaries of Christ, because if we didn't have the legionaries of Christ, we never would have survived these fine priests that would sponsor us and somehow get the funds to keep us going. It was father Gil at first and then father John Hopkins, if you've ever met him. And then finally, father Charles, who I can honestly say, and I've said this many times, he is a rock upon which this university has been built. It wouldn't have existed if he didn't stay with us in all these years. But anyway, to cut to the chase after fifteen years and getting a great deal from the students themselves, I don't think the so called Catholic Christian meta model of the person would have ever developed if we didn't get feedback from each cohort of students to make us better and better and better.

20:54And even our students today have given us many contributions with dissertations. And now we have the meta model. It's the volume one of the Catholic Christian model of the person, edited by doctor Vitz, doctor Nordling, and doctor Titus. That we bequeath to you. We give that to you with strings attached, at least from my point of view. I think it has to go further. I think it's still developing. I think the next phase is to begin to write about the true application of this wonderful thinking and the practice of psycho, psycho psych psychology, counseling, even spiritual direction. And so I commission you to go forward and do that, invest of your ability, each in your own way. Let me finish with this.

21:52In in time, as you go through your careers, most of us will have been forgotten. I dare say by the end of our your career, we will no longer resist in the mind of any living person. And I believe, because I think you will be greater than us, I believe you will be greater than us. I think you'll pass it on to more generations. But at the end of your career, you will have disappeared from the consciousness of any living person. They say that no person is remembered beyond two generations after their existence. Most of us remember our grandparents. Very few people can say very much about their great grandparents. That's not what's important. What's important is that the mission goes on, because we live in a culture that desperately needs this mission.

22:44One final word. As you go on in your profession, in a few weeks, probably less, you'll see a person who approaches you, and they'll be asking for help. Try something kind of like I did with Nick. Put, just for a moment, put your psychology aside, and just meet them where they're at. And with a little bit of luck, you may just see their goodness shine through in spite of all their worry. And when you do realize that you've just received grace, and when you contemplate it, you will see Christ. You will see Christ. Ladies and gentlemen, these are the best graduates in the entire country. They are just as confident as any other mental health graduates in our country. But they're great because they put Christ at the center of their work.

23:44God bless 2023.