13 minute read
Service to the Church
Ministry as a
Chris Calderone, SOT/Sem ’13, put out a call for cooks during his first semester at Saint John’s University’s School of Theology. The liturgical music student needed a hand preparing homemade pasta for the school’s weekly community lunch. His classmate – Rebecca (Spanier) Calderone, SOT/Sem ’14 – volunteered.
Advertisement
Fourteen pounds of rigatoni, bowtie noodles and linguini later, the two became fast friends — and eventually, partners for life. “A lot of our early relationship focused around community life at the SOT/ Sem,” recalled Chris, who began dating Rebecca during their second semester of graduate school. “Our first date was making pasta for folks at the SOT/Sem for the Feast of Saint Joseph.” Rebecca and Chris kept hosting gettogethers and cooking for classmates as their partnership grew. “Hospitality was something the SOT/ Sem instilled deeply into each of us and into our relationship from the very start,” Rebecca said. The couple married at the Saint John’s Abbey Church in October 2014 surrounded by Collegeville friends and professors. They came back to celebrate their first Valentine’s Day as husband and wife with a classic campus date: a walk to the Stella Maris Chapel and dinner at the Refectory. “We were still paying off graduate school, and Chris had a lot of punches left,” Rebecca said with a laugh. “He brought an electric candle, flower and tablecloth. We definitely got some looks.”
Family Affair
By Jessie Bazan, SOT/Sem ’17
The Calderones continue to come to campus for walks around the Arboretum — now with their two young kids, Ali and James, in tow. The family lives in St. Cloud, where both Rebecca and Chris serve in spiritual care ministry: Rebecca as Director of Pastoral Care for CentraCare Saint Benedict’s Community and Chris as a chaplain with CentraCare Hospice. Each of their jobs entails accompanying patients in the final stages of their lives: listening to stories, consoling family members and leading prayers. “I’m interested to see what impact our ministry has on our kids,” Rebecca said. “Around the dinner table, we talk about death and dying as if it’s the weather.” Ministry is a family affair for the Calderones. Before the pandemic, Rebecca and Chris enjoyed tag-teaming on Sunday liturgies at the senior center. Rebecca planned the service and preached, while Chris played piano and sang. Residents loved getting visits from their adorable toddler, Ali, as an added bonus. They look forward to resuming these traditions post-pandemic. Rebecca and Chris draw on lessons from the SOT/Sem as they navigate ministry in extraordinary times, including virtual visits or more limited in-person interactions. One thing that has not changed is their calling to listen deeply to the needs of the most vulnerable.
“The SOT/Sem prepared me for listening with the ear of the heart, a Benedictine value which was instilled in the classroom and spirit of the community at Saint John’s,” Chris said. “That prepared me as a chaplain to be exposed to a diverse population with diverse beliefs and experiences.” The Calderones keep this spirit of community alive among fellow alumni, too. Rebecca served as the first cochair of the SOT/Sem Alumni Council when the group formed in 2018. Chris stepped into that role in 2020. Under their leadership, the council hosts happy hours, reunion prayer services and conversations with favorite faculty. “I hope the council continues to create a foundation to support current students, help prospective students see what you can do with a degree in Theology, and continue the sense of community among alumni at the SOT/Sem,” Rebecca said.
Added Chris: “Community is what people feel is so special about this place.” Jessie Bazan, M.Div., SOT/Sem ’17, helps Christians explore vocation and calling in her work with the Collegeville Institute. She is editor and co-author of Dear Joan Chittister: Conversations with Women in the Church (Twenty-Third Publications, 2019).
SOCIAL JUSTICE WARRIOR
Eric LeCompte’s Faith Helps Spark a Worldwide Jubilee
By Dave DeLand
The text of the Alumni Achievement Award that Saint John’s University presented to Eric LeCompte in 2019 began with this: It’s an apt descriptor of a dedicated Johnnie doing vital humanitarian work, domestically and around the world. What could be more important? According to LeCompte’s friends, colleagues and world leaders ranging from presidents to the Pope, absolutely nothing. “He’s a Catholic social justice warrior, an intellectual and a policy activist,” said Matt Lindstrom ’92, SJU/CSB Political Science Professor and Director of the McCarthy Center for Public Policy & Civic Engagement. “He’s trying desperately to take the energy out of a tidal wave and reuse it and reshape it,” said Richard Bresnahan ’76, SJU’s Artist-In-Residence and LeCompte’s former teacher and personal friend. “I do what I do and try to be who I am because of my faith,” said LeCompte, the Executive Director of Jubilee USA – a coalition of communities of faith that works for reform to the international finance system in order to reduce poverty. “Whatever I’m trying to do is follow my understanding of the life God calls us to, and along with that have as much impact as I possibly can.” That work entails advocating and lobbying at the highest levels of government and finance to address an array of the world’s problems – thirdworld debt, trade, economic policies, environmental issues, worker rights, human trafficking, corruption. “My work with Jubilee over the last 10 years is looking at the intersection of having certain faith-based values and how they intersect,” LeCompte said, “not only with an economic system, but with our society and with economic decisions that often we don’t understand but that impact our lives almost as much as the oxygen we breathe.”
The Roots of Jubilee
Since 2010, LeCompte’s work has been through Jubilee USA, an organization
based on a Biblical concept that advocates for everyone having enough, and no one having too much. “My intersection in this world is between what our faith calls us to, what our teaching calls us to and also what it means in terms of global political decisions that are being made right now – whether they’re being made at the White House, Congress or the G-20,” said LeCompte, who previously served as National Council Chair of Pax Christi USA and worked with the School of the Americas Watch, the Catholic Worker movement and the Fellowship of Reconciliation. Of the world’s 180-plus countries, 110 are getting emergency aid from the International Monetary Fund. The planet’s poor are drowning in governmental debt. “There’s the adage that debt means death. That’s been happening for decades,” LeCompte said. “He’s been in the trenches in terms of policy making, the executive branch regulatory world and international trade agreements,” said Lindstrom, who sends several SJU/CSB interns to work with LeCompte every summer at the Washington, D.C. Summer Study Program. LeCompte and his organization work with and advise both religious and elected leaders, advocating for policy changes and working across the political spectrum. “Congressional Quarterly cites us as the last-standing bipartisan coalition in Washington because we are able to pool the voices and resources of mainstream faith communities,” LeCompte said. “It’s meant that for many of the things we work on, we’ve been able to bring Republicans and Democrats together.” Some of his most recent priorities have included working with President Joe Biden’s transition team and advising incoming Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen on economic issues.
“We were asked to create a timeline of our recommendations for things that need to happen to make some real changes in the global financial system,” LeCompte said, “things that put Main Street before Wall Street.”
That advocacy can have a major impact, and its roots sprouted in Collegeville.
Eric LeCompte has met with Pope Francis on multiple occasions, most recently in February 2020 at a Jubilee Economics conference at the Vatican that included an array of world economic leaders.
The Path to Saint John’s
LeCompte grew up in Oak Lawn, a suburb on the south side of Chicago where his grandparents first connected to Saint John’s monks through the Catholic Family Life Movement that began in the 1940s. “Whenever the monks would come to Chicago, they would stay at my grandparents’ house,” LeCompte said. “My grandparents knew how to throw a really good party when the monks came.” A pivotal moment in the evolution of his faith came at age 5, when LeCompte examined a crucifix inside his home parish – St. Linus Parish in Oak Lawn. “It kind of shook me,” he said. “My parents came up behind me, seeing what I was looking at – this image of failure, of terror, of suffering. “My dad said, ‘That’s Jesus Christ, the son of God. And we’re all children of God.’ And I remember thinking, ‘If that’s what happens to the children of God, I want no part of it.’ Looking up at that crucifix, that didn’t make much sense to me in terms of why we came
here every Sunday and sang happy songs. “For me, in a lot of ways, that’s been my journey,” LeCompte said. “If we are all the children of God, what does it mean when we’re suffering and people are dealing with such terror and failure? Part of following that understanding of faith is to be able to lift anyone who is suffering.” That became his inspiration and mission. After high school, LeCompte spent a year and a half at a Catholic Worker house in upstate New York before applying to Saint John’s University. “I wasn’t sure that I wanted to go to college, and I really felt this calling to be with the poor and folks that were struggling,” LeCompte said. “Then I came here.
“This is a very special place. Saint John’s and Saint Ben’s are unique in terms of that community-supported feel.” At Saint John’s, LeCompte and five other Johnnies founded a Jubilee community, and he was hired to organize the national assembly for Pax Christi, the national Catholic peace movement. His focus on an interfaith movement to make changes in the worldwide economic system flourished and evolved in conjunction with individuals on campus advocating for the same changes. “Being in this environment where there were a lot of people struggling with these ideas during this important time, as well as having access to the monastic communities, was really critical for me,” he said. “This was the only place that I could have come that really helped form me in terms of following my faith and having that impact.”
LeCompte participates in a press conference with Jubilee USA and Puerto Rican religious leaders in San Juan, P.R., during summer 2019 at the Basilica of Saint John the Baptist, the oldest Catholic church in the western hemisphere.
Joy Attacks
LeCompte became Executive Director of Jubilee USA in 2010 and is passionate about making an impact worldwide. “I see what I’m a part of as something that’s big, much bigger than myself,” he said. “Getting a piece of legislation passed at Congress or a new policy from the G-20, like the one we just won that affects hundreds of millions of people – that doesn’t happen just by having your viewpoints quoted in a newspaper.” Jubilee was instrumental in securing debt relief, child poverty reduction and anti-corruption measures for Puerto Rico in 2016, successfully lobbying for passage of the only bipartisan piece of legislation to clear the 2016 Congress. LeCompte’s testimony to Congress and briefings of Puerto Rico’s governor, religious leaders and other decisionmakers laid the basis for multiple financial reforms on the island.
LeCompte’s views appear regularly in mainstream and religious media, and he writes on Jubilee economic issues for publications like Barron’s and The Hill. He advises the Holy See, the Vatican’s jurisdiction for maintaining diplomatic relations with countries, and has met with Pope Francis on multiple occasions – including a February 2020 meeting with world leaders on global Jubilee policies. During a 2014 audience with Vatican Secretary of State Cardinal Pietro Parolin, LeCompte was formally received by the Swiss Guard and toured the Apostolic Palace. “It’s one of those experiences I won’t ever forget,” he said. LeCompte spent fall 2020 living in
LeCompte’s views on finance, politics and religion are called upon by a variety of worldwide media sources. He also advises the Holy See and writes on Jubilee economic issues for a variety of national and international publications.
Flynntown with his wife Kate and kids Jonah (18), Hannah (13) and Jeremiah (9) as a Resident Scholar at the Collegeville Institute for Ecumenical Research, doing research on economic policies. His presentation titled Finding Virgil Michael is named after the famed Benedictine monk.
He also renewed his Saint John’s and Midwestern roots.
“Over the last 20 years when I’ve been doing advocacy in Washington, D.C., it’s been clear to me time and time again that people making decisions in Washington don’t have much of a sense of what’s happening with farmers and working-class folks in rural Minnesota,” LeCompte said. “I think that’s ultimately how we got to this point.” Wherever he is at, however, Saint John’s is often on his mind – sometimes prompting what LeCompte calls “joy attacks.”
“I don’t think it can be separated from being at Saint John’s,” he said. “That’s an important, continuing part of my journey. Everything that we’re talking about comes down to much of the thinking and vision of the monastic communities that are here.
“Sometimes, that joy attack comes from my closest relations with the people that I engaged with here.”
The Road Ahead
Working to improve the lives of desperate people around the world remains central to LeCompte’s mission. “Certainly, there are moments where we all feel the enormity of the challenges that we face, that our planet faces. But I rarely feel despair,” LeCompte said. “I’m highly motivated by what we’re doing and why it’s important. I certainly do feel joy when we win policies, because of the impact. I let myself have joy attacks quite often when things move forward.” That commitment is apparent, every day and in every way. The challenge is enormous. LeCompte is advancing three key components with world leaders for a global Jubilee: • Put in place tools to deal with the current worldwide economic crisis, centering on an international bankruptcy process or financial crisis resolution process. • Release global reserve funds known as special drawing rights to help more than 110 developing countries suffering from extreme financial crisis, which also would help boost U.S. imports and exports. • Revise trade, tax and anti-corruption policies that favor the extremely wealthy and penalize working people.
Shifting these policies would increase development, enhance labor rights and secure environmental protections while increasing jobs and labor standards, in the U.S. and abroad.
“I’m optimistic,” LeCompte said. “We have a window that could be three to five years right now to actually change the financial system entirely, to create a financial system where people are put first and all needs are met and our planet is protected.” The same Alumni Achievement Award that begins by lauding LeCompte’s humanitarian efforts ends like this:
“As one nomination read, LeCompte ‘truly cares about what he does and brings these serious issues to light in the hope that the rest of the world will follow his lead’.” That also seems like a fitting description. “It’s a very kind one,” LeCompte said with a smile. “I hope that my tombstone in some way says, ‘Tried to follow my faith and leave things better than what they were.’ “We’re working in a strategic way and lifting our voices very strategically so that we can fulfill that Jubilee promise, so that we can get back in line with that vision where we’re all protected – from having too much or not enough.” Dave DeLand is Saint John’s Executive Director of Marketing & Communication and an award-winning writer.
