Father Ronald Gliatta
Headmaster Tom Sheehy and Betsey
The famous Rod Clarke
Louise and Dan McKeon
Winners of Awards
Members of the Class of 1993
Ladies and Gentlemen: --
I could hardly sleep a wink last night...I thought it would never stop raining...
But look out the window now.
What a glorious day just in time for our Graduation Parade and Ceremonies.
For members of the Class of 1993, for your parents, for your teachers, for your brothers and sisters, and friends, this is a day none of you will ever forget. Congratulations to all of you. And thank you also for letting me talk to you. I hope we end up as friends!
You are graduating at a time when the need for Canterbury graduates has never been greater, when our country needs Canterbury graduates more than ever in American history, when, in truth, the world needs Canterbury graduates.
Do you remember that President George Bush said several times that we need “the vision thing”, as he called it? Have you read the newspaper articles about Hillary Clinton reading Rheinold Niebuhr and the great modern philosophers searching for a theory of life or meaning for human existence?
The President of Germany said the same thing recently. So did the President of Poland. Everyone, it seems, everywhere is searching...searching as the French say, for a raison d’etre, a reason for being, a reason for living, a reason for life..."the vision thing”...as George Bush said.
You graduates of Canterbury already have that meaning, that reason for living, that goal for existence, that vision. You have received it from your religion, from your training and belief in God’s goodness and His interest in you.
In my family, extraordinary things have been happening. Maybe similar unusual things have been happing in yours. Maybe “the vision thing” is beginning to become clear and specific.
Last week I was in Greece with my wife. Eunice is her name. We were in Athens because the world famous Onassis Foundation invited us. That foundation was giving its famous Awards -- like the Nobel Prizes –- to four people: Vaclav Havel, the President of the Czech Republic (formerly Czecholsovakia); to Maurice Strong, President of the World Environmental Movement; to Peter Brooke, the great English theatrical producer; and to my wife, Eunice. Why my wife? Because my wife is the Founder, or Inventor, of Special Olympics...a private, volunteer program for persons with mental retardation which now operates in 110 countries on every continent. Some Canterbury students work in Special Olympics. So you know about the work it performs for persons with mental retardation.
I talk about this today not only because Eunice is my wife. She is also only the third woman ever to win a $100,000 Onassis Prize. She is also a superbly successful mother of five children and the wife of a busy, demanding, self-centered man -- me.
Now hear this:
My wife, a Sacred Heart girl, similar to every one of you girls graduating today, is a marvelous wife, mother, and public servant. She’s a model of what every Catholic woman can be, provided she firmly believes in God, prays to the Blessed Mother for guidance and inspiration, cares for her children personally, and uses her brains!!!
My wife started Special Olympics in the back yard area of a farm we lived on in Maryland outside of Washington. She invented Special Olympics because she could not believe that God would create hundreds of thousands, even millions and millions of children with mental retardation and condemn them to life in institutions, isolated, alone, useless and worthless to their families and to humanity.
In the history of the human race -- in ancient China, Egypt, India, in prehistoric Africa, in South America or the Pacific Islands, no one had ever invented a way to humanize mentally handicapped people, fully prepare them for sports and for jobs and for marriage, until this Catholic woman, my wife, invented Special Olympics. As of today, 1,000,000 athletes have been registered in Special Olympics. 500,000 Volunteers work in the program. Fidel Castro in Cuba loves Special Olympics. Gorbachev and Yeltsin, Lech Walesa, Vaclav Havel and the Queen of England love the program, and so do Ronald Reagan, George Bush, and Bill Clinton.
I am not saying that every Catholic girl graduating from Canterbury can originate a program like Special Olympics, world-wide. Nor am I saying that every Canterbury boy can be as lucky as I have been.
I went straight from editor of the Tabard to Editor-In-Chief of the Yale Daily News. Neither The Tabard or The News are influential, or world-wide like Special Olympics. But the “Head Start” program which I originated has become big and famous in our country. And so has The Job Corps and VISTA, and Foster Grandparents, and Legal Services for the Poor, and Health Services for the Poor... and the Peace Corps. 150,000 Volunteers have served in The Peace Corps. They must volunteer. They get less pay than a private in the Army. Yet 14 of them now serve in the U.S. Senate and in the House...a larger number than the graduates of Harvard or Yale or Stanford or Chicago or any other University.
So, a young Catholic woman educated by Sacred Heart nuns, and a young Canterbury graduate educated by Nelson Hume, Phil Brodie, Joe Maloney and Eddie Mack got married. They were blessed with five children. One is Assistant Superintendent of Schools in New Haven. In 1995, he will supervise as President the World-Wide Summer Special Olympics Games: -- 7,000 athletes from 120 countries; 500,000 Visitors from every state and a hundred foreign countries, plus 50,000 volunteers from Yale, the University of Connecticut, from Bridgeport, New London, Waterbury, and, from Canterbury:
Another has raised $20,000,000 for Special Olympics; another has started “Best Buddies” on 150 college campuses in the USA and in Europe. Another is a Sacred Heart girl and Georgetown Graduate, named Maria. Maria has two children under four years of age and a third child due in September. She “stars” on her own, national TV show, manages two beautiful homes, and keeps her husband happy...which is not easy to do when your husband is a movie “star” himself and strong as Arnold Schwarzenegger.
What’s the point of this long and very personal speech? How does all this information apply to the Class of 1993 Graduates of Canterbury, or to anyone else?
The answer is simple:
If it could happen to us, it could happen to you.
Our parents (and even our Grandparents) were dedicated, unselfish religious persons, just like many of your parents. They sent us to Canterbury and to the Sacred Heart nuns. They made life a challenge as well as a joy for us.
Your parents - here today - have done the same for Canterbury’s Class of 1993...young men and women, called to be “stars”, or should I better say, “saints” of the Catholic and other Christian churches of America. “Miracles” will be just as possible for Graduates of Canterbury today as in years past. God is not going to desert America.
Let us not be faint-hearted. Never let us despair.
America desperately needs Catholics who will earn their livings, raise their children, and work as Volunteers serving God and their fellow human beings of all nations in all parts of the world.
Some 55,000,000 Americans are Catholics. Among them are Canterbury Graduates, leaders in business, academic life, in the professions, and in homes everywhere. The survival of America as a God-fearing, religious nation depends upon these Canterbury men and women.
So -- may God be with you, members of The Class of 1993. May The Blessed Mother always be your friend and inspiration.
And may your children and your school (our school) bless the day when you graduated from Canterbury and began to change the world for the betterment of all God’s children.
