The ThinkND Podcast

Reunion 2025, Part 6: Explore ND, Crucifixes from Around the World

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Topic: Explore ND, Cruicifixes from Around the World

The crucifix is a powerful symbol of suffering, sacrifice, love, hope, and redemption. You are invited to learn about the University’s unique crucifix collection directly from the curators. They will share their fascinating stories selecting these religious artifacts from different continents and cultures. To heighten the experience, you are able to enjoy a self-paced tour guided by a mobile app. Here is your opportunity to get up close and personal views of these exquisite pieces on display across campus.

Featured Speakers:
-Mark Roche, Rev. Edmund Joyce, C.S.C. Professor of German Language and Literature, Concurrent Professor of Philosophy, University of Notre Dame
-Rev. Austin I. Collins, C.S.C. ’77, Vice President for Mission Engagement and Church Affairs, University of Notre Dame

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Introduction and Welcome

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my name is Mark Rope. I'm a professor of German and philosophy and, I created this initiative a number of years ago, and we'll give you an introduction to some of the highlights of our collection. And as we approach two 15, I will lead you as will, as well as my, colleague, father. Collins and, my colleague Monica Carro, through a tour of some of the crucifixes in the vicinity, Debar, Delo, o Shaughnessy, and Dio. So right now, I would like Father Austin Collins to whom I report, and to welcome you and open with a prayer

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of

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the Cols.

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Thanks, mark. Let us pray. Good and loving. God, we come before you these days of reunion. Celebration. We ask you to bless these days, especially the work of the university. All we work and study here, bless this initiative, crucifix initiative, what brings into mind Global Church that we are all a heart when we ask this all to Christ, our

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Honor. Thank you.

Student Involvement and Competitions

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So we call our. The Campus Crucifix Initiative, and we began it in 2019. I had the idea a couple decades before that, but I was busy as Dean for 11 years and then busy not being Dean, for another 11 years or so. but about five or six years ago, we decided to, get started. We began somewhat quietly, but now I'm much more public about it. We had a Lenin walk for undergraduate students. And now, for you, I'm, really pleased, to see you here and, delighted to have you as part of our session. I want to begin by inviting you to think about not only the incarnation, it is after all the incarnation and the trinity that are. Arguably the most distinguishing elements of Christianity, but also the crucifixion because Christ did not only enter the world, Christ died as a human being, suffering on the cross, sacrificing himself for our sins. And you see here two crucifixes from our collection. I'll talk about them more later. The one on the left is a Peruvian crucifix. You see the accentuation here of Christ's suffering Christ in died on the cross suffered what was considered the lowliest death possible in antiquity. It was traditionally reserved for slaves and violent criminal and Christ in identifying with the lowliest of the low upset all previous hierarchies, and in such a way. That the forsaken of this world could identify with Christ, and they were elevated as Christ humbled himself. So you see an interesting dialectical process. The ugliness of Christ comes on the one hand from his taking on our sins, and on the other hand, his suffering and sacrifice on the cross, which of course leads to the resurrection. So you have in these two examples. A crucifix that accentuates the ugliness of Christ and one that accentuates the beauty of Christ and the return to the Divine Father. And this combination of ugliness in beauty has been recognized throughout the tradition as part of the coincidence of opposites by which we try to understand Christ. Augustine in his 27 sermon, for example, talks about Christ as being both ugly. Beautiful ambition, first of all, to underscore the deep connections between Catholicism and the Arc. Those connections have a historical component throughout. Western history since the advent of Christianity, almost all art was done for the greater glory of gall. And the connections between music and the visual arts and Catholicism are written and deep even today, architecture, music. Painting are absolutely central to the liturgical life of the church. Beyond that is what in Catholicism is called the sacramental principle. The idea that the divine is realized in this world, not exhausted, but there are glimmers of the divine that we can glimpse in this world, and artists have a privileged function in trying to mediate between the transcendent. The world Link is sensuous. So Catholicism embraces artists as fulfilling a mediating role that leads toward a kind of sacra mentality. Beyond that, what is fascinating about art compared to say philosophy is that one philosophical truth excludes another. Whereas it's possible to have an infinite variety of beautiful expressions. Of artworks one great art does not exclude artwork, does not exclude another. So the connections between Catholicism and the arts are absolutely central to, initiative. And second, we wanted to accentuate the internationalism and diversity of global Catholicism. Also in order to cultivate a welcoming environment at Notre Dame, with so many students from so many different backgrounds, they could see themselves in a sense reflected in the crucifixes around the classroom. And third, we are what's called a teaching and learning university. The faculty at Notre Dame are engaged in research and student learning at the highest level involves. Exercises in research. Research in the creative arts. That means creative work. And we have every year now a competition for undergraduate students and graduate students to create crucifixes that will be judged by a committee of theologians and artists. And the winners will be placed in part of the permanent collection around campus. So you see. you will see, excuse me, the, winners of this year's competition on the screen and last year's competition. You will see the winner and the runner up in person here. Something about our criteria for new acquisitions. They should be unique, original, one of a kind. We are trying to augment the traditional crucifixes that are. Standard crucifixes always the same. And we are slowly augmenting them by the diversity of artistic crucifixes from around the world and from students. And they should represent diverse geographical areas we hope through have crucifix from throughout the world. And third, they should be meaningful. They should tell some kind of story by the expression of the artwork itself. Or via the tradition out of which the artwork has emerged. And here we come now, to the results of this year's student crucifixion, contest. the submissions are due always on the Monday or Tuesday after spring break, and then we make a decision before Good Friday denounce it. And Augustine Ka created a really. On Orthodox, cross, he combined woods from around the world and used that as a metaphor to represent the global church. The diversity of the different pieces of wood, however, are combined with the metal that holds them together, and that suggests the strength of the universal faith. And with the submission, every student also has to prepare a statement. You will see the statements of last year's winners when we see them in O'Shaughnessy Hall. Mia Ronner drew on, the idea of the Jerusalem cross, which has the cross in the central, and then also on the sides partial process and created a rather beautiful and engaging folk like crucifix that draws on the liturgical tradition. We have now more than 50 crucifixes. Representing more than 25 countries from six continents, and we have right now 20 in the works. That is, they were commissioned from Africa and will arrive this summer, or the student winners are not yet up in the classrooms. We are preparing. at every crucifix you'll see it today. There is a brief teaching statement we call it, so that if you end up in a classroom with a crucifix as a professor, you can read and talk to the students about it, versus a student after class, you can read about a particular crucifix. And then it has to, of course, be coordinated with buildings and grounds. And here the red is where we have countries represented. So you could say, on the one hand, we have great representation on the other, there's so much more that we need to do, and here's an example. So, we thought we should have you walk for maybe half an hour and. If you wanted to do a half hour walk to all the buildings on campus, you wouldn't see a single crucifix. So we've concentrated everything into the Barlow or Shaughnessy and the final stock in DCO. And this Bolivian Red Cross was, acquired by a faculty member, on a research trip in Bolivia. And it is in the genre of what's called a road cross. We will see one today. In the road cross Christ's head is always at the intersection of the vertical and the crossbar. And there is a combination of Christian images. You see Mary at the bottom and ambient, traditional ambient images. Here you have the rooster, which is a symbol of vigilance and the call to faith. This is the Chilean, crucifix that, you saw earlier. And it was in the possession of a CSE priest VI Lus, who was the Holy Cross provincial in Chile during the Pinoche regime, and he was eventually kicked out of Chile for his resistance to the regime, but not before putting together microfilm copies of hundreds of thousands of documents of human rights abuses. The Catholic church in Chile had collected, they are part of our collection here at the Center for Civil and Human Rights, and this Puerto Rican crucifix came to us from the Alumni club in Puerto Rico. Each year I sent a no to the regional alumni flus and to the regional student clubs inviting them to consider. Acquiring crucifix for us, for which, they will be reimbursed, but many simply donate them. and this comes from Puerto Rico. this is one of two on the left from Ecuador. we gave not only a prize to the winner and the runner up of this year's student competition, were two honorable mansions and one honorable mansion. I went to a first year student from Ecuador who put together out of rose wire, a beautiful vine like crucifixion, with symbolic representations of Christ. So we now already have two from Ecuador, and this, Peruvian we will see in person in the Barlow Hall. And, you'll get a sense of how overpowering it is in terms of accentuating. Christ suffering for humanity. That tends to be a more dominant motif in developing countries. It's not always the case, but the accentuation of the blood and the torment allows for greater identification when persons are in difficult circumstances, and this Mexican one is quite interesting. At the bottom you see an image of purgatory. But the prominence of the vertical, which is much longer than the horizontal, reminds everyone that purgatory eventually should lead to ascension vets into heaven. This road cross we will see in per. And I place it here so I can say a few words about it. I have a pointer. I understand. I don't usually do PowerPoint. I teach only discussion classes. But we will experiment. Ah, see, you see a ladder here and a ladder here, and the trumpet that mocked Jesus on the way, to, Calgary. And you have, at the bottom, the bones of Adam. It was after all Adam's sin, original sin that require, or in a sense, was addressed through Christ self sacrifice. you have, whoa, I, I didn't hit my green button. Why? I gotta fast forward. you could see ID discussion glasses. You have the sacred art and you have the Eucharist and the dyes. Anyone the dyes. The dice are also a symbol on providence.

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Yeah.

Tour Information and Final Remarks

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And, here you get the ENT images, the sun and mo, the balance of dark and lie, and the rooster again at the very top. So, these were, initiated by Spanish settlers in the 16th century to protect travelers, and they still exist in the Andan region. So in Bolivia. In Peru, for example, and at this classroom, right? So first classroom, we'll see, no one in the registrar's office knows that I initiated the, crucifix initiative, but by pure chance, I, didn't like the classroom I was in. Said, could we switch to another classroom? And they put me in the Peruvian one, which had van occupied. And the next semester I taught a college seminar in, a room that we'll see the second crucifix, a Ukrainian, crucifix. So, and the provost once said to me, John McGreevy was a good friend of mine. He said, he knew about the Crucifix initiative. He was my, successor as Dean of Arts and Letters. He said. This is really having an impact. I had a big lecture class in Oy, and there was a Ukrainian crucifix, in that room. Okay, now we'll try and fast, you know, fast forward, but move forward nice and slowly. And all three of these were donated by alumni. the space unika is made entirely of nails. So your first impression is how beautiful, but the nails are, of course, a reminder of the suffering. Then, the bronze cruciate, by, glass, blue Glass and American from Michigan. We will see that in person was, donated by alumna Maria de Pasquale and, Charles Hayes. An alumnus donated the Slender Cross, of Indiana. let me see, by Robert Kunt. This Japanese crucifix is quite fascinating. I bif at an auction and I have colleagues on the committee who represent various geographical areas. There was a young man named Rob Doo, who represented Africa for a while, and Tony, I think on the basis of his work on the crucifix committee was elevating to a higher position. he used to represent Africa for us, and we have a colleague, who helps us with East Asia. You see here three, that she helped mediate and the next one will also be, partly her work. And, she said, how high can we go? And we stayed in touch while it was an online live auction and we got it. it is a model of 16th century, Christian. That were enclosed within a traditional shrine of the Buddha. And the reason was quite simple. during the Tokugawa era, it was prohibited to be a Christian or to have Christian artifacts, in your house, and therefore they could close the wooden doors and everyone would think there is a Buddha in there. But in this case, you open it up and there is a. A crucifix, that is really quite, fascinating. And this Chinese crucifix, is via professor Ed be Dao, in Peking, which is, basically the MIT of China, but they also have the arts. Just like MIT has a prominent, representation in the arts. You can see here, perhaps from the representation. The dominance of the Holy Nails, accentuating that suffering. And at the same time, the body of Christ is almost like some of the early images of Christ as if he were dancing. So it's a combination of the suffering humanity of Christ and the resurrected Christ who is happy, with God in heaven. This large Philippines crucifix is in. Jacobs Vic Southern part of campus, and it's really quite extraordinary. it is extremely long as the image suggests. It is really large and the disfigurement of Christ is often accentuated in order to represent the suffering of Christ for us. That self-sacrifice, you see the exposed ribs, the tortured body that is pulled on the cross and. Is really quite fascinating. There is no cross behind Christ. Christ is the cross. And the arms that are dominant, vertical arms, they, on the one hand evoke the image of a tree. In other words, they are a gesture to the original sin of Adam partaking the Tree of Knowledge when it was forbidden. At the same time, the horizontal has traditionally been interpreted as an embrace of all human beings that is part of the revolution of Christianity. Whereas the Jude of God was for the Jewish people. The Christian God is for everyone. Every human being has dignity. Dignity is the most prominent principle in the Catholic social tradition here, despite the disfigurement and suffering, the arms being vertical represent not only. the Tree of Knowledge, but the movement of ascension to God, the vertical represents a connection to the divine. And here we have, doubt, sea, the Artist of the Red Cross and this, crucifix, which is at a four 16 main building. I don't know if main building is open, but I should use the point of,'cause I'm not as tall as that. Philippine crucifix, you see, look at the clothing of Mary and Joseph and look at this hand gesture, which is not traditional in Western art. De Francesca after whom? After whose watercolor. This was commissioned by parents of a graduating, Notre Dame student who brought it in their suitcase in graduation. And, oh, father Austin Colson and I welcome the whole family, grandparents and the graduating child, et cetera. All of the relatives, they were so excited to bring this to us. FICA was early 20th century. And he made it as his distinguishing goal to combine the universal elements of Christianity with local traditions. So before Vatican two, he was already trying to integrate the indigenous and the universal elements, that make Christianity. Catholicism in particular. So distinctive. So Mary is in a re and John and Ur. And this gesture, which is part of Indian tradition, is the gesture of fearlessness. To not be afraid, again, a gesture to what will happen after the crucifixion. That is in fact to save us all. And Christ will be reunited, with his father. Some from Africa and Australia. Angolan one. Malawian one, an Aboriginal one. The Aboriginal one was mediated by Father Bill, Ms. Campbell, who is from Australia and it is a donation of the Australian Catholic. University, we will see the Aboriginal one, and I'll point out here only that the two colors, the dark and the lie represent, the land of Australia sand and rock. So it has, again, that indigenous element that is specific to Australia. the, let me see the, Golden was donated by a faculty member, the Malawian, by Elizabeth Boyer, the class of 20. And this next set gives you some from Europe. The color cross, we will see up close. I'll say something about it then. The contour crucifix we cannot see today. but it's quite interesting. The horizontal and the vertical are from a plum tree that was once whole. But when lightning hit it on the artist's parents' property, it was split in two and he took from the two pieces of the original united tree, the horizontal and the vertical, it left it rough and the body, which is somewhat abstract, is mangled and distorted. But the iron wire and pewter are also symbols of strength. Fear is a Ukrainian one and Monica Caro, who will help us, with our tours. Mediated that for us. And she worked previously at the Vic Institute for European Studies. And the Vic Institute has for many years welcomed scholars from Ukraine and other central and eastern European countries for summer seminars here. And our support of them led them to gift us, both the Slovakian and the Ukrainian. You see, the Ukrainian has. Some of that beauty of Christ almost hovering, rather than a suffering. So those again, are the two moments that we can, talk about donated by alumni, the stained glass window of Germany. I bought the prefab and crucifix from Ireland in an, and I liked it, one because it is from about 1842, the same time Notre Dame was founded. That was shortly after the penal laws were lifted. When the penal laws existed, Catholicism was outlawed in Ireland and penal crucifixes, we'll see one in the next slide. Were very small. They could be hidden. And this is very large. It is in our largest classroom in Jordan Hall, and it is large because of a celebration of the ability. Of the Irish to celebrate their Catholic er. And it is just a few years before the great famine, which sent a quarter of the Irish population, 2 million Irish people to the United States. It contributed to the idea of the fighting Irish. And we will see the Croatian, cross by Vic, on our, walking tour. Here is a penal cross. The hzi crucifix also distorted the cross even seems distorted. The connection between Christ and the cross is only at the edge of the four limbs and this new Mexican crucifix. I was preparing the slides last night and I had always seen, this strange, colorful image of the towel and it didn't give it much thought. Then last night it occurred to me, it seems to me to be modestly in the shape of a butterfly. You see it too? I'm not making it up. Well, it seems to me that the artist was alluding to the Greek word for butterfly, SiGe, which is also the Greek word for spirit or soul. So he is through that subtle image, and art is about indirect expression. Through that subtle image, the artist is suggesting that the Holy Spirit will follow. And after Easter comes Pentecost Holy Spirit guides the fountain of the Catholic Church. So my invitation to you. Proposal work when you're traveling to France from where we have no crucifixes or some other countries and there are ways to do it while you're abroad. The emails will come to me and I'll say, yeah, you have up to 300 or whatever for what you see to be, finding and we'll make it work. spread the word. So when, your friends and classmates come back to campus, they can enjoy, some of the beauty. of the crucifixes and we had, as I said, a Lenin walk. You will enjoy the alumni walk. I was thinking we could do a self-guided, this will be self-guided and person guided, talk. And for the fall, so many people come to campus and they're coming not only for the football games, they're coming for the collegiality, the spirituality, the beauty of the campus, and. The caveats would be there's a class on you're not allowed in. That's obvious. You understand that. And sometimes the buildings are locked in the evenings, but if there is no class between classes, you can see through the site in advance and you could see through a little, AP tour. maybe let's go look. I know that the classes end at this time. Let's go catch a few, near each other in the Barlow. Is it interesting that if so, raise your hands. And I think enough that, we'll put it together. and then, this is the committee, you know, need to be, burdened by it. But, my colleagues put it together and I liked the two slides. It's only half the committee. It is probably the most diverse committee at the university because it has several CSC priests, several theologians, several artists and art historians. Faculty representing geographical areas, staff support, people from facilities who take care of the basics, people from publicity who will help us with the statements, et cetera. And zooms too. So questions and comments, and then about two 50 will begin the tour. And we have two OP three options for the tour. One is to just listen to me, Austin and Monica. That's option one. Option two is. To download on your mobile phone an app called Indie Mobile. Some of you may have it already. it downloads very quickly. And then choose campus tours and you will find already pre-programmed. Our tour for today, crucifix Tour. and for those of you who don't use smartphones, I commend you. Are there any such persons here? If so, we have printouts, for you and,

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they'll be available out. Yeah, outside.

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Great. So we have about 15 minutes for questions, please. Yeah. I was, you know, cross that quite was on Egyptian and Middle Eastern. Yeah. One very interesting thing about, the thesis. we had a meeting a few weeks ago. We have several experts. one faculty member was written two books on the cross, and a graduate student who knows the Orthodox tradition very well. We would put them on the screen and I was surprised at times how many different traditions influence one another. So I don't know the details, but I suspect at the Rayland Museum you will find a description and perhaps there are elements of that. That's a good question. Yeah. The big CSC friends in Uganda, you don't have one from there? actually, I think we have one. Yes, there's one in room 500 of the Maino. Okay. Yeah, it might not be on the, and Uganda and tenure is where we have the activity, and I have five that I commissioned about a year ago that will be arriving this summer from Kenya. And the person who created the first contact, this African artist, is none other than that young faculty member I mentioned before. So if you see him, you can thank him for, ensuring that we have some wonderful crucifixes from East Africa. Yeah,

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it seemed to me when I was here that there was a crucifix in every clash.

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Yes. We still have that, and that's why I use very carefully the proverbed augment. In other words, they are in every classroom. And when we find there's not one, and there was a student once who said, I'm in a classroom with no crucifix. And this was, I think on the Lenin tour. I jotted down the classroom number and they got one right away. And we have a few. the last or the penultimate one, you will see. Is in a departmental space. What we have prioritized are classrooms, and of course we have statistics of which classrooms are used most often. Often. And some might be large ones, but we have also small crucifixes, so we try and match to the appropriate size of the room, et cetera. And we also take some special requests. So, our, center for Diversity, equity and Inclusion, which all makes sense in our Catholic, mission and identity, was looking for a crucifix. And we had basically that very weak or so the crucifix of the Red Cross available, which had been in a museum in South Bend for a year. And Father Austin Collins, placed it there on the second floor. Of, of the fortune. so occasionally we will place them please in areas other than classrooms, but our goal is to augment the standard crucifixes in our 200 plus classrooms. And I'm patient, Notre Dame is patient. We are not racing. Oh, well. We need to get so many by every year. I extend the invitation. I myself work to bring some in to cajole some persons. I have a colleague, te, who knows about the initiative at Mars, the initiative, and said to me twice this spring, I'm off to Italy this summer I hope to come back with a crucifix. so we are doing that as a first stage, the classrooms plus some special requests and then we will. Give an invitation to the dean's offices, departmental offices, staff support offices. People love the crucifix around, and it is a sacramental way of accentuating our distinctive Catholic identity. So we are only on augmenting, and I know there are some other campuses that have wrestled with this question. Notre Dame doesn't wrestle with the search. Yes.

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Face is broadly traditional chapter, the crucified base, the cross is signaling. It was probably, and the takes place. You, the only Christian people ified to identify who Pakistan. They eventually to be.

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Hear, pause. Whoa. I'm shocked. I will translate. Oh,

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whoa. so, so, it's silver. we talk as a Greek, sign of our, participation. the crucified press execution. The execution, you know, Horrendous execution. but probably right from the beginning, I know it's the best question. Christ has always been, clove. his wines were very, and I'm not saying they should, but why was it al, why has it always been that Christ the christified, Christ is girded, his mos are girded.

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So, the began it's not our

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question.

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Yeah. The be beginning of the question, which you may not have heard. Paul made the wise comment that the early Christians given what I said, but it's been horrendous. Death for God. That made no sense for integrity. That was inconceivable. That was a break with aesthetics. it didn't make any sense. It is a puzzle that Paul names. It is related, of course to the, the puzzle of the wise being foolish and the foolish actually being wise, et cetera, the upending of traditional hierarchies and wisdom. There is also the wonderful story, especially in the Gospel of Mark about Peter. Peter denies Christ during times and according to traditional genre categories. Peter belongs in a comment. He speaks simple Ang, he's a fisherman, not a public figure. He is not a king or anything. He thinks he knows more than his master. He says, I won't deny you. And yet he denies him three times. But in the New Testament, he's not a comic fi, he weeps and we weep with you. That is the dignity of a human being who has also failed in a certain sense, failed his master, failed his own sense of his ideal self. Another revolution in aesthetics is the presentation of Christ in such a gruesome way. Now, the early Christians wanting to gain more followers, they wouldn't touch images of the crucifixion like that. They didn't exist for centuries. And when they first appeared, there was a simple cross without a body. It may be a lamb on top. So we don't have crucifixes until about the fourth century, and they slowly emerge. It is only really around the eighth century that they become more prominent, and in the 14th century we see a turn. This is also around the time when the nativity story is told Hu Christ is much more humanized and the plague crucifixes from the Rhineland in Germany in the early 14th century presented. Crucifixes that were even more gruesome than the Peruvian one with which I started because Christ's humanity was stressed and this entire development, and what Paul said is true catho, Catholics traditionally present the image of Christ partisan just the cross because cross partisans do not want, a representation of the other board. Lee. Scott is the other World League. There is, I dunno if you like this joke, but I actually think it's quite, quite deceptive. I read it about 10 years ago by Amen. Duffy, the famous, Renaissance scholar in England. He was looking in antique shops around Cambridge to find a crucifix for his godson. And he went into one shop and he said. To the shopkeeper. Do you have a crucifix? And he looked befuddled. It's crucifix. Crucifix. Let me think. Let me, ah, crucifix. I know what that is. Do you want one with or without the little guy on there on, he told the story as a sign of the loss of Christianity as the basic intuitive sense of modality. Yeah. About the. covering, I don't know, ma myself, we would've to bring in Robert Jensen, but she is moving to Maine this summer. She's retiring. She could probably answer your question, Paul, but I can tell you this. we have given to us by a retiring CSE priest, a simple cross, and for me that was a puzzle. Well, this is the crucifix initiative we've always had crucifixes. What's the scope? Are we allowed to have simple crosses and Pop Coleman? I know theologian vigorously, defended the idea of crosses as being also okay within the Catholic tradition. So we do have a few crosses and our winner, this year, as you saw, was a cross. One more question and then we'll get on the way. This,

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it was interesting when I was in Peru years ago, the southern part of Peru, like by, the crucifixes are much more graphic and they use the human hair, you know, and the description and they're, you know, almost bring fear to you when you see though. And then you go into like Lima, which is north. They look more like the traditional European side cross. Yeah,

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so the tremendous diversity even within, one country that is quite interesting, father Collins has, is I don't have any staff. This is a voluntary activity and therefore I originally reported to the executive vice presidents in charge of buildings and grounds, and I said, Austin, I think I should report to you too. Which I do now, and the advantage of that for me is that he has a nice office and he can receive crucifixes and store them instead of in my private little office in, and he said he'd had the Peruvian, that you saw on his desk for about

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long enough. It was time when you time to install that specifics. and that would be the kind, from the south.

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Okay. So, I'm kind of sizing you up. I think probably we should do it in three groups. Does that make sense to you, that you can hear a little bit? Yeah. And, is that okay, everyone? Yeah. so I would say, why don't we start with, e everyone. From this second, oh no, you're together. Yeah. Okay. how about these two can go with me? And then, you and on the edge, the families then are together, can go with Austin and Monica's already over here in case follow you and about half of this. Does that sound good? what we are going to do, I will first close my computer and, unplug it. Okay. And I think this stays, throw this in. And if you can give us maybe three minutes. We will go first.

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Great.

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And then I will be at the final destination for a while in case any of you have questions and I can catch up as well with, alumni. I know. Oh, that's quite nice. okay. so as many of you from this, these two groups have followed me and will head off right now to the bar law.