“Where we see problems, it is best to see opportunities. People need experiences of salvation because we live in a turbulent world,” said his Eminence Óscar Andrés Cardinal Rodríguez Maradiaga, S.D.B., archbishop of Tegucigalpa, Honduras, delivering the keynote address (full remarks here) to an estimated crowd of 20,000 gathered at the Rose Hill campus for the University’s 172nd commencement.

“You have a whole world to discover. But you also face new risks: The one who’s paralyzed in front of risks loses opportunities.”

Cardinal Rodríguez Maradiaga, a key adviser to Pope Francis and a robust Catholic voice for addressing global poverty and social injustice, was awarded an honorary doctorate of humane letters during the ceremony on Edwards Parade. He encouraged the 5,077 graduates to “be present in public debate, in all the areas where humanity is at issue,” and to make God’s mercy and tenderness visible for every creature.

To be spiritual is to live life according to the Holy Spirit, he said, through “transcendent humanism,” a seemingly paradoxical tradition of Christian mysticism that is centered on both the search for God through Jesus, and on human experience in the search for fraternal love.

“Transcendental humanism acknowledges that the experience of God is inseparable from commitment to all that is human,” he said, including “the preferential love for the poor and the suffering.” He encouraged the graduates, therefore, to face today’s fragmented, polarized society “committed to work with courage and heroism for the cause of the human being.”

“Before a culture of violence and death this is what we propose: The culture of good.”

A Call to Live Well

In his address to those graduating in the University’s Dodransbicentennial year, Joseph M. McShane, S.J., president of Fordham, sounded a cautionary note, acknowledging that the world today is difficult, discouraging, challenging, and often destructive. As Fordham students and New Yorkers “by birth or by adoption,” the Class of 2017 has been personally affected by current events.

“You learned that when a rock is thrown in the Gaza Strip, a heart is broken in a neighborhood in Brooklyn, and when a bomb goes off on the London tube, we shudder on the Number 4 line at Grand Central,” he said.

“When children starve in a refugee camp anywhere in the world, the streets of Manhattan stream with tearful demonstrators, and when there is political unrest in Korea, the news unsettles your friends whose families live in Korean communities all over the city.”

The key, he said, is to “embrace the motto ‘living well is the best revenge’ by becoming society’s standouts, guides, and [society’s] conscience.” He told the graduates to live lives “not marked by conspicuous consumption but conspicuous compassion.”

“Remember that the principles in your heart are worth nothing if they are locked away in your hearts,” he said. “Set them loose and let them direct your every action. You will transform the world with your gritty New York generosity; your hard won, discerning wisdom; and your daring compassion.”

New York Senator Charles Schumer, in brief remarks before Cardinal Rodríguez Maradiaga, likewise urged students to embrace the unknown, as he said their generation is uniquely qualified to tackle today’s challenges.

[doptg id=”85″]In addition to the cardinal, this year’s recipients of honorary degrees include:

Anne Anderson, Ireland’s ambassador to the United States;

Joseph Cammarosano, FCRH ’47, GSAS ’56, longtime Fordham faculty member;

Anthony P. Carter, former vice president for global diversity and inclusion and chief diversity officer for Johnson & Johnson;

Michael Dowling, the president and CEO of Northwell Health;

Jane Iannucelli, S.C., president of the order of the Sisters of Charity;

Gregory Long, CEO and the William C. Steere Sr. President of the New York Botanical Garden;

and Eric T. Schneiderman, attorney general of New York State.

Anderson, a visiting member of Fordham’s faculty, spoke on April 18 at the Graduate School of Arts and Science’s (GSAS) Gannon Lecture, “United Nations Elections: Power, Influence, Reputation.” Ambassador Anderson recently became the first woman to be named Ireland’s ambassador to the United States, a post she will take up this year.

“For us diplomats, even more so than in most other walks of life, the personal and the professional are intertwined,” said Anderson.

She called her fellow diplomats “itinerants” whose common bond is often the transient nature of their profession. One way to gauge the strength of such friendships, she said, was in the manner in which colleagues vote during U.N. elections.

Anderson said that such elections provide a snapshot of how things get done at the United Nations, which she described as a “sprawling, complex organization,” and allow observers to view “the bones and sinews, and judge what we find attractive and unattractive” about the process. 

“Despite undoubted blemishes, the United Nations will always continue to speak to what is best in all of us,” she said.

Anderson first focused on the U.N. “non-elections”—the unelected permanent members of the Security Council, known as the P5: the United States, Russia, China, United Kingdom, and France. She said their position on the 15-member council, which provides them with higher status and veto power, was an anachronism and is in urgent need of reform to balance out power.

Ireland, she said, was elected to a two-year term on the Security Council in 2000 and elected to the Human Rights Council (HRC) in 2012. The HRC is gaining clout, she said, as a result of a stagnant Security Council held back, in part, by a fractured relationship between two permanent members: the United States and Russia.

Nevertheless, the 10 rotating seats on the council remain a plum prize, with U.N.-member nations spending an increasing amount on campaigns for those seats. In 2000, Ireland spent nearly $1.2 million, while Australia spent upwards of $25 million. It’s a trend that concerns the ambassador.

“If extravagant spending becomes the norm, it follows that those with deep pockets will be advantaged and those with limited resources will be edged out,” she said.
Over recent years, she said, there has been “an increasingly pronounced sense of entitlement on the part of large states” developing at the U.N. 

While smaller nations such as Ireland have a level of voting solidarity through the Forum of Small States, their sway often comes through personal contacts and influence, she said. In fact, a nation’s reputation, especially in building such personal relationships, is “a brand of currency.”

Through a process called “reciprocals,” an agreement is made between two diplomats where one diplomat will vote for the other’s cause in exchange for support later.

“Power speaks with a loud voice; influence adopts a softer tone,” she said.

She noted that influence sometimes gave the smaller states an edge, especially if the states shared a similar history, such as an emergence from colonialism.

“Attraction can have quite a complex chemistry, but it is essentially built on liking and respect,” she said.  “Neither of these sentiments can be switched on in the course of a campaign. Both are normally built up over time.”

The Gannon Lecture is delivered in the fall and spring of each year and is named for Robert I. Gannon, S.J., president of Fordham from 1936 to 1949.

U.N. Ambassador Anne Anderson, center, who has been named as Ireland’s Ambassador to the United States, has been guest-teaching a GSAS seminar this year. She is pictured with her students.

Photo by Chris Taggart

In an unusually personal address about the diplomatic corps, Ambassador Anne Anderson, Ireland’s representative to the United Nations and the United States, pulled back the curtain on the inner workings of U.N. elections.

Anderson, a visiting member of Fordham’s faculty, presented the observations on April 18 at the Graduate School of Arts and Science’s (GSAS) Gannon Lecture, titled “United Nations Elections: Power, Influence, Reputation.”

“For us diplomats, even more so than in most other walks of life, the personal and the professional are intertwined,” said Anderson.

She called her fellow diplomats “itinerants” whose common bond is often the transient nature of their profession. One way to gage the strength of such friendships, she said, was in the manner in which colleagues vote during U.N. elections.

“Despite undoubted blemishes, the United Nations will always continue to speak to what is best in all of us,” she said.

Anderson first focused on the U.N. “non-elections”—the unelected permanent members of the Security Council, known as the P5: the United States, Russia, China, the United Kingdom, and France. She said their position on the 15-member council, which provides them with higher status and veto power, was an anachronism spawned in long-gone war and is in “urgent need of reform” to balance out power.

Ireland, she said, was elected to a two-year term on the Security Council in 2000 and elected to the Human Rights Council (HRC) in 2012. The HRC is experiencing a growing clout, she said, as a result of a stagnant Security Council held back, in part, by a fractured relationship between two permanent members: the United States and Russia.

Nevertheless, the 10 rotating seats on the council remain a plum prize, with U.N.-member nations spending an increasing amount on campaigns for those seats. In 2000, Ireland spent nearly $1.2 million, while Australia spent upwards of $25 million. It’s a trend that concerns the ambassador.

“If extravagant spending becomes the norm, it follows that those with deep pockets will be advantaged and those with limited resources will be edged out,” she said.

Over recent years, she said, there has been developing “an increasingly pronounced sense of entitlement on the part of large states.”

While smaller states such as Ireland have a level of voting solidarity through the Forum of Small States, their sway often comes through personal contacts and influence, she said. Through a process called “reciprocals,” an agreement is made between two diplomats where one diplomat will vote for the other’s cause in exchange for support later.

“Power speaks with a loud voice, influence adopts a softer tone,” she said.

She noted that influence often gave the smaller states an edge.

“Attraction can have quite a complex chemistry, but it is essentially built on liking and respect,” she said.  “Neither of these sentiments can be switched on in the course of a campaign, both are normally built up over time.”

Anderson referred to a nation’s reputation, especially in building such personal relationships, as “a brand of currency.” She added that a certain empathy for Ireland’s story of emergence from colonialism “chimes with that of so many others.”

She also mentioned another Irish factor that resonates to this day, “especially in this Fordham setting.”

“Irish diplomats are the legatees and beneficiaries of the work done by Irish missionaries,” she said.

The Gannon Lecture is delivered in the fall and spring of each year and is named for Robert I. Gannon, S.J., president of Fordham from 1936 to 1949.