Retired priest Fr. Paul Fitterer, S.J. gave over 60 years of service to Jesuit schools (Gonzaga Prep, Seattle Prep, and Seattle University). He started as a teacher in 1957 and retired from Seattle Prep after 38 years on staff. Before coming to Seattle Prep, “Jesuit newcomer” Cyrus Habib was assigned to the Sacred Heart Jesuit Center in Los Gatos, California. At this Jesuit retirement center he had the unique opportunity to meet Jesuits who have been in their ministry for 60, 70 years and sat with the legendary Fr. Paul to have the following heart-to-heart discussion.

P: You said you were told by your novice master that you were assigned to Prep, but you also mentioned there was something in you that told you to go to Seattle Prep. What was that?

C: This phase is called the long experiment, and it’s almost always affiliated with an educational institution. I personally expressed to my novice director that I had a strong desire to work in a high school. I’ve taught undergrads in law school at Seattle University, so I felt that I had spent enough time in the higher education environment, but I hadn’t entered a high school campus since I’d been a high school student myself.

“Why Seattle Prep?” specifically has more to do with the fact that I’m from the Seattle area. I know that because of my personal and professional past that this state is also part of my future. I believe that God wants me to make use of my relationships, my knowledge of Washington State, and my experience here. The idea of spending part of my novitiate in Seattle, and to be here – not as a lawyer, or a politician, or a law professor, but as a Jesuit – is really an exciting prospect.

C: Now that young people are facing so many challenges and doing so without a strong faith tradition, it seems like schools are mission locations to Jesuits. I’m wondering how you’ve experienced that during your many years there as a religious mentor?

P: I was mostly involved in the retreat programs during my last years at Prep, and I think they’re marvelous in terms of what they do for young people. Richard Rohr’s book Adam Returns is about male initiation and how that doesn’t happen in our society anymore. I think that’s a loss. One of the things that the retreat program is bringing back is helping young people go through that rite of passage. In fact, during sophomore year the retreats are separate for boys and girls. Those kinds of retreats and the Kairos program are wonderful, not only as an intellectual movement, but in terms of personal, wholehearted involvement of young people in spiritual issues.

C: How do we to talk about the Gospel and the teachings of Christ at this time when people are increasingly skeptical?

P: That’s true. I started teaching over 50 years ago, and theology changes so dramatically that what is taught now is so different. I remember when I started teaching the 15 essential questions, and the students would have to memorize the answers to them. It’s a lot more open now.

Cyrus, your background is so rich. The fact that you’ve had to make a variety of vocational choices and find God is a wonderful story to offer the students. I’m sure you’ve got the questions about how you became the lieutenant governor, or what it’s like to go to law school at Harvard. The students like the experiential, and your background is rich in that.

C: One of the experiences that has been central to my life has been that of finding my Catholic faith and converting. I think it’s one of the reasons why I started asking these questions about seekers, or people who are not a part of the Church. I was so secular in high school and college that the thought of me stepping in a church would’ve been laughable to all my friends. No one would’ve believed it. Yet it was while I was in grad school that a classmate of mine, a cradle Catholic, invited me to Mass one day for the music and the aesthetic experience. That was what started my process of deciding I wanted to become a Catholic. I want people to know that wherever you are, whether you feel like there is a God or not, keep an open mind. An invitation may come to you. Don’t harden your heart but see where it takes you because you may fall in love. It’s essential for someone to come out of a Jesuit high school understanding, ‘I’m open. Let’s see where this goes.’

C: Although I’ve only been in the Society for a year, we’ve had so many conversations about how important it is to have Jesuits physically on campus at our institutions. Where do you see, as a Jesuit, the relationship is special with the students and how did that manifest itself in their behavior and way of approaching you?

P: The students found me open and present. I took them seriously; I think that’s the main thing. It’s interesting that when I started teaching there were 31 Jesuits and 3 Laypeople. Now at Seattle Prep there’s 3 Jesuits including you, but what I think Seattle Prep and the other 3 Jesuit high schools in the Northwest have done remarkably is the formation of lay people into the core of what makes a Jesuit school.

C: Do you think of yourself first as a Jesuit or a priest?

P: First as a Jesuit.

C: Has it always been that way?

P: Pretty much. For me, the priesthood is a necessity to do the work that I’ve been called to do, but the spirit in which I do it is due to the fact that I’ve consistently done The Spiritual Exercises. That’s the framework of my life; talk about a right of initiation.

C: For me, the Exercises were a very powerful experience particularly around the issue of vocational discernment. I started thinking about becoming a Jesuit in March 2018. I had gone two and a half years without having strong doubts, but on this first break day there was such a sense of “You’re such an idiot, you’re so far along and other people would’ve killed to be where you are but look where you are now. It’ll be forever for you to get back to where you were in order to make a difference in the world,” and it was physically painful. It felt like a punch of remorse to my gut. So, I talked to my spiritual director and we walked through it together. What was this voice and what did it sound like? It was contemptuous and mocking. It was all the things I know God is not, but that I also know I am not. All the voices I was hearing were what I imagined other people saying about me, but in my heart, I knew that I made the right choice. One of the graces of that period that has stuck with me for over a year was actually this very dark moment.