 |
| Dr. Anthony Fauci |
By Carol Zimmermann •
Catholic News Service • Posted May 18, 2020
WASHINGTON (CNS) — Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National
Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, is used to addressing the country
about steps to contain the coronavirus, but in mid-May he spoke directly to
graduates of the nation’s 60 Jesuit high schools with words of encouragement
and congratulations.
“Please, hang in there. We need you to be smart, strong and
resilient. With discipline and empathy, we will all get through this together,”
he said in a recording sent to Jesuit high schools that many posted on their
school websites.
Fauci, who earned the nickname “America’s doctor” years ago and
has advised six U.S. presidents on national health concerns, was
Jesuit-educated in both high school — at Regis High School in New York — and
college — at the College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, Massachusetts.
The idea to have him talk to Jesuit high school graduates came
from Jesuit Father Daniel Lahart, president of Regis High School. He told
America magazine he had asked Fauci to record a video message for the school’s
online graduation ceremony but that idea expanded to another video message
request after another Jesuit school president said he had a similar idea.
So, the Regis president asked if Fauci could do a second, more
general message for all Jesuit high school seniors.
The result is a two-and-a-half minute recording that begins with
“warm greetings from Bethesda, Maryland” and ends with the doctor’s wishes of
congratulations and advice to: “Stay safe and be well as you celebrate this
important milestone of your life.”
“Currently, our lives have been upended by a truly historic
global pandemic,” Fauci said, adding that he was “profoundly aware that
graduating during this time, and virtually, without your friends, classmates
and teachers close by is extremely difficult.”
 |
| Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, speaks during the daily coronavirus task force briefing at the White House in Washington April 5, 2020. (CNS photo/Joshua Roberts, Reuters) |
The nation’s top infectious disease expert gave a shoutout to
his own Jesuit education by saying he often describes Regis High School as the
“best educational experience” he could have imagined. He said it was where he
“became immersed in the intellectual rigor of a Jesuit education” and where he
picked up key tenets of the Jesuit tradition that have sustained him throughout
his life and career.
“Two of these — precision of thought and economy of expression —
inform how I think, how I write and how I communicate with the public every
day,” he said. He also stressed the Jesuit emphasis on social justice and
service is especially important “during the present unsettling times.”
“Now is the time, if ever there was one, for us to care
selflessly about one another,” he said.
Father Lahart admitted the video messages were “an audacious ask
of someone who is incredibly busy and concerned with worldwide health,” but he
also said Fauci “speaks so easily about what his Jesuit education means to him,
so I presumed it wouldn’t take him long to film either one.”
“Today, we also can all take pride that the man who is probably
the most trusted person in the United States is a graduate of a Jesuit high
school and a Jesuit college. He takes great pride in his Jesuit education, and
as he proudly professes, it has formed his life and his career,” the priest
said.
The same week this video was posted on Jesuit school YouTube
accounts, Fauci gave testimony by video before the Senate Committee on Health,
Education, Labor and Pensions. He is observing a “modified quarantine” after
being in contact with a White House staffer who tested positive for the
coronavirus.
In his May 12 remarks to Congress, which have drawn criticism
from President Donald Trump, Fauci warned some states are reopening too early
and risking additional outbreaks of coronavirus cases especially in vulnerable
populations.
Reopening too soon, without widespread testing and contact
tracing measures, he said, could trigger outbreaks that governments may not be
able to control. He also warned that new hot spots could cause unnecessary
suffering and deaths and in turn set back efforts to help local economies.
On the day of his testimony, more than 80,684 people in the U.S.
had died from COVID-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus, and more than
1.3 million people in the country had confirmation they’ve been exposed to it.
Fauci also repeated his call for a vaccine and warned that it
likely would not be ready by the next school year.
Although his message to Jesuit school graduates was far less
dire, it was not the first time Fauci has been called back to school, so to
speak. A year ago, he addressed Regis alumni and waxed nostalgically about his
four years there. He also spoke about his career, saying he had been decidedly
apolitical and nonideological in his work with six presidential
administrations.
Fauci earned the Presidential Medal of Freedom from President
George W. Bush for his work in Africa developing a program to stop the spread
of HIV/AIDS.
During his Regis talk last May, when asked if there was anything
that kept him up at night, Fauci told the group that he sleeps well because his
days are usually so long, but he did have one worry.
“I worry about a pandemic,” he told fellow Jesuit alums, saying
he was concerned about the potential emergence of a virus that could attack the
lungs, similar to the flu that killed millions in 1918 and 1919.
