Born for Higher Things

Casey Family of Scranton Involved in All Things Ignatian

By Erin C. Walsh

The first three words I write on the smart board are, of course, in Latin: Ad Altiora Natus. “We are ‘Born for Higher Things,’” I tell my freshman Latin classes at Scranton Prep on their first day of school. Born to work hard. To be kind. To pray to God. To resist the urge to cheat. To thank our parents. To serve others. It is the hallmark of Jesuit education, a motto freshly carved in the cement of the new St. Francis Xavier Student Center at Scranton Prep.

I teach Latin part time at Scranton Prep, which we often refer to just as “Prep.” I began teaching there as a young “Miss Casey” in 1985, and left a few years later for a 20-year hiatus of marriage and motherhood, only to return as “Mrs. Walsh” last year. Although I feel again like a novice teacher, still learning the ropes in front of the classroom, my family’s connection to Prep runs deep. Seven of eight Casey siblings are graduates, as well as nine nieces and nephews; five more are current students, including my two oldest children. We share fond memories and lifelong friends from our years at Prep.

Governor Bob Casey on the cover of the 1987 Scranton Prep Alumni News. Casey gave his first address as governor at Scranton Prep.

Our connection began with my father, Bob Casey, a 1949 graduate. True to his Jesuit training, he always inspired us to be our best, to reach for higher things, to find a way in our lives to serve others.

“I believe with every fiber of my being that we are here to serve. Let me say that again. We are here to serve.” With characteristic passion and furrowed brow, my father addressed the students at Scranton Prep in 1987. As the newly elected governor of Pennsylvania, he chose his alma mater to be the site of his first public speech. I was in the audience as a teacher; my youngest brother, Matt, was there as a sophomore student.

“It is entirely fitting and proper that I come here today,” my father went on, calling Prep “the single most formative educational experience of my life.”

As a student, my father took in all that Prep had to offer. A look at his 1949 yearbook hints at the leader he would later become: president of the senior class and student council, captain of the basketball team, prefect of the Sodality, star debater and orator, writer for the newspaper, baseball star, Honor Society member. His senior class named him “Best Athlete” and “Did the Most for Prep.” His children’s yearbooks, in comparison, never quite measure up!

He continued his Jesuit education at Holy Cross College in Worcester, Mass., and then graduated from George Washington Law School. The next 30 years were spent practicing law, raising children and running for public office --- his eyes always on the governor’s seat. He was elected to the state senate in 1962, and won two terms as state auditor general in the 1970s. His victory in 1987 for governor of Pennsylvania was by far the most triumphant, having lost three prior elections for governor. The fourth time, he found, was the charm.

At our father’s knee, we grew up believing in the ideal of public service. It was “a high calling,” “a noble profession,” he would say countless times. It was a way to make life better for people, to protect their rights from the very beginning of their lives to the very end, to give a voice to the powerless and vulnerable. With the power of public office, he felt a deep obligation to help people.

He was proud, for example, of his PENNVEST program that provided clean drinking water to hundreds of thousands of Pennsylvanians, and especially proud of CHIP (Children’s Health Insurance Program) which, since it was implemented in 1992, has provided health care to more than 160,000 low income children in Pennsylvania.

We grew up blind to the negative stereotype of politicians. In him, we saw only goodness, only ideals that were pure and true.

My father took to heart the call of St. Ignatius to go out into the world and make a difference, to try to contribute intelligently and effectively to the welfare of society. In his book, Fighting for Life, he wrote: “I believe the most important quality a person can bring to political office is a passion for justice and a sense of outrage in the face of injustice.” He also quoted St. Augustine: “Without justice, what are kingdoms but great bands of robbers?”

Like all Prep graduates, we have tried in our own way to live up to the Jesuit ideals of service and faith. At the end of the day, doesn’t each of us hope that we have been a good mother or father, a caring friend, a trusted employee, trying always to be better than the day before? Doesn’t each of us hope that somewhere along the way we’ve made a difference?

My brother, Bob, a 1978 graduate of Scranton Prep, taught fifth grade at the Gesu School in North Philadelphia for the Jesuit Volunteer Corps.

“I learned a lot from the kids I taught,” he recalls. “They lived lives of struggle that were much more difficult than mine.”

Senator Bob Casey, Jr., receives the Ignatian Award from Fr. Herb Keller, SJ, president of Scranton Preparatory School, in June 2007.

Now serving his first term as United States senator from Pennsylvania, Bob reflects on his own career in public service. “I’ve been blessed to have an education and to have values from my parents that have inspired my service,” he says.

He recalls a recent vote on the Senate floor that heartened him. “The other night we passed a vote for reauthorization, on the federal level, of the Children’s Health Insurance Program started in Pennsylvania when my father was governor. It is something -- to be one of a small group of Americans to vote on a program that will help millions of children across the country.” Public service had come full circle — from father to son.

The good work of the Jesuits in education also flourishes in Scranton at the University of Scranton, where two of my nephews are freshmen. My mother, Ellen Casey, has served on the board of trustees at the university since 2005. “It has been wonderful to see how this institution develops young adults who can go out into the world with a real sense of values,” she says. “On so many levels, the university continues to enrich our community.”

Many times over, Scranton Prep and the University of Scranton have honored the work of my family, and by this we are humbled. The University of Scranton has bestowed honorary degrees on my mother and father. They are both recipients of Prep’s Ignatian Award, as is my brother, Bob, who received the award at Prep’s graduation this past June. The day after my father was buried in June of 2000, Prep’s president, Fr. Herbert Keller, SJ, announced at graduation that The Robert P. Casey Alumni Award would be given annually to a Prep graduate.

The Caseys have been well blessed by the Jesuits. Our hope and prayer is that we can each in our own way follow the call of St. Ignatius: “Go forth and set the world on fire.”

As I rush up the front sidewalks of Prep each morning before school, briefcase in hand, I sometimes pause at the Japanese lilac tree to the left of the steps. A bronze placard in the ground in front of the tree is inscribed with the words: “Scranton Prep taught me not only how to make a living, but more importantly, how to live.”

The tree was planted in my father’s memory and the words on the placard are his. How much more, I think to myself, was planted and took root at Scranton Prep so many years ago.

Erin C. Walsh lives in Clarksville, Pa.
and teaches Latin at Scranton Preparatory School.