Unity and Opportunity

Jan. 20, 2021

To the Saint Louis University community,

I invite you to join me today in welcoming the incoming administration of our resilient nation, and celebrating the inauguration of our first woman and first minority Vice President. 

President Biden and Vice President Harris inherit a fractured and wounded society with a raging pandemic, racial injustice, a climate crisis, and myriad of consequential disparities. The work before them is daunting. We pray for their success in addressing these challenges and uniting us around our most cherished values and traditions. Their success is our success.

The Universal Apostolic Preferences of the Society of Jesus, confirmed by His Holiness, Pope Francis, call us “to unite people where they are separated, to heal them where they are wounded. We want to work collaboratively in this field hospital of our world, witnessing to a faith that promotes reconciliation based on justice. We want to bring hope to our world, to imagine new roads and to walk these roads to the end.”

Let us all recommit ourselves to the great ideals of our county and to the great desires of our Catholic and Jesuit tradition on this day of peaceful transition of power in Washington, D.C.

Amen.

Fred P. Pestello, Ph.D.
President