Prophecy on the Mount

Abigail McCarthy, right, is greeted by Sister Magdalen Coughlin, CSJ, left,
during a visit by McCarthy to the Mount in 1968. Looking on are CSJ faculty
members Sisters Eleanor Francis Powers and Catherine Therese Knoop.
Sister Magdalen, later MSMU President, was on the faculty at the time.
She and McCarthy were fellow alumnae of St. Kate's University.

THE MISSION STATEMENT of the Sisters of St. Joseph of Carondelet mentions "prophetic witness."

Well, have we got some prophecy for you.

Forty years ago – a biblical number to be sure – a prominent woman in public life delivered some predictions during a visit to MSMU that are so startling in their accuracy that we thought we would share them to kick off Women's History Month.

In 1978, Abigail McCarthy was the estranged wife of Sen. Eugene McCarthy (D-Minn.) and a decade past his historic, divisive run at the presidency of the United States. An outspoken writer and opinion-maker in her own right who had visited the Mount in 1968, she was invited to deliver the Siena Day (academic symposium) keynote in February (reported in The View), titled "Christian Woman: Towards a 21st Century."

She predicted:

1. Fewer women will be married in the 21st Century, and of those who are half will be [single] heads of households. And this: "There will be no such thing as permanent commitments in the 21st Century."
2.  There will be a larger number of independent nations, but fewer democratic republics.
3. "The [Catholic] Church will become a remnant in society" but the pope will be a symbol of unity.
4. There will be "less privacy and independence in small matters because computers are making our lives available to others."

Think about it: How did she foresee the startling decline in the rate of formal marriage and rise in single motherhood? The crumbling of the Soviet Union more than 10 years before it happened and the worldwide struggles for democracy? The shrinking population of practicing Catholics and the global popularity of Pope Francis?

Number 4 is the one that really gets us. In an era before personal computers and smartphones, how in the world did she ever anticipate the effects of Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and the digital privacy issues we contend with today?

We think the answer lies in the fact that Abigail McCarthy was a woman educated and formed by the Sisters of St. Joseph of Carondelet. At a women's college she learned to lead. She learned to think as a prophetic witness, to read the signs of the times and act on them.

McCarthy received her B.A. at the College of St. Catherine (now known as St. Kate's University) in St. Paul, Minn., the CSJ school that educated so many members of the Mount's own religious community, including two presidents.

After college, Abigail Quigley met her future husband, a former Benedictine monk, at the small rural school in North Dakota where they were teachers. Both devout Catholics, they spent their first years of married life on a social justice mission, a Catholic farm commune in Minnesota. "Gene" McCarthy went on to be a Farm Labor Party and Democratic congressional representative from Minnesota and was elected to the Senate in 1958.

He is best remembered as the presidential candidate who challenged Lyndon B. Johnson and the Vietnam War in 1968 (playing a role not unlike Bernie Sanders') in that notorious election year. An Archives picture records Abigail's first visit to the Mount during a campaign swing through Los Angeles, probably around the time of the California Primary Election in June 1968 (photo above).

The very next year, after losing the election, Gene left Abigail and their five children for his long-time mistress, a television news reporter. But as Catholics the McCarthys never divorced.

Abigail McCarthy, who died in 2001, went on to build a successful career as a writer and commentator, an articulate voice for the place of women in the Church, in politics, in social justice, in everyday life.

In other words, hers was a life of prophetic witness in the CSJ sense. But as a prophet, Abigail McCarthy gave it a whole new meaning.

MSMU's Olympian spirit

Olympian menu planning: Asst. Business Manager
Sister Rosanne Bromham, CSJ, confers with Marlin
Rosheim, Doheny food service manager, and Ata
Shafiyoon, director of food services for MSMC.

AS LOS ANGELES HOSTS the Special Olympics World Games this summer, the Mount has been rolling out the welcome mat at both campuses for delegates, dignitaries and judges from all over the globe.

The university's Olympian history stretches back more than 30 years, to the 1984 Summer Games in Los Angeles. Back then, too, the Mount opened its doors, dining halls and dorms -- including the newly built McIntyre Hall -- to Olympics support staff for two full months. AT&T, which provided telecommunications services during the Games, occupied all of the Doheny dorms and about a quarter of Chalon's. They also reserved the ground floor of the Doheny Mansion for entertaining and events.

The remaining space at Chalon housed "[Los Angeles Olympic Organizing Committee] contract and/or Games staff and/or sports officials and technicians, but not competitors," according to material in the Archives. In other words, pretty much a little bit of everybody but the athletes. 

Olympic athlete Clarita Neher shakes hands
with XXIII Olympiad mascot Sam the Eagle
at Siena Day at Doheny, April 25, 1984.

The Spring 1984 edition of Mount Magazine  reports that the housing contract with AT&T and the local organizing committee provided much-needed funding that went into the Mount's Endowment Fund and toward major construction projects on both campuses.

Logistics aside, the Mount joined with all of Los Angeles in celebrating the XXIII Olympiad. In the weeks before the Games, the annual Siena Day event on April 25, 1984, took on an Olympic theme with special guests Jack Smith, a popular Los Angeles Times columnist, and Clarita Neher, who competed as a high diver in the 1924 and 1928 Olympics.

Mount event coordinator Kathy
Janeski pins a "Play" button on L.A.
Times columnist Jack Smith.

Sam the Eagle, the mascot of the Los Angeles Games, came along for the festivities. Neher and Smith spoke to an overflow audience at Doheny on the topic "Play: as Humor, as Sport."

For the Games themselves, 14 students and alumnae from the prestigious Mount Singers were selected to sing in the Olympic Honor Chorus, which performed at both opening and closing ceremonies and sang the national anthem for the arrival of President Ronald Reagan.

The Olympics are special, whether it's the traditional Summer and Winter Games or the Special Olympics. We're proud that Mount's welcoming spirit has taken on an Olympian spirit, and we wish continuing success to all the participants in this summer's events. 

Detective work

SPEAKING OF SISTER MAGDALEN COUGHLIN (previous post), I came across this rare photo of her in the traditional habit. As president she was continually photographed, but always in an ordinary suit or dress with a small, filmy veil.

Trying to date the photograph (no information on the back, of course) I noticed that the sister in the center is wearing a button. I enlarged the scan enough to see that it's a campaign button for Eugene McCarthy, who ran for President in 1968.

The woman with the flowers talking to Sister Magdalen looked familiar. Given the way the sisters are beaming I had a hunch it might be the candidate's wife. I did some image research on the Web and I'm pretty sure it's Abigail McCarthy. If I were going to really go out on a limb here, I'd guess that it was sometime before the June primary.

Prominent Catholics in public life frequently made their way to the Mount when they were in town, so perhaps Mrs. McCarthy had given a talk at the College. Or maybe Sister Magdalen, a respected U.S. history scholar, had attended a campaign event with sisters and students in tow. In any case, I can't close the book quite yet on this mystery photo.