Now, the initial reason you went on your first trip was that your papa was giving a talk at the College Theology Society conference. And even though they put him in a lame-o slot (the last session, after most people had left!) still it went well. Among the audience were your aunt Meg, uncle Neil, godfather Patrick, and Mark (who took this picture). The talk itself was on Catholic Social Teaching and economics. In particular, I talked about how business could be run on a cooperative, rather than competitive model (more on that as you get older!) But you see the man on the screen behind us... the whole talk was dedicated to him. His name is Ronnie, and he just died last month. He is part of the community where your Aunt Teresa lives, in Canada. He was a farmer his whole life, and dedicated himself to teaching by example crazy ideas like that the world's resources are created by God for everybody, not just a few, you know, wild stuff like that! AND.... before you were born--get this--Aunt Teresa asked all of her friends what the name would be, and Ronnie (unbeknownst to us) said "His name will be Benedict John." Whoa... especially since your name is not all that common, Benedict doesn't even make like the top 10,000!!! Anyway, here you are at your first theo conference:
Okay, now this picture comes thanks to Annie McGowan, wife of your godfather. It is an older pic, but relevant to theology since it shows Karl Rahner, one of the most important theologians of last century. He was a feisty guy and the pic shows him ready to duke it out (nonviolently of course). And aroudn that time YOU also loved to put your dukes up. So she snapped this great photo. Look out, maybe you will help influence Vatican III!
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