The Korea Times close
National
  • Politics
  • Foreign Affairs
  • Multicultural Community
  • Defense
  • Environment & Animals
  • Law & Crime
  • Society
  • Health & Science
Business
  • Tech
  • Bio
  • Companies
Finance
  • Companies
  • Economy
  • Markets
  • Cryptocurrency
Opinion
  • Editorial
  • Columns
  • Thoughts of the Times
  • Cartoon
  • Today in History
  • Blogs
  • Tribune Service
  • Blondie & Garfield
  • Letter to President
  • Letter to the Editor
Lifestyle
  • Travel & Food
  • Trends
  • People & Events
  • Books
  • Around Town
  • Fortune Telling
Entertainment
& Arts
  • K-pop
  • Films
  • Shows & Dramas
  • Music
  • Theater & Others
Sports
World
  • SCMP
  • Asia
Video
  • Culture
  • People
  • News
Photos
  • Photo News
  • Darkroom
  • The Korea Times
  • search
  • Site Map
  • E-paper
  • Subscribe
  • Register
  • LogIn
search close
  • The Korea Times
  • search
  • Site Map
  • E-paper
  • Subscribe
  • Register
  • LogIn
search close
National
  • Yun Byung-se
  • Kim Won-soo
  • Ahn Ho-young
  • Kim Sang-woo
  • Yang Moo-jin
  • Yoo Yeon-chul
  • Peter S. Kim
  • Daniel Shin
  • Jeffrey D. Jones
  • Jang Daul
  • Song Kyung-jin
  • Park Jung-won
  • Cho Hee-kyoung
  • Park Chong-hoon
  • Kim Sung-woo
  • Donald Kirk
  • John Burton
  • Robert D. Atkinson
  • Mark Peterson
  • Eugene Lee
  • Rushan Ziatdinov
  • Lee Jong-eun
  • Chyung Eun-ju
  • Troy Stangarone
  • Jason Lim
  • Casey Lartigue, Jr.
  • Bernard Rowan
  • Steven L. Shields
  • Deauwand Myers
  • John J. Metzler
  • Andrew Hammond
  • Sandip Kumar Mishra
  • Lee Seong-hyon
  • Park Jin
  • Cho Byung-jae
Wed, August 17, 2022 | 18:53
Tom Plate
Remembering Father Day
Posted : 2012-01-11 16:58
Updated : 2012-01-11 16:58
Print Preview
Font Size Up
Font Size Down

Tom Plate
By Tom Plate

LOS ANGELES ― How should the worth of a life be weighed? For when a phenomenon like Father John P. Daly, S.J., dies, that’s a question you start asking yourself. What is a life worth?

In his own over-intellectualized Harvard way, T.S. Eliot used to tantalize around that question with this unforgettable line from the “Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” poem: “I have measured out my life with coffee spoons.”

But the life of Daly, a longtime faculty member of Loyola Marymount University (LMU) here, was immeasurably too unique and real for such sterile ― not to mention sardonic ― gradations. On a life canvas that would have filled up the rooms of a mansion, this Jesuit visionary, a child of the U.S. Midwest, took Catholic America into Asia basically as an educational pioneer.


Late Father John P. Daly
He more or less made Korea his home shortly after taking the Jesuit final vows in 1963, and this was decades before the United States quite woke up to the fact that the Far East was a sleeping giant that would find us unprepared upon its awakening. As the keen official appreciation by LMU’s President David W. Burcham aptly puts it: “Father Daly’s lifelong passion was to foster understanding between Asia and the United States.”

It is among the good people of South Korea that Daly was so well known. He put Sogang University on the global education map not only as a vital university of Asia but also as a premium destination-fellowship experience for the best and brightest students in America.

With Daly as its leader for the critical dozen years of 1963-‘75, a span when the badly battered pro-U.S. South Korea was doggedly climbing out of the black hole of the Korean War, Sogang became a pearl in the strong string of Jesuit universities worldwide.

Not unlike Loyola Marymount here, the South Korean university, snug in its own college neighborhood in Seoul’s Sinchon district, became distinctive for its small-class sizes, personal attention from faculty and career-enhancing emphasis on practical and career skills.

I did not meet Father Daly at Sogang on my reporting trips to South Korea; we met a few years ago in Los Angeles when he (clearly desperate for a last-minute keynote speaker at a conference on Korean issues) called to ask me, in polite if evident desperation, to be that speaker. I was at UCLA at the time. That I am now on the LMU faculty can be attributed in part to this Jesuit magnetic hold over the course of the rest of my life.

After that, we arranged to meet more or less monthly at what I came to dub “Chez Jesuit.” This is the private dining cafe within the Jesuit Center on the far northern edge of the LMU campus. It is a modest and quiet place, save perhaps for the whirring noises emanating from the brains of the Jesuit priests plotting the next historic pivot in the march of God’s good work.

I guess I am a bit in awe of Jesuits. Well, I should be! I once studied, however briefly and ingloriously, to be a priest of the Franciscan Order. John used to kid me about that, asking why I hadn’t thrown in with the Jesuits. I answered, “Too hard, too much studying!” He laughed and rejoined, “No, that’s the Dominicans, not us!”

I doubt that, but I’ve never doubted that every minute Daly spent with me at Chez Jesuit was a special moment in my life. An hour analyzing the last Papal Encyclical or breaking down and then reconstructing the essential Jesuitical component of a proper liberal arts education would fly by like mere minutes ― and with the best mentor you could have.

If it had not been for his influence on my thinking and where I wanted to take my life, I doubt not only that I would be teaching at LMU; I also doubt that the New Asia Media website (lmu.edu/asiamedia) would exist today.

Created at UCLA, where it then fell victim to state budget cuts, the site was reborn last November. Daly urged me to offer it to students to see if they would respond to it. Indeed they have. He sure knew his students. As he laughed, “Resurrections can be a good thing!”

It’s very interesting: Until Daley became my friend, my major mentors had been famous print editors who were corrosively not of the next world. Men like Sir David English from London and Clay Felker and Jim Bellows in America. To say these journalism gents were of secular cloth would be to describe a tsunami as ― er ― slightly damp.

Daly, though practical, was cut from a different cloth. He was a man of God. In part that was his greatness. He will be greatly missed ― and not just by me. But definitely by me.

Occasional Korea Times contributor Tom Plate is the distinguished scholar of Asian and Pacific studies at Los Angeles-based Loyola Marymount University. “Conversations with Ban Ki-moon,” the fourth book in the bestselling series, “Giants of Asia” will be published in September by Marshall Cavendish Asia and by Random House Korea. Reach him at platecolumn@gmail.com.
 
LG
  • Korean builders desperate for foreign construction workers
  • 2 Buddhist monks assault solo protester
  • Western, traditional Korean medicine doctors clash over terminology
  • Korea grapples with excess rice
  • Gates calls on Korea to play greater role in fight against COVID-19 pandemic
  • Instructors furious over scaling down of gugak in music teacher education
  • Ruling party chief accuses president of verbal abuse
  • Concerns grow over Korea's pension fund
  • Do Kwon says he will cooperate with investigation
  • NPS reduces Samsung shares, while increasing TSMC stocks
  • Interactive News
  • With tough love,
  • 'Santa dogs' help rebuild burnt forests in Andong
  • 'Santa dogs' help rebuild burnt forests in Andong
  • A tale of natural wine
    • 2PM's Lee Jun-ho proves versatility at 'Before Midnight' concert 2PM's Lee Jun-ho proves versatility at 'Before Midnight' concert
    • 'Confidential Assignment 2' has even more action, humor 'Confidential Assignment 2' has even more action, humor
    • [INTERVIEW] Director of 'A Model Family' on blending Korean and European-style thrillers [INTERVIEW] Director of 'A Model Family' on blending Korean and European-style thrillers
    • 'Extraordinary Attorney Woo' to be made into musicals in 2024 'Extraordinary Attorney Woo' to be made into musicals in 2024
    • Thriller series 'Flower Of Evil' becomes first K-drama to be remade in India Thriller series 'Flower Of Evil' becomes first K-drama to be remade in India
    DARKROOM
    • Ice is melting, land is burning

      Ice is melting, land is burning

    • Tottenham 6-3 Team K League

      Tottenham 6-3 Team K League

    • Afghanistan earthquake killed more than 1,000

      Afghanistan earthquake killed more than 1,000

    • Divided America reacts to overturn of Roe vs. Wade

      Divided America reacts to overturn of Roe vs. Wade

    • Namaste: Yogis to celebrate International Yoga Day

      Namaste: Yogis to celebrate International Yoga Day

    The Korea Times
    CEO & Publisher : Oh Young-jin
    Digital News Email : webmaster@koreatimes.co.kr
    Tel : 02-724-2114
    Online newspaper registration No : 서울,아52844
    Date of registration : 2020.02.05
    Masthead : The Korea Times
    Copyright © koreatimes.co.kr. All rights reserved.
    • About Us
    • Introduction
    • History
    • Location
    • Media Kit
    • Contact Us
    • Products & Service
    • Subscribe
    • E-paper
    • Mobile Service
    • RSS Service
    • Content Sales
    • Policy
    • Privacy Statement
    • Terms of Service
    • 고충처리인
    • Youth Protection Policy
    • Code of Ethics
    • Copyright Policy
    • Family Site
    • Hankook Ilbo
    • Dongwha Group