St. Thomas honor student apologizes for grad speech

[quaoar]

http://www.startribune.com/462/story/448725.html

The commencement speech, with reprimands for birth-control use and a recent food fight, sparked boos and walkouts.

A University of St. Thomas honors graduate who scolded his fellow seniors at Saturday's commencement ceremony for being "selfish" apologized Monday for offending people during his politically charged speech.

Ben Kessler, an academic All-America football player who plans to become a priest, chastised students for using birth control, criticized them for a recent food fight and upheld the St. Paul university's controversial policy against allowing unmarried faculty and staff members in romantic relationships to room together on school trips that involve students.

"Then he got into other failures of society, and one of my classmates next to me stood up and left," said Daphne Ho, a graduating senior whose family traveled from Hong Kong for the celebration.

In a prepared statement released Monday by St. Thomas, Kessler said that he had tried in his speech to look back at some issues faced by the university and society and then look ahead.

[Miss Chybil]

1. Graduation day is for celebrations! Not lectures and not politics. nt

[RoyGBiv]

12. Really?

So, say, if Bush delivers a commencement speech, no one should protest it? What you said is pretty much a quote of what students at OSU recently said who didn't like the fact people were protesting Bush at commencement.

The "it's for celebrations" canard is what people say when they don't like the political commentary. I'm not defending this person's idiotic comments, but he had every right to make his speech as politically charged as he desired, just as the student who recently gave his speech condemning the Bush administration and those who support it had every right to say what was said in that speech.

The end of college is the end of the fantasy. It is an extremely appropriate time for lectures and politics.

[tanyev]

15. I would say that politicians shouldn't even be giving

commencement addresses. For them, it's just another chance to focus attention on their issue du jour.

[lolly]

33. It is a ceremony, not a rally

And it's a ceremony honoring the graduates.

Yeah, obviously he has the right to do what he did, but he's still a snotty little creep for doing it, and he deserved to be heckled and insulted.

What would you think if the best man at a wedding used the occasion to insult the bride for her political beliefs, or scold the groom for not following the best man's own personal moral convictions? This is just as crappy. I would hope that best man would be told in no uncertain terms that he was no longer anybody's friend, and would be asked to leave.

Protesting a political speech at commencement is not the same as giving a politicized speech, any more than stopping a fight is the same as starting one.

[RoyGBiv]

34. If you say so ...

Sugar and candy commencement speeches are on my list of the most irrelevant, useless, and boring things in existence.

If this person had given a speech scolding his fellow seniors, or a subset of them, for gleefully cheering the deaths of Iraqis and just basically being ignorant boobs in their support of the Bush administration, DUers in droves would be standing up at their keyboards and cheering. And if the administration were to request or demand he apologize, a letter-writing campaign would quickly be in the works while thread after thread discussed the Nazi state and silencing free speech.

So spare me.

Yes, the content of this particular speech makes him a snotty, little creep, but to suggest, as the person to whom I replied did, that commencement ceremonies are not the place for such commentary is wrong-headed.

[saltpoint]

2. After months and years of hard work, anxiousness over my future,

and burning the midnight oil to graduate, I would be royally pissed to be chastised at my commencement ceremony over a goddam foodfight.

This guy needs to get a focus, and sooner would be better than later.

[saigon68]

10. I guess he overlooked the anal sodomy of young children

The fraternity of which he was about to enter as a Priest, That he was about to be privileged to be defended for doing, by one of the biggest criminal conspiracies in North America.

[saltpoint]

26. I was zeroing in on the misguided theme of scolding graduates

at a time when their achievement ought to be front & center.

There is a moralist whiff to the speaker's condescension, I believe.

Every class may have its goof-offs, but most classes in one degree or another have hard workers, too.

It was their day to graduate and I feel recognition should have been given primacy.

[saigon68]

27. I was not going after your post or your opinion

It is certainly valid and worthy of respect here

I was stating my usual disdain for the Corrupt Criminal Catholic Cabal. (The CCCC)

You know the asswipes who for years protected criminal Pedophile Priests and anal sodomites of 7 year old boys --Those criminals.

[saltpoint]

30. I found myself reading with interest the New School dust-up this

past week with John McCain and students there who objected to his giving the commencment address.

Then I saw this and that was the context I read it in.

It just seemed as if teachers who have helped those graduates, the parents who paid for and gave emotional support to, those kids, not to mention the kids themselves who finally made it through to that day, deserved a different treatment from the valedictorian than they got.

[Erika]

3. Theocracy isn't going to make it here, it's unAmerican

This could all be predicted when W said Christ was his greatest philosopher. Right before W cut social programs to the needy, increased tax cuts to the rich, and started a needless war killing our innocents and Iraqi innocents.

[ShockediSay]

4. You're bucking some rich powerful lobbies on that

you know?

This is how the Taliban got started.

[Erika]

5. The drug industry Loves birth control/menstrual control drugs

for the cash they rake in. But you may be right, lots of babies with lots of problems may produce higher profits for them.

[ShockediSay]

11. I was thinking more along the lines of "Toward Tradition"

and other theocratic lobbying groups of the like.

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&ie=ISO-8859-1&q=%22Toward+Tradition%22&btnG=Google+Search

[katinmn]

7. I live 2 blocks from this school and auditorium

It's fairly right-wing by Minnesota standards.

I suspect young Mr. Kessler grew up in a very sheltered community and kept his blinders on throughout college. That can be done at a private Catholic college.

Lots of people were very upset!
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The speech prompted booing and walkouts.

"He started out pretty well and then, out of nowhere, comes these bombshells about things he'd seen that irritated him," said Chris Kearney, a graduating senior from Hibbing, Minn.

"The heart of the speech was about making selfish decisions, so when I went up to get my diploma afterwards, I told him he made some good points about being selfish -- and he's the man that was selfish enough to ruin hundreds of people's graduations," Kearney said.

Several students were seen crying, while others hollered to get Kessler off the stage. Brandon Mileski, a 2002 St. Thomas graduate, was in the crowd to watch his girlfriend receive her diploma.

"Dozens of students literally started walking out when he brought up birth control issues and, at one point, I thought a riot would break out," Mileski said. "I give him credit because he kept on going when everyone started booing and heckling.

"At one point he was talking about the meaning of true happiness and someone stood up and screamed: 'I'll be happy when your speech in done!' "

[quaoar]

6. Another version of the same story

http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2006/05/24/stthomas

Students and family members were shocked by the speech — and some left their own graduation in tears. Others booed or shouted. Still others are angry that the university administrator who followed the student speaker appeared to many to endorse his views. The university denies that, and the St. Thomas president and the student speaker have apologized. While St. Thomas officials said that they hope the apologies will put the matter to rest, many students and faculty members doubt that can happen.

A portion of the controversial speech has been posted online at YouTube (be forewarned that several loud expletives from audience members are also audible). The speaker is Ben Kessler, who was elected by students and faculty members as “Tommie of the Year,” earning the right to address his fellow graduates. Kessler was a 4.0 student and a star on the football team. He is moving to Rome to study for the priesthood.

[Downtown Hound]

8. Of all the things he could have made an issue out of:

An illegal war that has killed more than 100,000 innocent civilians, global warming, the masses of poor people left to die in New Orleans, what does this loser decide to make a stink about? A fucking food fight. Birth Control. Selfishness. God I hate people like him. They pick the most trivial and insignificant shit and turn it into a holy war, and leave the real problems in the world untouched. Fuck him. If I'd been there and had a large supply of fruit I would have started hurling oranges at him. Little dumbass.

[sendero]

31. Soft, overripe..

.... fruit. Yes. I'd have helped.

[uncertainty1999]

9. St. Thomas = dumb (at least a decade ago)

I visited it as a prospective student, and remember being told in prospective student orientation (or whatever it was called) how we wouldn't want to be caught dead wearing our high school letter jackets on campus if we went there. As if that was my #1 concern in choosing a college ..... I'm sorry for those whose graduation was ruined, but I cannot help but laugh because of my memory of the place (and knowing the "characters" from my high school who went there)

[JVS]

13. LOL! That's classic! He'll make a fine priest!

I'd be annoyed if this were not a religious school, but if you sign up fro 4 years of U of St. Tom, you've got a speech like this coming.

[fujiyama]

16. Can you imagine this judgemental prick

taking confessions?

[LostinVA]

17. I was actually just thinking this very same thing...

This judgmental, clueless, AND isolated tool... lots of good priests in the priesthood. I hope some knock some sense into him in Rome.

[fortyfeetunder]

14. Going all the way to Rome?

Heck, he should take a side trip to Washington DC, there are folks who would love him there.

[MindPilot]

18. He chastises his fellow students about selfishness

and then wants to become a priest. Oh the irony. No wait, that's not ironic; that's just plain old hypocrisy.

[stanwyck]

19. I'm still irritated at the commencement speech

given by the valedictorian at my twins' high school graduation ceremony. And that was five years ago.
She used her time to speak only of her "personal relationship with Jesus Christ". And this was a public school graduation with students of many different faiths.
She failed to mention her classmates or her teachers. It was all "Me" and "My personal relationship with Jesus".
I don't know who was supposed to vet her speech, but she should have been encouraged to be more mindful of her audience.
Her classmates deserved better than her fundamentalist, ego-fueled poem to self.
Fortunately, the other student speakers were less self involved and offered true insight for the day.
Book smart doesn't always translate as emotionally intelligent.

[noonwitch]

20. It sounds like it's a catholic school-his speech is consistent

with catholic doctrine. I don't see what the problem is.

If he said this at a public school graduation, it would be wrong.

[redqueen]

21. Catholics aren't a homogenous entity.

Obviously many of his Catholic peers disagreed with his speech strongly enough to leave.

[noonwitch]

23. They are if they follow the church's teaching

I'm not a catholic-I have issues with their doctrine. I live in a free country where I can practice my liberal protestant religion in peace- my fundie neighbors, catholic neighbors, muslim neighbors, orthodox neighbors and so on have that same right.

His speech was consistent with the church's doctrine. If catholics have a problem with the church, then they should take it up with the church, not a kid who believes what he was taught and speaks it. If they can't get a resolution to their liking, well, maybe catholicism is not the right religion for them.

Maybe the kids who booed feel guilty for their own behavior, so they feel they must attack the person who mentioned that the church believes it's sinful. That's not his problem. From what the article said, it's not as if the kid singled any individual person out for some type of verbal attack. If he had said "Sally Simpson must stop sleeping around and using birth control", that would also be a different matter.

[redqueen]

24. There are all kinds of Catholics.

Again, they aren't a homogenous entity, no matter how badly the vatican or anyone else wishes it were so.

It wasn't HIS graduation ceremony, it belonged to them all. He ruined it. If you have a problem with the actions of those students, who also demonstrated their right to free speech, perhaps that says something about you, not your assumptions about their guilt or innocence with respect to any NON issues that chucklehead went off about.

:hi:

[cap]

28. but they arent following the church doctrine

90% use contraception.... It's time to stop making the laity out to be mirror copies of what the hierarchy is saying from the pulpit.

[Orangepeel]

29. thou shalt not have food fights

:rofl:

I think the students were upset about being chastised about anything from this jerk on their graduation day, more than what he was chastising them about.

If he'd given a thoughtful speech about them living by Catholic doctrine as they go forth from a Catholic University, he probably would have been okay, with maybe some eye rolling from the audience. But, from the description, it sounds like Frank Burns from M*A*S*H gave the address -- whiny, holier-than-thou, scolding, way too long. The results were impolite but predictable.

[Hobarticus]

25. Wrong time, wrong place....

Think everybody got the very same lecture when they made their tuition payments, every year? Hardly. Funny how the 'big tent' opens up when the checkbooks come out.

I'd be pretty angry, myself, and I'm a Catholic. Sure they got an education for their tuition, but commencement is about celebrating personal achievement not a sanctimonious lecture about one's character, whether it's in line with Catholic ideology or not.

[hyphenate]

22. Yet another example of

a brainwashed young repuke. If I had been the dean or whatever entity was in control, I would have politely gotten up after the first inappropriate comments and taken over, thanking the student, but denying him his rant.

In cases like this, the other students should have demanded equal time to rebut the comments made. I certainly would have made a plea for that to happen.

[INDIA]

32. What an idiot. n/t

[xxqqqzme]

35. and this self righteous little

judgment spewing prick wants 2 be a priest!!!! Not going 2 be much of a counselor w/ that attitude!