Traveling to the predominantly Muslim nation of Turkey this week, Pope Benedict XVI is not only seeking a reconciliation with the patriarch of the Eastern Orthodox Church, but also hopefully laying the groundwork --- based on faith and reason --- for a "new initiative" for dialogue between clashing civilizations.

That message was delivered in Long Beach the day before the pope's arrival in Ankara by Cardinal William J. Levada, prefect of the Vatican's Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF), who spoke to students, faculty, staff, alums and supporters of St. Anthony High School --- the cardinal's alma mater.

"When our Holy Father has presented the issue of faith and reason as the groundwork for dialogue between civilizations, like he is doing now between Muslim nations and western Christian civilization, that's a world-challenging dialogue," the cardinal said Nov. 27 at a makeshift podium under an arch of purple and white balloons in the urban school's 50-year-old gym. "But he is eager to do it, and he has gone out of his way to reach out.

"So I hope his visit to Turkey, where he will visit the Greek Orthodox patriarch as well as a country that is 99 percent Muslim, can be a new initiative for dialogue, which is essential to laying the groundwork for peace in our world."

Cardinal Levada, who grew up mostly in Long Beach and graduated from St. Anthony's in 1954, also noted, in what he prefaced as a nonpolitical comment, that the escalating Iraq conflict showed how democracy can't be forced on any country by world powers.

"I think we have seen that our faith in democracy, which we have found to be such a useful political system, is not shared by people everywhere in the world," he said. "We have found it out sadly through our experience where the situation in Iraq is generating into increasing violence --- even into civil war.

"So the need for a dialogue based on reason and accepting the faith of the other person is an absolutely essential ground rule for the future of human civilizations on this planet."

Faith and Reason
An education based on both faith and reason is the best preparation young people can have to engage other cultures as well as their own, the cardinal stressed. Not only the mind, but also the heart must be trained if God's creation is to prosper and survive. He said that's exactly what Catholic education strives daily to do.

"It is faith and reason that are at the heart of Catholic education," he pointed out. "Every type of education engages on reason, on scientific discovery, politics, literature and all the aspects of human life. But one of the aspects of human life ---and, indeed, in many ways the most important aspect --- is the meaning of life. Its purpose. And that's the dimension of faith.

"We, as Catholics in a Catholic school, study that dimension. We look at what God has revealed to us and what he wants us to know about what happens in our lives and where our lives are going."

"I am living testimony that none of us when we are in high school knows the future," he said. "None of us knows just what we are going to be asked to do with the rest of our lives."

The cardinal reported that he first had an inkling of his own religious vocation while filling out applications to college. Feeling that God could be calling him to the priesthood, he entered the seminary, where he had "plenty of time" to discern what was the meaning of his own life.

After graduating from St. John's Seminary College in Camarillo in 1958, he did graduate theological studies at the North American College in Rome and was ordained Dec. 20, 1961, in St. Peter's Basilica.

Coming home, he served as an associate pastor at St. Louis of France in La Puente and St. Monica in Santa Monica, where he also taught at the parish high school. In 1967, he returned to the Eternal City, earning a doctorate in sacred theology in 1971. For the next five years, he taught theology at St. John's Seminary.

In 1976, it was back to the Vatican as a CDF staffer for a six years, where he wound up working for Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, who would become Pope Benedict XVI.

Then-Msgr. Levada returned to America in 1982, where he became executive director of the California Catholic Conference of Bishops. A year later, he was named Auxiliary Bishop for the Los Angeles Archdiocese. In Sept. 1986, Pope John Paul II appointed him archbishop of Portland and in Dec. 1995 archbishop of San Francisco, where he served until Pope Benedict XVI named him to head the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith in May 2005.

In late February of this year, Archbishop Levada was among those Pope Benedict named in his first set of 15 new cardinals.

'Quality control'
During his Monday morning visit to St. Anthony High, Cardinal Levada conducted a rite of blessing ceremony in the gym, with students reading Scripture passages and intercessions.

"Today we ask God's blessing on St. Anthony High School, this home of seeking, learning and teaching what is true," he said. "We ask that those entrusted with the education of our children at St. Anthony High School may teach their students how to join the discoveries of human wisdom with the truth of the Gospel, so that they will be able to keep the true faith and live up to it in their lives."

The cardinal also blessed a newly renovated library learning center, chemistry and biology/physics labs as well as a freshly paved and landscaped courtyard.

One of the pointed questions Cardinal Levada fielded during his talk in the gym came from a ninth-grader: "What do you guys do all day?"

After a chuckle, the prelate said, "I describe the work of our congregation as a kind of quality control of the message and the advertising we give about what out faith is. Or we could even say it's a kind of truth in advertising. We try to promote the knowledge of the doctrine of the faith. For example, the 'Catechism of the Catholic Church,' which outlined that doctrine of faith for us so beautifully.

"And we also try to protect it from errors and those who have mistaken ideas about revelations of Jesus Christ," he added. "So that's the job that's been going on since the beginning of Christianity in one way or another. And I've taken it as a very solemn responsibility to do the best I can to fulfill under the direction of Holy Father Benedict."

Cardinal Levada said the education he received at St. Anthony's prepared him to live out a life story he couldn't possible know about, but God knew it and planned for him to take on various jobs and, hopefully, make some good contributions along the way.

"But you know," he said, "God gives us the strength and the grace to do what we have to do, the challenges that we face: How are we going to feed our family? How are we going to get a new job if this one didn't work out?"

"All of these are big challenges. So we have to be confident that God will give us the graces, and, if we have received and taken advantage of a good education at every level, we will be able to do wonderful things."

Message well received
Zacrie Scott, 16, and Caitlin Smith, 17, both juniors at St. Anthony High School, not only liked what the prefect for the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith had to say, but also appreciated him coming back to Long Beach to bless their renovated school, which was founded in 1920.

"I liked what he said about the Middle East, which was really related to today's events," Zacrie said. "And he was pretty funny, too."

"I thought his talk was interesting --- kind of long, but kind of interesting," Caitlin added. "I'm just surprised that he'd come here. I'm kind of an agnostic, but I think it was really cool that he came here. And I like the things he said."

She was especially impressed by what Cardinal Levada said about education preparing you for a life you can't actually anticipate in high school.

Zacrie nodded. "I do think school is the foundation for leadership in everything," he said. "And I agree you don't know where it's going to lead you until after you follow God and you actually see what he has in store for you."

George Logan, chairperson of the social studies department who has taught at St. Anthony's for 34 years, was pleased that the cardinal had the opportunity to see for himself the renovated buildings, labs and courtyard of his old high school. But he thought it was even more crucial for a leader of the church to meet today's teenagers and to give them a message about the importance of using reasoning as well as preparing both spiritually and academically for life.

"It was a message that I wanted to hear also," Logan said. "But I think, particularly for the young people, it's one they really need today when there's a lot of turmoil and a lot of doubt and a lot of trepidation. So I think it was a soothing story of what life can be; and we're, hopefully, instilling that in our students while they're here at St. Anthony's."