Journeying with Youth to a Hope-filled Future

In 2018, Jesuits and their lay colleagues around the world met to determine the Society of Jesus’ main priorities over the ensuing decade. The four Universal Apostolic Preferences that emerged helped Provincial Sean Carroll, SJ to discern that the Jesuits should indeed sponsor Cristo Rey Jesuit Seattle, the first new school in Jesuits West Province since Cristo Rey San Jose opened in 2014. The “UAPs” speak directly to our mission at CRJS by calling us to “Journey with Youth to a Hope-filled Future.” As the introduction to this UAP says, “Youth is a time for fundamental decisions and the beginning of fulfilling our dreams. And yet, young people today face enormous challenges: the uncertainty of relationships in a digital era, diminishing opportunities for work, the growth of political violence, discrimination, degradation of the environment. All of this makes it difficult for them to find a road where they can build supportive personal and family relations based on solid spiritual and financial foundations.” 

As our newly enrolled students can already sense, we at CRJS are in the “hope business.” Our soon-to-be 9th graders exude hope and joy whenever they come to campus, whether for Open House, interviews, or our Accepted Student Party in late February. These beautiful young people can already intuit that at CRJS, doors will open for them to a hope-filled future. We plan to accompany them every step of the way “to and through college,” as the Cristo Rey Network pledges. 

On March 19, I had the privilege of visiting with Archbishop Paul Etienne. He was most interested to learn about our progress, including hiring teachers, enrolling students, and preparing the campus for August 1, the first day of the Montserrat summer bridge program for students. We consider the Archbishop and St. Paul pastor Fr. Scott Connolly, as well as the Jesuits and our Cristo Rey colleagues across the US, as our spiritual companions on this new journey, and we are grateful to them all. 

Thanks to those folks, and especially to our amazing founding staff, Board of Directors, and incredibly generous benefactors, we are building a hope-filled world here on this hill overlooking Lake Washington and Rainier Beach. 

Ultimately, of course, this journey belongs to the young people we will serve. We can already see the anticipation in their smiles as they contemplate the big step over the threshold to high school. We still have lots of work to do before August 1, but we are journeying toward a hope-filled future.

Paul Hogan
CRJS President