Newman Center director learns through experience

Shortly before dawn on the morning of January 6, 1987, four individuals scaled the barbed wire fences of the Willowgrove Naval Air Station in suburban Philadelphia. Armed with small hammers and packets of human blood, the four protesters quickly rendered a number of helicopters and jets inoperable. They did not escape the base. Instead, Father Tom McGann and his three colleagues stayed in the snow for two hours, waiting for authorities to pick them up. At 6:30 a.m., McGann began the trip he would never forget--from the Willowgrove Naval Air Station to Federal Court in Center City, where he was charged with treason, conspiracy, destruction of government property and criminal trespass. Six years later, the humble man who works out of a small office on Chestnut Street hardly resembles a convict. Possibly because members of two hung juries could not decide on his guilt or innocence. Or possibly because the Catholic priest has changed his ways since then. McGann is now director of the Penn Newman Center, and says that his controversial past is nothing more than just the past. But the motives behind his protest against United States policy in Nicaragua are what McGann believes sets him apart from other Catholic priests today. "I think Jesus was out there with people," he said. "[And] I think it's only a handful of priests who get involved in the issues." Involvement is something of a social role for McGann, who has been at the University since September. And it is something he admires in students here. "They don't have to put on masks, they can be themselves--students in the idealism of their youth can realize there's a social involvement to be taken on," he said. After plea-bargaining for a 90-day federal prison sentence, McGann began his return to normal life. Unfortunately, his challenges did not end in the courtroom or the jail block. "The Church never asked to hear my side, and I felt the Church was not supportive," he said. After the diocese handed down a one-year suspension to McGann, the priest moved to Cape May, N.J. to serve with the Sisters of St. Joseph, where he did maintenance work. McGann's father, Thomas McGann, is a retired Marine who served in World War II and had difficulty accepting his son's action, McGann said. And he was not even sure he would be offered the Newman Center position because of his conviction. But still he does not regret the cold day in January, 1987. "I felt I did what was right before God," said the self-described radical Christian. The controversy McGann brings to his job may help him with his goal this year -- to bring more members of the University community to the Newman Center. Last month, for example, Sister Carol Jean Vale, president of Chestnut Hill College, spoke to a "decent number" of students about the ordination of women into the priesthood. McGann has been under fire from the Philadelphia archdiocese for having Vale speak against the church's values, but the event brought people out to the Center. McGann was the assistant pastor and director of the youth organization at St. Pius X Church in Broomall, Pa. before coming to the Newman Center. Previously, he worked as a high school chaplain at three Philadelphia-area Catholic schools. This year, McGann not only serves as director of the Center, but also as an advisor to the Newman Council. McGann also periodically visits patients at the University Hospital. "As a priest, I'm here for students and faculty who drop in to talk," he said. "I like working with students." Jeremy Chiappetta, a College junior and president of the Penn Newman Council, said McGann tends to underestimate his accomplishments. "One of the first things he set up [with Newman] was the University City Hospitality Coalition," he said. McGann grew up in a quiet, middle class neighborhood in the Mt. Airy section of Philadelphia during the 1950s. There, he was not exposed to some of the problems he sees with the world today. But as McGann decided to devote his life to the church, he began to sense the real world through the assignments he was sent on. Working in neighborhoods of Philadelphia, McGann was exposed to poverty, the homeless and racial tension for the first time. McGann decided to broaden his involvement when the idea for the civil disobedience protest came to him while working in Chester County. There, colleagues approached him and asked if he was interested in the protest. "I spent several months thinking and praying about it," he said. Finally, he decided that the protest was something he was obligated to do. While McGann does not regret his action, he is not sure if he would do it again. "I would not wish prison on anybody," he said. "[And] if we got the full sentences, we would have served 33 years in prison."