Interview with Gina Christian of Our Sunday Visitors on the Protests at Columbia University, May 1, 2024

OSV: Have the protests impacted the day-to-day operations of your ministry? If so, how?

Landry: The protests have had a minor direct impact on what we do — specially in terms of evangelization efforts, meeting students on campus — but had a major indirect impact on basically all we do, because they impact every student we serve. More students have come to see me to try to process various interior reactions to what is happening as well as to deal with heightened anxiety over safety, questions about how to support friends who feel unsafe, concerns of their parents and friends, and how to live this chaotic time as a faithful disciple of Jesus, the Prince of Peace.

OSV: How have you and your team worked those you serve navigate the protests (e.g., have you organized prayer vigils, listening sessions, etc.)? 

Landry: We have prayed at every Mass for peace in the Middle East and, since the encampments began, peace on and around campus. The students have organized rosaries praying to Mary, the Queen of Peace, to help bring peace to campus and to strengthen all of us as genuine peace-makers. I’ve encouraged students to “encamp” before Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament and we’ve had two extended periods of adoration — in addition to the daily adoration — to implore Jesus’ guidance and the virtues necessary to rise to the moment.OSV: As a priest, how do you witness to Christ amid the protests, especially given the complex, fraught issues in play here?

Landry: The role of a Catholic chaplain is to try to bring Jesus and the light of the Gospel into every circumstance and to help students view things and walk in that light. I’ve emphasized that as Catholics, the most important things we do are pray and exercise charity, and I’ve sought to help students prioritize both as the primary way they respond both to campus controversies, to the situation in Ukraine, the situation in Gaza and everywhere. So I’ve tried to preach, exemplify and catalyze those priorities.

I’ve mentioned a lot that Jesus Christ is the Prince of Peace, who, risen from the dead, never ceases to say to us “Peace be with you,” and to strengthen us to be not peace-wishers, but peace-makers and -builders. Like him who came to reconcile all things in himself and gather the lost sheep, we Catholics must be those who, by our words and actions, seek to bring harmony rather than division, to try to find the good in everyone and help that good triumph over temptation to hatred, division, unforgiveness and various other evils. That hard work of peace-building often starts with simple things like listening, or saying a heart felt prayer, or a simple act of charity like giving someone a bottle of water.

OSV: How does that witness specifically extend to the Muslim and Jewish members of the Columbia community? Are you reaching out to, or have you been approached by, students from those communities seeking support and guidance?

Landry: I’ve been in regular touch with Rabbi Yonah Hain of the Columbia Barnard Hillel to see how I can support him as a friend, because I know that his responsibilities at this time are far more challenging than my own. He’s been grateful for the support from me and from various prominent Catholics who have asked me to communicate to him their support as well. I’ve also had a couple of conversations with the Muslim Life Coordinator, Ebad Rahman, to see how he was doing and what Muslim students on campus were enduring as a result of Hamas’ actions.

I was very moved a week ago when Catholic student leaders asked how they could concretize their support for the Jewish and Muslim students on campus. They decided to purchase olive plants for each to give them as a sign of our prayerful support and solidarity. I was able to give them to Rabbi Hain and Imam Rahman earlier today.

OSV: Where do you find Christ in these protests?

OSV: What do you think Merton would say about the protests?

Landry: Though Father Thomas Merton famously protested the Vietnam war and the proliferation and use of nuclear weapons, he was really fighting for the conditions that lead to true peace. He was a monk and a priest, not a protestor for protest’s sake. I think he would certainly support the goal of peace in the Holy Land and decry the loss of so many innocent lives on Oct. 7 and in Gaza, but I think he would have grave problems with the anti-Semitic, Marxist and pro-Hamas elements of the protests on campus and around campus.