Fr. Bill Dailey, CSC, Faculty Contributor


This is a story of failure.  Or perhaps it is a story of Easter.  Most days I do think it is the latter, but I know enough to know that Easter is a story that moved through failure to triumph, so even on those days I am aware that the former is true. In any event, for some reason the Rover’s editors thought the story of how I learned to stop worrying and love being a rector might be of interest to you, dear reader.

The story begins in my experience as an undergraduate at Notre Dame—a time during which I studied philosophy and doubted my faith, during which I attended daily Mass and experienced the riches of the faith more profoundly than ever, and after which I went off into the world knowing that if I could settle into believing in God I would likely return to serve Him as a Holy Cross priest on the faculty of Notre Dame.  In relatively short order, after a blessed year of wrestling like Jacob with the Lord while loving my job as a lobbyist for United Parcel Service on Capitol Hill,  I did return to Moreau Seminary as a candidate for priesthood and religious life with the Congregation of Holy Cross.

I presume it is true of every Notre Dame alumnus who is ordained for the Congregation that our ND contemporaries expect us someday to be named President of Notre Dame.  Mostly this is because, like children on Christmas Eve, visions of sugar plums (read: 50 yard line seats to the USC game in perpetuity) dance in their heads.  But with some of our friends it is because they too have a passion for Our Lady’s University and, being our friends, want to see us contribute to the mission here in maximal fashion.  In my case, I was a decent student at ND and my professors had long encouraged me to go to graduate school, and once I became a CSC they were even more encouraging.  While I can say in good conscience that I have not spent any nights pining for Father Jenkins’s job (rest easy, Fr. John), I did take seriously and with appreciation the advice that I might make a contribution as a scholar and priest at Notre Dame.

I went off to law school at Columbia and did reasonably well.  I was blessed to have as my mentors some of the finest professors of law in the country, and they too were very supportive of my goals—indeed they still are.  While I was a student there, I also threw myself into the priesthood at a remarkably vibrant and engaging parish on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, Holy Trinity Church.  The pastor, Monsignor Tom Leonard, still serving today at the age of 85, is one of the finest priests I will ever know, and learning how to serve by watching him was as important to who and where I am today as was studying the Hart & Wechsler materials in the Federal Courts course with the legendary Henry Monaghan at Columbia.  After law school, I enjoyed the incredible experience of being a law clerk for one of our finest Federal Judges, Diarmuid O’Scannlain of the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, after which I practiced at a terrific law firm in Washington, DC.  And through it all, I found great communities with which to wake up and celebrate Mass, thereby to be reminded that this was all part of a greater plan to write and teach at Notre Dame.

What I was ignoring along the way was that I did not really love to write scholarly articles.  One would think this would have registered high on my radar screen given all the facts at hand, but the power of denial is strong in us.  So many wonderful people had encouraged this vision in me—so many people smarter than me thought I could do it!  People were counting on me.  The community had given me such wonderful opportunities.  Surely once I was back with a faculty office I’d churn out some brilliant stuff.  Not to worry.

And so a few years ago I did take up a lovely office at the Eck Hall of Law.  I enjoyed great fellowship and support from my wonderful colleagues in the law school.  I told them about the ideas I had for articles and they gave me good feedback.  Then I returned to my office each night to read and write and found I wanted to be anywhere else, doing anything else.  I nearly finished reading the internet—but I couldn’t make myself finish the 17th law review article I had set to get through that day.  Indeed, I found I stopped well short.  I tried waking up at 2:00 a.m. to start writing.  I slept on my office floor.  I prayed to God to heal me of my sloth and iniquity, to permit me to live up to what so many people whom I loved had told me I was born to do.

Finally, after dozens of nights of lousy sleep on my office floor or in my armchair at home, I had to face facts:  I do not have the zeal to be a tenured scholar at Notre Dame.  Saying it to myself seemed the worst thing imaginable, except imagining saying it to others.  But that’s the nature of the Cross, of course.  The thing I was supposed to remember is that which I tell other people—on the other side of the Cross is God’s grace.  Finally, I found the courage to share with some brothers in Holy Cross that I was not going to succeed in this project.  To my surprise, I found nothing but support and compassion.  Indeed, Father Bill Miscamble, CSC, my Director of Studies, and well known to readers of these pages as a fearless and occasionally intimidating voice of courage, was the gentlest of counselors.  To be sure, Fr. Bill and the others helped me to test whether this was a temporary setback or a genuine discernment, but at no point did any of them allow me to wallow in a sense of failure or feel as though I had let them down.  Henry Monaghan, Columbia Law School’s most fearsome curmudgeon? He left me the tenderest voice mail saying, “Father, I’m just delighted for you.  You never liked to be chained to a desk.  Don’t look back.”

To my great good fortune, the Law School looked to create a teaching position for me, and I have greatly enjoyed working with students.  I still respect the work of the University and the life of the mind and I do my best to explore, as a teacher must, in the fields in which I’ve been asked to teach.  But I no longer worry about writing the Next Great Article in Legal Ethics, and that enables me to enjoy the role I get to play so much more.

Most improbably of all, last Christmas, I received a call from the Office of Student Affairs asking me to consider stepping in as Rector of Stanford Hall.  Rector?  Plumbing?  Lost keys?  Vomit?  Parties?  Vomit?  No way, I thought.  But a priest should generally say yes, so I said yes, and pledged that I wouldn’t remain in the job past one semester.  My first full day on the job with students moving in featured two major floods of the first floor bathrooms.  For this I went to Law School?   Well, maybe so.

What I know is that in this ministry I have had remarkable chances to work with hall staff, with students in distress, even with the occasional queasy student.  And I’ve realized that there are many mansions in our Father’s House, even in this life.  I would never have predicted I would land the role of Rector in the residence hall where I had lived as an undergraduate, and indeed I resisted the call.  Perhaps I have landed here for my sins.  But I know that I write contentedly from my room in Stanford Hall, and that however bumpy my path to this place has been at times, it has brought me to a place in life where more than ever I can say that in the Cross we find our hope, and that in Holy Cross I have found true brotherhood.  Ave Crux, Spes Unica.

Fr. Bill Daily is a Lecturer in Law at the Notre Dame Law School and rector of Stanford Hall.