Denver Catholic

18 SEPTEMBER 23-OCTOBER 13, 2017 | DENVER CATHOLIC Perspectives A memoir I never expected to write W hen the second volume of my John Paul II biography, The End and the Beginning, was published in 2010, I thought I was fi nished with John Paul book-making. I hoped I'd done my best in bringing to a global audi- ence the full story of a rich, com- plex life that had bent the curve of history in a more humane direction. I had tried to make a modest contribution to contemporary history by using once- classifi ed documents from communist secret police fi les to illustrate previously-hidden facets of the communist war against the Cath- olic Church. I had kept the promise I made to John Paul at our last meeting on December 15, 2004: "Holy Father, if you don't bury me, I promise to fi nish your story." But as I traveled the world speaking about The End and the Beginning and the legacy of John Paul II, I discovered that many people were less interested in the book's analyses than in stories: Stories that would bring a beloved fi gure alive again; stories that would help keep John Paul II close, rather than having him drift away into the remote intangibility of the canonized. And it struck me, on refl ection, that this yearning was the 21st-century equivalent of the love for stories than once inspired the popular medieval lives of the saints. Thus perhaps there was more to be done, in fulfi lling my last promise to John Paul II. And here, too, there was a curious symmetry. John Paul thought he was fi nished with poetry when, en route to the con- clave that elected him pope in 1978, he wrote "Stanislas," his poetic valedic- tory to Cracow. Then, at the end of his life, he discovered there were things he wanted to say that could only be said in a poem; the result was Roman Triptych. So like the man whose life changed my own and to whose story I had already devoted two large books, I am now happy to make a triptych: To publish a third panel in my account of the emblematic fi gure of the second half of the twentieth century. Lessons in Hope: My Unexpected Life with St. John Paul II (Basic Books) is very di‹ erent than Witness to Hope and The End and the Beginning, the fi rst two panels in my portrait of John Paul II. Lessons in Hope is entirely anecdotal; hardy readers of the fi rst two volumes will be relieved to learn that it contains nary an endnote. It's all stories all the time, and all in bite-size pieces. My intent is that, out of these stories, an even fuller, more deep- ly-etched portrait of John Paul will emerge, for there is much this exem- plary fi gure still has to teach us. When he went on pilgrimage to Fatima on May 13, 1982, to give thanks for his life being spared during the assassination attempt a year before, John Paul II said, "In the designs of Providence there are no mere coin- cidences." What strikes us as mere happenstance or coincidence is, in fact, an aspect of divine providence that we don't yet understand. That's how he thought of his life, and that's how telling the story of his life taught me to think of my own. Experiences I had, subjects I studied, professional positions I held, people who had a profound impact on my thought: Much of this, seemingly random at the time, came into focus as remote preparation for becoming the papal biographer I never intended to be. Thus Lessons in Hope also explores how someone who never set out to write a papal biography ended up doing two volumes of just that, in what I hope is an act of thanksgiving for the provi- dential guidance of my own pilgrimage. Then there are the stories of get- ting my biographer's job done amidst the often-sluggish realities of Vatican life: Stories that wouldn't have fi t in Witness to Hope and The End and the Beginning, but which now retrospec- tively illuminate, not only my own adventures in Rome (and elsewhere), but the accomplishment of John Paul II in getting the balky machinery around him to work as well as it did under his creative, courageous, fi rm, and collaborative leadership. Lessons in Hope was great fun to write. I hope it will be great fun to read. The Catholic Di£ erence George Weigel is a distinguished senior fellow of the Ethics and Public Policy Center in Washington, D.C. GEORGE WEIGEL Musings on gender in the tech industry J ust after college, I worked for a major software company. Shortly after, I joined the other recent col- lege graduates on the campus of a for- merly Catholic college for three weeks of training. There were 32 of us. Thirty men and two women. The other woman was a tech genius. She was clearly thriving in that environment — participating in the class discussions and leading projects. I, on the other hand, was a disaster. A liberal arts major, I had taken the inter- view only because I wanted to practice interviewing, and they had hired me only because I had a high GPA and a good head for math. While I was good at math, I didn't care about math. And so, while I was not at all dis- pleased to be spending three weeks with 30 single men, I was completely and hopelessly lost in the classes. And I didn't particularly care. I knew my future wasn't in the tech world. Back then, obviously, the numbers in the tech world were heavily skewed toward men. I always assumed that was just because guys liked programming better than we did. It's not like I knew a lot of women unsuccessfully trying to break into the fi eld. In the aftermath of the brouhaha over the Google memo (or the "anti-diversity screed," as it's been called), I'm seeing plenty of ink (and pixels) spilled over the question of whether men's and women's brains are di‹ erent, and what those dif- ferences might mean for women in tech careers. On one side, I've seen authors downplay any di‹ erences between men's and women's brains. And on the other side, I've seen the assertion that the wiring of women's brains render them unsuited for careers in the tech industry. I say: A pox on both your houses. I was particularly shocked when I saw one author assert that there is no di‹ erence whatsoever between the male and female brain. Science quite defi nitely says otherwise. Read Brain Sex: The Real Di• erence Between Men and Women by Anne Moir and David Jessel. It's fascinating. Neither male nor female brain is superior. Neither leads to innately greater or lesser intelligence. But they are defi nitely di‹ erent. And then there are those who take these di‹ erent tendencies as absolute. Yes, our brains tend to di‹ er in certain ways. But these di‹ erences also vary from person to person. Remember, we are above all individuals. Attempting to pigeonhole anyone based on gender alone doesn't work. There are plenty of women who rock the tech world. They want to be there, and they have every right to be there. And, in many ways, they bring gifts that will greatly enhance the fi eld. Any artifi cial barriers to getting them there, or keeping them there, should be elim- inated. It has been my observation that traditionally male-dominated industries frequently don't do a great job when the time comes to integrate women into their ranks. The "boys' clubs" must break up. But this idea that "diversity" will not be complete until every department of every tech company's workforce is 50 percent female is ludicrous. Women, as a whole, just don't seem to be as drawn to this kind of work as men are. So yes, we should encourage young women who are attracted to the fi eld to pursue it. We should help them excel. Then, let companies hire the best can- didates, and let the numbers fall where they may. All of this brings up a point I made several weeks ago: Women are con- stantly pressured to prove themselves by breaking into traditionally male fi elds. Like technology. I read the other day that less than 4 percent of early education teachers are male. Is anybody decrying this lack of diversity, and insisting that at least half of kindergarten classrooms be presided over by men? Of course not. It's true that salary levels between the two fi elds are not even in the same stratosphere. But does anybody believe that female preschool teachers are all longing to ditch the classroom and write code in Palo Alto instead? No, women teach little kids because they — in much greater numbers than men — want to teach little kids. One gender tends to show a preference for this particular career path in much higher numbers than the other. Perhaps the same is true of the tech industry. Guest Column Bonacci is a syndicated columnist based in Denver and the author of We're On a Mission from God and Real Love. MARY BETH BONACCI

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