Chicago-based gay playwright and scholar Nick Patricca was presented with a "Living Tradition" award from the Joan and Bill Hank Center for Catholic Intellectual Heritage at Loyola University March 22.
The award was presented by Michael J. Garanzini, S.J., president of Loyola, and Mark Bosco, S.J., director of the Hank Center.
Patricca is professor emeritus at Loyola University Chicago, president of Chicago Network JP, playwright emeritus at Victory Gardens Theater and member of TOSOS theater ensemble in New York City.
"It is a great honor for me to receive the 'Living Tradition' award from the Joan and Bill Hank Center for the Catholic Intellectual Heritage for many reasons," Patricca said. "The award recognizeswhile I am still alivea lifetime of effort integrating Catholic thinking and culture with my work in the arts, in education, in community-based healthcare, and in justice and peace. ... And, at a time when the Catholic Church is not enjoying a good press, it affords me an appropriate occasion for celebrating the profound benefits of Catholic education to our civil society and to the pursuit of the common good in cultures throughout the world. It is important to remind ourselves that our Catholic faith, lived in community and articulated in the freedom of its rich intellectual traditions, has the same power today as it has had from the beginning: to inspire and to transform, to educate and to serve people wherever they are, whatever their needs, regardless of class, caste, color, race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, gender, politics or religion. This power does not spring from worldly power but from the compassionate Spirit of Jesus the Christ."
Patricca will begin a column in Windy City Times April 3, and continue the first Wednesday of each month.