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PERSPECTIVE

Onward Catholic talkers!



On a recent weekend, I wandered over to Albany Academy to watch some of the nation's best high school debaters go at each other. They were among 3,000 competitors and coaches in town for the Catholic Forensics League national tournament. 

In trying to win, the orators displayed skills that are desperately needed by Catholics, and all people, in an age when disagreements often begin in emotion and end in violence. After all, we must talk about difficult issues, and Catholics certainly should be able to present our beliefs convincingly and rationally in a culture of disbelief. 

At the tournament, held at schools and hotels across the region, the students competed in about a dozen forms of debate and public speaking. As a former high school debater and the father of one, the event revived memories and evoked pride and respect. 

Years ago, at Cardinal Spell-man High School in the Bronx, my team was lucky with coaches. With one, a math teacher, we studied logic and fallacies by their Latin terms. His successor, a bearded graduate student, taught us the tactics and tricks to win in the fast-paced debate rounds. 

We faced off against the eggheads from Bronx High School of Science, the Catholic scholarship school Regis Prep and scores of other schools. On the speech side of our forensics squad, Sonia Sotomayor displayed the skills that have brought her near a seat on the U.S. Supreme Court. 

We learned to think on our feet, which served me well but, I suspect, made my parents' life hell. 

The uninitiated may find it hard to fathom just how intensely competitive speech and debate can be, often more than athletics. There are different categories of speech, from extemporaneous, on a current events topic, to presentation of a humorous literary excerpt. In each round, six or so students are rated against each other. 

In Albany, my family watched the final round in dramatic performance, usually of a play excerpt, when the speaker plays two or more roles. They can drop into a new character with a shift of the shoulders, a bend in the knees and a new accent. 

In debate, individuals or teams of two take turns arguing two sides of a resolution. 

In between speeches, they cross-examine one another like junior attorneys. One's mind concentrates fiercely on definitions, premises, values, proof and refutation. To win, you bring to bear all your talents for thinking, speaking, gesture, demeanor and rapid response. 

I watched an elimination round in Lincoln-Douglas de-bate. Two tall, composed boys debated the balance between minority cultural values and national unity. In a round of policy debate, two teams of two argued at a fast pace, wielding studies and proposals regarding the use of energy resources on Indian reservations. 

The students were armed only with their talent, research, logic and oratorical skills and bolstered by endless hard work and practice. 

We need those abilities today, as ever. Many of us Catholics hesitate to announce our beliefs and the political positions that extend from those. Let's be like St. Paul in Athens, who debated in the synagogue and "daily in the public square with whoever happened to be there." 

Spreading the Good News by example is wonderful. We also need the training and courage to say it out loud and often, calmly and reasonably. If alert and ready, we'll be busy.

(06/11/09) [[In-content Ad]]

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