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A Message from the Vice President of University Advancement 

Back when I was a student at Loyola taking theology classes and then again as director of religious education for young people at a Catholic parish, I was struck by an idea fundamental to the Catholic approach to God's work of salvation. In my undergraduate classes and then later through the great pastor I was working with at the parish, I learned that the Catholic Church teaches that God loves and saves a people, beginning with the children of Israel and then extending to the whole world through Jesus. Our salvation as individuals must always be considered in the context of our fellow human beings and humanity's destiny.

That belief has so many implications and real-world consequences. It means that before anything else, we start as part of something bigger than ourselves. My individual well-being and my accountability for my actions are important, but I can never think of them as radically separate from those of other individuals or from the collective People of God.

So what does this have to do with the Loyola Wolf Pack this March? Well,  on March 20-21 has everything to do with living in order to reveal that our individual successes are connected with being part of a greater and more powerful good. In the 366 days of this leap year, there likely will be no day that is a stronger testament to the collective power of 50,000 Loyola alumni plus thousands of parents and friends.

By the way, if you want to see a very concrete example of people who think of the team first, look no further than the successes of the 2023-2024 Loyola Wolf Pack's basketball teams. The and teams both won their respective SSAC tournament championships this past week and are heading to the NAIA national tournament next. They show us (yet again) that the power of the wolf is the pack.

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Chris Wiseman '88