Tuesday, February 28, 2017

The Jesuit-Jam rap song is ‘Jesu-Lit’

          
The Jesuits have proved through the ages that no study is too complicated, no country too far away and no art too difficult. 

This time the religious order has proved that they can even tackle rap.

That’s right, the Jesuits of Loyola University of Chicago have decided to use their musical talents in order to create the “Jesuit Jam 2017 Rap,” and all for a good cause.

The catchy song that features young Jesuit students at the university as well as administrators and faculty members, revs-up the Loyola Ramblers for their final game on Wednesday as well as supports a fundraising event for undocumented students.

The young collared Jesuits rap: “Build a bridge of love, tearing down the walls of fear.”

The Board of Trustees at the university has in fact unanimously approved in 2016 the implementation of the Magis Scholarship Fund. 

The initiative, which the undergraduate students proposed, plans to add a $2.50 student fee every semester in order to support undocumented students seeking to study at one of Loyola’s campuses in the Chicagoland area.

The fund could generate up to $50,000 each and every academic year.

The initiative is also tied to the annual “Jesuit Jam”: a collaboration with the Loyola Ramblers, to showcase the Jesuit spirit of the school and highlight particular events.

The “Jesuit Jam” was inaugurated in 2001 to honor father Michael Garanzini, who was president of the university at the time. 

Sixteen years later the legacy continues and the Jesuits find new and exciting ways to raise awareness to global and national issues and ministries.

This year, Chicago-born Chance the Rapper’s beat for “No Problem” offered the base for the Jesuit’s song inciting the school team to victory for the Ramblers-Drake final home game on Wednesday, February 22.

The video, which was unveiled on Monday February 20th, even shows the team chaplain, Sister Jean Dolores Schmidt, getting down to the beat at 97. 

The current president Jo Ann Rooney also makes an appearance.

The Jesuit school has shown its support for immigrants in the past. In 2013 the Stritch School of Medicine was the nation’s first to accept applications from undocumented immigrants.

That year president Barack Obama had enacted the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, which allowed undocumented immigrants who entered the United States as minors to receive a renewable two-year period of deferred action from deportation.

For the record, the Jesuit rap initiative may have worked: The Ramblers defeated Drake 80-65 on Wednesday night.