Chaplain Davis Reflects on Multifaith Audience With Pope

Nestled among a crowd of Methodist, Greek Orthodox, Baptist, Episcopal, Pentecostal, and Catholic leaders, Columbia University Chaplain Jewelnel Davis sat in St. Joseph’s Church in Yorkville last Friday awaiting the start of a service run by Pope Benedict XVI. Spectator’s Scott Levi sat down with Davis on Wednesday to review what she called a “worldwide experience.”

Spec: How did this compare to other meetings or events you’ve attended with other leaders?

CD: I was invited to the prayer breakfast at the White House with Bill Clinton, right after he was in an awful family place, after the Monica Lewinsky scandal. This audience felt joyous—that meeting with Clinton felt really sad. I was standing on behalf of other people in the Columbia community at that audience with the pope. I made a prayer list and took with me their names so that I could pray with them in this audience with the pope. Sometimes I think that when you are a chaplain, you have a feeling of being a servant, and this felt like I was a servant for some of the students and faculty. I felt like it was so much larger than me and I was humbled by it. There are times when you just—it’s not all about you. ... I was there not because I’m Jewelnel Davis [but] because I was representing Columbia University. It was that kind of feel—there are people there who you speak for. I prayed for Columbia—for our wholeness, for our joys, for our challenges.

Spec: When you prayed for Columbia, which of its challenges did you have in mind?

CD: As much as any university campus is going through today, I think that there are lots of things that divide us. There are many more things that bring us together. So I think of some of the concerns I see expressed about the war in Iraq continuing, about the concerns that students have about accessibility through things like financial aid—that’s great for GS and great for the College and great for SEAS and graduate students.

Spec: There aren’t many Catholic churches in Harlem, but in your view, did the inclusion of Harlem religious leaders and people from Columbia in the audience highlight any of the tensions between Columbia and the West Harlem community?

CD: Reverend Butts [Reverend Calvin Butts, pastor of the Abyssinian Baptist Church] was sitting in the front row, and he has been incredibly supportive of my work at Columbia. I’m also a member of the Harlem Congregations for Community Improvement, which is a group of about 100 Harlem churches. I represent Columbia as a part of that group. Harlem clergy have also been resources for many students who attend church in Harlem, without regard to race or ethnicity.

Spec: What was it like when you first saw the pope in person?

CD: There was a roar from the crowd. He was early! Now, this guy, he’s got all this bling, but he comes across as someone who you would want to be your pastor, your religious life adviser, and certainly your friend or your neighbor. So many people with that kind of position could easily have said, ‘Sorry I got stuck in traffic,’ and show up 45 minutes late and know that people would be waiting. ... Given the diversity of people in the audience, this man had a sense of his availability to everyone.

Spec: The fact that you went down to see the pope and that the pope invited someone from Columbia University—what do you think that says about the interaction between religion and a mostly secular institution?

CD: It’s important to consider the physical, the spiritual, and the intellectual. Thinking about the ideas that challenge you in a classroom and how they might be informed by your faith and your culture, and keeping your body strong, and treating it with respect. Sometimes a chaplain just has to be that quiet place where people come for counsel and support, privately, protected by privilege of those kinds of conversations about a mostly decentralized university and one which is a rigorous marketplace of ideas. I think sometimes a chaplain has to be prophetic and speak boldly about the concerns that a community has.

scott.levi@columbiaspectator.com