For the past two and one-half years as he helped lead the nation’s efforts to confront the COVID-19 pandemic, Dr. Anthony Fauci became a familiar face to Americans, speaking at White House press briefings or in TV appearances to urge people to take safety measures like wearing face masks when appropriate and to get the COVID-19 vaccination and booster shot to protect themselves and others against the spread of the virus.

On Sept. 18, Dr. Fauci appeared in a different setting, the Our Lady of Lourdes Chapel at Georgetown Preparatory School in North Bethesda, Maryland, alongside Dr. Christine Grady, his wife and National Institutes of Health colleague, as both received the Pedro Arrupe, S.J. Award for Exemplary Public Service from the Ignatian Volunteer Corps (IVC) of the National Capital Area.

The IVC provides opportunities to men and women who are 50 and older to serve the poor and work for justice, and to deepen their Christian faith through prayer and reflection in the Ignatian spiritual tradition established by St. Ignatius Loyola, the founder of the Jesuit order, the Society of Jesus.

The new Pedro Arrupe, S.J. Award was named for the superior general of the Jesuits from 1965 to 1983 who coined the phrase “men and women for others.” 

After receiving the award, Dr. Fauci said it was especially meaningful for him to receive an honor named for a Jesuit superior general. He noted that from an early age, his parents told him and his sister “that one of the most important things you could do is to provide service to others, and fortunately for me, that was really underscored and imprinted upon me very strongly, because I had the privilege of having eight years of Jesuit training – four years at Regis High School in New York City, and four years at the College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, Massachusetts.”

Dr. Fauci, who has served as the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases at the National Institutes of Health since 1984 and now also serves as the chief medical advisor to President Biden, said, “One can say I have the spirit of the Jesuit tradition exemplified by Father Pedro Arrupe, I have those Jesuitical fingerprints all over my professional and my personal life, which is service for others.”

He added, “I have to say quite sincerely, that has been the strength that has really allowed me and driven me to do some of the things I’ve done.”

Dr. Fauci, who is 81, recently announced that he would be stepping down from his government work in December.

“As you’ve heard, I’ve been at the NIH for 54 years,” he said. “I walked onto the campus just a little bit south of here as a 27-year-old physician who just finished his training in internal medicine to start off as a fellow in infectious diseases. Little did I know at the time that several years later I would be leading the effort against one of the most formidable infectious diseases we’ve ever had, and that was HIV-AIDS, well before COVID, and then many years later, we’ve had COVID (to confront).”

Speaking about his approach to facing those public health crises, Dr. Fauci said, “All of that really was very, very much embedded in my feeling of what I had to do, and that was service to others. That’s why I say it’s particularly meaningful for me to be with you today to receive this award.”

Dr. Fauci said it was also meaningful for him to receive the award with his wife Dr. Christine Grady, whom he described as a “modest, understated person who does extraordinary things in her professional life… that in every respect are as important as what I’ve done.”

Dr. Christine Grady serves as the chief of the Department of Bioethics at the National Institutes of Health Clinical Center and is a member of the Presidential Commission for the Study of Bioethical Issues. She graduated with a degree in nursing and biology from Georgetown, where she later earned a doctorate in philosophy after receiving a master’s degree in nursing from Boston College, another Jesuit university. As a nurse, clinical researcher and bioethicist, Dr. Grady has specialized in the care of HIV patients and the study of that disease, and the ethics of clinical research.

She also emphasized how meaningful it was for her to receive the Pedro Arrupe, S.J. Award for Exemplary Public Service.

“Father Arrupe modeled commitment to others through public service and through attention to social justice and correcting injustices,” Dr. Grady said, adding, “I have had the privilege of devoting my life’s work to serving others, and in small ways, trying to promote justice.”

She added, “I’m grateful to have been guided by the values and experiences bestowed on me by my parents, by my Jesuit education, by my life partner, and by my faith, so thank you again for this honor.”

Mary Podesta, the vice chair of the Ignatian Volunteer Corps board, helped introduce the couple as recipients of the Pedro Arrupe, S.J. Award. She noted, “In their life’s work in healthcare, commitment to the common good, and their dedication to improving the lives of others, Christine Grady and Tony Fauci exemplify what it means to lead a life for others, to be women and men for others.”

In her remarks, Podesta also noted that “although he is leaving NIH at the end of the year, Tony Fauci is not finished. He has told us that in this next stage of his career, he will continue to use his energy and passion to advance science and public health and to inspire and mentor the next generation of scientific leaders.”

The IVC’s Evening of Gratitude opened with a prayer service before five awards were presented.

Mary McGinnity, the president and CEO of the Ignatian Volunteer Corps, noted that the group has nearly 500 senior volunteers serving in 23 cities across the country, and she praised them as being “the Beatitudes in action.” The IVC’s National Capital Area branch has 55 participants volunteering in about 35 service agencies in Washington, D.C., suburban Maryland and northern Virginia, including at Catholic schools and at programs serving immigrants, the homeless and people with disabilities.

Speaking on behalf of the agencies partnering with IVC, Deborah Guns Wimberly, the executive director of Living Wages, noted that her program in Washington has helped more than 400 adults attain high school diplomas, with some going on to attain college degrees and good paying jobs in the government and private sector and become homeowners. 

She said IVC volunteers have helped Living Wages participants complete high school, and assisted them with resumes, job training, computer skills and college applications. “They (the volunteers) are dedicated and committed to service. They don’t give up on those they are trying to help,” she said.

The IVC’s Kathleen Curtin Spirituality in Mission Award was presented to Martina O’Shea, who serves as the director of Ignatian Retreats and Training Programs at Holy Trinity Parish in Washington and coordinates programs that train IVC spiritual reflectors who foster spiritual reflection among the group’s volunteers.

O’Shea said the IVC’s spiritual and service components are marked by mutual giving and receiving and “transformational discipleship.”

The IVC’s Madonna Della Strada Award, named after the first church in Rome entrusted to St. Ignatius and his followers and a famous icon of Mary as Our Lady of the Street, honors people who reflect Ignatian values of direct service to the poor and working and educating for a more just society.

This year’s Madonna Della Strada Awards were presented to James Kelley and Joseph Raia.

Kelley was recognized for a lifetime of service to the poor, including as a missionary priest in Tanzania, and later as a layman serving with the Peace Corps in Swaziland and for the State Department’s Refugee Bureau programs in African countries including Rwanda, Burundi, Liberia, Somalia and Ethiopia. Two days after retiring from a 25-year government service career, he joined IVC as a volunteer at the Lamb Center, a homeless shelter, and later served as an IVC regional director.

Joseph Raia’s biography in the IVC awards program noted that service has marked “every aspect of his life, (in his) family, church, neighborhood and work,” and that he has impacted various groups like the Father McKenna Center that serves homeless men; the Northwest Center, a crisis pregnancy center and maternity home; and Loyola University Maryland.

Raia said he has been inspired by Jesus’s words in Matthew 25, “Whatsoever you do for the least of my brothers, you do unto me.” He added, “For me, I love when Jesuits talk about service, not just for others, but with others, with others in the community.”

He noted service activities that had been especially meaningful to him, including when he and his daughter joined 200 to 300 other fathers and daughters from the Academy of the Holy Cross in Kensington to paint the walls of three different Catholic schools. Raia said that at backyard dinners with friends over the years, they have collected thousands of diapers and hundreds of cases of baby formula for the Northwest Center.

Thanking IVC, Raia praised the group for what its volunteers do “to serve our brothers and sisters and make this a more just world,” and he said, “This is the honor of a lifetime.”

Concluding the program, the group’s president Mary McGinnity congratulated the award winners, and noting that she has heard that retirement plans are in Dr. Fauci’s future, she playfully invited him to consider signing up to be an IVC volunteer. 

(For more information on the Ignatian Volunteer Corps, contact Michael Goggin, senior director, IVC of the National Capital Area, c/o Gonzaga College High School, 19 I Street N.W., Washington DC 20001 or call 202-277-4447 (cell) or email mgoggin@ivcusa.org)