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BY ERIKA ANDERSON
Staff Writer
ATLANTA--It was 1944. A young James Hartnett, not yet 18, received his
diploma from Roman Catholic High School in Philadelphia, unsure of what
direction his life would take.
The Japanese had made a surprise attack on Pearl Harbor three years earlier
on Dec. 7, 1941. The United States was in the middle of World War II. The young
graduate knew that his future included service to his country. Hartnett and a
friend decided to join the Navy. Because they were not yet 18 and under the
jurisdiction of the draft, they had their choice of armed forces.
“We figured if we were going to die, we would die in nice clean water
rather than in a dirty trench,” he said.
After finishing bootcamp, Hartnett scored highly on a radio operation
aptitude test, thanks to a class in Morse code he had taken his senior year of
high school.
After training as a third class radioman, Hartnett and his fleet arrived in
Calcutta, India, in 1945. Two weeks later the Japanese surrendered.
“They heard I was there,” he joked.
Though the surrender became part of world history, Hartnett’s military
experience prompted a personal surrender that would change his history forever.
“I remember clearly, I was on a troop ship going across the
Pacific,” he said. “That’s the day I said yes to God.”
There were three things Hartnett had always wanted to be--a sailor, a priest
and a teacher.
Celebrating 50 years as a Marist, Father James Hartnett, SM, has experienced
all three.
When asked when he first thought about becoming a priest, the president of
the Marist School in Atlanta said that he couldn’t pinpoint the exact day.
He “played church” as a young boy, he as the priest and one of his
two brothers as the altar boy. Though he always felt “something
brewing,” Father Hartnett said the thought of a vocation to the priesthood
was something that came and went several times before that day on the ocean.
“My Navy experience made a vast difference in my life decision,”
he said.
Fighting wars contrasted sharply with a priestly vocation. Father Hartnett
noted that the war had a profound impact on the men who fought and that many of
them experienced an extreme “spiritual hunger.”
“They saw a need for the presence of God in the world,” he said.
“You don’t see the presence of God in war. War is about seeing the
absence of God.”
Father Hartnett said he knew “little or nothing about religious
orders” when he decided to become a priest. All he knew was that he wanted
to become a priest and teach.
“There were 36 diocesan priests on the faculty at my high school and
being associated with those men and seeing what they were doing had a big
effect on me,” he said. “It got into my blood.”
When he talked to diocesan priests and realized that a position in teaching
could not be guaranteed, Father Hartnett decided to become a Marist priest, the
same order an older cousin had joined many years earlier. His reason for
wanting to become a priest as well as a teacher was simple.
“I wanted people to know there was a God, a loving God. I especially
wanted kids to know.”
Father Hartnett made his first profession of vows at Our Lady of the Elms in
Staten Island, N.Y., at 6 a.m. on Sept. 8, 1949. He recalls the day well,
remembering it was pouring rain when he professed his vows. Immediately after
his profession, he and the other newly named Marists, left for seminary at
Marist College in Washington, D.C., to make room for the next novitiate group
that had arrived at Our Lady of the Elms the night before.
“I remember I was quite excited. It was the first time I was allowed to
hang that ‘SM’ behind my name and that’s something that’s
very important to me,” he said. “It meant that I was joining an
interesting, dedicated group of men worldwide.”
Fifty years later, on Sept. 8, 1999, Father Hartnett renewed those vows of
poverty, chastity and obedience at the first Mass of the year at the school
which has been his home on and off for over 25 years.
At the Mass, students gave Father Hartnett a standing ovation as Michael
Maher, headmaster of the school, expressed his gratitude for the priest’s
many years of dedication to Marist.
“We have been blessed by virtually every day he has been here with
us,” he told the students. “It is important to recognize the model we
have standing before us.”
In reference to the closing song of the Mass, “Awesome God,” Maher
said, “We know we have an awesome God and I think you agree that our
Father Hartnett is awesome.”
Father Hartnett jokingly refers to his time at Marist as an
“archeological dig site with four layers.” After his ordination to
the priesthood in 1955, Father Hartnett was assigned as a teacher at Marist,
then a widely recognized boys military academy. After several other assignments
throughout the country, he returned to teach at the school and to serve as its
business manager in 1965. He left the school in 1967 and returned again in
1971, this time as the principal of the school, a position he held until 1982.
It was during this time that Father Hartnett made what he considers his two
biggest accomplishments, the end of the school’s military program and the
beginning of the alumni association.
Feeling that the military image was “hurting the growth of the
school,” Father Hartnett ended the program.
“It was an excellent program, but if you put the kids in Air Force
uniforms, that’s the dominating image,” he said. “The Marist
image was much more in the background.”
Because of the program’s termination, Father Hartnett said, “the
Marist facet came forth by leaps and bounds.”
It was also during this time, in 1976, that Marist began admitting female
students.
When Father Hartnett came to serve as the principal of Marist in 1971 he was
surprised to find that there was no alumni association. In 1974, he hired a
full-time alumni director. The alumni association at Marist now numbers over
6,000 graduates, who attend class reunions and golf outings, participate in
fund raising and serve on the school’s board of trustees.
“It’s been a great experience. They’ve contributed
immeasurably to the school’s growth and development.”
In 1982, Father Hartnett took a year’s sabbatical in Rome. From 1983-84
he attended Duquesne University in Pittsburgh where he received his
master’s degree in ongoing formation. He served as the vocations director
for the Marists from 1984-88 when he returned to Atlanta to begin his
“fourth and last layer” as the president of Marist School.
Father Hartnett has a special love for teenagers, whom he calls
“precious unpolished stones.”
“They just need a little polishing to let their brilliance shine
forth,” he said. “Initially they may be shy, but they are not
unwilling to acknowledge that there is a God and that he cares for them.”
Reflecting on his career in teaching, Father Hartnett noted that it is an
unusual profession.
“You do not get immediate feedback,” he said. “It is more of
a delayed gratification. A person who has only been teaching a short time does
not yet know the true delight of teaching.”
Father William Rowland, SM, Marist provincial, was a student of Father
Hartnett’s while a junior in high school at St. Mary’s Manor, a minor
seminary in Pennsylvania. He recalled Father Hartnett as well-respected and
well-liked by the students and said that he “really taught from the
heart.”
“It was obvious to me that he was very dedicated to teaching and to
being a priest and to being a Marist,” he said. “I got the impression
that he really enjoyed what he was doing and as a young person in seminary, you
really need to see that.”
Father Hartnett is grateful for the feedback he has received from graduates,
whether it’s taken two or 20 years for a former student to realize the
importance of Marist in his or her life. Though there have been enormous
changes in the school, the core of the Marist mission remains constant.
“We try to get kids to see that what they’re doing does mean a
great deal, not only to themselves, but also to the people around them,”
he said. “We try to give them the desire to serve their brothers and
sisters in need.”
Father Hartnett now teaches many students whose parents he also taught and
he said that has been fun.
“My greatest fear is that some kid’s going to come in and tell me
I taught his grandfather,” he said. “It’s getting close.”
Though Father Hartnett’s fourth layer is still being laid at the
school, he said he plans to be there for the duration. He joked that his next
layer will be at Westview Cemetery, the burial place for many Marists.
Though 50 years is a long time, Father Hartnett insists it hasn’t felt
that long.
“When you enjoy what you’re doing, you don’t look at the
clock.”
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