Jesuit College Prep Dallas Acquires Paintings "Composition with Figures," a guoache-and-charcoal work done in 1925 by Parisian Georges Tesson, is one of sixteen paintings created in the first half of the last century by cubists, including Frantisek Kupka, Beatrice Mandelman, Paul Mansaraoff, and George Marinko, recently given by a generous and anonymous donor to Jesuit College Prep in Dallas. In Dallas or plan to go? Tours available with advance notice: call (972) 387-8700 or visit www.jesuitcp.org

Loyola College Choir Heads for Pilgrimage Loyola College in Maryland's associate director of campus ministry, George Miller, leads the Chapel Choir, which he founded sixteen yers ago. They are rehearsing for this winter's pilgrimage, during which they will sing before Pope John Paul II at a papal mass. The pilgrims will visit Ignatian sites throughout Rome and give a concert at the Churchof St. Ignatius there. They will then travel north to Assisi where they will give a performance at the Basilica of St. Francis.

Undefeated, Untied, and Uninvited

The 1951 University of San Francisco football team is often called the greatest collection of college football heroes ever to play together. The team went all season undefeated, no ties.

Despite its success, it did not receive an invitation to play a postseason bowl game, usually a sure bet for a team with such an unblemished record.

In 1951 the USF Dons were one of only a handful of football teams in the nation with African-American players. Only if they left behind their African-American teammates, Ollie Matson and Burt ToIer, would they be invited to play in a bowl game. For the Dons, the decision was easy: everyone goes or nobody goes. And so the team came to be known as "undefeated, untied, and uninvited."

Toler, described as the best all-around member of the '51 team, broke the color barrier in his own way. A knee injury dashed his chances at a pro career, but he became the first African-American NFL game official, working for 25 seasons.

After winning silver and bronze medals in track at the 1952 Olympics, Matson had a pro football career and ended up in the NFL Hall of Fame, as did USF teammates Bob St. Clair and Gino Marchetti.

Members of the team reunited at a recent 50th anniversary celebration; more than 400 people came together to remember the team that was heroic for more than its record on the football field.

Human Rights Lawyer Murdered

Digna Ochoa Plácido, former head of the legal defense department at the Jesuit-run Miguel Pro Human Rights Center in Mexico City, was shot dead in Mexico City October 19 in what authorities label a politically motivated killing.

Calling her death an "execution," the Miguel Pro Center said Ochoas killing "causes us profound sadness, pain, and indignation."

Death threats became so persistent that the center sought protection for Ochoa through the Inter-American Human Rights Commission.

A letter found with Ochoa's body threatened members of the Miguel Pro Center, where Ochoa worked until last year, when she left Mexico for her safety. She moved to Washington, D.C., where she worked for the Center for Justice and International Law. Then in April she returned to Mexico and joined a private office working with other human rights lawyers.

Ochoa was kidnaped twice in 1999, with the incidents traced to her work defending two ecologists who opposed logging in the mountains in the state of Guerrero.

At a memorial service, Fr. Edgar Cortez, SJ, who runs the center, said the killing was an act of "clear aggression against the entire human rights community."

"She was a role model for all human rights defenders," Fr. Cortez said.

-Catholic News Seivice

Gonzaga University Kicks off Indian Education Outreach Program

Native Americans of the Wellpinit School on the Spokane Indian Reservation dance for their hosts at Gonzaga University when they visited as part of Gonzaga's Indian Outreach Program. Students got a bookstore tour, a view of amoeba through a microscope, and a short physics lesson before they performed a traditional Indian dance.

The Gonzaga Indian Outreach Program, launched last year, is designed to engage the area's Native American students in university culture and technological learning.

The project involves students at Wellpinit and another rural and isolated regional school, where 95 percent of students are Native Americans.

"The purpose of visiting the Gonzaga campus is to increase the probability that these Indian students will finish high school and go to college," said Fr. Joe Fortier, Sj, program coordinator. "The objectives are to familiarize the students with a university campus and to acquaint them with Gonzaga mentors who are pen pals with them via e-mail."

Native American students take part in lab experiments and other activities; Gonzaga undergraduates who act as mentors and role models become more aware of poverty, inequity in education and other issues facing Native American society.

Fr. Fortier notes that Gonzaga has few Native American students but says, "We're going to raise the number of Indians going to school here. At the very least, we will raise interest in college."

School of the Americas Protest

Students and faculty from the University of San Francisco, St. John's Jesuit High in Toledo, University of Detroit Jesuit High, and Regis University in Denver were among those from many Jesuit schools who took part in a weekend of demonstrations against the School of the Americas (now named the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation) at Ft. Benning in Georgia.

The yearly demonstrations mark the anniversary of the 1 989 murders of six Jesuits, their housekeeper, and her daughter in El Salvador, murders attributed to graduates of the school.

The Companions, a group of former Jesuits on the West Coast, underwrote the costs of hotel rooms, meeting tents, and food for the Jesuit schools' participants. They also hosted an Ignatian Family Teach In at which Fr. Charles Currie, SJ, president of the Association of Jesuit Colleges and Universities, and activist Fr. Bill Bichsel, SJ, were among those who spoke.