\u201cDo you think he\u2019ll sing?\u201d the girl in the row behind me wondered aloud.<\/p>\n
\u201cI hope so,\u201d the young fellow beside her said before continuing, \u201cMy dad would freak. He was a big fan of U2 when I was growing up. He used to play this one album, The Joshua Tree<\/em>, over and over again.\u201d<\/p>\n His father<\/em> was a fan.<\/p>\n I am a thousand years old<\/em>, I thought to myself, as more Georgetown students filled the seats around me at the university\u2019s 111-year-old Gaston Hall, the main lecture hall on campus named after Georgetown\u2019s first student, William Gaston, who later served as a member of the U.S. Congress.<\/p>\n The hall, decorated with stunning art-deco-era frescos and the crest of every Jesuit institute of higher learning, has hosted many dignitaries over the years, including Presidents Obama and Clinton, Vice-President Al Gore, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, and Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, to name but a few.<\/p>\n \u201cSo if he\u2019s not going to sing, is he just going to talk,\u201d another student asked, with a distinct whiff of disappointment in his voice.<\/p>\n \u201cI hear he\u2019s an awesome speaker, though,\u201d still another student said.<\/p>\n The students who packed the auditorium, many of them from Georgetown\u2019s Global Social Enterprise Initiative at the McDonough School of Business<\/a> and more than a few donning black t-shirts with the insignia of the ONE Campaign (of which Bono is a co-founder), weren\u2019t sure what to expect from the famous Irish rock star and humanitarian.<\/p>\n A concert? A lecture? Another boring speech?<\/p>\n I\u2019m fairly certain none of the students present for Monday night\u2019s event, sponsored by the Bank of America and The Atlantic<\/em> magazine, anticipated hearing Bono, the 52-year-old lead singer of U2, preach.<\/p>\n But preach he did.<\/p>\n After an introduction by Brian Moynihan, CEO of Bank of America (whose presence was greeted by some grumbling from the students seated around me, one who suggested in a stage whisper that they start a chant from the Occupy Wall Street movement), Bono bounded up to the lectern, grinning with his blue eyes flashing excitement from behind his trademark rose-colored shades.<\/p>\n \u201cThank you, Brian \u2014 a gentleman in a world where, uh, that quality is not always on tap,\u201d Bono began, as the crowd roared. \u201cThe band wanted me to say thank you to you too, Brian, because, as you heard, the band are committed to the idea that every school kid in Ireland should have access to free music lessons if they need \u2019em. So Brian has been helping us out with that.\u201d<\/p>\n (That seemed to quell any unrest about having one of the world\u2019s leading bankers in the room.)<\/p>\n \u201cI don\u2019t know if this is a lectern or a pulpit,\u201d Bono told the crowd, folding his arms on the wooden podium in front of him, \u201cbut I feel oddly comfortable. It\u2019s a bit of a worry, isn\u2019t it? So \u2026 welcome to Pop Culture Studies 101. Please take out your notebooks. Today we are going to discuss why rock stars should never, ever be given access to microphones at institutes of higher learning.<\/p>\n \u201cYou will receive no credit for taking this class,\u201d Bono joked, \u201cnot even street cred \u2014 it\u2019s too late for that. I will, of course, be dropping the occasional pop culture reference to give the impression that I know where your generation is at. I do not. I am not sure where I am at.\u201d<\/p>\n Good. I\u2019m not the only one who feels ancient amidst this audience of youngsters<\/em>, I thought.<\/p>\n \u201cAnd the first existential question of this class might be, \u2018What am I doing in [Gaston] Hall?'\u201d Bono quipped. \u201cI could be down having my third pint at The Tombs\u2026.Pop culture references. Rock star does research.\u201d<\/p>\n Score one for said rock star. The room erupted in laughter at the mention of one of the campus\u2019 legendary watering holes.<\/p>\n \u201cI heard Election Night was quite messy on the pint front. Isn\u2019t it amazing how three pints can make everything seem like victory, but four or five and you just know you\u2019re about to taste defeat,\u201d he continued. \u201cAnyway, congratulations are in order. Not just for turning out in record numbers, but \u2014 forgetting politics for a minute \u2014 for electing an extraordinary man as president. I think you have to say that whatever your political tradition.\u201d<\/p>\n Bono also congratulated the audience for being freed from the \u201ctyranny\u201d of political \u201cattack ads.\u201d Imagine, he said, if they never went away, if attack ads were the norm for everything, even, say, college admissions.<\/p>\n \u201cHello. We\u2019re Georgetown and we approved this message,\u201d he said in the stoic voice of a political ad announcer. \u201cLet me say a few words about some other fine institutions you might be considering. UVA: Thomas Jefferson, what have they done to you? Syracuse: A school whose mascot is a fruit. Duke: A school that worships the devil.<\/p>\n \u201cGeorgetown \u2013 you\u2019re in with the other guy! Georgetown has God on its side. Everyone knows God is a Catholic, right?\u201d said Bono, whose late mother was a Protestant and late father, Bob, a Catholic. \u201cTwo words: Frank Sinatra. That proves it!\u201d<\/p>\n All jokes aside \u2014 and he was terrifically witty throughout his nearly hour long address \u2014 Bono turned his attention to his true passion: helping the world\u2019s poorest of the poor.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019d like to hear attack ads on things worth attacking. If there was an attack ad on malaria, I\u2019d get that, because 3,000 people die every day \u2014 mostly kids \u2014 of malaria. Let\u2019s have an attack ad on malaria. Let\u2019s have an attack ad on mother-to-child transmission of HIV\/AIDS. I\u2019d get that. Choose your enemies carefully because they define you. Make sure they\u2019re interesting enough because trust me, you\u2019re going to spend a lot of time in their company. So let\u2019s pick a worthwhile enemy, shall we?<\/p>\n \u201cHow \u2019bout all the obstacles to fulfilling human potential \u2014 not just yours or mine but the world\u2019s potential?\u201d he continued. \u201cI would suggest to you that the biggest obstacle in the way right now is extreme poverty. Poverty so extreme that it brutalizes, it vandalizes human dignity. Poverty so extreme it laughs at the concept of human dignity. Poverty so extreme it doubts how far we\u2019ve traveled in our journey of equality; the journey that began with Wilberforce taking on slavery and a journey that will not end until misery and deprivation are in stocks.\u201d<\/p>\n Were Bono an actual preacher, that was where he would have pounded his fists on the pulpit.<\/p>\n Painted on the wall behind the podium where this unlikely preacher of the Gospel of Social Justice spoke are the Latin words: Ad majorem Dei gloriam<\/a> inque hominum salutem. <\/em>Earlier, Georgetown\u2019s president, John De Gioia, reminded the students of their meaning: \u201cFor the greater glory of God and the betterment of humankind.\u201d<\/p>\n The Abolitionists. The Suffragettes. The Civil Rights Movement.<\/p>\n Social movements have always been powerful, Bono told the audience, but there is something special about this moment in history \u2014 it\u2019s \u201ctransformative.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThis moment, this generation [has] the chance that you have to rid the world of the obscenity of extreme poverty. Wouldn\u2019t that be a hell of a way to start the 21st century?\u201d<\/p>\n You could have heard a pin drop. The kids seated on either side of me were leaning forward in their chairs. They were listening with the attentiveness professors only dream about. Bono had their attention and kept it as he told them about the power they have to make changes \u2014 significant, global changes \u2014 by the conscious choices they make about how they spend their money, through social media and emerging technologies, by making sure their politicians keep the promises they\u2019ve made about foreign aid funding in Africa and the rest of the developing world.<\/p>\n Something big was happening in the room. You could feel it. A palpable presence. I\u2019d call it the Holy Spirit.<\/p>\n And it reminded me of a night 10 years ago at another college campus, when Bono spoke at my alma mater, Wheaton College in Illinois. At the time, I was traveling with Bono and his organization DATA (a predecessor of ONE) across the Midwest where he was trying to get American evangelicals (in particular) to turn their attention to the AIDS emergency in sub-Saharan Africa and to do something about it as a matter of justice \u2014 as a matter of the heart of their own faith.<\/p>\n Bono\u2019s address at Wheaton fell about half-way through the Heart of America tour and it was a turning point not only for the tour, but for the movement it sparked. American evangelicals \u2014 the great \u201csleeping giant,\u201d as Bono called them at the time \u2014 woke up, got involved, and worked for change. The monumental successes in alleviating crushing debt, supplying life-saving HIV\/AIDS drugs, malaria netting, and the funds to put millions of African children in school for the first time are a testament to what transpired in Wheaton\u2019s Edmund Chapel in early December 2002. <\/a><\/p>\n I know students who were there that night who\u2019ve gone on to dedicate their careers and lives to helping the \u201cleast of these.\u201d I, too, jaded journalist and wounded evangelical as I was at the time, was changed. Healed. Inspired and transformed.<\/p>\n The same thing was happening in Gaston Hall last night.<\/p>\n [slideshow]<\/p>\n \u201cThose people I\u2019ve been talking about today \u2014 the poor \u2014 they\u2019re not \u2018those people,\u2019 they\u2019re not \u2018them.\u2019 They\u2019re us. They\u2019re you,\u201d Bono said toward the end of his address. \u201cThey dream as you dream. They value what you value. There is no them, only us. The American anthem is not exceptionalism, it\u2019s universalism. There is no them. Only us. Ubuntu<\/em>. \u2018I am because we are.\u2019 There is no them. Only us.\u201d<\/p>\n Maybe it\u2019s a sheer coincidence (I\u2019m doubtful) that the motto of Georgetown, a Jesuit university, is Utraque Unum<\/i>, which means \u201cboth into one.\u201d<\/p>\n Ultraque Unum <\/em>in Latin.<\/p>\n Ubuntu<\/em> in a dialect from South Africa where Archbishop Desmond Tutu \u2014 the man Bono only half-kidding says he works for \u2014 has taken the word as his own life\u2019s motto.<\/p>\n Bono turned his attention to the Jesuits and their founder St. Ignatius of Loyola, to whom that Latin quote on the wall of the Gaston hall often is attributed.<\/p>\n \u201cSt. Ignatius, he was a soldier,\u201d Bono began. \u201cHe was lying on a bed recovering from his wounds when he had what they call a conversion of the heart. He saw God\u2019s work and the call to do God\u2019s work. Not just in the church, in everything, everywhere. The arts, universities, the Orient, the New World. And once he knew about that, he couldn\u2019t unknow<\/em> it.<\/p>\n \u201cIt changed him,\u201d Bono said. \u201cIt forced him out of bed and into the world. And that\u2019s what I\u2019m hoping happens here in Georgetown with you. Because when you truly accept that those children in some far off place in the global village have the same value as you \u2014 in God\u2019s eyes or even just in your eyes \u2014 then your life is forever changed. You see something that you can\u2019t unsee.\u201d<\/p>\n Sitting there, tears dripping down my cheeks, I could feel it. Minds were opened. Hearts and eyes were, too.<\/p>\n Who knows when we look back 10 years from now, what the result of some of those Georgetown students seeing what they couldn\u2019t unsee will be.<\/p>\n May we all have the eyes to see it.<\/p>\n Watch Bono\u2019s full Georgetown address below:<\/p>\n