美国国务卿克里在波士顿学院年毕业典礼上英语演讲稿

1、美国国务卿克里在波士顿学院年毕业典礼上英语演讲稿your eminence cardinal omalley, father president leahy, father monan, father devino, members of the faculty, my fellow recipients of honorary degrees, parents, siblings, and the distinguished class of 2019: congratulations to everybody here today.you know i thought i had a lo

2、t to worry about as i was listening to the introduction, betweenafghanistan and iran and so forth. but now im worried about where challenger is. (laughter.)i will leave here knowing that boston college liberates eagles. (laughter.)its a great honor to be with you. you all might remember from english

3、 class that the greatamerican novelist thomas wolfe wrote that you cant go home again. or maybe you know thatquote because its the same thing that your parents are telling you now. (laughter.)well, wolfe had obviously never been to boston college. it is nice to be off an airplane, but myfriends, it

4、is great to be home. i am really happy to be here. (applause and cheers.)i know that many of you stayed up all night so you could see your last sunrise at bc. (cheers.)some of you thought it would never come, graduation that is. ive got news for you: some ofyour parents and professors didnt think so

5、 either. (laughter.)now, i notice a lot of you are wearing shades. it wont work, folks. ill still hear you snoring. (laughter.)i was on the campus of one of your rivals yesterday in new haven. and while i let them knowthat they could be proud of their title in mens hockey last year, i also had to pu

6、t it inperspective: yale is still four titles behind bc. (cheers and applause.)there are many things actually that yale and boston college have in common, but one isprobably the most powerful: mutual dislike of harvard. (laughter.) although to be fair,hundreds of schools dont like harvard very much.

7、as secretary of state, i track many factions and rivalries around the world. bc versus notredame is at the top of my list. of course, theres also alec baldwin versus the nypd. (laughter.)beyonces sister versus jay z. (laughter and cheers.) and then theres the rivalry: red soxand yankees. (cheering a

8、nd applause.) we absolutely loved the last ten years: yankees oneworld series, and red sox three. thats my kind of rivalry, folks. (cheers.)now bc reminds us today that though rivalries can be overcome, here today you have honoreda holy cross alumnus, the great bob cousy, who, as you heard earlier i

9、n his degreepresentation, won 117 games at boston when he was coaching here. eighty-five years old andthe celtics could have used him this year. (laughter.)so we have with us today a great legend, but most importantly an amazing person, anamazing player, and three other extraordinary builders of com

10、munity, all of whom i am veryhonored to share degrees with today. their lives and their selfless service are testimony to thefact that boston college is an amazing place.over the past years, you have all been blessed to experience a special quality that has alwaysdefined bc: the welcoming spirit of

11、this community. that has been a distinguishingcharacteristic of boston college since its first days, when it opened its doors to irishimmigrants and catholics who were barred from other schools.when i came here more than 40 years ago, i want you to know that i felt that welcomefirsthand. i had, as y

12、ou heard, served in war, and when i came home, i worked to end it. it wasa turbulent time for our country, for me personally. it was a time of division anddisillusionment.but because of one thoughtful man of conscience, one member of the boston collegecommunity, i found a home right here.many of you

13、 today might not even recognize the name of father robert drinan. he was thedean of the law school and he was running for congress when i first visited him on thecampus.and what impressed me most about father drinan whether on chestnut hill or capitol hill was that he made no apologies for his deep

14、and abiding catholic commitment to the weak, thehelpless, the downtrodden.“if a person is really a christian,” father drinan would say, “they will be in anguish over globalhunger, injustice, over the denial of educational opportunity.”in fact, it was father drinan who encouraged me to study law at b

15、c, even when it wasnt theobvious path. i had come to law school from a different background than my classmates. idserved in the navy, just turned 30, and had a young family.and because of where id been and what id seen, i came to boston college with a set ofnagging questions. i had confronted my own

16、 mortality head-on during the war, where faithwas as much a part of my daily life as the battle itself. in fact, i wore my rosary around myneck hoping for protection.but on closer examination, i realized my wartime relationship with god was really a dependentone a “god, get me through this and ill b

17、e good” kind of relationship. and as i becamedisillusioned with the war, my faith also was put to test.theres something theologians call “the problem of evil.” its the difficulty of explaining howterrible and senseless events are, in fact, part of gods plan. that was a very real test for me.some of

18、my closest friends were killed. you see things in war that haunt you for the rest ofyour life.so coming here to bc law, reading st. augustine on the problem of evil, or st. thomasaquinas on just war, the letters of st. paul and thoughts about suffering this was not anabstract or academic exercise. i

19、t was a chance to dig in and really try to understand whereand how everything fit, including trying to understand where i fit in. im sure a lot of you askthose questions.it was the compassion, listening, and understanding that i experienced at bc that made mefeel welcome, taught me literally how to

20、think critically, how to ask the right questions, andreinforced in me a personal sense of direction.it would be years before pope francis would talk about the responsibility we all have to reachout to those who “stand at the crossroads.” i might not have connected the dots at the time,but that is ex

21、actly what bc was doing for me and i hope has done for you.the people i met here were putting into action the words of the jesuit motto that youve heardalready today: “men and women for others.”every institution has a mission or a motto thats the easy part. the hard part is ensuringthat theyre not j

22、ust words. we have to make sure that even as our world changes rapidly andin so many ways, we can still, each of us, give new meaning to our values.today, i promise you that is one of the greatest challenges of americas foreign policy: ensuringthat even when its not popular, even when its not easy,

23、america still lives up to our idealsand our responsibilities to lead.never forget that what makes america different from other nations is not a common religion ora common bloodline or a common ideology or a common heritage. what makes us different isthat we are united by an uncommon idea: that were

24、all created equal and all endowed withunalienable rights. america is and i say this without chauvinism or any arrogancewhatsoever, but america is not just a country like other countries. america is an idea, and we all of us, you get to fill it out over time. (applause.) so our citizenship is not jus

25、t a privilege it is a profound responsibility.and in a shrinking world, we cant measure our success just by what we achieve as americansfor americans, but also by the security and shared prosperity that we build with our partnersall over world.in times of crisis, violence, strife, epidemic, and inst

26、ability believe me the world stilllooks to the united states of america as a partner of first resort. people arent worried aboutour presence; theyre worried about our leaving. one of the great privileges of being secretaryof state is getting to see that firsthand.in december, i walked through the de

27、vastation left behind by the typhoon in the philippines.the u.s. military and usaid had arrived on the scene before countries that are much closerthan we are.this month in the democratic republic of congo, i saw how the united states is supportingsurgeons and catholic nuns helping victims of violenc

28、e and abuse.and just a few weeks ago in ethiopia, i saw what our sustained commitment to combattingaids is achieving. local doctors and nurses are making possible the dream of an aids-freegeneration. were on the cusp of achieving that.and what we have done to turn back the armies of defeatism and in

29、difference in the fightagainst aids, tuberculosis, malaria, and even polio this work should give every one of youconfidence to confront another cross-border, cross-generational challenge, the challengeof a changing climate. if were going to live up to our values, this is a test that we have tomeet.n

30、ow look, i know this is hard, because i spent almost 30 years in the united states senatepushing this issue, trying to get colleagues to move. we got up to maybe 55 votes, couldntquite get to 60. and i know its hard to feel the urgency. as we sit here on an absolutelybeautiful morning in boston, you

31、 might not see climate change as an immediate threat toyour job, your community, or your families. but let me tell you, it is.two major recent reports, one from the un and one from retired u.s. military leaders, warn usnot just of the crippling consequences to come, but that some of them are already

32、 here. ninety-seven percent of the worlds scientists tell us this is urgent. why? because if crops cant grow,therell be food insecurity. if theres less water because of longer droughts, if there arestronger and more powerful storms, things will change in a hurry and they will change for theworse.cli

33、mate change is directly related to the potential of greater conflict and greater stability instability. im telling you that there are people in parts of the world in africa today, theyfight each other over water. they kill each over it. and if glaciers are melting and theres lesswater available and

34、more people, that is a challenge we have to face. and guess what? it isthe poorest and the weakest who face the greatest risk. as father drinan would say, we shouldbe in anguish over this. (applause.)whats frustrating is that this challenge is not without a solution. in fact, not one problem ican th

35、ink of today that we face in this country is without a solution. its a question ofcapacity, willpower. the solution is actually staring us in the face. it is energy policy. makethe right energy policy choices and america can lead a $6 trillion market with 4 billion userstoday and growing to 9 billio

36、n users in the next 50 years.if we make the necessary efforts to address this challenge and supposing im wrong orscientists are wrong, 97 percent of them all wrong supposing they are, whats the worst thatcan happen? we put millions of people to work transitioning our energy, creating new andrenewabl

37、e and alternative; we make life healthier because we have less particulates in the airand cleaner air and more health; we give ourselves greater security through greater energyindependence thats the downside. this is not a matter of politics or partisanship; its amatter of science and stewardship. a

38、nd its not a matter of capacity; its a matter of willpower. (applause.)but if we do nothing, and it turns out that the critics and the naysayers and the members ofthe flat earth society, if it turns out that theyre wrong, then we are risking nothing less thanthe future of the entire planet. this is

39、not a hard choice, frankly. but still, let me tell you weneed the help of every single one of you to make it.in the end, all of these global challenges how to defend against extremism, how toeradicate disease, how to provide young people with opportunity, how to protect our planet all of these quest

40、ions of whether men and women can live in dignity. what do i mean bydignity? i mean exactly the same thing that father david hollenbach taught on this campusand brought to the forefront of catholic social teaching: that when families have access toclean water and clean power, they can live in dignit

41、y. when people have the freedom to choosetheir government on election day and to engage their fellow citizens every day, they can livein dignity. when all citizens can make their full contribution no matter their ethnicity; nomatter who they love or what name they give to god, they can live in digni

42、ty.and this is where you come in: the struggle for dignity. whether across town or across theworld, it makes demands on your own lives. the diploma that you will receive today isnt just acertificate of accomplishment. its a charge to keep. its a powerful challenge to every singleone of you, because you have already been blessed with