An Encounter with Helen Hoens

It was about seven years ago when happenstance caused me to have a brief conversation with a woman who walked up to my seminar discussion table during a break at the College of Saint Elizabeth (CSE), at its peaceful campus in Convent Station, NJ.

Governor Chris Christie leans in on a question
from the audience at the Raritan Valley Community
College in Branchburg, NJ, on April 11, 2013

A large group of adults had registered for a presentation by Michael Christensen and Rebecca Laird, co-authors of a book revolving around the person and teachings of Henri Nouwen.

Nouwen, a Dutch-born Catholic priest who passed away in 1996, was a world renowned spiritual writer who still commands a large following across a wide spectrum of the Christian community and beyond.

Fluent in French and English, Nouwen taught at prestigious learning institutions including Notre Dame, the divinity schools of Harvard and Yale and at other venues.  He was a prolific writer with nearly 40 books to his credit.  He even spent some time in Central Jersey with a few enthusiasts in the Somerset Hills.

During one the class discussions at the College of Saint Elizabeth, I raised my hand to mention that I was one of Nouwen’s admirers, and that I also belonged to a book discussion group that bears his name.

It was that last comment which apparently drew Hoens’ attention and caused her to approach me at the break.  She asked whether I knew so-and-so, a judge (name withheld for confidentiality), and who was also a staunch admirer of Nouwen.

I answered sure, he’s the person who organized and leads the discussions of my book club.  She seemed to light up at that, and confided that this person is one of her friends with whom she was having lunch soon.

The remarkable thing for me is that Hoens never identified herself as a sitting judge of the New Jersey Supreme Court.  (My naïveté, I might add!)  Our discussion resulted in a brief interchange between two people momentarily brought together by the combination of a mutual friendship with a third person, and by a common interest in Henri Nouwen.

Yesterday, I learned that Hoens will not be re-appointed as a tenured member of the New Jersey Supreme Court.  News accounts reported that the reason stems from Governor Chris Christie’s refusal to “be a party to the destruction of Helen Hoens’ professional reputation . . . I was not going to let her loose to the animals” [within the NJ State Senate’s Judiciary Committee which needs to ratify her appointment].

This appears to have been brought on by a statement attributed to New Jersey State Senator Raymond Lesniak, a Judiciary Committee member who “told The Star-Ledger” that “Democrats should quash Hoen’s nomination as payback . . .” to Governor Chris Christie.

That is a damn shame.  I think that Senator Lesniak badly miscalculated – perhaps thinking that he was outmaneuvering Chris Christie.  That’s not a logical thing to do, especially after the Judiciary Committee has refused to ratify all but one of Christie’s last five nominees.

It is an especially risky tactic for any New Jersey politician because of Christie’s innate sense of strategy, and of how he may unexpectedly counter with inside blows to a political foe. 

Apparently, Lesniak was taken off-guard by his own admission that Christie is now “becoming wobbly.”  Wobbly, my butt!  Senator Lesniak knows that he was outmaneuvered. 

He profoundly underestimated Christie’s intolerance for having another of his Supreme Court nominees, especially a proven winner such as Helen Hoens, run the unforgiving gauntlet of the Judiciary Committee.

According to news reports, Hoens’ husband is an adviser to Governor Christie. 

My personal speculation is that Christie didn’t just drop the hammer on Helen Hoens without well-thought-out deliberation with the parties involved.  It’s not unlikely that he may have had a discussion that included Hoens, her husband who is on Christie’s team, and other trusted advisers. 

Hoens herself may not have wanted to have her reputation dragged through the mud of political slander emanating from gun-slingers on the Judiciary Committee.

My suppositions, of course, may not have happened.  Nonetheless, those are my observations:  just my own thoughts on the matter.

Helen Hoens embodies civility, concern for the welfare of New Jersey, good judgment, and a largely undefinable but highly recognizable human quality known as class – a characteristic not confined to any one level of social strata.

But perhaps one of her most distinguished qualities, one that I observed during our brief encounter at the College of Saint Elizabeth, was her natural display of humility – a trait that permeates the writings of Nouwen himself. 

Humility should not be defined as yielding submissively to others.  Rather, it is best described as the quality of a person imbued with a high degree of self-knowledge, and of how to apply that characteristic to the everyday situations of life, be they personal or professional.

It is wretchedly unfortunate that the Judiciary Committee continues to keep alive the hide-bound practice of blocking Christie’s nominations to the NJ Supreme Court.

It is the privilege of a New Jersey governor to have his nominees ratified – even if it results in a directional shift of the Court.

Judge Hoens should not have become the threatened hostage of the Judiciary Committee.

She clearly has demonstrated the knowledge, the experience and the gravitas for appointment to tenured status on the New Jersey Supreme Court.  She should have been kept out-of-reach from attack by her putative assailants.  I wish her well.