C21 Resources A SERVICE OF BOSTON COLLEGE spring 2007 A “catholic” Intellectual Tradition

timothy p. muldoon to the disciples: “go, therefore, and and Stephen A. Pope focus more ing today in the areas of human make disciples of all nations” (Matthew specifically on the college and uni- rights, the origins of the universe, he desire which motivated 28:18). The Catholic Church seeks to versity context which nurtures this and democratic political life. Inter- medieval religious communi- be a catholic community—that is, a tradition. Finally, the essays by Mary spersed throughout these essays are T ties to found the first universi- community spread throughout the Ann Glendon, George Coyne, and shorter reflections from a number of ties was rooted in a basic confidence world, sharing what Jesus taught for Greg Kalscheur offer specific exam- thinkers, including faculty members about the knowableness of reality, a the welfare of all people. ples of how the Catholic intellectual at Boston College. trust that all things to be known found tradition has informed our understand- ––– a unifying principle in the belief that Today it is common to use the term t r e b

God created them. Some—Thomas “Catholic” in the former, specific sense, l i G

Aquinas most notably—carried this as a reference to a particular commu- e n y confidence enough to engage even nity and its history. To be sure, in a a W

y r

the intellectual work of Jewish and world in which only one of every six a G

Muslim thinkers. people is Catholic, and in which an- y b

o t

other one of every six is a member of o h P

-

It is this sense of confidence about a Christian community which is not in y r a reality that has animated Catholic communion with the Catholic Church, r b i L

intellectual life at its best. Today, it seems presumptuous to suggest that t s p a

however, some question the possi- the hallmark of the Catholic Church B

n i

bility and relevance of an intellec- is universality. Yet the peculiarly theo- e b i r c

tual tradition that calls itself Catholic. logical import of catholicity is that it s

h s i

It was during the modern period suggests a kind of reaching for univer- r I

n a that the Middle Ages were called sality. Using the image of yeast, Walter f o

s

“Dark,” precisely because moderns Ong suggests in his essay (beginning s a l g

judged religious belief to be unsci- on p. 10) that the Church is “a lim- d e n i entific and therefore inconsistent itless, growing reality, destined ulti- a t with the methods of rational inquiry. mately to be present everywhere and S If one cannot prove God or any of to affect everything, though by no the doctrines about God, how could means to convert everything into a Catholic intellectual tradition be itself.” The catholicity of the think- anything more than a myopic pre- ing Church is not to be found in an modern world view? attempt to colonize human reason, but rather in a desire to know what There is an inherent paradox in the is true. It was this desire which ani- term “Catholic” when used to describe mated the original university com- an intellectual tradition. On the one munities, and it is this desire which hand, it is a specific term used to make can re-animate intellectual life today. reference to a specific community of people. Ignatius of Antioch was the In this issue of C21 Resources, we first to use the term around 110, to have brought together essays which describe the nascent Christian com- explore dimensions of the Catholic munity: “Wheresoever the bishop intellectual tradition as a resource for shall appear, there let the people be, both the Church and the world. There even as where Jesus may be, there is are four essays (by Margaret Steinfels, the universal [katholike] Church.” On Sidney Callahan, Robert Imbelli, and the other hand, Ignatius sought, as do Walter Ong) that address the tradition Catholics today, to describe the Church as a whole. Further, the essays by John in a way that reflects the universal the- Haughey, Alan Wolfe, Michael Himes, ological import of Jesus’ commission Alasdair McIntyre, J. Michael Miller,

BOSTON COLLEGE | C 21 RESOURCES | SPRING 2007 1 The Catholic Intellectual Tradition

C21 Resources by margaret steinfels manifestations may be, it is essential ness and dogmatism. Well, I say go to the Church, to its mission in the read a history book! Some of you may atholic intellectual life is cen- world, to the lives of ordinary people, be skeptical that the adjective Catholic editor tral to Catholic identity. It is that there be a vigorous and Catholic adds anything to an institution or dis- Timothy P. Muldoon C fundamental to the life of the intellectual life. And Commonweal cipline except the judicial authority of Director, The Church in the church, big C and little c, cathedral can’t do everything! ecclesiastical officials. I disagree. For and congregation—to its continued 2,000 years, Christians have struggled 21st Century Center vitality and to the Church’s missions Of course, the Catholic identity of in multifarious ways with everything in this culture. This is not a narrow Catholic colleges and universities can from body and soul to kingship and advisory board ecclesiastical tradition, but a broad have many expressions: honoring the regicide, from usury to voluntary pov- J.A. Appleyard and infinitely useful one. Commonweal founding mothers and fathers; worship erty, and today still struggle with every- has fostered and questioned that tradi- and prayer; service projects; works of thing from medical decision making Jonas Barciauskas tion. Our writers and readers reflect social justice like basketball and foot- to political theory, from child care to Ben Birnbaum that affection and that criticism. They ball; campus ministry; statues, medal- spiritual counsel, from race to gender. are university people and journalists, lions, and endowed lectureships; the It is this tradition that pressed through Robert Imbelli book editors, lawyers, physicians, work of notable alum and prestigious the centuries—and reminds us in the Gregory A. Kalscheur scientists, politicians; they are bish- faculty. But all of this would be a thin Gulf War, in Bosnia—the idea of civil- ops, clergy, and ordinary Catholics, ian immunity. The distinction between Nancy Pineda-Madrid who in their daily lives practice and ordinary and extraordinary care of the Barbara Radtke depend upon the kind of thinking, sick and the dying remains a viable one reasoning, reflection that make up the Tradition is the record because this tradition teaches it. Catholic intellectual tradition. Further- designer more, this tradition is also explored of a community’s It is a deep and rich tradition; it is a Progressive Print Solutions and appreciated by writers and read- tradition worthy of our attention and ers who are Methodists, Episcopalians, conversation over study. If this tradition does not have a Orthodox as well as Catholics, and not place in Catholic colleges and universi- C21 Resources is published by the only Christians—Jews, secular human- time about its meaning ties, what is that you are doing? What Church in the 21st Century Center ists, those lapsed from every religion tradition has a better claim? at Boston College, in partnership with known to humankind. and direction. A living All thinkers and thinking are based the publications from which these This tradition is carried on, pur- tradition is a tradition in some tradition. A tradition is not a articles have been selected. C21 Re- sued, criticized, developed, wrestled browned and dried-up certificate of sources is a compilation of the best with by example from many different that can raise questions deposit in the bank of knowledge, but analyses and essays on key challenges backgrounds. The way they think and a locus for questioning, a framework write, read, and reflect very frequently about itself. for ordering inquiry, a standard for pre- facing the Church today. They are rests on their education in American ferring some sets of ideas over others; published with the intent of stimulating Catholic colleges and universities. So tradition is the record of a community’s discussion and thought among bishops, along with the preservation of knowl- facade if it did not include at its core a conversation over time about its mean- priests, deacons, religious, and lay edge, the scholarly work of retrieval, living experience among students and ing and direction. A living tradition is the building up of bodies of knowledge, faculty of Catholic intellectual life. a tradition that can raise questions members of the Catholic community. and the education of the young, your about itself. schools are central to the practice of Yes, carrying on this tradition is the Catholic intellectual life. Colleges an enormous challenge. You have to What am I talking about? Let me at and universities cannot claim to be overcome bigotry and bias, including least sketch what I think the Catholic Catholic if this tradition is not part of especially the prejudices Catholics intellectual tradition looks like. its core understanding; this tradition themselves have against their own tra- cannot survive if Catholic colleges and dition. A Catholic intellectual is not “The joy and hope, the grief and universities do not renew it, maintain an oxymoron. You do not have to be anguish of the women and men of our it, nourish it, support it, and pass it on. a Jesuit to be a Catholic intellectual. time, especially those who are poor or Yes, Catholicism and Catholic ideas afflicted in any way, are the joy and In the last several decades, Catholi- have a checkered history. What insti- hope, the grief and anguish of the fol- cism in the United States has become tution, tradition, idea does not? From lowers of Christ as well. Nothing Keep track of lectures, panel more charismatic, more Pentecostal, Plato to Foucault, from nominalism to that is genuinely human fails to find discussions, and all events more experiential, open to both old deconstructionism, if human ideas have an echo in their hearts....Christians and new currents of spirituality and consequences, we can be sure some of cherish a feeling of deep solidarity sponsored by The meditation; it absorbs individualistic them are bad. We have our fair share. with the human race and its history.’’ Church in the 21st Century and congregational attitudes from Center at our Web site American religion generally. But Many people, perhaps some of you, That opening paragraph from www.bc.edu/church21 Catholicism is also and always has consider that the Catholic intellectual Gaudium et Spes speaks of our respon- been a church with a brain, with a tradition is singular in its intellectual sibility for all that is genuinely human, mind. So as important as these new repression and oppression, its narrow- for what draws the minds and hearts

2 BOSTON COLLEGE | C 21 RESOURCES | SPRING 2007 of women and men. The Catholic It is a loss to the whole society when scholar acknowledges them. There are everywhere to link faith and culture intellectual tradition is universal in any religious group accepts that role. virtually no value-free facts, from the blesses us with an abundance of fictional its breadth and its interests, that is In contrast, Catholics—the bishops, construction of public opinion polls to worlds from Shusaku Endo’s Deep a notion set forth, defended, repeated, but many Catholic politicians and citi- descriptions of brain synapses or histo- River to Isabel Allende’s Eva Luna. and encouraged throughout the Pas- zens as well—have often brought a ries of the decision to drop the bomb toral Constitution on the Church in philosophical and linguistic sophisti- on Hiroshima. The Catholic tradition To sum up: Yes, these characteristics the Modern World. cation to public policy issues. If, for reminds us that the fact/value distinc- can be found in other traditions. Yes, example, laws that would permit eu- tion is practically a nil one, although the Catholic tradition has been untrue I quote the quote because there thanasia and assisted suicide are kept our tradition is tempted sometimes to to them at times or embraced them is an odd nostalgia for something at bay in the United States, it will be think there can be fact-free values. only kicking and screaming; but finally like Neo-Scholasticism, if not Neo- because the bishops, Catholic institu- they have been embraced because our Scholasticism itself—nostalgia for tions, nurses, doctors, lawyers, ordinary Nonetheless, in our tradition epis- tradition becomes part of the culture a framework that provided the high citizens, have been willing to express temology and ethics are always inter- in which it finds itself—it must become level of integration said to have their deeply held beliefs, religious and related. So, for example, the notion part of the culture intellectually as in been the guiding light of preconciliar philosophical, in a reasoned discourse that education can be a value-neutral all other ways. Why? Because of its mis- Catholicism. From my post at Com- that can build consensus across the process in which teachers simply convey sion to transform the world, as we monweal, I am inclined to think that whole society. facts and the students simply receive read in Gaudium et Spes (No. 40): The we are a long way from holding or them, in which behavior is neither church, a visible organization and a even recovering, at least with any A second and closely related char- right nor wrong but a matter of per- spiritual community, “travels the same integrity, that kind of framework. In acteristic: Catholics have a tradition sonal choice, in which judgments are journey as all humankind and shares a postpositivist, post-Enlightenment that takes philosophy and philosophi- neither better nor worse but simply the same earthly lot with the world; it world, no body of human knowledge cal thinking seriously. This means that someone’s opinion, is nonsense, as the is to be a leaven and, as it were, the enjoys that degree of authority. from the beginning, Christianity had condition of so many schools grimly soul of human society in its renewal to adapt systems of thought that were illustrates. This same analysis could be by Christ and transformation into the But if we do not have such an inte- alien and even contrary to its religious applied to psychotherapy, opinion poll- family of God.” grated system, we do have ideas, habits beliefs and yet were crucial to its mis- ing, political analyses, medical decision of mind and heart, we have preferences sion: that is, rendering its knowledge making, etc. Today in our culture, where the and predilections, intuitions, and prac- of God’s presence and action in the commodification of human life, hu- tices. We have a history. As Gaudium et world in a way that would make sense This brings me to a fourth and last man relationships, body parts goes Spes says, our tradition is not set against to others. point: It is a characteristic of our tra- on everywhere, that engagement, that the world. But neither is it naively ac- dition, at its best, to resist reduc- mission, means keeping the human cepting of every current of opinion that We don’t usually think of Paul of tionism; it does not collapse categories. person at the center of our inquiry. washes up on the shores of a pluralistic Tarsus as a philosopher, but there he Faith and reason are compatible but The human person must be seen in culture. It helps us to maintain a robust was in the agora debating Epicureans not equivalent. Our tradition rejects his or her social context, where an and refreshing level of skepticism. What and Stoics, and in front of the Areopa- fundamentalistic readings of Scripture; implicit and shared understanding of do I find of value? A tradition where gus explaining the heretofore unknown the human person is neither radically the good can be found and expressed. reason and discourse based on reason God. Nor did it stop there. Eusebius, individualistic nor socially determined. are honored and practiced. Bede, Augustine, Ambrose, Anselm, Empirical findings are not solely de- All of this is deeply congruent with Thomas, Catherine, Teresa, etc., right terminative of who we are and what we a religious tradition that is incarna- Let me describe just a few of its down to our own time: American do. Yes, absolutely: Findings in psy- tional and sacramental, that keeps characteristics. Catholic colleges and universities in chology, sociology, anthropology, before us the idea of a God who acts the years after World War II were often history, neurobiology enrich our under- in history on our behalf, a God who First, reason and faith are not the home to diverse philosophical standing of the human person and the sent Jesus, who lived among us, who antagonistic or unconnected. In the schools—phenomenology, existential- human project, but they do not exhaust taught, who died for us, who rose from Catholic tradition we do not accept ism, Hegelianism, liberalism, pragma- that meaning or determine that trajec- the dead and is present in the eucha- what we believe blindly or slavishly— tism, and Thomism—at a time when tory. We are neurons and neuroses, but rist. We are to love the Lord and love we are urged to think about and to secular schools prided themselves on not only neurons and neuroses; neither one another as he has loved us. understand what we believe. This is in a univocal voice in their philosophy DNA or TGIF fully determine who we some contrast to the society in which departments. The sometimes imperfect are or what we will do this weekend. And there’s the rub and that’s the we live. American culture, with its hospitality in our tradition expresses the There is space for grace and free will, challenge. Catholic higher education, Protestant history, tends to see religion conviction that a disciplined mind and thought, conscience, choice. Catholic identity, Catholic intellec- as an expression of the individual, the systematic thought can help discern tual life, the Catholic Church and its subjective, the emotional, the immedi- important things about what is real. Time flies, and the list goes on: work in the world must finally be the ate. In public life, religion and religious Symbolism is taken seriously; so is ana- work of a community of believers. In belief are confined to the realm of the A third characteristic: Our tradition logical reasoning; images provide us our culture that is a suspect category, private and personal, sometimes in an challenges the belief that facts come with alternative ways of knowing. All nowhere more so than in the university. absolutist reading of the First Amend- in pristine form—no baggage; no as- of these are implanted in minds and ment, sometimes with the prejudice sumptions, no preconditions, no ends, hearts by our sacramental and liturgical Margaret Steinfels is the past editor that religious thought has nothing to no language that fills it with meaning. practices. Our tradition takes mysti- of Commonweal, and currently serves as contribute. For the revivalist, faith is Our culture likes to treat facts as a given, cism seriously, so we know that ordi- co-director of the Center on Religion a personal and private encounter. For as autonomous, unadorned objective nary everyday consciousness is not the and Culture at Fordham University. many in the cultural elite, as Stephen realities; but a fact is an abstraction last word about reality. The practice of Carter argued in The Culture of Disbe- from something thicker and deeper caring for the poor and thinking about Reprinted with permission from Origins: lief, faith is understood as a curious containing implicit ends, whether or caring for them shapes political philos- CNS Documentary Service, August 24, 1994. avocation, a personal hobby. not the researcher, commentator, or ophy and social theory. The struggle –––

BOSTON COLLEGE | C 21 RESOURCES | SPRING 2007 3 Getting Our Heads Together

by sidney callahan Intellectuals may also be scholars, Bridging the gaps between cultures, sons in larger and larger corporations, professionals, artists, or activists, but bringing news of the currents in a professions, and educational institu- oday there exists very little when operating as intellectuals they society to its members are important tions, we find a proliferation of worlds activity that can be described are constructing and reconstructing activities. While intellectuals have within worlds. There is more and T with the exclusive term their culture’s paradigms or cultural come in for a lot of scorn and con- more specialization as size, dispersal, “American Catholic intellectual life.” maps. Within a society, the intellectu- tempt over the course of history, espe- and relocations of educated popula- Educated Catholics have been assimi- als are those thinkers making the cially in America, they are nowhere tions transform social groupings. lated into the larger culture and now maps and discussing the proper rules more hated and persecuted than in There are more and more publications, find themselves subject to the same for making maps, rather than the pe- totalitarian regimes. Intellectuals and but they are increasingly targeted for general social conditions that mili- ople doing the detailed specialized the intellectual life seek just that gen- professional, scholarly, or recreational tate against all varieties of intellectual drawings emerging in the research of eral level of applied truth and rele- reading. Fewer general journals and life in this country. Within the Catholic lab, library, or the field. Intellectuals vant meaning that can question the magazines exist in which serious intel- community there are other forces that are neither purely scholars nor purely status quo and all its operations. De- lectual ideas can be publicly discussed. further impede intellectual dialogue. hands-on activists. Rather than en- tailed analyses are by nature too spe- Politics as the common serious concern Our present situation, in my view, gage in hand-to-hand combat at the cific to cause trouble. No matter how of all public citizens has become dis- represents a decline from the level barricades, or in the courtroom, or many papers Freud published in the credited by rampant corruption, polit- of recent previous decades. But mere in the missions, intellectuals shape scholarly medical journals, he could ical scandals, and recent campaigns nostalgia will not restore the intellec- the course of activism and give gen- never have changed the map of the designed for the media. The growth tual and spiritual liveliness of a sim- eral directions to the professions; they modem world but for his masterly of television has made serious inroads pler time, with its clear-cut verities. If are one step removed from the battle, prose and large syntheses of ideas. on the written forms of communica- Catholics are to fashion new creative reflecting on the whys and wherefores tion. A great deal of general intellectu- strategies, we must first come to terms of the war. In the current organization of work al writing used to convey general ideas with current social realities. and professional life, narrow special- of importance to a similarly educated As the intelligence service of ization and enormous expenditures of population, who shared common cul- When I use the term “intellectual society, intellectuals have to be gen- time are required and rewarded. Along tural concerns despite their different life,” I mean something broader than eralists geared to taking a larger with the competitive crowding there occupations, and who had enough narrowly focused academic scholar- perspective, constantly scanning the has been an information explosion. leisure to converse. ship, or highly specialized scientific theoretical weather, the changing ter- Everywhere we see a marked increase work, or the current state of education rain, and the movements of different in the complexity and specialization Leisure has disappeared from Amer- in colleges and universities. Intellec- bodies of troops. In other words, in- of jobs so that the ordinary workload, ican society. Since leisure is the basis tual life arises from the broad-ranging tellectuals have to be able to raise in both the hours required and the of culture and one of the cornerstones activity of reading, discussing, and their heads from their own narrowly imposed pace of work, is heavier than of the intellectual life, we suffer cul- responding to ideas and arguments focused projects (and from their own before. In academia and other profes- tural deprivation in the midst of mate- devoted to the meaning of events, the careers) and think critically about sions, we see for the first time in his- rial plenty. Even if there were more interpretation of human experience. what they see. The writers among tory an affluent educated elite who common forums and publications, Intellectuals, as opposed to pure them then persuasively communicate follow slave-labor schedules and en- would the harassed, overworked masses scholars, pure scientists, practicing ideas to others in nontechnical lan- dure increasing stress from competi- of educated Americans have time to professionals, or social activists, guage that everyone can understand, tion and overwork. These conditions read and reflect on them? It takes psy- are engaged in reflective cognitive i.e., English. English is the lingua are legitimated by a cult of productiv- chological energy to think and focus wrestling with contrasting ideas, franca of the interdisciplinary intel- ity and ambition, and are imposed attention; it is tempting to skip those current controversies, and opposing lectual life, bridging the jargon of the upon all aspiring candidates, who, in a expenditures of energy that are not world views. two-and-twenty cultures of the day. tight labor market, have been fairly immediately necessary for survival— desperate to succeed. those things that are not “in my field.” Only fairly leisured persons can par- thomas aquinas: Typically, in academia, requirements take of the high form of cultural play for publication, teaching, research, and that makes up the intellectual life. It was necessary for human salvation that there should be a knowledge service are simultaneously increased Our educated classes are working ex- revealed by God besides philosophical science built up by human reason. and enforced by financially pressured tremely hard at work—and working From Summa Theologica I, 1.11 institutions. Only highly specialized equally hard at home. research published in scholarly refer- This doctrine is wisdom above all human wisdom; not merely in any eed journals will count toward more Family life has changed. Servants one order, but absolutely. For since it is the part of a wise person to and more exacting standards for have disappeared, the extended family arrange and to judge, and since lesser matters should be judged in the promotion and tenure decisions. The is no longer a practical support, and light of some higher principle, one is said to be wise in any one order resulting pressure for turning out women have gone to work and may who considers the highest principle in that order: thus in the order of scholarly publications means that most pursue their own demanding careers. building, the one who plans the form of the house is called wise and intellectual energy is directed toward The leisure that Oxford dons once architect, in opposition to the inferior laborers who trim the wood and highly focused projects, which only a enjoyed was built upon the backs make ready the stones: “As a wise architect, I have laid the foundation”. small group of other scholars can read of various submerged and exploited From Summa Theologica I, 1.6 with profit. populations—the servant classes, the toiling natives of the Empire, and With the increase of educated per- women. Women, even educated,

4 BOSTON COLLEGE | C 21 RESOURCES | SPRING 2007 privileged women, have always done with the intellectual currents of the providence and poverty (Franciscan) of bonded community. Dorothy the “shadow work” of family, house- day. Much energy was also spent on with the liturgical movement’s revival Day’s work, along with that of the hold, and culture, the maintenance matters of internal church reform (Benedictine). Many intellectual worker priests and Young Christian work that made intellectual leisure and liturgical renewal—an endeavor Catholics were attempting to live by Workers, had been influential in per- possible for an elite group of males. which was confirmed by the calling a radically different sexual ethic, sans suading Catholic intellectuals that of Vatican II and its surprisingly artificial birth control, aspiring to ideals they must be committed to social jus- Among lay Catholics who became dramatic unfolding. of love and sacrifice through having tice and live a simple life devoted to educated in large numbers after World large families. Women were exhorted sacrifice and love. Intellectual Catholics War II, the sense of vocation or calling Such gatherings of Catholic intel- to live out a particular ideal of the knew who they were, and what they once limited to the religious orders lectuals for study and mutual support valiant woman, which could not easily were about. Their vocation was to was taken up with enthusiasm. Many were necessary because in general the encompass career aspirations. The ban fight the good fight, seek truth, and men did not feel called to be priests intellectual and professional worlds of on artificial contraception produced persevere in social reform efforts in- but were eager to be professors. A the time were fairly hostile to Catholics. intense pressures among educated side and outside the Catholic Church. great deal of idealism was felt by Persecution, as it always does, engen- Catholics, caught in contradictory They could talk and argue with one those laypersons called to intellectual dered high morale, cohesion, and loy- aspirations—the solitude of the study another, but stayed united in order to work: One studies and seeks truth for alty among those who did not fall away versus the active labor of domesticity. gain support for the struggle with a the greater glory of God; one writes under the pressure. The forties and sometimes hostile world. Literature, and teaches and professes to further fifties were times in academia when Looking back on that period in philosophy, and above all politics were the Kingdom, out there in the univer- doctrinaire secular atheism inherited American Catholic intellectual life, I considered fertile fields for combining sity and the real world, rather than in from the Enlightenment reigned su- can see that the atmosphere of the religious commitment and intellectual the monastery. preme. All religion was a remnant of community was charged with a great work. Passion and ideology were united. superstition and Catholicism was the deal of sublimated erotic energy. Allan In that first flowering in the forties very worst of all. As one secular savant Bloom mentions that the sexual re- What can be done now? Perhaps a and fifties it would be appropriate to accurately noted, “anti-Catholicism was straints of an earlier generation of stu- two-pronged effort could be envisioned. speak of the American Catholic intel- the anti-Semitism of the intellectuals.” dents lent a romantic or erotic edge One is a decentered, self-reliant, do-it- lectual community as fairly cohesive yourself, till-your-own-gardens strategy. and homogeneous. It was a very small At the same time, a larger campaign group, its liberal wing sometimes might be mounted to move Catholic labeled “Commonweal Catholics.” In The crying need of educated Catholics is for institutions toward different goals that those days, the relatively small number would address the cultural problems of educated Catholics who were en- sustained intellectual grappling with the of overload, over-specialization, under- gaged in an intellectual life would all formation, and isolation of so many know one another, read one another’s challenge of integrating Christianity with their educated Catholics. A combination books and articles, and share a com- of a bottom-up, base-community ap- mon faith and education. Insight into work and their worlds of secular thinking. proach and a top-down, institutional the spirit of this earlier era can be had tactic might make some headway. by reading Wilfrid Sheed’s account of his parents, Frank and Maisie. I know less about the larger insti- The crudest misunderstandings and to higher education that heightened tutional approaches but I can at least Frank Sheed and Maisie Ward were antipathies could be encountered in Ivy the life of learning. I found this point imagine what might be done from what a force unto themselves, who through League establishment circles, whose intriguing, because I think there was an I have observed of creative efforts at publishing and frenetic lecturing sin- members were rigid in their own cer- erotic intensity informing the atmo- some Catholic colleges and archdioce- gle-handedly engendered much of pre- tainties that either Freud, or David sphere of postwar educated Catholic san programs. Catholic colleges might Vatican II intellectual life in Catholic Hume, or science had settled the life. A heightened existential erotic style start to fight back against the overspe- America. They also lived their faith in God question forever. The ecumenical of faith was idealized: it could be found cialization of academia by starting an exemplary style, as did other influ- movement was also in its infancy, so in Evelyn Waugh’s Brideshead Revisited interdisciplinary institutes and more ential Catholic writers such as Dorothy Catholics were subjected to suspicion, and Graham Greene novels, and still public programs devoted to topics Day. Other memoirs of those years bias, and subtle pressures from their can be seen today in Walker Percy’s which meet the problems of Catholics among Catholic intellectuals can be Protestant neighbors, as well as from writings or John Paul II’s discourses on in secular culture. Many programs found in the writings of Raissa Mari- the secular world. The prejudice and love and sex. Catholics were clearly dif- I have attended—for instance on the tain, Abigail McCarthy, Christopher scorn that Catholics could meet, say in ferent from others in their faith, in family, on death and dying, on aging, on Dawson, and Richard Oilman. Promi- the Harvard philosophy department, their thinking, and in their chastity, computer technologies, or the chang- nent intellectual converts were received would seem quaint today. sexual practices and commitments. ing church—have brought in Catholic into the Church, and when they professionals from the local community became Catholics they joined a well- During this period, many educated, When all went well with these first- to meet with the students, faculty, a defined faith, clearly demarcated, married Catholics were also unassimi- or second-generation of educated lay guest speaker. with its own distinct intellectual com- lated to the mainstream in their sexual Catholic intellectuals, things went munity. There were various circles manners and mores. They were not very well indeed. The commitment Such interdisciplinary intellectual and centers, and various publication only attempting to live new forms and integration of living a vocation endeavors have often been funded by ventures in the East and Midwest, of the ancient intellectual vocations to the intellectual life that combined grants from outside the institutions, Fordham, Georgetown, Chicago, St. (Dominican, Jesuit), but also to prac- abstract thought with intense liturgi- such as the state councils on the hu- John’s, Notre Dame, Boston. Educated tice distinctive spiritual ideals in their cal practice, with erotic energy and manities or corporations. These efforts Catholics gathered in enclaves to family lives. Here again there was an intense family commitments—in the have also often been the brainchild of study and discuss their faith; they attempt to integrate the influence of the midst of social persecutions—produced some creative retired religious sister were trying to integrate their faith Catholic Worker movement’s stress on an esprit de corps and an exciting sense on the faculty who no longer has to Continued on Page 6

BOSTON COLLEGE | C 21 RESOURCES | SPRING 2007 5 and thereby ensure a future readership. Sidney Callahan held the Paul J. McKeever Getting Our Heads Together Chair of Moral Theology, St. John's University, Continued from Page 5 Many have noted that the secular Queens, NY in 2002-2003 and she was a Profes- liberal establishment is crumbling in sor of Psychology at Mercy College from 1980- fight for tenure with constant publish- practices, presents a model for an in- its old certainties. What has been 1997. ing to update her curriculum vitae. If tellectual revival. Spiritual institutes called liberalism’s “thin theory of the Catholic educational institutions truly and retreats teach centering prayer good” is breaking down. Catholicism, Reprinted with permission of the publishers from want to encourage the intellectual life and integration of self. But today’s with its avowal of a more communi- Commonweal, 17 November 1989. as a search for integrated truth, they Catholics also need centered, inte- tarian social justice ethic and its full- ––– will have to provide institutional sup- grated thinking. The crying need of bodied view of human nature, has ports and rewards that can compete educated Catholics is for sustained in- something to offer tired blood and What Is the Catholic with the rewards offered by academic tellectual grappling with the challenge anemic individualism. This may grants for narrow specialization and of integrating Christianity with their be “the truly Catholic moment” in Intellectual Tradition? value-free inquiry. work and their worlds of secular think- America. Or perhaps we should say ing. Perhaps a national Catholic great the time is ripe for many different by rosanna f. demarco If other institutions in the Church books course or a university of the air Catholic moments, since the intellectu- wish to further the intellectual life, as in Great Britain could spark such a als in the church, being argumentative, t the center of my education the world of Catholic adult education movement. Perhaps the USCCB, or are not speaking with one party line. as a graduate student at Boston awaits. Individual parishes may not the Paulists, or the Jesuits, or even the But the larger culture may be ready to A College and now as a faculty have the resources to go it alone, but Knights and Daughters might fund a listen to diverse streams of the Catholic member in the Connell School of Nurs- dioceses, seminaries, centers for spiri- prime-time Bill Moyers-type series of tradition in new ways. Our intellectual ing is the Catholic Intellectual Tradition. tuality, retreat houses, and other insti- intellectual Catholic conversations on task is to work harder at understanding I characterize a Catholic intellectual tutes and organizations can provide TV to begin the great revival. A proj- how the good news we offer relates to tradition as rigorous scholarship based programs to stimulate the intellectual ect looking to intellectual renaissance other quests for knowledge. All we in 1) a reflective spirit of inquiry, 2) ethi- life. These would have to be broader could be sponsored in cooperation want in the end, of course, is to enlist cal values, and 3) knowledge developed than courses in Scripture or theology, with Catholic educational institutions the hearts and minds of all humanity and shared with my students so they may or studies of the mystics, spirituality, and Catholic magazines. Every intel- in a mutual seeking of love, peace, jus- continue a circle of engaged service to and prayer. The present great revival lectual Catholic magazine should be tice, and truth. Americans are born others. My clinical specialty is commu- of spirituality, complete with institutes working to get its networks of readers utopians: The impossible only takes nity/public health nursing science. By and publications devoted to spiritual together for more sustained inquiry— a little longer. the nature of this concentration it is very easy for me to contemplate and reflect on persons’ lives in their neighborhoods pope john paul ii, from the encyclical faith and reason (1998) and how their living and wellness inter- sects with dreams and realities. It is here Faith and reason are like two wings on which the human spirit rises to the contemplation of truth; and God has where I work with women living with placed in the human heart a desire to know the truth—in a word, to know himself—so that, by knowing and loving HIV and AIDS. Many of the women I God, men and women may also come to the fullness of truth about themselves. have come to know live in the inner city of Boston. They are poor and have had In both East and West, we may trace a journey which has led humanity down the centuries to meet and engage truth lives that have empowered and dis- more and more deeply. It is a journey which has unfolded—as it must—within the horizon of personal self-conscious- empowered them and their families ness: the more human beings know reality and the world, the more they know themselves in their uniqueness, with the cyclically. I have learned that creating question of the meaning of things and of their very existence becoming ever more pressing. This is why all that is the culturally relevant and gender sensitive object of our knowledge becomes a part of our life. The admonition “Know yourself” was carved on the temple portal prevention education, measuring its at Delphi, as testimony to a basic truth to be adopted as a minimal norm by those who seek to set themselves apart from efficacy, and engaging my students in the rest of creation as “human beings,” that is as those who “know themselves.” service through this process is the way to translate these women’s voices into Moreover, a cursory glance at ancient history shows clearly how in different parts of the world, with their different health interventions that are meaningful. cultures, there arise at the same time the fundamental questions which pervade human life: Who am I? Where have I My research questions, the conduct of come from and where am I going? Why is there evil? What is there after this life? These are the questions which we the process, and the answers I find are find in the sacred writings of Israel, as also in the Veda and the Avesta; we find them in the writings of Confucius and the ways I can encourage and excite Lao-Tze, and in the preaching of Tirthankara and Buddha; they appear in the poetry of Homer and in the tragedies of nursing students in class and clinical set- Euripides and Sophocles, as they do in the philosophical writings of Plato and Aristotle. They are questions which have tings to not just care for individuals but their common source in the quest for meaning which has always compelled the human heart. In fact, the answer given to strive for something more profound: to these questions decides the direction which people seek to give to their lives. the common good. It is precisely this notion of the common good that I The Church is no stranger to this journey of discovery, nor could she ever be. From the moment when, through believe is how learning from a neighbor- the Paschal Mystery, she received the gift of the ultimate truth about human life, the Church has made her pilgrim hood can help us shape a neighborhood way along the paths of the world to proclaim that Jesus Christ is “the way, and the truth, and the life” (Jn 14:6). It is and our own lives. It is here I hope my her duty to serve humanity in different ways, but one way in particular imposes a responsibility of a quite special students lay cornerstones of what I see kind: the diakonia service of the truth. This mission on the one hand makes the believing community a partner in as the evolving Catholic Intellectual humanity’s shared struggle to arrive at truth; and on the other hand it obliges the believing community to proclaim the Traditions to come in nursing science. certitudes arrived at, albeit with a sense that every truth attained is but a step towards that fullness of truth which will appear with the final Revelation of God: “For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; Rosanna F. DeMarco is an Associate Professor in then I shall understand fully” (1 Cor 13:12). the Connell School of Nursing at Boston College. —

6 BOSTON COLLEGE | C 21 RESOURCES | SPRING 2007 Stewards of the Tradition Christ the Center

by robert p. imbelli uses. I refer to this by the Latin desig- by a misguided ecumenism that seeks appeals to terms such as “sacramental nation, Traditus. Here, tradition is the not to cause offense. But its outcome consciousness” and “incarnational sen- he rubric under which this One who is handed down, Jesus Christ is the invocation of a “generic brands” sibility” (more often than not accom- evening’s presentation is himself as the living heart and center deity that only exists in an abstract panied by a well-known line from the T placed is “Stewards of the of Christian tradition. Thus when we realm, uninhabited by any living tradi- Jesuit poet Gerard Manley Hopkins, Tradition.” My own contribution will speak of “Stewards of the Tradition,” tion. Have we not unfortunately heard “The world is charged with the be to focus our attention upon what at its theologically most profound level such anodyne invocations in faculty grandeur of God”). Now, I do not dis- I consider to be the very heart and we are speaking of our institutions and convocations and commencements pute the validity of these claims, or center of the Catholic intellectual (or, ourselves as bearers of the multiple even in Catholic colleges?1 the beauty of the verse. But I maintain as I prefer, “wisdom”) tradition: the riches of the mystery of Christ. that unless this widespread appeal is Lord Jesus Christ himself. My presen- Moreover, do not such vague and explicitly founded upon the confession tation will be in three parts. First, I Now this Catholic wisdom tradi- nondescript generalizations seep all of the unique Incarnation in Jesus will consider the notion of tradition tion, in all three senses, but especially too readily into our attempts to artic- Christ, who is thereby the Sacrament and defend the claim that Jesus Christ the third, comes to privileged expres- ulate the vision and mission of our of encounter with God, we will lack is indeed the living center of the tradi- sion in the Eucharistic liturgy. Here, institutions of higher education? So, the one sure foundation for renewal tion. Second, I will suggest that the the Real Presence of Christ is pro- to choose an example with which I and transformation, both personal “crisis” of the Catholic intellectual claimed and enacted. I concur, then, am most familiar, one hears repeated, and institutional. tradition is, at its most profound, a with authors like Ida and Kavanaugh in almost mantra-like fashion, that the Christological crisis. Third, I will haz- and Catherine LaCugna who speak aim of education in the Jesuit tradition In sum, reading and listening to ard some suggestions regarding the of liturgy as theologia prima, the liv- is “to educate men and women for statements of vision and mission, I context of the Catholic college and ing theology which nourishes and others.” Undoubtedly, an admirable often feel as St. Augustine did in his university and the challenge of reaf- sustains our second order reflection. sentiment; but one not at all distinc- Confessions. Augustine gratefully bene- firming the Christic center. Because Liturgy is the primary bearer of tra- tive to Jesuit colleges and universities. fitted from the writings of the Platon- of limitations of time, all this will be dition, because here, in sacramental Indeed, its incantation risks carrying ists he had read, but failed to find there done briefly, but, I hope, in a way sug- fullness, Jesus “hands himself over” an undertone of smugness regarding the one salvific name he longed for: gestive of further development. for the life of the world. other institutions’ purposes. that of Jesus Christ.3 What Ignatius and Hopkins and Arrupe took for The Christic Center of Tradition granted, we must learn to appropriate Here, tradition is the One who is handed and articulate anew. In considering “tradition,” I find it helpful to distinguish three intercon- down, Jesus Christ himself as the living heart Renewing the Christic Center nected senses of the word. Prior to Vatican II when Catholics spoke of and center of Christian tradition. Having reviewed some signs of “tradition” they most commonly in- Christological forgetfulness, let me tended the tradita: those things that pass on to signs of promise, hopeful had been handed down, whether Scrip- The Crisis of Tradition Now the phrase “men and women indications of Christological renewal. ture, creeds, or catechetical formula- for others” is culled from an address tions. These tradita, often referred With such testimony by distin- by the then-Father General of the I would first point to the theologi- to as the “deposit of faith,” were pre- guished witnesses, it would seem that Society of Jesus, Pedro Arrupe. What cal work of Frans Jozef van Beeck, sumed to be the venerable Latin of the tradition’s center is secure. Yet, if I find intriguing is that even in official S.J., who is a participant in our the Triedentine Mass and the texts of the Catholic mind or intellectual tradi- digests of his talk one rarely finds the conference. Father van Beeck is the Denzinger. tion is in a state of acute crisis today, I full expression of Arrupe’s thought on author of a multivolume work on would suggest that a key dimension of the matter. Here is the key sentence: Catholic systematic theology entitled A second sense of “tradition,” come that crisis is the loss of a robust Christic “Today our prime educational objec- God Encountered, that, when complete, newly to the fore since Vatican II, is center. Obviously, here too I can only tive must be to form men and women will be a milestone in American that of traditio. Here, tradition indicates signal some signs of the times pointing for others; men and women who will Catholic theology. In a preliminary less what has been handed down than to what I discern to be a Christological not live for themselves but for God programmatic essay toward his mag- the very process of handing down, of amnesia and neglect in some quarters and his Christ—for the God man who num opus, van Beeck summed up its “traditioning” (as is sometimes said): of contemporary Catholicism. lived and died for all the world...”2 guiding vision of renewal in theology the ongoing interpretation and reinter- There is a striking Christocentrism to and pastoral practice in these words: pretation of the past into the present. For a number of years now, I have Arrupe’s vision that is faithful to the “This renewal, if it is to be authenti- Here the center of concern is the noted in theological writings, both Ignatian tradition and that one sorely cally Christian, must go back to the present and the future; and one often scholarly and popular, what I call a misses in the reductionist and abbrevi- original and abiding realization that encounters the language of “accom- “unitarianism of the Spirit.”As the ated versions too often transmitted. Christ is alive and present in the Spirit, modation” and “inculturation.” term implies, these authors tend to a realization found everywhere in the speak almost uniquely of God in terms Finally, when pressed to characterize New Testament and one that remains But I would suggest a third sense of of “Holy Spirit,” neglecting the tradi- what is distinctive about the Catholic the original source of all Christian tradition, less frequently invoked, yet tional language of “Father” and “Son.” vision and the Catholic intellectual faith and identity experience.”4 foundational to the previous legitimate Sometimes this development is fueled tradition, one frequently encounters Continued on Page 8

BOSTON COLLEGE | C 21 RESOURCES | SPRING 2007 7 2 Pedro Arrupe, S.J., Justice with Faith Today (St. john henry newman: Stewards of the Tradition Louis: Institute of Jesuit Sources, 1980), 124. Continued from Page 7 3 St. Augustine, Confessions, Book 7, Chapter 9. Truth is the object of Knowl- With regard to the distinctive voca- tion, and continuing to become the 4 Frans Jozef van Beeck, Catholic Identity after Vatican edge of whatever kind; and when tion of Catholic colleges and universi- ‘bread of life’ in the Eucharist, informs II (Chicago: Loyola University Press, 1984), 55. we inquire what is meant by Truth, ties, this “abiding realization,” that her faith in the very possibility and I suppose it is right to answer that the living Christ is the heart of the meaning of metaphor.”8 Only Real 5 See Brian Daley, S.J., “Christ and the Catholic Truth means facts and their rela- Catholic wisdom tradition, must Presence is able to ground and guar- University,” America, 169, no. 5 (September 11, tions, which stand toward each inspire and direct more than our the- antee real presences. 1993). Monika Hellwig also offers helpful reflec- other pretty much as subjects and ological offerings and ministerial pro- tions in her article, “The Catholic Intellectual predicates in logic. All that exists, grams, important as these undoubtedly One final sign of Christological hope Tradition and the Catholic University,” in Cern- as contemplated by the human are. It also holds implications for mis- bears mentioning. Over the past ten era and Morgan, Examining the Catholic Intellectual mind, forms one large system or sion statements and curriculum deci- years, a number of graduate students Tradition, especially 10-18. complex fact, and this of course sions; for environment and art; for in theology seem to be moving beyond resolves itself into an indefinite class size, administrative policies, and, the shop-worn labels of “liberal” or 6 Peggy Rosenthal, The Poets’ Jesus: Representations number of particular facts, which, yes, for hiring.5 Passing from a merely “conservative” to a new engagement at the End of a Millennium (Oxford: Oxford Uni- as being portions of a whole, have notional apprehension to a real appre- with the tradition. Often they sense versity Press, 2000), 153. countless relations of every kind, hension of these matters (to use Car- that they were deprived, through faulty one toward another. Knowledge dinal Newman’s categories) will require religious education, of life-giving roots. 7 Rosenthal, The Poets’ Jesus, 166. is the apprehension of these facts, imaginative and discerning leadership Hence they undertake an in-depth whether in themselves, or in their and commitment. But so has every study of the patristic or scholastic tradi- 8 Rosenthal, The Poets’ Jesus, 165. mutual positions and bearings. authentic renewal in the Church. tions for their doctoral dissertations. And, as all taken together form one This is resourcement, return to the 9 Robert Barren, “Beyond Beige Catholicism,” integral subject for contemplation, For Newman, the mind’s passage sources, not for the sake of nostalgia, Church, 16, no. 2 (Summer 2000), 10. so there are no natural or real lim- from the notional to the real is medi- but for the sake of authentic aggiorna- its between part and part; one is ated by the imagination that allows the mento that is more than mere cultural 10 See the profound pastoral-theological ever running into another; all, as mind to engage and energize the heart. accommodation. They are captivated reflection of Pope John Paul II Novo Millennio viewed by the mind, are combined And poetry is a prime vehicle for this by Christ, the Traditus; and hence Ineunte (Boston: Pauline Books, 2001), especially together, and possess a correlative heart-felt enfleshment of the word. they diligently search the tradita for Part 3, “Starting Afresh from Christ.” character one with another, from Another sign of hope, then, arises from signs of the Beloved to whom we the internal mysteries of the Divine the recent study by Peggy Rosenthal, must bear witness in the present, the Robert P. Imbelli is a priest of the Archdiocese Essence down to our own sensa- The Poets’ Jesus. Reminiscent of my ear- “today” of faith. of New York and Associate Professor of tions and consciousness, from the lier cautions regarding “incarnational- Theology at Boston College. most solemn appointments of the ism without Incarnation,” Rosenthal I quote one young Catholic the- Lord of all down to what may be writes, “Even for many practicing ologian who speaks for many: Let us Reprinted with permission of the author, from called the accident of the hour, from Christians, the late-twentieth century’s leave liberal/conservative behind us. Anthony J. Cernera and Oliver J. Morgan, eds., the most glorious seraph down to the strong spirituality of incarnational pres- And let us leave behind us, too, that Examining the Catholic Intellectual Tradition, vol. 2: vilest and most noxious of reptiles. ence was linked only weakly to the nave Catholicism which had allowed its Issues and Perspectives (Fairfield: Sacred Heart and person of Jesus.6” But in the last distinctive colors to bleed into beige. University Press, 2002). The Idea of a University, Discourse 3, 2 chapter of her work, entitled “Jesus “Let us embrace the spicy, trouble- — Present,” she discusses a number of some, fascinating, and culture-trans- contemporary American poets, like forming person of Jesus Christ and What Is the Catholic Intellectual Tradition? Andrew Hudgins, Scott Cairns, Denise let him shape our experience and Levertov, and Vassar Miller. Her analy- our world.”9 he first Christians—drawn 16th centuries, the Catholic intellec- sis of their common ground is note- together by their faith in the tual tradition in the West developed worthy: “They seem, at the end of Then, I am convinced, we shall dis- T significance of the life, death, its own characteristics. Since the two millennia in which this central cover anew that ex corde ecclesiae is ever and resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth— medieval period, one of its principal figure of Christianity [Jesus Christ] has ex corde Christi.10 were members of Jewish communities venues has been the university. This been reshaped and reconfigured, very embedded in a Roman political system dialogue between faith and culture comfortable with the orthodox configu- Endnotes and in a linguistic and intellectual cul- reflects two essential characteristics rations yet energized by what they 1 At a rather more elevated theological level, I ture that was largely Greek in origin. of the Christian, and especially the mean for human life at this moment.”7 suggest that concern about the spread of this As the Christian “way” moved beyond Catholic, understanding of human Indeed, Denise Levertov’s persuasion is “unitarianism of the Spirit” underlies the con- these Jewish communities, attracted experience: that faith necessarily seeks particularly radical: “The miracle of troversial Declaration of the Congregation for Gentile converts, and spread, a Christ- understanding, and that all intellectual God assuming flesh in the Incarna- the Doctrine of the Faith, Dominus Iesus. ian intellectual tradition or, better, a inquiry leads eventually to questions constellation of traditions developed in of ultimacy that invite faith responses. the diverse regions where Christian The Catholic view sees no conflict catherine of siena: faith took root—theologies, philoso- between faith and knowledge; it looks Then, dearest son, open the eye of thine intellect in the light of phies, artistic currents, systems of legal to how they illuminate each other. most holy faith, and behold how much thou art beloved of God. thought and political theory, which were the product of a continuous dia- Boston College as a Catholic and Jesuit University, Letter to Neri Di logue between faith and cultures. With Boston College assessment and planning report, Landoccio Dei Pagliaresi the fragmentation of the Christian July 2006. churches, especially in the 15th and —

8 BOSTON COLLEGE | C 21 RESOURCES | SPRING 2007 From Tolerance to Engagement in Catholic Higher Education by john c. haughey, s.j. avoidance is a campus that loses touch tality that simply houses pluralisms to know the heart of God or the host with its roots in the Catholic intellectual one that engages them in their many that God commissioned to engage its On February 3, Woodstock fellow John tradition. That tradition, then, becomes forms, the major beneficiary will be the pluralisms. A campus that aims at being Haughey, S.J., received the second annual a “was” as modernism, postmodernism, Church. It has much to learn from the a place that is merely agreeable, that has Monika K. Hellwig Award from the Asso- and post-postmodernism, and every day-to-day praxis of the American net- learned a tolerance, that shirks the task ciation of Catholic Colleges and Universities here-today-gone-tomorrow “tradition” work of Catholic higher education insti- of seeking truth together, has lost an for “outstanding contributions to Catholic becomes the new “is.” tutions insofar as they have engaged opportunity to show that human unity intellectual life.” He delivered the following their own plural voices. “Catholic” must “belongs to the innermost nature of remarks to the presidents of Catholic colleges But I want to be even more surgically not settle into being a mark of the the Church.” (Vatican II) and universities, gathered for that occasion. clear about what I am saying. When the Church. It was meant instead to be a disciplines are engaged by the Catholic challenge, to send a signal to the whole But, you ask, do we have on our he 220 Catholic higher edu- intellectual tradition, they have much world of the good news of the inclusion campuses the competence necessary to cation institutions in this to teach their interlocutors and much of all humanity with its God. We live in engage the disciplines with a knowledge T country are doing an extraor- to learn from that tradition. Disengage- hope of a catholicity, an eschatological of the Catholic intellectual tradition? dinary thing. But I wonder whether ment impoverishes both the discipline fullness with the Church in all its insti- Yes and no. You may not have savants their leaders have thought about the and the Catholic intellectual tradition. tutions assisting in midwifing that full- who are explicitly knowledgeable about potential their work has for the future How so? Because a valid body of knowl- ness in the course of its history. this tradition. But having conducted self-understanding of Roman Catholi- edge is intrinsic to the universe of being twelve workshops this year with faculty cism itself. These institutions host a and its linkage to the Creator of being members around the country and lis- bewildering number of pluralisms— connects it more easily to further bod- When the disciplines tened to the good each is about and the academic, ethnic, religious, racial, eco- ies of knowledge. An academic disci- wholes they are trying to birth through nomic—and do so in a way that has pline and this tradition should not seem are engaged by their disciplines, it is easy to see God made a home for many voices and val- like two sumo wrestlers trying to best at work in their strivings. Why say this? ues and traditions and bodies of knowl- one another since they are in a consti- the Catholic intellec- Because those in each discipline whose edge. But the hospitality accorded by tutive relationship to one another. Fur- questions are really theirs and whose these institutions has not been suffi- ther, one might recall Paul’s claim that tual tradition, they hunt for answers is open to wherever ciently attentive to their uniqueness “knowledge will pass away” (I Corinthi- the data lead them—these qualify for or opportunistic about this pluralism. ans 13:8) unless faith, hope, and love have much to teach the accolade of being hospitable since It is not that they have been indifferent give it a place in eternity. they are engaging otherness from with- to or fallen short of fidelity to the their interlocutors and in their area of competence and are Church’s teachings, it seems to me. It Engaging otherness is not something much to learn from being stretched by it. And since God is is, rather, in not engaging these plu- abstract in my mind. It is the way Jesus the author of the Catholic intellectual ralisms. A hospitality that simply makes of Nazareth operated in his life. The that tradition. tradition then there isn’t any shark- room for otherness is not the same as complaint that eventually got him elim- infested moat to cross for the necessary a hospitality that engages and enables inated was that he didn’t associate with engagements to take place. Pope Bene- it in all its forms to be self-critical. the right people, with those who were I am really saying there is a poverty dict XVI asked this week at the noon But an engaged hospitality could also in the know. He evidently preferred to in our doctrine about the meaning of blessing on the feast of St. Thomas equip the Catholic faith, the faith that have table fellowship with the tax col- Catholic. So far we have understood a Aquinas, “Why should faith and reason sponsors your institutions, to learn to lectors and the sinners, i.e., with those mere sliver of what that doctrine must be afraid of each other, if they can ex- be critical of itself. Roman Catholicism who were marginal to being right, right- become and is more likely to become press themselves better by meeting and is as credible as a teaching church as eous, one of us! It would be worth if you engage the world’s pluralisms engaging one another?” So ask your- it shows itself a learning church. noting that the Gospel often appears locally. At times our church seems to self, Is the hospitality on my campus to come out of his conversations with exhibit a hospitality redolent of the sufficiently in evidence that the Church A hospitality which makes room for the otherness of these unrighteous types. Pharisee who invited Jesus to dinner at large can learn from it? We sorely the other, and which houses and cre- He learned from the vulnerable, from in order to take the measure of his need a development of our doctrine of dentials the other, and does not engage those who were judged marginal at best. orthodoxy. Jesus was a faithful Jew catholicity in order to better host the that otherness is a deficient host. A Look at the Beatitudes and ask your- who learned to become a syncretist world’s pluralisms. deficient hospitality, which I would call self whether the insights they convey because of the virtue of hospitality a hospitality of tolerance, shortchanges might have originated in conversations that he accorded the seemingly hetero- John C. Haughey, S.J., is a Senior Research the students, the school, and all the cul- with those who hungered and thirsted dox. His orthodoxy became as capa- Fellow at the Woodstock Theological Center tures your personnel come from, but for justice. “Blessed are the lowly, for cious as the heart of his Father. at Georgetown University. most of all the Church. A hospitality they shall inherit the earth.” Yes, he of tolerance, in a word, avoids, and is taught; but yes, he learned too; that What difference will it make in this Reprinted with permission of the author, from shrewd in doing so. It “lets sleeping is the point of having an intellectual world of realpolitik if this opportunity Woodstock Report, March 2007, no. 87. dogs lie”; it lets “a thousand flowers tradition that is as much a “will be” for the engagement of pluralism is ne- ––– bloom”; it lets the whole weight of as a “used to be.” glected? The praxis of the hospitality taking responsibility for the Catholi- of engagement will not develop into a cism of the campus come to rest on But if a Catholic educational institu- doctrine of catholicity. And without the campus ministry. The fruit of this tion moves from being a place of hospi- such a doctrine, the world will not

BOSTON COLLEGE | C 21 RESOURCES | SPRING 2007 9 Yeast: A Parable for Catholic Higher Education

by walter ong, s.j. simply to advance for consideration a to convert everything into itself. Yeast understood, in treating problems of way of thinking about this identity acts on dough, but it does not convert pluralism in Catholic institutions of t is common knowledge that the that, to the best of my knowledge, has all the dough into yeast, nor is it able higher education today. The applicants problem of pluralism today in- not heretofore been made use of. It to do so. that suggest themselves here do not I creasingly haunts Catholic institu- is not a cure-all, but may be a help. apply perfectly—Father Dulles notes, tions of higher education, that is, col- It consists in a more thorough exami- Living yeast corresponds to what quite appositely, that parables all have leges and universities founded under nation of the concept of “catholic” the Catholic Church has really been, obvious applicational limits—but this specifically Catholic auspices and now itself and of reflection on a Gospel for the Catholic Church has in fact particular parable can apparently give having to redesign themselves in our parable in connection with the Catholic never been at all definitively “univer- us some better conceptual hold on present educational world. We think institutions of higher learning. sal” in the sense that it has actually in- certain elements in the problems of particularly of such institutions in the cluded all parts of the human race or pluralism that we face in Catholic insti- United States, where they have existed “Catholic” is commonly said to even anywhere near the greater part tutions of higher education. Admit- in far higher proportion than in any mean “universal,” a term from the of the human race. But if it has never tedly, in emerging only now, this fuller other part of the world. But the prob- Latin universalis. The equation is not been by any means “universal” in such relevance of the parable shows itself lem is worldwide. quite exact. If “universal” is the ade- a sense, it is certainly “catholic” in the belatedly, but certain relevancies in quate meaning of “catholic,” why did sense that it has always been in one Jesus’ saying can make themselves In the forefront are such matters as the Latin Church, which in its vernac- place or another growing, spreading known only in ages later than Jesus’ faculties that include many members ular language had the word univer- into new dough, in accord with the own age. The word of God has ferti- who are not Catholic, student bodies salis, not use this word but rather bor- parable of the yeast. Of recent years, it lity for the future as well as for the equally diversified in their religious rowed from Greek the term katholikos has become more widespread than ever time in which it is first uttered. commitments or lack thereof, ques- instead, speaking of the “one, holy, before, geographically and culturally. It tions of academic freedom, and, to cap catholic, and apostolic church” (to put is, in fact, more through-the-whole of The parable of the yeast can show it all, the clear desire of Catholic insti- it into English) instead of the “one, humanity across the face of the globe more than the Church’s capacity for tutions of higher education to open holy, universal, and apostolic church”? today than in any earlier age of history. natural expansion. Yeast not only themselves to persons and points of The etymological history of universalis The variety of the faces representing grows quickly but also nourishes itself view other than exclusively Catholic is not in every detail clear, but it cer- the Church at the Second Vatican on the dough in which it grows. This while maintaining a genuine Catholic tainly involves the concepts of unum, Council made this evident. No longer suggests that the Church should build identity. To this should be added a “one,” and vertere, “turn.” It suggests is it possible to say, as Hilaire Belloc into itself the cultures or mixtures of new awareness of the flexibility of using a compass to make a circle once did, “The Church is Europe, cultures in which it finds itself. A Catholic teachings that many had around a central point. It is an inclusive Europe is the Church.” This is inclu- Catholic higher educational institu- earlier said were inflexible. concept in the sense that the circle sivist-exclusivist universalism with tion should build into its tradition includes everything within it. But by a vengeance, a statement that, it what those who happen not to be This awareness of flexibility devel- the same token it also excludes every- appears to me, is de facto un-Christ- Catholic have to offer that fits its oped widely over the past hundred years thing outside it. Universalis contains a ian, although I am sure not with any tradition and what it might otherwise or so with the massive growth of know- subtle note of negativity. Katholikos does conscious intent. not know at all. The Church does not ledge in all fields, scientific and human- not. It is more unequivocally positive. It have from the start everything it will istic, creating new sensitivity to the fact means simply “through-the-whole” or Many of Jesus’ parables—just as, later become, any more than the that Jesus lived in a historical world and “throughout-the-whole”—kata or quite commonly, other parables—are yeast does, other than the Church’s founded his church in a describable kath, through or throughout; holos, multiple in signification. There are own principle of life, which is no less historical context. He thereby neces- whole, from the same Indo-Euro- complex meanings implied here in this than Jesus Christ himself, who lived sarily designed it for some kind of con- pean root as our English “whole.” one, although the commentaries that as a visible human being in a culture tinuing development through history I have examined often develop any or mixture of cultures quite other than in the various and developing cultures Perhaps katholikos was favored by implications of the parable at best only any in the world today and whose across the world so as for it to realize the Latin (as well as by the Greek) minimally. In his Models of the Church, Mystical Body, the Church, must be in- its catholicity. Thus “inculturation,” in church because it resonated so well Avery Dulles gives it more attention culturated now in today’s world and in the sense of the rooting of the church with Jesus’ parable in Mt. 13:33 than most commentators, classing it the world of the future, nourished on in the distinctive features of real value (echoed in Lk. 13:21): “The reign of briefly with other “botanical models” today’s and tomorrow’s kinds of food. in a given culture, is a significantly es- God is like yeast which a woman took of the Church that show, for example, tablished and operational term today. and kneaded into three measures of the Church’s “capacity of rapid expan- If, however, yeast nourishes itself flour. Eventually the whole mass of sion,” as this parable surely does. For on the dough in which it is placed, it There is no easy answer to prob- dough began to rise.” Yeast is a plant, a his purposes, he had no occasion for does not do so in such a way as to lems raised by our necessary pluralism. fungus, something that grows with no pushing analysis of the parable of the spoil the dough—not from the Human Solutions have to be worked out as we particular limits to its borders. If the yeast further. point of view, certainly. It makes the come to understand better the Catholic mass of dough is added to, the yeast dough more usable, more nourishing. Church and the forces the Church is grows into the added portion. Under- But here I am concerned with push- It not only grows in what it feeds on, called on to work with. Many models stood as catholic in terms of this para- ing it further for an admittedly special- but it also improves what it feeds on have been proposed for thinking about ble, the Kingdom or the Church is a ized reason—because of the particular and makes it possible for others to feed the Church and, by implication, about limitless, growing reality, destined ulti- value the parable seems to have in on it as well as on itself, the yeast. The the Catholic identity of Catholic uni- mately to be present everywhere and to bringing out the usefulness of the con- Catholic Church is not out to confront versities and colleges. I should like affect everything, though by no means cept of “catholic,” more exhaustively and destroy the cultures it is set in or

10 BOSTON COLLEGE | C 21 RESOURCES | SPRING 2007 due to encounter, but to interpenetrate ecology a new massive Catholic theo- tion is feasible and called for, not homiletic, and devotional life? these cultures, and not only on its own logical and practical pastoral problem, where it is unwelcome. terms, but interactively. Yeast grows in as it hardly was before. When we think of God as creator different sorts of dough—white, whole From its beginning, Catholic teach- 3) The relationship of the faith and the of the world or universe, at least in wheat, rye, and so on, not converting ing has learned by contact with what students. Today, the college or univer- our pastoral (including liturgical), one sort of these doughs into any of the is not itself and even what is opposed sity is no longer felt, as it used to homiletic, and devotional life, it ap- others. Moreover, any dough with yeast to itself. For example, St. Augustine be several generations ago, in Catholic pears that we are still most likely to growing in it can be added to a com- and many others learned from pagan or other religious circles or in secular think of the world pretty much in pletely different batch of dough, and rhetoric, the most pervasive of all circles, as an institution functioning archaic terms. What we see around the yeast will act on the new batch in branches of learning in the West as in loco parentum, as set up so as to act in us is accommodated directly to the accord with the way the new batch is well as in the Middle East over cen- the place of the students’ parents in rela- ordinary human senses and imagina- constituted (white dough, whole wheat, turies. St. Thomas Aquinas learned tion to the students themselves (many tion, that is, the visible earth and rye, whatever): The Church transplanted from the pagan Aristotle—and met of whom today are in fact adults, mar- what surrounds it, the sun and moon from any given culture to a new culture massive resistance for his use of this ried with children and, even occasion- and planets and stars as they appear can live in a way that fits that particular pagan author, who, moreover, was ally, grandchildren). The Catholic to the unaided eye, a world full of new culture without losing its own mediated to the Latin West through college or university retains many re- beauty and wonder, but constituting identity, just as in doing its work of Muslims, Arabs, and others. In our sponsibilities to its students, some of not one billionth of what everyone leavening, yeast does not sacrifice its own day, Catholic teaching has learned them even enlarged responsibilities, now knows the universe that God own identity but remains growing yeast. from certain kinds of existentialism religious and moral as well as intellec- created really is (though we do not and especially from personalist phi- tual, although they are framed rather know all of it perfectly, for our knowl- In every case, in accordance with losophy. One of personalism’s most differently now. Catholic colleges and edge is still growing). It is a universe Jesus’ parable, the dough gains value ardent proponents was Jewish, Mar- Catholic theology, incorporating and some 14 billion years old, with bil- from the yeast (the Kingdom, the tin Buber, whose book I and Thou is a commenting on the Church’s teaching, lions of galaxies each containing Catholic Church) and, at the same cardinal personalist text. Personalism and courses on the teachings of other billions of stars more or less the size time, the yeast (the Kingdom, the has had its effects on Catholic teaching religions, are to be available in Catholic of our sun, a universe that has had Catholic Church) gains. It nourishes —notably in the writings and talks of universities and colleges. In core curric- to undergo massive evolution to reach itself on the dough, comes to a real- Pope John Paul II. The yeast of the ula, a certain number of such courses the point where the existence of hu- ization of new potentialities (which Kingdom has been expanding through will be required normally of all students, man beings was even possible. It took include a better understanding of vast new batches of dough over the cen- if only to avoid ignorance of the mas- billions of years for God’s material cre- itself), and in all cases, at least we can turies and will continue to do so even sive religious dimensions of human life ation to organize itself and in places hope, both yeast and dough work for more radically in our computer and in- throughout history. Students not pro- cool down enough for DNA to exist the good of human beings. formation age and in other ages to come. fessing the Catholic faith need not elect so that life could be possible, for DNA specifically Catholic theology courses. furnishes building blocks of living What are some of the ways in which 2) The relationship of the faith and the organisms. Humanity is not DNA, but the parable of the yeast might help faculty, Catholic and other. With regard 4) Cosmology. If the Catholic faith without DNA there could be no hu- in conceiving of religious pluralism in to the faculty as individual persons, we is viewed as yeast, as something de- man life, involving nonmaterial human Catholic institutions of higher educa- could hope that the action of the faith, signed to grow through human con- consciousness. Although responsible tion today? We can consider here only seen as Catholic in the sense we have sciousness under grace into more calculations still vary somewhat, human- a few sample applications. been employing here, would grow and more of God’s creation, Catholic ity, ourselves, homo sapiens, is quite within the lives of individual faculty institutions of higher education are possibly some 350,000 years old. Since 1) The faith and academic subjects. members, in whatever way and at what- desperately in need of every sort of the appearance of homo sapiens and In a Catholic college or university, the ever rate the individual finds herself or knowledge available to fulfill their the consciousness with which humanity yeast—the Kingdom in the sense of the himself adapted to such growth. Pre- Catholic mission. One of the points at is endowed, God’s creation has matured Catholic faith—is constantly being sumably, having aligned herself or him- which this need, and the question of painstakingly but with growing acceler- brought into contact with new materi- self with an openly Catholic university, pluralism at present haunting Catholic ation through the invention of writing, als. These in-clude materials in philoso- a person who is not Catholic is will- education, can be examined fruitfully print, computers, and the changes in phy, the other humanities, the sciences ing to live somehow in contact with the regards cosmology. “In the begin- thought processes and thought man- and all the rest of developing human yeast of faith. But this does not of itself ning...God created the heavens and the agement that these technologies of the knowledge, as well as in its own special mean commitment to letting the faith earth” (Gen. 1:1). Catholic teaching is word have involved. The changes have ways, theology itself. permeate and transform her or his ineradicably involved with cosmology, resulted in our vast humanistic studies, whole life, as it would, or should, the with study of the universe that God enriched today immeasurably beyond Here, there is no question of indoc- life of a professed Catholic. In cases of has created, for everything that exists, such studies in earlier ages. trinating disciplines that are themselves individual non-Catholics, the action of save for God himself, is the creation separate from the faith, but of interact- the yeast might mean ultimately such of God, something of his. Today, we God’s creation has matured in our ing with them as each requires—in pat- total commitment. Whether it does or know inestimably more about what vast information culture with its con- terns that have to be worked out over not is an entirely personal matter under this creation was than the human comitant interpretation culture, in time, as the interacting takes place. divine grace. Catholic institutions of authors of Genesis or any of their which the interrelationships of every- The ferment of the yeast, the King- higher learning have had hundreds and contemporaries could know. The thing—intellectual, sociological, politi- dom in the sense of the Church and more utterly loyal faculty members of dough in which the yeast of the cal, scientific, philosophical, religious, the Church’s faith, will work in different other faiths or of no faith at all who Kingdom is planted is an immeasur- psychological, and so on without end— ways, not all of which are by any means have lived comfortably and happily ably greater mass of immeasurably are investigated, if not always success- predictable now. At times it may have in the Catholic context for most or greater age than we used to think. fully, certainly with an intricate sophis- no immediate grounds for interacting all of their academic careers, not feel- Does this knowledge that we now tication and depth impossible in earlier at all. At times, new grounds will arise: ing imposed on. The Catholic faith have show practically in Catholic life— generations. When we think of God’s Modern high technology has made wants to be interactive where interac- that is, in such things as our pastoral, creation in the ordinary context of faith, Continued on Page 13

BOSTON COLLEGE | C 21 RESOURCES | SPRING 2007 11 Catholic Intellectual Tradition in the Public Square

by alan wolfe Errors and attacks on liberalism The important point to make is Natural law, in short, inoculates us that bet on the wrong horses as far that a natural law tradition leaves one against postmodernism. Some of you on-Catholics routinely find in as the future was concerned. Had predisposed to believe that there are may know an article I wrote a year or Catholicism something miss- those aspects of Catholicism perpetu- certain truths in the world that two ago recounting my visits to col- Ning in their own religious or ated themselves unchanged into the remain true irrespective of whether leges and universities shaped by the intellectual traditions. For those un- start of the twenty-first century, Amer- the laws and conventions of any par- tradition of American evangelical Prot- happy with the direction the modern ica’s Catholic colleges and universities ticular society adhere to them. At its estantism. There I recall my surprise at world has taken, especially in the years would continue to be on the defen- worst, belief in natural law can lead to discovering how strong intellectually since the cultural revolution of the sive, for the burden of proof would ideological rigidity and inflexible inhu- many of these institutions had become. 1960s, Catholicism stands as a mighty be on them to demonstrate their manity. But at its best, respect for natu- But I also expressed astonishment to alternative. As Peter Berger wrote in proper place in a liberal and plural- ral law gives one the self-confidence that learn that Stanley Fish is something of 1967, “Catholicism, for reasons intrin- istic democracy. makes possible the passion and curios- a hero to those who teach in the Eng- sic to its tradition, has tried hardest ity that fuels intellectual inquiry. lish Department at Wheaton College in maintaining a staunchly resistant Fortunately, however, the Catholic or that postmodern philosophy is all stance in the face of secularization and tradition is better than that. It fur- No one could have predicted, the rage at the Fuller Theological Sem- pluralism, and indeed has tried down nished a John Courtney Murray. It thirty or so years ago, that such self- inary. While there are no doubt excep- to our own century to engage in vig- kept alive an important strain of nat- confidence would ever be necessary tions of which I am unaware, I have yet orous counterattacks designed to re- ural law teaching. It experienced in American higher education. At to come across quite that much enthu- establish something like Christendom Vatican II. And it produced a genera- the height of the cold war, American siasm for postmodernism at the Catholic at least within limited territories.” Or, tion of highly educated middle-class universities produced those called by colleges and universities with which I as the theologian Stanley Hauerwas, a suburban professionals anxious to give David Halberstam “the best and the am familiar. The postmodern evangeli- Methodist, puts it more recently (and their children the best education a brightest,” and humility was not ex- cals with whom I talk believe that one more succinctly), “Catholics, more than university can provide. It would be dif- actly one of their personality traits. can be skeptical of all truths while main- any other people, must resist the pre- ficult for anyone except for the most But in remarkably short time, the taining the truth of God’s existence. sumption of modernity.” Reading com- intransigent of conservatives to believe culture of American academia shifted Catholics are more likely to hold that ments like these, I am reminded of the that the Church, at least in the United from the hubristic arrogance of the truth of God’s existence must mean work of a first-rate journalist named States, is not better off because of those who believed that they could the truth of man’s reason, art’s beauty, Alan Ehrenhalt, whose book, The Lost their existence. bend a foreign country to their will or universal morality. No wonder, then, City, evokes Chicago-style Catholicism that at Boston College one will never of the 1950s, with its emphasis on hier- hear cries of “Hey Hey Ho Ho, Western archy and obedience, as a preferable Civ’s Gotta Go.” Take away all those moral system to the anarchy that fol- At a time when the only thing we can dead white males, and you have pretty lowed in its wake. Catholicism, for much eliminated the Catholic tradi- these writers, plays the role of the road know is that we cannot know anything, tion from the face of the earth. I have not taken, the secret history of the nothing but respect for those Catholic twentieth century which, if only we the claims of natural law suggest to us colleges and universities that continued knew better, we would have lived out. to defend the humanities through the not that the world is unknowable, but that entire, but now seemingly past, age of That road is not my road. (Indeed, I suspicion against them. think there is something extraordinar- we have simply stopped, for whatever ily presumptuous of non-Catholics Two other side-effects of Catholi- asking Catholics to forgo the benefits of reason, trying to know it. cism’s sympathy for natural law are also modernity that they themselves enjoy.) worth noting because, once again, both There were indeed antimodernist ten- of them came as a surprise—at least to dencies in both the official teachers me. The first of these is the sympathy of the Catholic Church and in the Let me, then, turn directly to to those currently ensconced in the that emerged on America’s Catholic way ordinary Catholics led their lives. aspects of the Catholic tradition that university who doubt the possibility colleges and universities for liberalism. I have no interest in revisiting them. have a more positive role to play, not of will, truth, morality, beauty, or By this I do not mean the everyday use Berger and Hauerwas may see in the only in higher education, but in Ameri- any other category that strikes them of the word liberalism that refers to the Catholic intellectual tradition a princi- can public life more generally. Cer- as ready for deconstruction. At a Democratic Party and its support for pled intellectual opposition to contem- tainly the most important of them is time when the only thing we can social reform, although it remains true porary relativism and hedonism; I am the natural law tradition. I will not know is that we cannot know any- that most Catholics, and most Catholic more likely to see a church that was address here—or, for that matter, any- thing, the claims of natural law sug- academics, remain liberal in that sense. far too soft on anti-Semitism (espe- where—the question of whether God gest to us not that the world is The more important affinity in this case cially, I have to add, when it counted), is the origin of our natural rights unknowable, but that we have simply is the one between Catholic respect for took a certain pride in banning great and duties, for I have little taste for stopped, for whatever reason, trying natural law and liberal conceptions of books, and produced a Syllabus of philosophical and theological analysis. to know it. fundamental human rights. It was, many

12 BOSTON COLLEGE | C 21 RESOURCES | SPRING 2007 of you will recall, John Courtney ideology and/or personnel for develop- Murray who pointed out that the great ing alter-natives to the Harvard-Berke- Yeast: A Parable enlightenment thinkers who wrote the ley model of excellence.” I believe Continued from Page 11 Declaration of Independence and the that the passage of time since they do we effectively advert to this creation And on what terrain more promising Bill of Rights, Protestant and deist wrote these words has answered their that has as part of itself depth psychology, than that of Catholic institutions of though they may have been, were question. Catholic colleges and uni- robots, space shuttles, trips to the moon? higher education? The urgency that nonetheless articulating natural law versities that emphasize the Western they be continued and strengthened principles in asserting freedom of tradition, pay serious attention to the There have been some beginnings is greater than ever before. speech, press, and religion. It is worth needs of undergraduates, have the con- in relating the faith to the known full- keeping his point in mind when we fidence not to make enemies of liberal- ness of God’s creation. One thinks of Moreover, this undertaking to ponder why evangelical Protestant lit- ism and science, and appreciate the Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, whose work engage the faith in God’s real world erary theorists love Stanley Fish. For human side of human beings have was pioneering and remains invaluable, would seem to demand pluralism. We if there is one theme that runs through- developed precisely such an alterna- but who is now no longer entirely up- cannot expect to draw from purely out all of Fish’s writings—or, for that tive. That is why I teach at one of them. to-date. Ecology has become a theologi- Catholic sources the knowledge we matter, those of his former colleague cal issue, as we become increasingly need for this vast enterprise. If the Stanley Hauerwas—it is a deep hatred To be sure, Boston College, like aware of human beings’ growing re- Catholic faith, the yeast, is to pene- of liberalism. How ironic, then, that other Catholic institutions, is not what sponsibility for God’s creation around trate all of God’s creation, we need the of the three intellectual traditions I it was when it was all male, nearly all us. Anthropic thinking has made us collaboration of all the knowledgeable have been discussing—Catholicism, Irish, and overwhelmingly Catholic in consider how the universe we know people we can relate to. In a universe evangelical Protestantism, and post- the composition of its faculty. There from science appears somehow consti- some 14 billion years old, the Church is modernism—the only one that finds are, I admit, too few priests on campus tuted from the beginning—the “big very, very young. We need to look back something of value in liberalism is the even for my comfort. But it remains bang” that many postulate—to build to the real perspectives of the past to one whose Pope made such a deter- recognizably Catholic, perhaps more up a world able to sustain humanity. see how young we really are. Our work mined nineteenth century attack upon it. recognizably Catholic for those who But most of this work and other re- of understanding the relationship of are not Catholic than for those who lated work has not affected our devo- the faith to the world is possibly the It is certainly not an obligation are. If that sounds like a paradox, per- tional, liturgical, homiletic, and pas- major devotional and pastoral and of defenders of Catholic education haps my appreciation for the Catholic toral way of life, where the archaic homiletic task of the years ahead, as as it used to be to consider the situa- intellectual tradition has taught me visions of creation seem to linger. well as a major task in other areas of tion facing non-Catholics. But just the importance of paradoxical thinking. Paul tells us (Rom. 1:20) that we learn theology. Fortunately, our faith is as Catholic colleges and universities of God’s grandeur from “the things future-oriented. We have never felt have become enriched throughout con- Alan Wolfe is a professor of Political Science and He has made.” But now that we have called to get back to the Garden of tact with the non-Catholic world, non- the Director of the Boisi Center for Religion in found out so much more about what Eden but to look to the future coming Catholics have benefited from their American Public Life at Boston College. these things really are, in our actual of Christ. The Catholic intellectual life contact with the Catholic world. I living of the faith we have yet to learn that lies ahead is one we can welcome. know that I have. What upsets me the Reprinted with permission of the author from from them. We need to bring present most about the views of writers like the Summer 2002 issue of Current Issues, the knowledge of the actual universe to Walter Ong, S.J. (1912-2003) was a Professor of Burtchaell and Neuhaus is their lack publication of the Association of Catholic bear on such things as our thinking Humanities at Saint Louis University for 30 years, of recognition that a Catholic educa- Colleges and Universities. of God’s creative act, of the life and and a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts tion can be as valuable for those out- — life expectancy of the Church, of escha- and Sciences. side the tradition as those inside. If tological time, of the Incarnation and you have something that you believe the Second Coming, and so much else. Reprinted with permission of the publishers from makes sense, you ought to want to share the April 7, 1990 issue of America. it. If you restrict it, you cheapen it. The yeast that is the Kingdom has — a great deal to engage itself with here. Of course it is true that shared things change by being shared. Catholics should not treat their educational What Is the Catholic Intellectual Tradition? institutions the way some evangeli- the Catholic Intellectual Tradition. The in the Church, the artistic expressions cal Protestants treat their joy in Jesus— by t. frank kennedy, s.j. very breadth of the tradition led me to of that faith attempting to renew itself here it is, take it whether you want it consider the relativity of in-sights com- are often at a lesser level of beauty or or not, question your own faith but n 1982 after doctoral studies in ing from a myriad of intellectual pur- complexity than other times? Shouldn’t don’t ask me to question mine. If that music history at the University of suits and sources that inform and form it be the opposite? How and why is it is what a Catholic education is meant ICalifornia, I began teaching at a us. These sources all speak about human necessary for us to respect our con- to be, Catholic educators would be Jesuit college. In preparing my classes identity, and are often held in tension sciences, but also respect the voice of better off staying in their own aca- I quickly realized something that I had in the same way that the world and the community attentive to the prompt- demic subculture. Nor should Catholic never noticed as a grad student. One society are experienced in tension— ings of the Holy Spirit? These tensions colleges and universities simply copy could teach the history of western civi- a creative tension, dialogic in nature, that we experience are the wonders of the institutions of mainstream America. lization through the history of western, always respecting the person, that finally our faith—the signs yet again in our As David Riesman and Christopher sacred music, if one wanted to do so. I says there are many truths that hold times that the Spirit is alive as our faith Jencks wisely wrote in 1968, “The suppose that this was the first time I sway over us in our human complexi- seeks Wisdom. important question…is not whether confronted part of the breadth of what ties, and we are far from completely a few Catholic universities prove we refer to as the “Catholic Intellectual plumbing the depths of these mysteri- T. Frank Kennedy S.J., is The Peter Canisius Chair, capable of competing with Harvard Tradition.” The first thought that I ous truths. For instance, as a musicolo- Director of the Jesuit Institute, and Chairperson of or Berkeley on the latter’s terms, but gleaned from this insight was something gist, I have often asked myself, Why is it the Music Department at Boston College. whether Catholicism can provide an about this wideness that encompasses that at times of great spiritual renewal –––

BOSTON COLLEGE | C 21 RESOURCES | SPRING 2007 13 Living Conversations Higher Education in a Catholic Context

by michael himes vard at the beginning of this century. ties—and not in a few isolated courses- has happened to her and that her He called it “the pragmatic principle.” —to reflect critically and, if at all pos- whole life is being drained of meaning n one of the many occasions As James summed it up, the pragmatic sible, in a multidisciplinary way on their and purpose. She goes so far as to when he was asked why he principle is “if it’s true, it makes a dif- experiences in service and in other cul- tell the monk that if he cannot help Ohad become a Catholic, ference; if it makes no difference, it’s tures. We cannot permit ourselves or her, she thinks she will kill herself. Chesterton replied that he became not true.” Every term I urge my stu- them the mistake of thinking that She explains that, at some point—she Catholic because Catholicism is a com- dents to make that the measuring rod “out there you do, in here we think.” doesn’t know how, for there was no munity with a deep and rich sense of everything I say, they say, or we read Here we think about what is done great crisis—she ceased to believe in of tradition. And, he said, belonging together in the courses I teach. If, for there. We must lead them into criti- God. It happened bit by bit, and she to a community with such a sense example, you can’t possibly imagine cal thinking about their experience. herself was shocked to realize that of tradition is extremely important what difference it makes that God is And we should do all in our power to she no longer believed. Now every- because only then can one be freed triune; that is, it makes no difference make certain that engagement in serv- thing is colorless, tasteless, to her. from the most degrading of all forms to anyone, anywhere, anywhen (as ice for social justice is not limited to a Everything has become ashes. She says, of servitude—of being merely a child James liked to put it), then effectively few students or simply to those who quoting Pushkin, nothing is real save of one’s time. That is, I think, im- it is not true. One has to be able to see choose to involve themselves. Indeed, the weeds that grow on her grave. mensely wise. Being part of a tradi- or, at least, to imagine, what difference those who do not choose it are most Zosima tells her that what she is expe- tion means that you do not have to any statement makes in order to declare often precisely those who need it most. riencing is the worst thing that can speak with North Americans alone; happen to a human being, and that you can speak with South Americans he thinks he can help her. She must and Africans and Europeans and Asians go home and every day, without fail, and Australians. It also means that you in the most concrete and practical are not confined to speaking only with Direct engagement in social justice and way possible, she must love the people late twentieth-century people; you can around her. If she does that, Zosima converse with Plato and Emily Dickin- service to others is crucial to our students says, then bit by bit she will come son and Mozart and Teresa of Avila. to the point at which she cannot but You can speak with Dante and Madame and to our task as their teachers. believe in God. “This way,” he says, Curie, with Newton and Euclid and “has been tried; this way is certain.” Jane Austen. You can talk with all sorts of people who are not of your own age The whole of the novel is a com- and clime. You are freed from being that statement true. This pragmatic Why is it so important? There mentary on this scene, a huge debate merely a child of your time and place. principle, I suggest, is bred into Amer- are many reasons, but let me offer about Zosima’s tried and certain way. I In the Catholic tradition, we call this icans. we get it with our mother’s milk. one that matters especially to a the- think that Dostoevsky is right: the only the communion of saints. That com- And therefore it must be taken with ologian. It has to do with what, with workable proof for the existence of munion or conversation has been go- great seriousness in the Catholic intel- all due respect to Saint Anselm and God is an experience, and that experi- ing on for a very long time—and you lectual tradition as that tradition is Saint Thomas Aquinas, is the only ence arises out of daily concrete and and I are invited to participate in it. lived out in this country. Thus, we effective proof for the existence of practical love for those around us. cannot allow the formation of future God that I know. There are many One of the richest elements in the intellectuals (and whom else are we proofs for an “Unmoved Mover” or After all, long ago, we were told Catholic intellectual tradition is its teaching?) within the Catholic tradi- an “Uncaused Cause,” but that has by the author of the First Letter of notion of the communion of saints, tion to remain simply theoretical. For nothing to do with the God who is John that anyone claiming to love and within the Jesuit educational tradi- what we say to be seen as true, our least wrongly understood as pure and God, whom he cannot see, while not tion one of the richest elements is the students must see the concrete differ- perfect self-gift. The proof of which loving the brother or sister whom he insistence on engaging in a transtem- ence that our statements make. They I am thinking is found in Dostoevsky’s does see is a liar (I John 4:20). Not a poral as well as a transspatial conversa- must test out what we teach them. The Brothers Karamozov. Fairly early in liar in the sense of one who deliber- tion. Our students desperately need What we say to them about the value the novel, Dostoevsky presents us ately and knowingly tells an untruth, such traditions so that they are not and dignity of human life must be ex- with a series of conversations with but rather one who speaks falsely limited to their own contemporaries perienced by them as making a differ- Father Zosima, the wise and holy because he doesn’t know what he’s for companionship. This is a very im- ence in fact to someone, somewhere, monk whose words continue to echo talking about. He cannot know what portant issue for those of us who teach somewhen. And it is certainly not in the book long after he has died. the word “God” means because God in those traditions to consider: How do enough for us to say, “Oh, well, there The last of these conversations is is agape, pure and perfect self-giving we introduce people into a living tradi- is the Jesuit Volunteer Corps, and there with “a woman without faith.” An love. If that is the least wrong way to tion, whether within the sciences or are various summer service projects in obviously distraught woman approach- think about God, then one cannot the humanities (and, I hope, both)? which the students can go off and do es Zosima to request his assistance with know who God is—and therefore all sorts of swell things for others.” We a problem that she says is destroying that God is—if one never knows I am inclined to think that one of cannot allow that divorce between the her. We quickly find out that she is agapic love. After all, to compare the wisest principles of education that I lecture hall and their concrete expe- in good health, prosperous, and seem- absolute Mystery to self-giving love have ever come across is what William rience. When students return to our ingly untroubled in any obvious way. isn’t very helpful if one has no clue James used to tell his students at Har- campuses, they must find opportuni- But she insists that something horrible what self-giving love is. Comparing

14 BOSTON COLLEGE | C 21 RESOURCES | SPRING 2007 the Unknown to the unknown isn’t very helpful. One must have the con- crete experience of agape to under- The End of Education stand who God is and, more impor- tantly, to experience that God is. And if belief in the existence of God— The Fragmentation of the American University which is, among other things, affir- mation of purpose, and meaning in alasdair macintyre were later added political science and It should matter to anyone who life—is central to ones existence as a sociology and anthropology. To mathe- thinks it important what conception fully human being (and I cannot imag- hat should be the distinc- matics and physics were added chem- of human nature and the human condi- ine how the question whether there is tive calling of the Ameri- istry and biology. And within each of tion students have arrived at by the purpose and meaning in life is not), W can Catholic university these particular disciplines, subdisci- time they enter the adult workplace and and if education is not merely voca- or college here and now? It should plines and later sub-subdisciplines therefore to any Catholic. For each of tional training but the development of be to challenge its secular counterparts multiplied. So it has been too with the academic disciplines teaches us some- a fully human being, and further, if the by recovering both for them and for the study of Greek and Latin lan- thing significant about some aspect of tried and certain way to belief in God itself a less fragmented conception guages and literature to which were human nature and the human condi- is concrete and practical love of others, of what an education beyond high added first English, then French, tion. Physics tells us which particles then direct engagement in social justice school should be, by identifying what German, and Italian, then Russian, and forces compose the body as a mate- and service to others is crucial to our has gone badly wrong with even the Chinese, Arabic, Farsi and....So too it rial object, while chemistry and bio- students and to our task as their teach- best of secular universities. From a has been with the multiplication of chemistry examine it as the site of vari- ers. Not just an important auxiliary— Catholic point of view, the contempo- historical studies, American, Euro- ous exchanges and reactions. What the crucial. We cannot introduce others rary secular university is not at fault pean, Asian, African, ancient, medieval, functioning structures of complex living into the Catholic intellectual tradition because it is not Catholic. It is at fault modern, political, social, economic.... organisms, such as ourselves, are and without it. insofar as it is not a university. And in all these areas there is a grow- how they have evolved we learn from ing array of subdisciplines and sub- biology, while sociology, anthropology, Michael Himes is a priest of the Diocese Yet the major Catholic universities subdisciplines, not to speak of the economics, and history make human of Brooklyn and Professor of Theology at seem unlikely to accept this calling, if introduction of creative writing, of beings intelligible in and through their Boston College. only because their administrative lead- theater arts, and...and...and.... changing cultural and social relation- ers are for the most part hell-bent on ships. Philosophy—together with the Reprinted with permission of the author from imitating their prestigious secular The history of this multiplication history of inquiry—shows us how and the Fall 1995 issue of Conversations on Jesuit counterparts, which already imitate one of disciplines is, of course, also a why we are able to move toward a more Higher Education. another. So we find Notre Dame glanc- history of increasing specialization and more adequate understanding of — ing nervously at Duke, only to catch by scholars, and of the transforma- ourselves and our environments, from Duke in the act of glancing nervously tion of university or college teachers time to time transcending the limita- at Princeton. What is it that makes this into professionalized, narrowly focused tions of previous modes of understand- attitude so corrupting? What has gone researchers who also happen to teach; ing. That human beings are also in key wrong with the secular university? specialists whose professional success part what they imagine themselves to and standing depend in large part be, and how, without works of imagina- Begin with some well-known and on the degree of their identification tion, human life is diminished, we can prosaic truths. Since the nineteenth with some particular subdiscipline only learn from literary and other aes- century, the number of disciplines or subsubdiscipline. Each part of thetic studies. Yet, when we have learned studied in American universities and the curriculum is someone’s responsi- what all these different types of disci- colleges has steadily multiplied. To bility, but no one has a responsibil- plines have to teach—and the catalogue philosophy there were added psychol- ity for making the connections is far from complete—we confront ques- ogy and political economy, soon to be between the parts. To whom should tions that have so far gone unasked, just transformed into economics, to which this matter? because they are not questions answer- able from within any one discipline. What Is the Catholic Intellectual Tradition? Ours is a culture in which there is the sharpest of contrasts between the by fred lawrence not yet understood; and in Ignatius distinction between nature and super- rigor and integrity with which issues of Loyola’s insistence “that every good nature, between reason and faith, detail are discussed within each special- t its best, Rome (taken symbol- Christian ought to be more willing issued an invitation to reason to claim ized discipline and the self-indulgent ically) epitomized the vision to give a good interpretation to the its proper field of inquiry, to work shoddiness of so much of public debate A of the Catholic Intellectual statement of another than to con- out its own methods, to operate on on large and general issues of great im- Tradition by its reception of both demn it as false.” the basis of autonomous principles. port (compare Lawrence Summers on Jerusalem (seat of Abrahamic reli- It was no accident that universities economics with Lawrence Summers gion) and Athens (seat of philosophy Alongside the two greatest works began in a Catholic context, because on gender issues, Cardinal Schönborn and science). This creative receptiv- on education—Plato’s Republic and Love bestows the fullness of life on on theology with Cardinal Schönborn ity entails living out of the tension Rousseau’s Emile—stands Augustine’s human intelligence. on evolution). One reason for this con- between reason and faith with intel- De Doctrina Christiana, which warns trast is the absence of a large educated lectual honesty. This is exemplified that the Bible is not a book of science Fred Lawrence is an Associate Professor of public, a public with shared standards of in Thomas Aquinas’ respect for and encourages Christians to learn all Theology at Boston College. argument and inquiry and some shared heretics and adversaries because they they can about nature in order to — conception of the central questions that help us to discover truth we have understand it. Further, the medieval we need to address. Such a public

Continued on Page 16 BOSTON COLLEGE | C 21 RESOURCES | SPRING 2007 15 The End of Education Continued from Page 15 Contributing would be a good deal less willing to students to bring together the various allow issues that need to be debated to things that they learn, so that they can be defined by those who are so wed- understand what is at stake in answer- Publications ded in advance to their own particular ing the key questions. We do possess the partisan answers that they have never intellectual resources to bring about the found out what the questions are. kind of change I propose. What we lack, America, the national Catholic Catholic mission and character, and And it would be unwilling to tolerate in Catholic and in secular universities, weekly magazine, has been pub- to serve as The Voice of Catholic the straitjacketing of debate, so char- is the will to change, and that absence lished since 1909 by Jesuits in the Higher Education in the United acteristic of television, within two-to of will is a symptom of a quite unwar- United States for thinking Catholics States. To sign up for a subscription five-minute periods, during which ranted complacency concerning our and those who want to know what or receive an individual copy, contact each participant interrupts and talks present state and our present direction. Catholics are thinking. America is the ACCU office at (202) 457-0650 down the others. online at www.americamagazine.org. or email Michael Galligan-Stierle “What then about specialized train- Subscribe via the Web site or call at [email protected]. The adoption of such a curriculum ing for research?” someone will ask. 1-800-627-9533. would serve both universities and the Ours, they may say, is a knowledge- Origins is a publication of the wider society well. But it would be of based economy and we cannot do with- Established in 1924, Commonweal Catholic News Service and the U.S. particular significance for a Catholic out specialized researchers. The type is an independent journal of opinion Conference of Catholic Bishops. It university and for the Catholic com- of curriculum that I am proposing may edited by lay Catholics. It has a spe- publishes texts from the Vatican, the munity. Newman argued that it is teach students to ask questions in a cial interest in religion (Catholic and Pope, bishops, Congress, Senate, theology that is the integrative and disciplined way, something that is cer- otherwise), politics, war and peace Supreme Court, and church leaders unifying discipline needed by any uni- tainly a valuable preliminary to instruc- issues, and culture. Along with arti- around the world. To subscribe, visit versity, secular, Protestant, or Catholic. tion in genuine research techniques, cles on current events, it regularly www.originsonline.com. And it is in the light afforded by the but it does not begin to supply the ap- reviews books, plays, films, and tele- Catholic faith and more especially by prenticeship that researchers at the vision. It is published 22 times per The Tablet is the British Catholic Catholic doctrines concerning human cutting edge need. Indeed it does not. year. Its goal is “to bring a distinc- weekly newsmagazine, established in nature and the human condition that It is liberal education, not job training. tively Catholic perspective to bear 1840. Readers can be confident that theologians have a unique contribution But the lesson is to get rid of the con- on the issues of the day.” A trial The Tablet will be a paper of pro- to make in addressing the questions fusions generated by our predecessors’ subscription is $25. To subscribe, gressive, but responsible Catholic that ought to be central to an other- admiration for the German research visit www.commonwealmagazine.org. thinking, a place where orthodoxy is wise secular curriculum. It is not just university and to supply both a liberal at home but ideas are welcome. To that Catholic theology has its own dis- education in the arts and sciences and, Conversations on Jesuit Higher Educa- subscribe, visit www.thetablet.co.uk/ tinctive answers to those questions, for those who aspire to it, a profes- tion is published by the National Semi- but that we can learn from it a way of sional, specialized training in research nar on Jesuit Higher Education, which Woodstock Report is a quarterly addressing those questions, not just as in the natural or the human sciences. is jointly sponsored by the Jesuit Con- publication of The Woodstock theoretical inquiries, but as questions The curriculum I am proposing, in- ference Board and the Board of the Theological Center, an independent with practical import for our lives, asked cluding theology, could perhaps be Association of Jesuit Colleges and Uni- nonprofit institute established by by those who are open to God’s self- taught in three well-structured and versities. The magazine appears twice a the Society of Jesus (the Jesuits) at revelation. Theology can become an strenuous years. A fourth year would year, in fall and spring. Principal distri- Georgetown University in 1974. education in how to ask such questions. thereby become available for research bution is to faculty, administrators, and The mission of the Woodstock or professional training. We do not staff of the twenty-eight Jesuit colleges Theological Center is to engage in On this point, it may be said that have to sacrifice training in research and universities and two theologates in theological and ethical reflection on theology departments are unlikely to in order to provide our students with a the United States. It is available in elec- topics of social, economic, business, achieve this goal, if only because they liberal education, just as we do not have tronic form through the Marquette scientific, cultural, religious, and commonly suffer from the same ills to fragment and deform so much of University Library Web site. political importance. If you would of specialization and fragmentation as our students’ education, as we do now. like to be placed on the mailing list other departments. Yet of course the Current Issues is the semiannual for the Woodstock Report, please degree to which this is so varies a Alasdair A. McIntyre is the Rev. John A. O’Brien journal of the Association of Catholic e-mail your name and postal address great deal from university to univer- Senior Research Professor of Philosophy at the Colleges and Universities. The pur- to [email protected]. sity. It is also true that everything or University of Notre Dame. pose of the association is to promote almost everything that must be taught Catholic higher education by sup- in a reformed curriculum is already Reprinted with permission of the publisher porting the member institutions, taught somewhere in most universities, from Commonweal, October 20, 2006. especially with reference to their yet not at present in a way that allows — Learn all about the new C21 book series at: www.bc.edu/church21

16 BOSTON COLLEGE | C 21 RESOURCES | SPRING 2007 The Holy See and the Challenges of Catholic Higher Education in the United States

by + j. michael miller, csb ture of global educational solidarity? Gospel, give practical expression to be- Such cooperation should become a ing Good Academic Samaritans? What distinguishing trait of all Catholic col- hen they are true to the The current situation is complex. can American Catholic universities do leges and universities in the United mission expected of them, On the one hand, globalization enables to mitigate the chronic discrepancies States. What they must bring to others W Catholic universities pro- faculty and students to work and study in the quality of higher education that is an educational vision inspired by a pose a particular vision that animates anywhere and, through technology, to mar the universal Church? For the Vat- courageous and unwavering fidelity to their intellectual life and engages their bring some measure of equal access to ican, the unevenness of the resources the principles and practices proposed scholars in a common project. Such a information by all institutions. On the available to Church-sponsored insti- by Ex Corde Ecclesiae. To begin the vision is all embracing, since it entails a other hand, in many ways the process tutions in the one Body remains a laborious task of closing the educa- distinctively Catholic way of apprehend- of globalization also reinforces existing matter of the gravest concern. tional divide, the Holy See calls for ing reality that inspires a university’s educational inequality.2 The, universi- effective solidarity, an exchange of teaching, scholarship, and service. A ties that are reaping the lions share of In a joint statement recently issued academic gifts and resources, between Catholic university lives from, breathes, the benefits of an information-based by the Congregation for Catholic Edu- wealthy and successful institutions and and seeks to transmit—through its economy are those from developed cation and the International Federa- those still on the road to development. curriculum, research, and professors countries. They have the resources to tion of Catholic Universities, the Holy —a Weltanschauung grounded in a invest in costly information networks See called for an increased exchange Endnotes great tradition. and, through their centers of research, of educational resources by institutions 1 Cf. Congregation for Catholic Education and to create new knowledge, over which of the first world with those from dev- the International Federation of Catholic Univer- This means more than a presenta- they enjoy a near monopoly. eloping regions: “In the light of the sities, Globalization and Catholic Higher Education: tion of the Catholic intellectual tradi- mission of the university to serve, this Working Document (Vatican City: Vatican Press, tion in the university’s curriculum and The other universities, including educational divide can be an oppor- 2004), Part One, II, 13. lip service to that tradition in the fac- most of those in developing countries, tunity and an avenue where this man- ulty’s scholarly activities. A Catholic although they benefit from this com- date for service can be realized.”7 The 2 Cf. Philip G. Altbach, “Globalization and the vision can be relished, deepened, and munications revolution, remain con- global educational gap in Catholic insti- University: Myths and Realities in an Unequal communicated only by giving it more sumers of the new technology.3 In tutions, evident sometimes even among World,” Seminarium 42:3-4 (2002), 811-813. than equal time in a marketplace of many ways, then, the process of glob- universities sponsored by the same reli- competing opinions. One could expect alization is serving to widen the gap gious institute, can be overcome only 3 Cf. Congregation for Catholic Education and as much—though this does not, admit- between “have” and “have not” aca- by heightened cooperative efforts. the International Federation of Catholic Univer- tedly, always occur—from a university demic institutions. This process has sities, Globalization and Catholic Higher Education: faithful to the liberal tradition of open- become an instrument for “a new In the United States, there is enor- Working Document (Vatican City: Vatican Press, ness to all points of view. For its part, a version of colonialism.”4 mous pressure for universities to be 2004), Part One, II, 13-14. Catholic university is the responsible recognized as first-class institutions, bearer of a vision and tradition that can The Catholic university, with its ranked according to criteria which allot 4 John Paul II, Address to the Pontifical Academy enrich the wider academic and social vision founded on the Gospel, offers a no points for initiatives on behalf of of Social Sciences (27 April 2001), 4: L’Osservatore communities, which look to it to be way to close the gap. Take, for exam- educational solidarity. Given this situa- Romano, English edition, 18 (2 May 2001), 7. distinctive. ple, the parable of the Good Samaritan tion, what imaginative and courageous (cf. Lk 10:25-37) and apply it to the steps can be taken to create partner- 5 Benedict XVI, Deus Caritas Est, 15. During the latter half of the twenti- Catholic Academy in the United States. ships with institutions in the emerging eth century, the rise of a new spirit of This parable leaves no doubt, writes nations? In those countries, especially 6 Benedict XVI, Deus Caritas Est, 30. international cooperation promoted Pope Benedict XVI in Deus Caritas Est, in Africa, the need for Catholic higher the internationalization of higher edu- that “anyone who needs me, and whom education has never been more evident. 7 Congregation for Catholic Education and the cation. As the need to establish world- I can help, is my neighbor. The con- In truth, Church-related colleges and International Federation of Catholic Universities, wide contacts and a global perspective cept of ‘neighbor’ is now universal- universities are key to these countries’ Globalization and Catholic Higher Education: Work- became increasingly apparent, student ized, yet it remains concrete.”5 Con- future integral human, economic, and ing Document (Vatican City: Vatican Press, 2004), and faculty exchanges, research col- cern for our neighbor—and here every cultural development. 19. See the major publications of the conference, laboration, foreign language, and area Catholic university should think specif- held from 2-6 December 2002 in Rome, in the study programs expanded rapidly.1 ically of its academic neighbors—“tran- Certainly no silver-bullet solu- special volume dedicated to this theme in the scends the confines of national commu- tions are available. Nonetheless, a Congregation for Catholic Education’s journal, The first steps of overcoming a deep- nities and has increasingly broadened true mark of a university’s catholic- Seminarium, 42:3-4 (2002). rooted American academic isolationism its horizon to the whole world.”6 ity is the extent to which it takes to —always out of step with a Church heart the need to tithe its own aca- Archbishop J. Michael Miller, CSB, is the that treasures universality—have already While the Holy Father refrains from demic and financial resources so as Secretary of Catholic Education (for Seminaries been taken in many universities. This drawing any concrete implications for to help build up systems of Catholic and Institutes of Study) of the Holy See. is good news. But a fresh challenge the world of higher education, he opens higher education in the local still lies ahead. How can Catholic col- the door for us to ask: Where is my churches of developing countries. This excerpt is from an address given at Boston leges and universities in the United neighbor university? How do educa- Collaboration is a concrete expres- College on September 11, 2006. Reprinted States practically foster not just aca- tional institutions at the service of the sion of educational solidarity and with permission of the author. demic inter- nationalization but a cul- whole Church and committed to the ecclesial communion. —

BOSTON COLLEGE | C 21 RESOURCES | SPRING 2007 17 A Vocation for Catholic Higher Education?

by stephen pope upper middle class, in essence no dif- world. Sobrino believes that speaking training in the professions and busi- ferent from other private universities. the truth is the best remedy for social ness, liberal education in the true sense uition, room, and board for Catholic universities cannot simply be injustice. Above all, knowledge must of the term is not intended to serve many Catholic universities places where well-to-do students receive be put at the service of the poor. Only what is beyond itself. This is not to say T runs on average between a good education in order to assume in this way is the Catholic university’s that it is a good thing for college grad- $40,000 and $45,000 per year. The their place in the next generation true catholicity affirmed—that is, its uates to be driving cabs or bartending, cost of tuition continues to rise faster of corporate and professional elites. openness to the worth of all people and only that the most important feature of than both income and inflation. Add How does education of the relatively not just the economic elite. college is how it expands the mind, not transportation, books, fees, and other affluent (and sometimes the absolutely the wallet. It is both true and good that miscellaneous expenses, and the total rich) relate to concern for those on The Catholic university cannot higher education and knowledge also cost of a four-year bachelor’s degree the other end of the social and eco- therefore be understood in Sobrino’s provide career opportunities and finan- often tops the $180,000 mark at the nomic spectrum? analysis as the scene of “value-free,” cial advantages, but these benefits are most prestigious schools. About 60 politically neutral intellectual activity. not the primary objectives of education. percent of students at all private four- Two theologians, Jon Sobrino and It should be conceived Christocentri- year institutions receive some form John Henry Newman, have something cally—in light of the Cross and as an But what about compassion? New- of financial aid, and about half of all to say about the inevitable tensions un- expression of Jesus’ uncompromising man regarded knowledge as valuable students are forced to borrow to meet derlying this question. According to love for the poor. Sobrino poses to the in itself whether or not its discovery expenses. The steep debt incurred is either justified directly by utility or, over the course of four years typically by implication, motivated by compas- requires many times that number of sion. “Knowledge is one thing, virtue years of repayment. Given this expense, is another; good sense is not con- many fear that in the years to come Institutions of higher education that are science, refinement is not humility, only the most affluent may be able nor is largess and justness of view to afford a Catholic college education. at once true universities and genuinely faith. Liberal education makes not the Christian, not the Catholic, but This cost should be placed in the Catholic must be characterized in terms the gentleman.” By “gentleman,” New- context of the growing income inequal- man meant not a polite person with re- ity between the rich and poor in our of both an “enlargement of heart” and fined sensibilities, but rather one who society. On June 19, 1996, the United has a “philosophic habit of mind” and States Census Bureau reported that an “enlargement of mind.” “a cultivated intellect, a delicate taste, since 1968 the average income of a candid, equitable, dispassionate households in the bottom 20 percent mind, a noble and courteous bearing of earners rose a mere 0.8 percent in the conduct of life...the connatural (from $7,702 to $7,762), while the aver- qualities of a large knowledge.” This age income of the top 20 percent of Jon Sobrino of San Salvador’s Central Catholic university the question: “What “enlargement of mind” continues to earners rose a staggering 44 percent American University, compassion must can we do to take the crucified people be a powerful antidote to bigotry, (from $73,754 to $105,945). The eco- have the central place in the life of the down from their crosses?” Whereas apathy, and social myopia. nomic value of a college degree con- Catholic university. College students knowledge has all too frequently been tinues to rise as the widening income and universities themselves must learn used to support oppression, it ought Though a creature of his time, New- gap between those with and those with- to embrace the “preferential option now to be put at the service of the man provides a helpful corrective to out a degree demonstrates. College, for the poor.” Sobrino argues that if poor and for the eradication of their the danger of an exclusive focus on what more than ever, is a long-term financial the Catholic university is to exist in suffering. Not only theology and phi- Sobrino sees as central, compassion. investment that, on average, pays sub- a world of massive suffering and not losophy, but also political science, Insisting that the search for knowledge stantial economic dividends. But the function simply as an “ivory tower,” sociology, and other disciplines can be motivated primarily by compas- rising cost of this education, coupled it must be committed to the poor. be taught in a way that gives central- sion amounts to a drastic elimination with the economic benefits that it Far from paternalistic philanthropy, ity to the needs of the poor. of one of the most fundamental fea- yields, raises questions about the rela- the preferential option entails solidar- tures of what makes us human. The tion of Catholic universities to the poor ity—identifying with the poor, being Perhaps the strongest challenge university ought to be a place where and less affluent. converted by them, and participating to Sobrino’s position is found in John students come to greater understanding in movements for their empowerment. Henry Newman’s The Idea of a Uni- of things, worth knowing for their own Add to this combination of the es- If the Catholic university does not act- versity. In his fifth discourse, Newman sakes, a place where the love of learning calating costs of education and the ively side with the poor in appropriate examined the question of the utility is not supplanted by other objectives, rising income inequality in our society ways, it will tacitly side with the status value of a college education (something however legitimate in themselves, and the danger of increasingly isolating quo and reinforce present structures a lot of undergraduates wonder about where knowledge is not instrumen- college students from the poor and of injustice, oppression, and exclusion. during final exams week). Human beings talized to other values. making them less sensitive to poor naturally desire to know and the prin- people’s proper worth and rightful The university is a place where stu- cipal virtue of the university lies in Yet, upholding the intrinsic value of claims. Catholic higher education dents and faculty search for the truth, its service of this need rather than any the “enlargement of mind” need not be should not become simply one more make discoveries, and communicate other. In contrast to even the most at odds with acknowledging the place familiar route for the recycling of the findings and insights to the wider learned and intellectually demanding of compassion in the life of an educated

18 BOSTON COLLEGE | C 21 RESOURCES | SPRING 2007 Catholic. Catholic higher education includes not only intellectual develop- Catholic Influences on the ment, but also the further cultivation of those traits that are characteristi- cally Catholic and Christian, including love of God and love of neighbor. If Human Rights Project this is true, then we need to recognize that the well-spoken and prosperous by mary ann glendon phers sent a questionnaire to still legal drafters everywhere, had done a professional who makes substantial more leading thinkers all over the good deal of copying. They drew many financial contributions to university f you are like most Americans, and world, from Mahatma Gandhi to Teil- provisions from existing constitutions development funds but is utterly in- like me before I got interested in hard de Chardin, and in due course and rights instruments that the staff of different to the suffering of the poor I the Universal Declaration, you they reported that, somewhat to their the UN Human Rights Division had should not be taken as a model gradu- probably do not stay up nights thinking surprise, they had found that there collected from all over the world. They ate of a Catholic university. Catholic about the United Nations and its vari- were a few common standards of relied most heavily of all on two draft universities have certainly generated ous pronouncements. So let me begin decency that were widely shared, though proposals for international bills that those who fit this image, but we ought with a little background on the Univer- not always formulated in the language were themselves based on extensive to recognize this for what it is—a uni- sal Declaration, and why it seemed to of rights. Their conclusion was that cross-national research. One of these versity’s success in financial and social me to be worth studying. During World this practical consensus was enough proposals was prepared under the aus- terms but not an exemplar of its core War II, the idea began to percolate that to enable the project to go forward. pices of the American Law Institute, ideals. Sobrino is fundamentally cor- there should be some kind of interna- and the other was a Latin American rect on this score. The credibility of tional bill of rights—a common standard The judgment of the philosophers document that became the 1948 Bogotá the Catholic university lies neither in to which all nations could aspire—and was borne out by the experience of the Declaration of the Rights and Duties its endowment, nor in its graduation by which they could measure their own delegates on the Human Rights Com- of Man. rate, nor in the power and status of and each other’s progress. mission. This group, too, was highly its alumni, but in whether its gradu- diverse, but they had few disagreements The final draft produced by Mrs. ates are genuinely concerned about One of the first suggestions came over the content of the Declaration. Roosevelt’s commission was a synthesis “taking the crucified people down from Pope Pius XII, who called in a Their disputes were chiefly political, drawn from many sources—and thus from their crosses.” June 1941 radio address for an interna- and chiefly involved the Soviet Union a document that differed in many ways tional bill recognizing the rights that and the United States hurling accusa- from our familiar Anglo-American rights Most people will agree that to flowed from the dignity of the person.1 tions of hypocrisy against each other. instruments—most noticeably in its graduate from a Catholic university Another came from the British writer inclusion of social and economic rights, and somehow not to have signifi- H.G. Wells in a little pamphlet subti- On December 10, 1948, the docu- and in its express acknowledgment cantly enhanced one’s ability to think tled “What Are We Fighting For?”2 But ment was adopted by the UN General that rights are subject to duties and more deeply about the world, one’s in practical terms, the most consequen- Assembly as a “common standard of limitations. It also differed from social- nature, and one’s identity is to have tial support came from several Latin achievement.” There were no dissent- ist charters, notably with its strong “missed the point” of college. We American countries, who comprised ing votes, although the Soviet bloc, emphasis on political and civil liberties. should regard compassion in an anal- twenty-one of the original fifty-five Saudi Arabia, and South Africa recorded ogous way, recognizing that to grad- member nations of the UN when it abstentions. The Declaration quickly Several features of the Declaration uate from a Catholic college without was founded in 1945. became the principal inspiration of the set it apart from both Anglo-American a more developed awareness of the postwar international human rights and Soviet bloc documents. Consider needs of the poor and one’s own It was largely due to the insistence movement; the model for the majority the following: its pervasive emphasis on social responsibility to them is also of the Latin Americans, joined by other of rights instruments in the world— the “inherent dignity” and “worth of really to have “missed the point.” small nations, that the UN established over ninety in all—and it serves today the human person”; the affirmation that Institutions of higher education that a Human Rights Commission, com- as the single most important reference the human person is “endowed with are at once true universities and posed of members from eighteen dif- point for discussions of human rights reason and conscience”; the right to genuinely Catholic must be charac- ferent countries. It was chaired by in international settings. form trade unions; the worker’s right to terized in terms of both an “enlarge- Eleanor Roosevelt, who was just then just remuneration for himself and his ment of heart” and an “enlargement making a new life for herself after the But the more the human rights family; the recognition of the family as of mind.” death of her husband. idea caught on, the fiercer became the “natural and fundamental group unit the contests over the meanings of the of society,” entitled as such to “protec- Stephen Pope is a Professor of Theology at When the Human Rights Com- provisions of the Declaration. So, after tion by society and the state”; the prior Boston College. mission set to work in early 1947, its returning from the Beijing Women’s right of parents to choose the educa- first major task was to draft a “bill of Conference, I decided to read up a bit tion of their children; and a provision Reprinted with permission of the author from rights” to which persons of all nations on the original understanding of the that motherhood and childhood are the March 28, 1997 issue of Commonweal. and cultures could subscribe. But that Declaration. I expected to just go to the entitled to “special care and assistance.”3 — assignment rested upon a couple of library and check out a book or two. problematic assumptions: no one But to my surprise, there were no his- Where did those ideas come really knew whether there were any tories of the framing at that time, apart from? The immediate source was such common principles, or what they from three doctoral theses, all done the twentieth-century constitutions might be. So UNESCO asked a at European universities. So I began to of many Latin American and continen- group of philosophers—some well read the primary sources myself. tal European countries. But where did known in the West, like Jacques Mari- the Latin Americans and continental tain, and others from Confucian, It did not take long to realize that Europeans get them? The proximate Hindu, and Muslim countries—to the framers of the UDHR (Universal answer to that question is: mainly examine the question. These philoso- Declaration of Human Rights), like from the programs of political parties,

Continued on Page 20

BOSTON COLLEGE | C 21 RESOURCES | SPRING 2007 19 Catholic Influences on the Human Rights Project Continued from Page 19

parties of a type that did not exist in that the contributions of Catholic on the part of the Church to make her uncritically adopt the dignitarian the United States, Britain, or the social thought to the Universal Decla- teachings intelligible to “all men and vision. In Gaudium et Spes, the Coun- Soviet bloc, namely, Christian Demo- ration were far from insignificant. But women of good will.”8 cil Fathers say that the movement to cratic and Christian Social parties. to avoid any misunderstanding, let me respect human rights “must be im- emphasize again that this was just one But I believe it was more than that. bued with the spirit of the Gospel But where did the politicians get of many sources of influence on that I would say it was also part of the and be protected from all appearance their ideas about the family, work, civil impressively multicultural document. Church’s shift from nature to history, of mistaken autonomy. We are tempt- society, and the dignity of the person? as well as her increasing openness to ed to consider our personal rights as The answer to that is: mainly from Now I would like to turn to a learning from other traditions. The fully protected only when we are free the social encyclicals Rerum Novarum consideration of some of the ways in Church has always taught, with St. from every norm of divine law; but (1891) and Quadragesimo Anno (1931). which that influence was reciprocated. Paul, that our knowledge of truth in following this road leads to the de- And where did the Church get them? this life is imperfect; that “now we see struction rather than to the mainte- The short answer is that those encycli- THE INFLUENCE OF THE UNIVERSAL only as in a mirror dimly.” But she has nance of the dignity of the human cals were part of the process through HUMAN RIGHTS IDEA ON CATHOLICISM not always been so forceful as John person.”13 In the same vein, John which the Church had begun to reflect Paul II was in Centesimus Annus when XXIII noted in Pacem in Terris that on the Enlightenment, the eighteenth- Here the trail is harder to follow, he insisted that Christian believers are everything the Church says about century revolutions, socialism, and the but I believe it begins in Paris in 1948 obliged to remain open to discover human rights is conditioned by their labor question in the light of Scripture, when the Human Rights Commission- “every fragment of truth...in the life foundation in the dignity that attaches tradition, and her own experience as ers were trying to round up support experience and in the culture of indi- to the person made in the image and an “expert in humanity.”4 from as many nations as possible for viduals and nations.”9 A hallmark of likeness of God, and everything is ori- the final vote on the Declaration in the thought of John Paul II has been ented to the end of the common good. The most articulate advocate of this the UN General Assembly. A key fig- his sense of being in partnership with And when John Paul II sent his good whole complex of ideas on the Human ure in that lobbying process was the all of humanity in a shared quest for wishes to the UN on the occasion of Rights Commission was a Lebanese French member of the Commission, a better apprehension of truth. the fiftieth anniversary of the Declara- Arab of the Orthodox faith, Charles René Cassin. Cassin was a distinguished tion in 1998, he challenged the assem- Malik. In reading the old UN tran- French lawyer who described himself With hindsight, we can see that bly with these words: “Inspired by the scripts, was struck by Malik’s frequent as a secular Jew. He had lost twenty- Vatican II only marked the beginning example of all those who have taken use of terms like the “intermediate nine relatives in concentration camps, of the Church’s appropriation of mod- the risk of freedom, can we not re- associations” of civil society, and by and was later to win the Nobel Peace ern rights discourse.10 As one of the commit ourselves also to taking the his emphatic preference for the term Prize for his human rights activities. younger Council Fathers, Bishop Karol risk of solidarity—and thus the risk “person” rather than “individual.” There is an intriguing sentence in Wojtyla from Krakow shared John of peace?”14 When I had the opportunity to meet Cassin’s memoirs where he says that XXIII’s appreciation of the postwar Charles Malik’s son, Dr. Habib Malik, in the fall of 1948 he was aided on sev- human rights project. John Paul II Some of the most striking interac- I asked Dr. Malik if he knew where eral occasions by the “discreet personal repeatedly praised the Universal Dec- tions between Catholic social thought his father had acquired that vocabu- encouragements” of the Papal Nuncio laration of Human Rights, calling it and human rights have occurred in the lary. The answer was: from the heavily in Paris.5 That Nuncio was none other “one of the highest expressions of the field of international advocacy. With underlined copies of Rerum Novarum than Angelo Roncalli, the future Pope human conscience of our time” and over 300,000 educational, health care, and Quadragesimo Anno which Malik John XXIII. “a real milestone on the path of the and relief agencies serving mainly the kept among the books he most fre- moral progress of humanity.”11 world’s poorest inhabitants, the Church quently consulted. Charles Malik Roncalli’s subsequent actions sug- has become an outspoken advocate thus seems to have been one of the gest that events in the UN that fall Needless to say, the Church’s adop- of social justice in international set- first of an impressive line of non- must have made a great impression on tion of rights language entailed the tings. But it is a hard sell. Challeng- Catholic intellectuals who found a him. It also seems clear that he must need to be very clear about the fact ing passages like this one from the treasure-trove of ideas in Catholic have agreed with Maritain and other that she does not always use that ter- 1997 World Day of Peace message social teaching. Catholic thinkers that there was value minology in the same way it is used in do not sit particularly well with in discussing certain human goods as secular circles. Those who think the affluent nations and first-world The most zealous promoters of rights, even though the biblical tradi- Church should never have gone down interest groups: social and economic rights, contrary tion uses the language of obligation. that road at all often fail to notice two to what is now widely supposed, were In Pacem in Terris, John XXIII refer- important facts about the Church’s use Living out [the] demanding com- not the Soviet bloc representatives, red to the Universal Declaration by of rights language. First, the rights tra- mitment [to solidarity] requires a but delegates from the Latin Ameri- name and called it “an act of the high- dition into which the Church has total reversal of the alleged values can countries. Except for the Mexican est importance.”6 tapped is the biblically informed, con- which make people seek only their delegates, most of these people were tinental, dignitarian tradition which own good: power, pleasure, the un- inspired not by Marx and Engels Many Catholics were surprised, and she herself had already done so much scrupulous accumulation of wealth buy by Leo XIII and Pius XI. Their some were even shocked, at the extent to shape. “The Catholic doctrine of ....A society of genuine solidarity can focus was not on the exploitation of to which the documents of Vatican II, human rights,” Avery Dulles points be built only if the well-off, in helping man by man, but on the dignity of and John XXIII’s encyclicals Pacem in out, “is not based on Locke, an empiri- the poor, do not stop at giving from workers and the preferential option Terris and Mater et Magistra, seemed cism, or individualism. It has a more what they do not need. Those living for the poor. to reflect a shift from natural law to ancient and distinguished pedigree.”12 in poverty can wait no longer. They human rights.”7 Some writers regard need help now, and so have a right I think I have said enough to show this shift as mainly rhetorical, an effort Second, the Church did not even to receive immediately what they

20 BOSTON COLLEGE | C 21 RESOURCES | SPRING 2007 need [emphasis supplied]. view of the diversity among cultures Hannah Arendt has warned that “The 6 Pacem in Terris, 143. which has recently resurfaced with ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not At first glance, words like “a right to a vengeance. A number of Asian and the convinced Nazi or the convinced 7 E.g., Michael Villey, Le Droit et les Droits de receive what one needs” sound uncom- Islamic leaders (unlike the Asian and Communist, but people for whom the l’Homme (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, fortably like simplistic, secular social Islamic representatives on the original distinction between fact and fiction... 1983). advocacy. But the Church’s use of rights Human Rights Commission) take the and the distinction between true and language in this context cannot be e- position that all rights are culturally false...no longer exist.”15 8 John Finnis, Natural Law and Natural Rights quated with crude mandates for state- relative. They claim that so-called uni- (New York: Oxford University Press, 1980). run social engineering programs. For versal rights are really just instruments At a time when much of the post- one thing, the Church has always re- of Western cultural imperialism. modern secular academy seems to have 9 Centesimus Annus, 46. frained from proposing specific models: given up on reason and the search for her gift to political science has been, The long Catholic experience in truth, it is heartening to read the spir- 10 See Giorgio Filibeck, “Human Rights in the rather, the principle of subsidiarity— the dialectic between the core teach- ited defense of reason in the encyclical Teachings of John Paul II: Bases and Principles,” which is steadily attracting interest in ings of the faith and the various cul- Fides et Ratio. The “reason” that the 46 Al Abhath: Journal of the Faculty of Arts and Sci- the secular world. tural settings in which the faith has Church defends is not the calculating ences, American University of Beirut (1998); Human been received helps us to see that reason of Hobbes, in the service of Rights in the Teaching of the Church: From John Moreover, the Church teaches soli- to accept universal principles does the passions, nor is it narrow scientific XXIII to John Paul II (Vatican City: Libreria darity not as a policy, but as a Virtue—a not mean accepting that they must be rationalism. It is the dynamic, recur- Editrice Vaticana, 1994). virtue which inclines us to overcome brought to life in the same way every- rent, and potentially self-correcting sources of division within ourselves and where. The experience of Catholicism, process of experiencing, understanding, 11 Address to the United Nations, Oct. 2, 1979, 7; within society. Like any other virtue, with the enculturation of its basic and judging that has animated her best Address to the United Nations, Oct. 5, 1995, 2. solidarity requires constant practice; it teachings, shows that universality need theologians from Thomas Aquinas to is inseparable from personal reform. not entail homogeneity. In fact, the Bernard Lonergan. 12 Dulles, “Human Rights,” 12. whole Church has been enriched by The Church’s advocacy for the pref- the variety of ways in which the faith Endnotes 13 Gaudium et Spes, 41. erential option for the poor has led has been expressed around the world. her to become a staunch defender of 1 Avery Dulles, “Human Rights: The United 14 John Paul II, World Day of Peace Message the Universal Declaration as an inte- The framers of the Universal Decla- Nations and Papal Teaching” (Laurence J. McGin- 1998, 2. grated whole. While most nations take ration of Human Rights had similar ley Lecture, Fordham University, November 18, a selective approach to human rights, expectations for the relatively short list 1998), 4. 15 Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism the Holy See consistently lifts up the of rights that they deemed fundamen- (New York: Meridian, 1958), 374. original vision of the Declaration—a tal. Their writings reveal that they 2 H.G. Wells, The Rights of Man, or What Are vision in which political and civil rights contemplated a legitimate pluralism in We Fighting For? (Middlesex: Penguin, 1940). Mary Ann Glendon is the Learned Hand are indispensable for social and eco- forms of freedom, a variety of means Professor of Law at Harvard University. nomic justice, and vice versa. At a time of protecting basic rights, and different 3 UDHR, Preamble and Articles 1, 16, 22, 25, & 26. when affluent nations seem increasing- ways of resolving the tensions among Reprinted with permission of the publisher, ly to be washing their hands of poor rights, provided that no rights were 4 Populorum Progressio, 13. from James L. Heft, S.M., ed., Believing countries and peoples, it is often the completely subordinated to others. As Scholars: Ten Catholic Intellectuals (Fordham Holy See, and only the Holy See, that Jacques Maritain put it, there can be 5 René Cassin, “Vatican II et la Protection de la University Press, 2005). keeps striving to bring together the many different kinds of music played Personne,” 13 Journal des Communautés 17 (1966). ––– two halves of the divided soul of the on the Declaration’s thirty strings. human rights project—its resounding affirmation of freedom and its insis- It seems unfortunate that that plu- tence on one human family for which ralist understanding has been almost all bear a common responsibility. completely forgotten, even by friends of the human rights project. For the As for the future, I believe the more that Western groups promote a dialogue between Catholicism and top-down, homogenizing vision of the human rights tradition will con- human rights, the more credibility tinue, and that it will be beneficial to they add to the charge of Western both. One may even imagine that the cultural imperialism. resources of the Catholic tradition may be helpful in resolving several Another dilemma for the human thorny dilemmas that have bedeviled rights project is the challenge of his- the human rights project from its out- toricism and relativism. If there are set, especially the dilemmas arising no common truths to which all men from challenges to its universality and and women can appeal, then there its truth claims. A fuller exposition of are no human rights, and there is little that point would require another lec- hope that reason and choice can prevail ture, but let me briefly sketch some ways over force and accident in the realm in which Catholic thinkers might be of human affairs. It is one thing to helpful with regard to these problems. acknowledge that the human mind can glimpse truth only as through Take for example the dilemma of a glass darkly, and quite another to how there can be universal rights in deny the existence of truth altogether.

BOSTON COLLEGE | C 21 RESOURCES | SPRING 2007 21 Infinite Wonder of the Divine How Creationist Notions of Intelligent Design Diminish God

by george coyne, s.j. from the next room, as cosmologists clusters of galaxies of all types, quasars, expanding infinitely. do by measuring the apparent bright- and supernovae. It is so universally true ill the universe ever end? ness of supernovae.You can, therefore, that we intuitively surmise that it is say- To appreciate the current age of the Can we rely on it to con- deduce the distance. ing something fundamental about the universe and its temporal infinitude, we W tinue on and on? The universe itself. And it is. It is telling us must compare it to the times at which most recent measurements of the velo- So, if we measure the distance and that the universe is expanding uniform- other events, such as the appearance of cities of recession of very distant objects brightness of objects at increasingly ly. But there is even more to the story. life, have occurred. To do this, I suggest in the universe, supernovae, which larger distances in the universe, we can that the actual age of the universe, 13.7 can serve as standard “light beacons” establish the curve of expansion of the There are several kinds of super- billion years, for which we have no sen- at distances of about 10 to 12 billion universe and thereby deduce its age. Let novae. Astronomers have found that sation, be reduced in our imagination light years from us, indicate that the me explain. What we are measuring is the type about which I am speaking to one Earth year, one rotation of the universe is not only still expanding how fast all objects, outside our sun- can serve as a light beacon despite its Earth about the sun. The following but that it is accelerating in its ex- centered system, are moving away from very strange and unstable energy calendar results: pansion and will, unless we discover one another at various epochs in the source. These supernovae are binary a braking mechanism, expand for- ever—an empirically infinite universe. I January: The Big Bang 7 February: The Milky Way is born Several important issues need to be The universe is not God 14 August: The Earth is born explained here. To measure such large 4 September: First life on the Earth distances, we must use probes that are and it cannot exist independently of God. 15 December: The Cambrian explosion so distant that we cannot experiment 25 December: The dinosaurs appear upon them. We can only observe them God is working with the universe. 30 December: Extinction of the dinosaurs and, in fact, we are limited very much 31 December by what we can observe. An astronomer 19.00.00: First human ancestors is like the poor old fellow who, while 23.58.00: First humans making his way home in the dark and history of the universe. At one time, stars in which a white dwarf, a dead 23.59.30: Age of Agriculture a bit tipsy, loses his watch. While he is not long after the Big Bang, all of these star whose mass is very compact so 23.59.47: The pyramids searching for it under a lamppost, a objects were “together.” So we can ex- that it has a very large gravity field, 23.59.58: Jesus Christ is born gallant policeman comes along and trapolate backwards to the time when sucks matter from its companion giant 23.59.59: Galileo is born inquires about his activity. He explains they began to separate and, thereby, star. It becomes suddenly millions of 24.00.00: Today that he is looking for his watch. “Well,” measure the age of the universe, 13.7 times brighter by starting a thermonu- says the cop, “did you lose it here?” billion years. clear furnace in its atmosphere from “Oh no,” says he, “but it’s so dark all the matter accumulated. This is obvi- We see that the dinosaurs, although around that this is the only place with This is a simple calculation like the ously a very unstable event and lasts having the good fortune to have been light enough that I could possibly find following analogous one. Suppose I run for only hundreds of days (the stars born on Christmas Day, only lived for it.” As you will see, to measure the age a marathon at a constant rate of 4 miles involved are about 10 billion years old). five days. It took 60 percent of the age of the universe, astronomers must clev- per hour. You are standing at the 20- Nonetheless, we have found that the of the universe for the first life to ap- erly, and hopefully more soberly than mile marker with clock in hand. It is maximum brightness that it attains can pear on the Earth, but once the Earth the gentleman searching for his watch, easy for you, knowing my rate and that be an excellent light beacon and in- was formed, it took only 21 days or probe where there is light and even you are at 20 miles from the beginning, dicator of distance as I have explained about 6 percent of the age of the uni- then, since light travels with a finite to calculate when I began. above. By measuring these distances verse for life to appear, but then it took velocity, we are seeing the universe and the velocity of these supernovae, about 3 months for the first humans. only as it was, not as it is. “Light bea- Using this simple calculation, in we find that the universe is accelerat- However, the last day of the year pro- cons” are celestial objects that have the 1929 Edwin Hubble discovered the ing in its expansion. This result causes vides startling news. Jesus Christ was same intrinsic brightness wherever they observational relationship that bears his a great deal of head scratching among born only two seconds before the end are in the universe and can, therefore, name, “the Hubble Law,” and made the cosmologists because it defies the law of the year and Galileo one second. serve as distance indicators. first calculation of the age of the uni- of gravity. Matter in the universe should We now have some idea of where we verse from its expansion. He found for be constantly drawing the universe in humans stand with respect to the age Do a simple experiment. Measure 24 galaxies that their velocities of re- and braking its expansion. What is of the universe. the brightness of the lamp sitting on cession were directly proportional to pushing the universe out, so to speak, your desk. Now go to the next room, their distances. He later extended the against the force of gravity so that it is In the course of the aging of the four times farther away from the lamp, measurements to more galaxies at larger accelerating? Despite such problems universe, the human person has come and measure its brightness. It will be distances. A modern version of these as this, we now know that, since it is to be through the process of physical, one-sixteenth as bright (diminished by pioneering observations confirms the accelerating, the universe will expand chemical, and biological evolution. As the inverse square of the distance). Hubble Law but with much greater forever and eventually reach the tem- to the evolutionary process, I offer the Now reverse the experiment. You know accuracy. In the entire history of obser- perature of absolute zero so that every- following brief considerations. the intrinsic brightness of the lamp, as vational astronomy this is a remarkable thing in the universe will be dead. cosmologists do that of supernovae, and correlation. It holds true for all extra- There will be no energy. The uni- Why did it take 60 percent of the you know how bright it appeals to you galactic objects: galaxies of all types, verse will in this sense be dead but age of the universe for life to begin?

22 BOSTON COLLEGE | C 21 RESOURCES | SPRING 2007 How did we humans come to be in processes that such character of the that they fondly hope for the durabil- pline a child but you try to preserve this evolving universe? It is quite clear universe must be included in the dis- ity of certain gaps in our scientific and enrich the individual character of that we do not know everything about cussion. The universe is 13.7 billion knowledge of evolution, so that they the child and its own passion for life. this process. But it would be scientifi- years old, it contains about 100 tril- can fill them with God. This is the A parent must allow the child to grow cally absurd to deny that the human lion galaxies, each of which contains exact opposite of what human intelli- into adulthood, to come to make its brain is a result of a chemical com- 100 billion stars of an immense vari- gence is all about. We should be seek- own choices, to go on its own way in plexification in an evolving universe. ety. Thus, it is the combination of ing for the fullness of God in creation. life. Words that give life are richer After the universe became rich in cer- chance and necessary processes in a We should not need God, we should than mere commands or information. tain basic chemicals through the birth fertile universe that best explains the accept him when he comes to us. In such wise ways does God deal and death of stars, those chemicals got universe as seen by science. When we with the universe—the infinite, ever- together in successive steps to make combine these three elements—chance, But the personal God I have de- expanding universe. That is why, it ever more complex molecules. Finally, necessity, and the fertility of the uni- scribed is also God, creator of the seems to me, that the Intelligent in some extraordinary chemical process, verse—we see clearly that evolution, universe. It is unfortunate that, Design Movement, a largely American the human brain came to be the most as many hold, is not simply a random, especially in America, creationism has phenomenon, diminishes God, makes complicated machine that we know. blind process. It has a direction and come to mean some fundamentalistic, him a designer rather than a lover. an intrinsic destiny. By intrinsic, I literal, scientific interpretation of Did all of this happen by chance mean that science need not, and in Genesis. Judaic-Christian faith is George Coyne, S.J., served for many years as or by necessity in this evolving uni- fact cannot methodologically, invoke radically creationist, but in a totally the Director of the Vatican Observatory. verse? Was it destined to happen? a designer as those arguing for intelli- different sense. It is rooted in a belief The first thing to be said is that the gent design attempt to do. that everything depends upon God, Reprinted with permission from The Tablet, problem is not formulated correctly. or better, all is a gift from God. The December 10, 2005. It is not just a question of chance or How are we to interpret this scien- universe is not God and it cannot ––– necessity because, first of all, it is tific picture of life’s origins in terms of exist independently of God. Neither both. Furthermore, there is a third religious belief? Do we need God to pantheism nor naturalism is true. element here that is very important. explain this? Very succinctly, my answer God is working with the universe. It is what I call “fertility.” What this is no. In fact, to need God would be a The universe has a certain vitality of means is that the universe is so prolific very denial of God. God is not the re- its own like a child does. It has the in offering the opportunity for the sponse to a need. One gets the impres- ability to respond to words of endear- success of both chance and necessary sion from certain religious believers ment and encouragement. You disci- American Catholics and the State

by gregory a. kalscheur erns the public order of society) are used to prohibit a given moral evil jurisprudence must answer.” not coextensive in their functions. unless that prohibition can be shown s John Courtney Murray rec- Legal prohibitions can have only a to be something that the law is capable In light of all these considerations, ognized in 1960, the American limited effect on shaping moral char- of addressing prudently. John Court- society should not expect a great deal A mind “has never been clear acter. Accordingly, Murray argued ney Murray, following St. Thomas of moral improvement from legal pro- about the relation between morals and that people can “be coerced only to Aquinas, argued that human law must hibitions. Instead, the limited effec- law.” Murray’s critical contribution to a minimal amount of moral action.” be framed with a view to the level of tiveness of legal coercion compelling our current need for more nuanced Indeed, “the moral aspirations of the virtue that it is actually possible to obedience through fear of punishment thinking lies in his efforts to bring clar- law are minimal.” expect from the people required to as a vehicle toward genuine moral ity to our understanding of that essen- comply with the law. Accordingly, reform means that the legal prohi- tial relationship. He explained that our If society wishes to elevate and main- Murray suggested a series of ques- bitions must be used with caution in confusion about the relation between tain moral standards above the minimal tions that the legislator must con- a free society. As Murray explained: law and morality often stems from our level required for the healthy func- sider in assessing the prudence of a failure to understand that legal prohibi- tioning of the social order, it must look proposed law: Will the prohibition [A] human society is inhumanly ruled tions are not capable of dealing with to institutions other than the law. The be obeyed, at least by most people? when it is ruled only, or mostly, by every sort of moral evil. state and law, therefore, have a neces- Is it enforceable against the disobe- fear. Good laws are obeyed by the sary—but a necessarily limited—role dient? Is it prudent to enforce this generality because they are good Invoking traditional rules of to play in society’s work of establishing ban, given the possibility of harm- laws; they merit and receive the con- jurisprudence, Murray explained that and maintaining the common good. ful effects in other areas of social sent of the community, as valid legal the lawmaker must engage in a “sub- life? Is the instrumentality of a coer- expressions of the community’s own tle discipline, at once a science and an Murray insisted that law and moral- cive law a good means for the eradi- convictions as to what is just or un- art, that mediates between the imper- ity are essentially related, but necessar- cation of the targeted social evil? just, good or evil. In the absence of atives of the moral order and the com- ily differentiated. Because the coercive And since a law that usually fails is this consent, law either withers away mands or prohibitions of the civil law.” force of the state ultimately lies behind not a good means, what are the lessons or becomes tyrannical. The “subtle discipline” of jurispru- the law, the law must not moralize of experience with this sort of legal dence reminds us that there is a dif- excessively. If it does so, “it tends to prohibition? If legislation is to be Accordingly, for the law truly to ference between sin and crime. defeat even its own modest aims, by properly crafted—from a moral serve the common good, some level bringing itself into contempt.” point of view and with the goal of of consensus as to the goodness of Morality (which governs all of hu- promoting the common good of soci- the law is essential. And, in the face of man conduct) and law (which gov- The law, therefore, should not be ety—“these are the questions that widespread moral disagreement on an Continued on Page 24

BOSTON COLLEGE | C 21 RESOURCES | SPRING 2007 23 Continued from Page 23 issue, the public conscience may need need to pursue an inquiry that consid- reflected his deep concern to promote where all sides are willing to learn as to be clarified through nonlegal educa- ers abortion within the context of a genuine dialogue at the heart of com- well as teach. tive efforts in an atmosphere of rea- wider range of legal-political questions. mon life in a pluralistic society—a gen- soned dialogue and factual argument Other areas of the law can and must uine dialogue often sadly lacking in What does it mean to be an Ameri- before the law can effectively promote contribute to nurturing the virtues contemporary public life. If the public can Catholic in public life in today’s the common good. In the absence of a necessary to supporting a culture of life. discourse leading to the enactment of a pluralistic, democratic society? It basic moral consensus, any attempt to law fails to include genuine attempts to means one is called to moral integrity change the law will be unenforceable, What sort of a society are we help people understand why the moral and undivided conscience; to be a per- ineffective, and resented as unduly becoming through the entire range of vision underlying the law promotes the son striving to base his or her political restrictive of freedom. legal policies we advocate and enact? common good, a disjunction will con- views “on his or her particular under- Who are we becoming as a society tinue to exist between law and morality. standing of the human person and the Murray’s thought helps us to recog- when we regularly invoke the death common good.” It is to be a person nize that efforts to translate moral penalty? What sort of a society do we As a result, the style of public dis- engaged in the “subtle discipline” of principles directly into legal prohibi- become if we overzealously restrict course about law is crucial. A proposed trying to build a social, political, and tions may sometimes damage the civil liberties in response to terrorism, law’s moral rationale must be commu- legal order that reflects the imperatives common good. An official who fully or if our immigration law and border nicated in ways that people can accept of the moral order, without confusing accepts the Church’s teaching on abor- control policies undervalue the dignity and understand. One’s partners in dia- law and morality. And in the midst of tion as a grave moral evil still must of the lives of immigrants? Have we logue must be treated with respect. In pluralism and deep moral disagree- make a judgment in conscience as to listened to the voices of women who order to promote greater clarity in the ment, it is to be a member of a church how the law can most effectively deal have felt compelled to make the choice public conscience, the Church must willing to engage in the nuanced re- with that particular evil within the for abortion, and are we working to engage Catholic public officials and flection and genuine dialogue that are wider context of concern for the establish a set of social policies that American society more generally in a essential if we are to form hearts and common good. What sort of political- might provide women with the support genuine conversation about how best minds committed to a culture of life. legal response will actually reduce needed to make the decision to carry to promote the common good. For the number of abortions in the United their babies to term? In short, are we that conversation to be effective, the Gregory A. Kalscheur, S.J., is an Assistant States in the face of current constitu- working to build a legal system that participants cannot be locked in posi- Professor at the Boston College Law School. tional and social realities? as a whole supports and promotes the tions of immovable dogmatic certi- virtues necessary to protect human tude. Instead, the conversation must Reprinted with permission of the author from In evaluating whether or not a pub- dignity and sustain a culture of life? go forward in a spirit of shared pursuit America, August 2, 2004. lic official’s policy positions are consis- of the truth, fostering a genuine dia- ––– tent with a desire to protect life, we John Courtney Murray’s work logue of mutual listening and speaking,

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