You want to know what the problem is with Catholic universities. It’s right here. Saint Joseph’s University has asked the outspokenly pro-choice Chris Matthews to deliver the Commencement address and when asked why a Catholic institution would do this here’s the answer right from the school in the school’s newspaper. Marty Meloche, Ph.D., associate professor of Food Marketing who heads the selection committee had this to say:
“We are first and foremost an academic institution,” said Meloche, who, on behalf of the committee, gives recommendations for speakers to University President Timothy Lannon, S.J., who makes the final decision.
That’s the problem. Shouldn’t any Catholic institution be “first and foremost” Catholic?
According to SJU, Catholicism is at best secondary. Hmm…that reminds me of those pesky Ten Commandments. Remember this one: “I am the LORD thy God. Thou shalt have no strange gods before Me.”
Maybe this Jesuit school’s motto shouldn’t be “For the greater glory of God” but “Yeah, we’re Catholic but we’re not like crazy about it.”
April 9, 2009 at 4:12 pm
Food marketing? Really? A food marketing professor gets to determine the commencement speaker? There’s your problem right there. The same people who figure out how to market Lucky Charms get to figure out who the university should honor.
April 9, 2009 at 4:30 pm
I’m a 2005 alum from SJU, its a sad institution. They have a “gay” week, and their paper as an April Fool’s joke posted condom adds and made a fake article about Cardinal Regali being gay. Don’t even get me started on their “chapel”, or the priest that “came out of the closet” during a homily…If anyone wants to interview me about the school feel free to e-mail me, but I think what I wrote up above is all you need to know.
April 9, 2009 at 4:33 pm
“Thou shalt have no other God before me.”
God in this instance means whatever vision of deity you may hold, worship or curse at during the course of your time here at the university — Ed.
April 9, 2009 at 5:33 pm
As a recent graduate of the University of Notre Dame and an active member of the Irish Rover, I am very much aware of the debate between “Catholicism” and “Academics.” We talked about it so much I stopped listening, but, fortunately, that gave me time to think about it on my own.
We have all seen the downside of placing academics first at a Catholic University. Too soon, it falls apart and loses its adherence to the Church and her teachings.
But can we also see the problem that can arise with putting Catholicism first, somehow implying that there is an “either-or” relationship between Catholicism and academics? If the debate between “academic freedom” and “Catholicism” at a Catholic University was always “Catholic,” that school will also fail, not for a lack of adherence to the faith, but a lack of willingness to engage the truth even when it is most difficult.
A true Catholic university is a place where students can engage the Truth. Because of our Catholic faith, we know who that Truth is, but our willingness to engage the truth in a variety of ways means that we can open the doors to people who are themselves not necessarily Catholic and find ways to enter into dialogue, firmly rooted within the Catholic tradition.
What some Catholic schools have done, including Notre Dame, is forget that engagement with the Truth is not something that we can take for granted, but must constantly be sought after and worked for. Thus, seeking engagement with the Truth necessarily forms the culture that defines the Catholic University. Without the constant seeking, however, the culture fails, the University falters, and it will inevitably lose its Catholicity.
Read more about Notre Dame at bonumteesse.blogspot.com.
April 9, 2009 at 5:36 pm
I’ve also noticed that many Jesuit colleges recognize themselves as “Jesuit” instead of Catholic.
I was thinking the other day, “is there even one Jesuit school that isn’t a cesspool of heresy?”
April 9, 2009 at 6:55 pm
These schools are a victim of their own success; no?
They were set up as a parallel education system because Catholics once upon a time were precluded from the Ivy League. They needed to produce kids as good as Harvard/Yale/Brown (all of which started as Protestant Seminaries; see the delicious irony ?!?).
To that extent they have succeed. In the quest to be “as good as” or “just like” the Ivy’s, they have become indistinguishable from them (sectarian religious schools that have devolved into secular institutions).
So now that the barriers have been broken, and Catholics can now go to the Ivy’s (or any higher ed), are they not now redundant/superfluous?
I’d be curious how the enrollments are for schools like Ave Maria, Magdaline, Thomas More, Stubenville, etc. Colleges that are Catholic first, and colleges second (or at least they take their Catholic ID as inviolate.
Certainly the formerly Catholic colleges are not suffering from applicant decline.
Thoughts?
April 9, 2009 at 7:25 pm
I don’t think we need to say that universities should be Catholic first and academic second.
To be Catholic is to be academic. Christ is the divine logos–the author of all reason, logic and academic truth. If universities are Catholic first, they will not be able to be anything other than academic.
April 10, 2009 at 1:57 am
The biggest problem is they see a divide between Catholic and academic. As if teaching the truth and only the truth could ever conflict with the Catholic faith. It is not about being academic first or Catholic first, they all need to read Cardinal Newman’s “The Idea of a University” to actually understand this and of course the university is a Catholic invention in the first place.
April 10, 2009 at 3:42 am
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April 10, 2009 at 4:06 am
Agere sequitur essere. Activity emanates from identity. These universities engage in activities that contradict Catholic values because they’re having an identity crisis. They do not know if they’re a Catholic University or a University of Catholics. Are they a generic institute of learning that is patronized by Catholics or are they an institution that is essentially an educational arm
of the Catholic Church? They need to step back first and find out who they are.
A model of clarity and unity of vision and mission are the Catholic hospitals. The bishops have decided to close these the moment when conscience protection gets rescinded and the doctors get forced to perform abortions.
That is how the Catholic identity is extended into the Catholic hospital work.
The same integrity between faith and life needs to exist in Catholic universities. Back in my seminary days, I was taught Marxism but not to become a Marxist. It was the time of Liberation theology and one needs to understand the underlying philosophies in order to avoid it. We were not about to invite and award some commie because his ideas and life were the complete opposite of the Gospel message.
Why don’t people see that now with the abortion proponents?
April 10, 2009 at 7:42 am
Actually, if I’m not mistaken, this whole breakdown of institutional identity had a major contributor in none other than Father Theodore Hesburgh, President of Notre Dame, at the Land’o’Lakes Conference back in 1967 entitled ‘The Idea of a Catholic University.’ My recollection is that the word Catholic is a mere modifier to what the thing ‘university’ is.
I’m struck by the use of the word ‘true university’ as if it is a goal to be attained by the Catholic university which at the time it did not seem to considered.
Here’s the text:
http://www.projectsycamore.com/pages/landolakes1.php
April 10, 2009 at 7:56 am
Whatever food that egghead’s marketing, it’s not soul food.