Catholic Intellectual Tradition and the Present Age

During the past year, I have had the privilege of reading many thoughtful contributions posted on MOJ concerning the role of the Catholic intellectual tradition in general and, therefore, CLT on the law in particular. Moreover, I have had the honor to participate in several of these discussions and friendly debates. Recently, I have been reading two important works that have made me reconsider the topic of the Catholic intellectual tradition in general and its application to the law in particular. These two works are John Tracy Ellis’s essay “American Catholics and the Intellectual Life” published in the fall of 1955 in the Fordham University sponsored publication Thought. The second work is a book by Alice Hogge entitled God’s Secret Agents—Queen Elizabeth’s Forbidden Priests and the Hatching of the Gunpowder Plot, published last year by Harper Collins.

In the context of the fundamental purpose of MOJ and the development of CLT, these readings have prompted two questions that I should like to begin exploring. The first is this: is a dark history that has challenged the Church and its extraordinary contributions to public life being repeated today, in Western culture—including the U.S.? If the answer to this question is yes, what role, if any, does CLT have in offering some remedy?

Throughout its history, the Church—the People of God—has undergone critiques that have led to persecution and suppression. From martyrdom in Rome to anti-Catholicism of the present age, the Church has had to deal with those in a surrounding culture who not only disagreed with its teachings but attacked its members in a variety of ways in efforts to stop the Church’s influence on the surrounding culture. In the past, this has led to martyrdom, be it in a Roman arena or at Tyburn; today, like in the age of Elizabeth I, it might include legislative efforts that target the Church and its members by placing regulations of various sorts on institutions and individuals with such penalties and restrictions that life as a Catholic or existence as a Catholic institution may become too burdensome. In this context, we might recall efforts discussed in MOJ regarding financial reporting requirements, amending statutes of limitations, and claims about academic freedom on the campuses of institutions of higher learning that have a Catholic foundation.

The point that I am making here is that teaching about and cultivating the virtuous life that has been a part of the Catholic tradition since the Church’s beginning has often been viewed as a menace or threat to those who disagree with the Catholic perspective on many topics. Consequently, those who oppose or disagree with the Catholic voice pursue measures of various sorts to stamp it out or at least neutralize it. Often they do so by introducing countermeasures that reflect the caprice of the present age that might find favor with those not disposed to the Catholic perspective.

In the context of the Catholic academy, we have recently discussed the goings on at Notre Dame regarding the Monologues controversy and Fr. Jenkins’s response. During the past week on two other “Catholic” campuses, the majorities of their respective student governments have passed resolutions that defy the Church and its teachings. At one school, the student government passed a resolution demanding that the university student health center distribute condoms. At the other institution, the ultimatum is that the university recognize a pro-abortion advocacy group. In this latter context, the undergraduate government pointed to the university’s law school which allegedly has “an abortion rights group on campus.” One of the student legislators claimed that the American Bar Association “will not certify the law school if free speech for abortion rights activists is not allowed.” Therefore, “it’s hypocritical for undergraduate and graduate students not to be on the same page.” Araujo here: does the ABA mandate such a requirement? I question the basis of this student’s claim knowing that several law schools on Catholic campuses have recently denied recognition to local chapters of “Law Students for Choice.” But I digress.

Another illustration of the problem that affects the Catholic intellectual tradition on Catholic campuses is a betrayal of moral virtue. Last night I viewed an archived web cast of a recent presentation entitled “God and Morality in the Public Sphere.” I was looking forward to viewing this lecture and hearing the speaker; however, the introduction of the guest speaker by a student leader suggested that God and Morality do not belong in the public sphere when he said, tonight’s speaker “has spoken eloquently on separating morality and legality…” My hope that the speaker would take a different bearing was disappointed when the speaker commended the student leader and suggested that he would be elected to high public office, including Congress, “in a moment.” Araujo here once again: it strikes me that when laws are separated from morality, the positivist mind can dominate the legislative debate leading to the passage and enforcement of laws that can do terrible things to people—all quite legally, I hasten to add. But, again, I digress.

There is mounting evidence that today the Catholic perspective is being marginalized, even ridiculed on campuses that call themselves Catholic. In his 1955 essay, Ellis related a conversation he had with Arthur Schlesinger, Sr. in 1942 and how the latter informed Ellis that he regarded the “bias against [the] Church as the most persistent prejudice in the history of the American people.” Is it possible that this prejudice has found a home in, of all places, the Catholic university of the present day? When I recall the events I have described here that have taken place on Catholic campuses this spring; and when I recall the increasing number of Catholics graduating from Catholic campuses who enter public life and advocate positions contrary to Catholic teaching, I wonder what has happened to the intellectual tradition that is called Catholic?

So, my first question has been posed, and I have attempted to offer a response. But the second question brings some hope: what can the Catholic intellectual tradition of today do? Is this tradition alive? Indeed, it is on many campuses. Moreover, MOJ’s institution has provided some evidence that the remedial presence of this tradition on some campuses, both Catholic and not, is exercising a role in a wider venue as well. What is need is for the tradition to be acknowledged as the motivation and justification, the raison d’être, for the institution that claims to be Catholic. Both Fr. Ellis’s essay and recent discussions in MOJ have pointed to the importance of how the Catholic perspective can be marginalized when it is assumed, erroneously, that the success of the institution is really dependent on the number of dollars in its endowment or the academic and professional pedigrees of faculty whose sympathies for the Catholic intellectual tradition are either weak or do not exist.

In short, that is the good news. Should we be satisfied with what we have? I don’t think so, for there is much work yet to be done. It is clear that much of this labor consists of the time and energy-consuming project of present contributors to MOJ. But it is also the work of those who read MOJ; those who administer or support Catholic institutions of Catholic higher education; those who attend these schools; and those who send their children to them. With this in mind, the prejudices and persecutions of the past of which I have briefly spoken need be a part of history forever. This is the task of the Catholic intellectual tradition: to demonstrate to the world that the intellectual examination and cultivation of moral virtue, the work of discipleship, has a proper place not only in the Catholic academy but the world as well.    RJA sj