Some thoughts on the continuing importance (and responsibility) of Catholic universities from a student in my "Catholic Social Thought and the Law" seminar:
As much as some seem to be put off by the constant back and forth on various controversial issues at Catholic universities, and particularly at Notre Dame, I find it very reassuring.
On the one hand, after spending the bulk of my post-secondary education years in a state school it is refreshing to see that there are people within the institution on both sides of controversial issues who feel both impelled and empowered to speak out. It makes me realize that dialogue and the search for ultimate truth is still alive somewhere in academia.
On the other hand, and perhaps more importantly, it demonstrates that people recognize that the Catholic university still has an important and influential teaching role well beyond its confines. No one cares in particular who “Generic State University” invites to give an address, but the entire internet erupts in a frenzy when Obama or Ryan are invited to speak at a Catholic university. If Ms. Fluke went to a state school—or anywhere but a school publicly recognized as Catholic—you can bet no one would have raised an eyebrow over her testimony regarding the HHS Mandate. I wager she would not have even been invited to testify before Congress.
The fact that many still rage over the state of the Catholic university’s soul makes me believe that there is a great opportunity to be had for the authentic Catholic university: It must serve as a lamp of the truths of both faith and reason in stark contradiction to the darkness of the world about it.
At the outset of this posting, I thank Lisa for her thoughtful postings giving MOJ contributors and readers news about the Religiously Affiliated Law Schools biennial conference just concluded at the Touro Law. I hope in the context of this posting to offer several of the thoughts I presented on Friday morning at the final session dedicated to ethics and bringing religion into the classroom. I also thank Robby and Patrick for their postings of today and yesterday, for their respective thoughts have a bearing on what I shall attempt to address today, viz., the university as the classroom of human life.
Today’s world of higher education in the United States—and perhaps most of the rest of the world—is geared to success. Now, there is nothing wrong with that per se depending on how the word success is defined, understood, and sought. There is evidence, however, that success means personal success with little regard for the welfare of others. It is not that this concept of success is directed to destroying, marginalizing, or reducing others, but it is not really designed to take stock of others and how the positions and needs of others relate to the subject. In spite of the ever-present rhetoric of “diversity” and “pluralism,” these and other buzzwords that frequent and are typical of the vocabulary of the academy of today are a disguise for a particular way of thinking that is designed to “empower” (another axiom of the contemporary academy) the individual. What the objective of this “empowerment” is usually is unclear. If one is empowered, what is it that one is to do other than whatever it is that one likes to do?
While public service is often heralded and promoted in “service learning” that has become another feature of contemporary education, the nature and extent of what constitutes public service is often determined by the autonomous individual (usually director who has some kind of “expertise”) who has been empowered, through leading and living “an extraordinary life,” to decide what the public needs regardless of whether this is beneficial or detrimental to the common good.
What is missing from all of these shaping factors of the “good education” are crucial elements of Catholic social thought whose benefits are not restricted to Catholic thinking and institutions: (1) the inviolability of the human dignity that belongs to everyone; (2) the common good as defined by the inextricable connection of the righteous life well-lived by everyone (and I do mean everyone) in cooperation with the destiny of everyone to do the same; (3) the idea of solidarity which underscores the common good; and (4) the cultivation of the cardinal virtues of justice, fortitude or courage, prudence, and temperance or forbearance. Unfortunately, too many members of the mainstream contemporary academy respond to these elements as I have proposed them as old fashioned. The fact that these elements also undergird much of the development of western law and legal theory is oft forgotten in most law school—to say nothing of undergraduate—education of the present day.
I suggest that a fundamental problem that challenges education today, regardless of the level and the subject matter, is the way in which thinking is encouraged and directed. The method of objective and authentically critical reasoning that has been indispensable to legal thinking in the past is being pushed aside by the subjective methodology endorsed by the “mystery of life” passage from Casey v. Planned Parenthood and largely endorsed in the larger view that education must be tailored for the “unique mind.”
In the context of the law and legal education, the objective that the “is” of the current moment is preferred to the “ought” of universal truth can then lead to the further subjective approach which confuses the “ought” with the “is.” For the subjective mind, the “is” becomes the only reality with which any person need be concerned. This subjective reality, moreover, is not the objective reality that must be sought, understood, and comprehended; but, this does not matter because the emphasis of education founded on autonomy and “empowerment” and little else will spend little if any time searching for something which may well be not only objective reality but also objective truth.
While thinking is pertinent to all disciplines, it is crucial to legal reasoning. The method of thinking critical to the law needs to be objective, and it must be formed by two important factors. The first is that the human being is an intelligent being. The second follows: human intelligence is capable of comprehending the intelligible reality that surrounds us which then leads to wise, prudent, and just decision-making. This does not mean that a perfect understanding will necessarily result nor will the best decision follow, but it does mean that the understanding that follows will be objective thereby getting the society involved closer to the truth of the matter and justice that is required.
I think that there is another problem about subjectivity that is deleterious to the education process but which is typically used today as the standard for determining who teaches and who speaks at institutions of higher learning in the present age. While there are many ways of explaining this standard (such as “liberal,” “progressive,” “contemporary,” etc.), it seems to follow whatever currency is strongest in the contemporary culture. So when contemporary culture endorses certain views regarding important matters that deal with human sexuality, the meaning of human existence, and the authentic nature of the human person, any view that does not correspond to the standard of the contemporary culture is either dismissed as irrelevant or branded as madness.
One more problem is the collaborative approach to education so frequently encountered today in educational institutions of many levels. I hasten to add that collaboration is important in human existence and must therefore be learned and perfected, for collaboration is necessary for achieving the common good. However, collaboration has largely come to mean in educational contexts the need to arrive at a consensus. Since the dominant milieu in the university of the current age is one that holds and promotes the view that all positions are equally meritorious (even though they are not), collaboration is the name given to determining what the lowest common denominator is in order to reach a conclusion and decision. When this is the reality of collaboration, then the ability to recognize and foster the truth, the beautiful, and the good is often the unknown victim of the sacrifice necessary for collaboration, that is, consensus, to be the goal.
No, not that Commencement speaker controversy. That Commencement speaker controversy I understand. It's relatively simple: The left-liberals who run the show at Georgetown have found a way to signal to the world that the nation's oldest Catholic, and most famous Jesuit, university stands with the Obama administration in its war (to use, if I recall correctly, Kathleen Sebelius's own word) against the Catholic bishops and others who oppose the HHS mandate as a violation of religious freedom and the rights of conscience (you know, the enemies of women's "reproductive health"). By honoring Secretary Sebelius, they can help to undermine the bishops' credibility and blunt the force of their witness as leaders of the Catholic church. I get it. It's a bold and clever move. Although I find its substance appalling, I can't help but admire its shrewdness.
But, no, I mean a different Commencement speaker controversy.
My friend and former colleague on the President's Council on Bioethics, Dr. Benjamin Carson of Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, is, to put it simply, one of the most distinguished people in the world. His feats in the field of neurosurgery are literally the stuff of legend. His life story is nothing short of inspiring. See here: http://www.biography.com/people/ben-carson-475422?page=1 His works of philanthropy are remarkable in both their generosity and their impact on the lives of people in need. See, for example, here: http://carsonscholars.org/ If there were a Nobel Prize in Human Excellence, Ben (who already has the Presidential Medal of Freedom among countless other honors) would be among the first laureates.
But a controversy has broken out at Emory University, where Ben is scheduled to give the Commencement Address and recieve an honorary degree. What is it about Ben Carson that would cause five hundred people---faculty members, students, alumni---to sign a letter of "concern" about him as the Commencement speaker? Well, it turns out that he is an academic heretic. He doesn't believe in the Darwinian theory of evolution. Perhaps he doesn't believe in evolution at all. And he argues that belief in Darwinian evolution, or any form of pure materialism, undermines the basis of ethics.
In their letter of "concern," warning unwary people about the heretical Commencement speaker, Dr. Carson's critics place particular emphasis on this last point. They are upset that he must consider people who believe in Darwinism to be unethical. That's insulting. That's exclusionary. Etc., etc.
But of course Gentle Ben (and he is indeed one of the gentlest, kindest people one could ever meet) doesn't believe that his Darwinist friends and colleagues are necessarily unethical. What he believes is that Darwinism is necessarily materialistic. (This is a view about Darwinism that he shares with some devout Darwinists themselves.) And he believes that materialism, if true, is incompatible with free will and with ethical norms (which must be, after all, norms for the guidance of free choices, if they are to have any standing, force, and validity at all). Now, he knows perfectly well that people who believe in materialism are in many cases decent, honorable, ethical people. But he thinks that they lead lives that are much better than their formal philosophical beliefs would require them to lead. He believes that their commitment to materialism makes it impossible for them to give a sound account of the ethical norms which they themselves, to their credit, live by. Of course, he might be wrong about that (though I don't think he is), just as he might be wrong about the validity of Darwinism as a scientific theory, or the compatility of Darwinism with the rejection of materialism. But it's certainly not a mean or crazy thing to believe or say. It's scarcely a cause for "concern" about having him as a Commencement speaker.
I do wish that more contemporary liberals would be a bit more, well, liberal when it comes to tolerating dissent from the orthodoxies of their faith. Or else I wish they would abandon the pretence of being liberals in the old-fashioned sense and declare their faith to be the equivalent of a religion from which various forms of dissent are simply not to be tolerated. Although I would prefer the former course of action, either course would have the virtue of bringing liberal practice and liberal theory better into line with each other.
Today's news that Kathleen Sebelius is about to deliver a commencement address at Georgetown University should be measured against this morning's words of the Holy Father in his fourth of an intended five addresses to the U.S. bishops in their visit ad limina apostolorum:
"On the level of higher education, many of you have pointed to a growing recognition on the part of Catholic colleges and universities of the need to reaffirm their distinctive identity in fidelity to their founding ideals and the Church’s mission in service of the Gospel. Yet much remains to be done, especially in such basic areas as compliance with the mandate laid down in Canon 812 for those who teach theological disciplines. The importance of this canonical norm as a tangible expression of ecclesial communion and solidarity in the Church’s educational apostolate becomes all the more evident when we consider the confusion created by instances of apparent dissidence between some representatives of Catholic institutions and the Church’s pastoral leadership: such discord harms the Church’s witness and, as experience has shown, can easily be exploited to compromise her authority and her freedom.
It is no exaggeration to say that providing young people with a sound education in the faith represents the most urgent internal challenge facing the Catholic community in your country. The deposit of faith is a priceless treasure which each generation must pass on to the next by winning hearts to Jesus Christ and shaping minds in the knowledge, understanding and love of his Church. It is gratifying to realize that, in our day too, the Christian vision, presented in its breadth and integrity, proves immensely appealing to the imagination, idealism and aspirations of the young, who have a right to encounter the faith in all its beauty, its intellectual richness and its radical demands.
Here I would simply propose several points which I trust will prove helpful for your discernment in meeting this challenge.
First, as we know, the essential task of authentic education at every level is not simply that of passing on knowledge, essential as this is, but also of shaping hearts. There is a constant need to balance intellectual rigor in communicating effectively, attractively and integrally, the richness of the Church’s faith with forming the young in the love of God, the praxis of the Christian moral and sacramental life and, not least, the cultivation of personal and liturgical prayer.
It follows that the question of Catholic identity, not least at the university level, entails much more than the teaching of religion or the mere presence of a chaplaincy on campus. All too often, it seems, Catholic schools and colleges have failed to challenge students to reappropriate their faith as part of the exciting intellectual discoveries which mark the experience of higher education. The fact that so many new students find themselves dissociated from the family, school and community support systems that previously facilitated the transmission of the faith should continually spur Catholic institutions of learning to create new and effective networks of support. In every aspect of their education, students need to be encouraged to articulate a vision of the harmony of faith and reason capable of guiding a life-long pursuit of knowledge and virtue. As ever, an essential role in this process is played by teachers who inspire others by their evident love of Christ, their witness of sound devotion and their commitment to that sapientia Christiana which integrates faith and life, intellectual passion and reverence for the splendor of truth both human and divine.
In effect, faith by its very nature demands a constant and all-embracing conversion to the fullness of truth revealed in Christ. He is the creative Logos, in whom all things were made and in whom all reality "holds together" (Col 1:17); he is the new Adam who reveals the ultimate truth about man and the world in which we live. In a period of great cultural change and societal displacement not unlike our own, Augustine pointed to this intrinsic connection between faith and the human intellectual enterprise by appealing to Plato, who held, he says, that "to love wisdom is to love God" (cf. De Civitate Dei, VIII, 8). The Christian commitment to learning, which gave birth to the medieval universities, was based upon this conviction that the one God, as the source of all truth and goodness, is likewise the source of the intellect’s passionate desire to know and the will’s yearning for fulfilment in love.
Only in this light can we appreciate the distinctive contribution of Catholic education, which engages in a "diakonia of truth" inspired by an intellectual charity which knows that leading others to the truth is ultimately an act of love (cf. Address to Catholic Educators, Washington, 17 April 2008). Faith’s recognition of the essential unity of all knowledge provides a bulwark against the alienation and fragmentation which occurs when the use of reason is detached from the pursuit of truth and virtue; in this sense, Catholic institutions have a specific role to play in helping to overcome the crisis of universities today. Firmly grounded in this vision of the intrinsic interplay of faith, reason and the pursuit of human excellence, every Christian intellectual and all the Church’s educational institutions must be convinced, and desirous of convincing others, that no aspect of reality remains alien to, or untouched by, the mystery of the redemption and the Risen Lord’s dominion over all creation.
During my Pastoral Visit to the United States, I spoke of the need for the Church in America to cultivate "a mindset, an intellectual culture which is genuinely Catholic" (cf. Homily at Nationals Stadium, Washington, 17 April 2008). Taking up this task certainly involves a renewal of apologetics and an emphasis on Catholic distinctiveness; ultimately however it must be aimed at proclaiming the liberating truth of Christ and stimulating greater dialogue and cooperation in building a society ever more solidly grounded in an authentic humanism inspired by the Gospel and faithful to the highest values of America’s civic and cultural heritage. At the present moment of your nation’s history, this is the challenge and opportunity awaiting the entire Catholic community, and it is one which the Church’s educational institutions should be the first to acknowledge and embrace."
Thank God for this instruction. When will the hierarchy in the U.S. wake up and call universities such as Georgetown to do what the Holy Father instructs them to do? The U.S. Bishops must call Georgetown and other Catholic colleges and universities to account for -- and repent of -- their rejection of their mission in the Church, to the Church, and to all those who seek the truth with a sincere heart. The principal problem with the choice of Sebelius as a commencement speaker at Georgetown is not her errors as such. Catholic universities can and should be places of critical intellectual engagement among all those who have a voice to contribute to the search for and recognition of the truth. Timing, circumstances, context, and purpose matter. Commencement speakers are not lecturers or participants in conference dialogue. Sebelius is, it appears, the leading federal government official, after the President himself, currently engaged in a public war against the rights and interests of the American Catholic Church, the likes of which we haven't seen before. Yet Georgetown has just elevated her to its commencement podium. The surpassing problem with this invitation is its symbolic slap in the face of the Bishops and all those faithful who, in these darkening times for the liberty of the Church in the U.S., have rallied to defend the truth of that liberty against the Administration's apparent willingness to reduce and decompose the Church, bit by regulated bit, to a fully compliant government subdivision. (Complete "congruence" is what the political theorists call the ideal in their disarming euphemism). This symbolic injury will assure greater injuries.
I read Fr. James Schall's "Another Sort of Learning" in college, and it has enriched my life incredibly, by pointing me to, and helping me think about, so many authors and books that, say, East Anchorage High School didn't say much about. He is a treasure. Here are some reflections by him on "The Ending of an Academic Year."
A very moving piece by George Will, about his son, Jon, who has Down syndrome and who is celebrating his 40th birthday. A (sobering) bit:
. . . In 1972, people with Down syndrome were still commonly called Mongoloids.
Now they are called American citizens, about 400,000 of them, and their life expectancy is 60. Much has improved. There has, however, been moral regression as well.
Jon was born just 19 years after James Watson and Francis Crick published their discoveries concerning the structure of DNA, discoveries that would enhance understanding of the structure of Jon, whose every cell is imprinted with Down syndrome. Jon was born just as prenatal genetic testing, which can detect Down syndrome, was becoming common. And Jon was born eight months before Roe v. Wade inaugurated this era of the casual destruction of pre-born babies. . . .
This morning's panels at the 2012 Conference of Religiously Affiliated Law Schools at Touro Law School continued the spirited and engaged discussions that I reported on yesterday. Again, bravo and thanks to Touro, Dean Raful (whose engagement in and support for this enterprise was evident by his participation in every facet of the program), and Sam Levine for the energy and careful thought he put into organizing the program.
MOJ'er Fr. Arujo gave his typically thoughtful remarks on bringing religion into the classroom, and I'm sure he can summarize his remarks, and the exchange on his panel, better than I could. I'd like to talk a bit about the first panel. Susan Fortney of Hofstra, playing the role of clean-up summarizer, noted the importance of the personal narratives all of the speakers offered in engaging students in considering the place of faith in teaching ethics in the classroom. Indeed, the consensus that seemed to emerge from the individual panelists' presentations was that a personal connection to whatever the topic being taught is can often give the teacher a way to present faith as a legitimate consideration in a inviting way that does not foster a sense of exclusion on the part of students who might not share that same faith conviction. Each of these panelists, in their own ways, illustrated, I think, the power of what Marc DeGirolami characterized (and defended) as the third possible meaning of 'being compromised' by one's faith tradition, in his post earlier this morning "On being compromised." (Sorry, I still can't figure out how to do hyperlinks when posting from an I-pad.)
John Nagle shared some of the poignant story that he told in the article "Biodiversity and Mom",30 Ecology L.Q. 1000 (2003) about his mother's diagnosis of ovarian cancer, which introduced him to the potentially therapeutic properties of a substance extracted from the Pacific Yew tree. This tree had been the subject of an effort to get it listed as an endangered species. Though the drug developed with that extract did not work for John's mom, this personal experience put the religious motivations for the fight for biodiversity into a frame that John could apply in the classroom. He quoted the Ogden Nash riddle: "God in his wisdom made the fly/ And then forgot to tell us why." It seems to me that this little riddle could be a useful motto not just for thinking about interspecies biodiversity, but also for just about every legal issue that has anything to do with that amorphous and elusive concept of 'human dignity.'
Michael Sean Winters reviews enthusiastically the new book by my friend and colleague, Brad Gregory (I read the book in draft, and think it's outstanding):
. . . Gregory, who teaches history at Notre Dame, seeks to show how the changes wrought by the Reformation unintentionally led to the ideological, social, political, intellectual and economic consequences that still shape the world in which we live today, and, especially, how the internal contradictions of our current world appear incapable of resolving themselves unless we reacquaint ourselves with the historical context, and the historical choices, from which those contradictions emerged. . ..
Tim Cantu, a student in my "Catholic Social Thought and the Law" seminar, shared these thoughts, prompted by Judge Posner's recent lecture at Notre Dame Law School:
Judge Richard Posner recently spoke at Notre Dame Law School to a Law & Economics Seminar and addressed the failure of the modern schools of macroeconomics to adequately predict or react to the 2008 financial crisis. The talk did not touch directly or indirectly on Catholic Social Thought—as a classics major, I’m not entirely sure what it was about—but an offhand remark by the Judge caught my attention. “The tone of political discourse,” he said, “is worse than I have ever seen it in this country.” The Judge has certainly lived through some trying times in this country, and it was notable to me that he believes our national attitude has never been as bad as it is now.
I agree with the Judge, though as a fresh-faced 23-year-old college graduate who has never written a book on Law and Economics or decided a Federal Appellate Court Case, no one cares particularly about my opinion. But the Judge and I are not alone in this opinion; indeed, there seems to be a growing national consensus that the tone of political discourse is that nasty and vitriolic. This is hardly to say it has never been worse, or that there have not been isolated incidents worse than (almost) anything said or written today (to my knowledge, no one has recently written of an opponent, as John Adams did of Alexander Hamilton, that “He’s the bastard brat of a Scotch peddler. A man devoid of every principle.”). But generally, each side of the political divide believes the other to be wholly devoid of principle and hellbent on the destruction of America (or women’s rights, or the Civil Rights movement, or unborn children… ad infinitum.)
This is a troubling trend for Catholics. We are called, of course, to participate as faithful citizens—faithful to both our faith and our country as we seek to infuse the secular realm with Christian principles. But the title of Pope Benedict’s recent encyclical should prove highly instructive (in addition to the lessons within, of course): Caritas in Veritate. One may believe in perfect honesty that democrats (or republicans) are wrong about every single policy they propose (though one would also be mistaken in either case). Such a belief would require an effort to persuade them of their error, and work to combat evil or ill-advised policies. This correction should always presume, however, that you and your opposition are seeking the common good in good faith and with the best interest of society at heart. Charity in Truth is, I think, one of the most needed lessons in the modern political realm.
