mccloskey on newman

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About the Author

Father C. John McCloskey III, a priest of the Prelature of Opus Dei, is a research fellowof the Faith and Reason Institute. After graduating from Columbia University, he workedprofessionally on Wall Street before earning a doctorate of sacred theology at the Universityof Navarre. He was Director of the Catholic Information Center in Washington, D.C., from1998-2003, and an assistant chaplain at Princeton University from 1985-1990. An ad-

junct professor of the Catholic Distance University, Fr. McCloskey has written many articles(archived atwww.frmccloskey.com) and worked extensively in the media. He has hostednumerous EWTN series, including ones on Newman and Catholic authors. Well known forguiding many people into the Catholic Church, he is co-author ofGood News, Bad News:Evangelization, Conversion, and the Crisis of Faith (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2007).

Executive Summary

John Henry Newmans idea of a university is an ideal thatwould be difficult to realize in the present American culture.Nevertheless, Newmans influence can be seen in various papalstatements and documents issued by Pope John Paul II and Pope

Benedict XVI, as well in the increasing number of new Catholiccolleges.

Both Popes have emphasized that the greatest challenge toCatholic education, and the greatest contribution the universitycan make to the culture, is to restore to that culture the convic-tion that human beings can grasp the truth of things and con-sequently know their duties to God, themselves and others. AsNewman insisted, philosophy and theology are essential for uni-versity education.

A strong sense of Catholic identity comes from within theChurch and should permeate all aspects of campus life and con-

tribute to the integral formation of the whole human person. IfNewman were alive today, he would join the recent Popes in en-couraging Catholic campuses to do more to evangelize, and notsimply engage, the culture. An energetic, faith-driven campusministry is necessary to create a Catholic culture on campus andform modern apostles capable of exercising what Newman re-ferred to as personal influence on those around them.

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Newmans University in Todays American Culture

by Rev. C. John McCloskey III, S.T.D.

December 2008

A Policy Series Guided by the Principles of Ex Corde Ecclesiae

STUDIES IN CATHOLIC

HIGHER EDUCATION


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by Rev. C. John McCloskey III, S.T.D.

December 2008

Copyright 2008 The Cardinal Newman Society. All Rights Reserved.

Permission to reprint is hereby granted provided no modications are made to the text and it is identied as aproduct of The Center for the Study of Catholic Higher Education, The Cardinal Newman Society or both.

Note: the views expressed herein are those of the author and not necessarily those of The Center for the Studyof Catholic Higher Education or The Cardinal Newman Society.

This paper is available online at The Center for the Study of Catholic Higher Educations website,www.CatholicHigherEd.org

About The Center

The Center for the Study of Catholic Higher Education is the research division of The Cardinal Newman Society.Its mission is to promote the ongoing renewal of Catholic higher education by researching and analyzing criticalissues facing Catholic colleges and universities, and sharing best practices. The Centers work is guided by theprinciples ofEx corde Ecclesiaeand the Magisterium of the Catholic Church.


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Newmans University in Todays American Cultureby Rev. C. John McCloskey III, S.T.D.


My topic is Newmans University in Todays American Culture, but I should start by say-ing that Newmans University does not exist. John Henry Newmans idea of a university isclearly an ideal. Newman himself had a certain platonic tint to his philosophic thought, and his

ideal would be difficult to live up to in any present-day culture. Moreover, the model of vir-tually all American universities is a continental one, drawn from the German experience ratherthan the British, with a heavy emphasis on graduate studies and professional schools ratherthan on the liberal arts.

Nevertheless, we could say happily that there are increasing numbers of liberal arts collegesgradually returning to their foundations, where Newman, if he were alive, would recognizehis influence. Some of these may with time develop into universities that will approximate theNewmanian idea and ideal. The very fact that there is a Cardinal Newman Society and that theChurch has spoken in Ex corde Ecclesi is great reason for hope.

In addition, more recently and perhaps as important for the practical American experience,Pope Benedict XVI has made clear that his pontificate will continue to encourage and insist that

Catholic education will be truly Catholic in all its aspectsincluding campus environment, thechoice of faculty members, its theological teaching and in its very nature as an agent of evan-gelization. In April 2008 at The Catholic University of America, Pope Benedict told over 400Catholic educators:

Clearly, then, Catholic identity is not dependent upon statistics. Neither can it be equated simplywith orthodoxy of course content. It demands and inspires much more: namely that each and every aspectof your learning communities reverberates within the ecclesial life of faith. Only in faith can truth becomeincarnate and reason truly human, capable of directing the will along the path of freedom (cf. SpeSalvi, 23). In this way our institutions make a vital contribution to the mission of the Church and trulyserve society. They become places in which Gods active presence in human aairs is recognized andin which every young person discovers the joy of entering into Christs being for others (cf. ibid.,28).Education is integral to the mission of the Church to proclaim the Good News. First and foremost everyCatholic educational institution is a place to encounter the living God who in Jesus Christ reveals his trans-

forming love and truth (cf. Spe Salvi, 4). In this way those who meet him are drawn by the very powerof the Gospel to lead a new life characterized by all that is beautiful, good, and true; a life of Christianwitness nurtured and strengthened within the community of our Lords disciples, the Church. [em-phasis added]

For its very foundation, Newman would demand that the university recognize the exis-tence of objective truth and insist that we, with our will and intellect, are bound to submit to it.Without this affirmation and belief that our Faith has a truth-claim that is universal in its scope,there simply cannot be any mission. Pope John Paul II reminded the American bishops of thispoint in Veritatis Splendor:

The greatest challenge to Catholic education in the United States today, and the great contributionthat authentically Catholic education can make to American culture is to restore to that culture the

conviction that human beings can grasp the truth of things, and in grasping that truth can know theirduties to God, to themselves, and their neighbors. . . . The contemporary world urgently needs theservice of educational institutions that uphold and teach that truth is that fundamental value with-out which freedom, justice, and human dignity are extinguished (VS, no. 4) [emphasis added].2

Pope Benedict XVI,Address to Catholic Educators at The Catholic University of America (April 7, 2008).

2 Pope John Paul II, Ad Limina Address to American Bishops, VI (May 30, 998), no.3.


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Pope Benedict added to this emphasis on the concept and reality of truth:

The dynamic between personal encounter, knowledge and Christian witness is integral to the diakoniaof truth which the Church exercises in the midst of humanity. Gods revelation oers every genera-tion the opportunity to discover the ultimate truth about its own life and the goal of historyIn thisway, Christs Good News is set to work, guiding both teacher and student towards the objective truthwhich, in transcending the particular and the subjective, points to the universal and absolute that

enables us to proclaim with condence the hope which does not disappoint. (cf. Rom 5:5)3

Truth is the fundamental value, and it can be known by the use of our reason. Newmanwould insist on the required teaching of Catholic philosophy in a Catholic university, buildingon the Thomistic foundation of moderate realism. How can a student - or a professor, for thatmatter - engage our neo-pagan, post-modern culture without a firm grounding in metaphysics,epistemology, and nature (Aristotelian physics)? It simply is not possible.

Philosophy alone certainly is not enough, but it is indispensable as a preparation for whatmust follow. Newman also saw theology as indispensable for university education. As he putit: University teaching without theology is simply unphilosophical. . . . Theology is surely abranch of knowledge: how then is it possible for it to profess all branches of knowledge andyet to exclude from the subjects of its teaching one which, to say the least, is as important and

as large as any of them?4 Is it too much to ask that our universities acknowledge that there issuch a thing as objective truth that can be grasped by natural reason and that prepares us forthe truths of supernatural Revelation?

This is not simply a question of mandata and forced oaths, but a love of the authority ofthe Church that is not simply Ex corde Ecclesi but rather Ex cordeUniversitatis itself. Ex cordeEcclesi tells us that if Catholic universities are to become leaders in the renewal of higher edu-cation, they must first have a strong sense of their own Catholic identity. This identity is not es-tablished once and for all by the institutions origins, but comes from within the Church todayand always, speaking from the heart of the Church (Ex corde Ecclesi). The Catholic identity ofa university should be evident in its curriculum, in its faculty, in student activities and in thequality of its community life.

Pope Benedict agrees:This same dynamic of communal identityto whom do I belong?vivies the ethos of our Catho-lic institutions. A university or schools Catholic identity is not simply a question of the number ofCatholic students. It is a question of convictiondo we really believe that only in the mystery of theWord made esh does the mystery of man truly become clear (cf. Gaudium et Spes, 22)? Are we readyto commit our entire selfintellect and will, mind and heartto God? Do we accept the truth Christreveals? Is the faith tangible in our universities and schools? Is it given fervent expression liturgically,sacramentally, through prayer, acts of charity, a concern for justice, and respect for Gods creation?Only in this way do we really bear witness to the meaning of who we are and what we uphold.5

Catholic identity is no infringement upon the universitys nature as a true center of learn-ing, where the truth of the created order is fully respected but also ultimately illuminated bythe light of the new creation in Christ. Catholic universities understand that there is not a con-

tradiction between the free and vigorous pursuit of the truth and a recognition of and adher-

3 Pope Benedict XVI, Op. cit.

4 John Henry Newman, The Idea of a University, Discourse II, Loyola University Press, 927, Theology as a Branch of

Knowledge.



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ence to the teaching authority of the Church, in matters of faith and morals.

Pope Benedict says:

With regard to the educational forum, the diakonia of truth takes on a heightened signicance in soci-eties where secularist ideology drives a wedge between truth and faith. This division has led to a ten-dency to equate truth with knowledge and to adopt a positivistic mentality which, in rejecting meta-

physics, denies the foundations of faith and rejects the need for a moral vision. Truth means morethan knowledge: knowing the truth leads us to discover the good. Truth speaks to the individual inhis or her entirety, inviting us to respond with our whole being. This optimistic vision is found in ourChristian faith because such faith has been granted the vision of the Logos, Gods creative Reason,which in the Incarnation, is revealed as Goodness Itself. Far from being just a communication of fac-tual datainformativethe loving truth of the Gospel is creative and life-changingperforma-tive (cf. Spe Salvi, 2).With condence, Christian educators can liberate the young from the limits ofpositivism and awaken receptivity to the truth, to God and his goodness.7

As Cardinal Newman put it:

If the Catholic Faith is true, a university cannot exist externally to the Catholic pale, for it cannot teachuniversal knowledge if it does not teach Catholic theology. This is certain; but still, though it had everso many theological chairs, that would not suce it to make a Catholic university; for theology would

be included in its teaching only as a branch of knowledge, only one out of many constituent portions,however important a one, of what I have called philosophy. Hence a direct and active jurisdiction ofthe Church over it and in it is necessary, lest it should become the rival of the Church with the com-munity at large in those theological maers which to the Church are exclusively commiedactingas the representative of the intellect, as the Church is the representative of the religious principle.[emphasis added] And in like manner, it is not sucient security for the catholicity of a university,even that the whole of Catholic theology should be professed in it, unless the Church breathes herown pure and unearthly spirit into it, and fashions and moulds its organization, and watches over itsteaching, and knits together its pupils, and superintends its action.8

Newmans university in Dublin had a faculty made up almost exclusively of Catholics. Itseems to me that for a university today to be truly Catholic, the same would have to be true. Thegreat majority of the faculty should be convinced, practicing Catholics, and those that are not

should be carefully vetted to make sure that they respect Catholicism and in no way damage itthrough their example or manner of teaching. Truth in advertising would mean that a Catholicuniversity is not Catholic simply because its theology faculty follows the teaching authority ofthe Church but rather that the whole institution corporately has the sentire cum Ecclesia whichassures its authenticity and effectiveness in engaging and evangelizing the culture. I agree withPope John Paul II when he said, Your Catholic colleges and universities can be leaders in therenewal of American higher education. Now indeed is the Catholic moment in our country, asthe Church is virtually the only institution standing that represents a millennial-old traditioncomplete with a coherent, living, proven theory and practice of faith. Pope John Paul II contin-ued: At a time when the relationship between freedom and moral truth is being debated on ahost of issues at every level of society and government, Catholic scholars have the resources tocontribute to an intellectual and moral renewal of American culture.9

Without addressing the question of what proportion of the administration and facultyshould be practicing Catholics, Pope Benedict clearly requires that Catholic teaching be always

Pope John Paul II, Ex Corde Ecclesi (August 15, 990), no. 27.


8 John Henry Newman, The Idea of a University, Loyola Press, 927, Discourse IX, Bearing of Theology on Other

Branches of Knowledge.

9 Pope John Paul II, Ad Limina address, VI, no. 8.


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respected and never contradicted from within the university setting:

In regard to faculty members at Catholic colleges universities, I wish to rearm the great value ofacademic freedom. In virtue of this freedom you are called to search for the truth wherever carefulanalysis of evidence leads you. Yet it is also the case that any appeal to the principle of academicfreedom in order to justify positions that contradict the faith and the teaching of the Church wouldobstruct or even betray the universitys identity and mission; a mission at the heart of the Churchs

munus docendi and not somehow autonomous or independent of it.

Teachers and administrators, whether in universities or schools, have the duty and privilege to en-sure that students receive instruction in Catholic doctrine and practice. This requires that publicwitness to the way of Christ, as found in the Gospel and upheld by the ChurchsMagisterium, shapesall aspects of an institutions life, both inside and outside the classroom. Divergence from this visionweakens Catholic identity and, far from advancing freedom, inevitably leads to confusion, whethermoral, intellectual or spiritual.0

Newman was a man of profound intellect who also, even with his retiring manner, wasa man of action. If he were with us today, I think he would carefully study the situation andmake some judgments and pointed suggestions on how a Catholic college or university in thetwenty-first century should not simply engage the culture but, rather, evangelize it. After all,

was not a large part of the problem of the decline of the Catholic universities in the last thirty-five years of the last century due to an eagerness to fit in, to be assimilated, to be accepted atthe cost of throwing away their heritage, tradition, and truth claims? Newman was propheticin many ways. Liberalism, which he defined above all as religious indifference, partly drovehim out of Anglicanism, and he would not be shocked to see how the same had infiltrated withsuch devastating results into dozens of Catholic universities in this country.

Newman was, above all, a man of the Church. Even though he had strong opinions, alwayswell founded and explained, he looked to the Church for guidance and was docile and obedi-ent to the indications he received both from Rome and from the ordinary in whose diocese heserved. As such, he would have paid special attention to the concrete indications given to theAmerican hierarchy over the course of the many decades that have passed since the SecondVatican Council, a Council that he so deeply influenced as the invisibleperitus. These strong

and clear messages have been delivered in various documents of the Roman Curia, particularlyfrom the Congregation for Catholic Education, and also in pointed remarks to the Americanbishops in the quinquennial ad limina addresses.

Pope John Paul II, like his successor, was a keen admirer of Newman, as is evidenced byvarious statements throughout his pontificate, including quotations of Newman in papal docu-ments and most notably in the Catechism of the Catholic Church. John Paul II and our present HolyFather arguably are also the popes in history who could be best described as university menfrom their student days through their many years as professors and also as bishops responsiblefor Catholic university faculties in their own archdioceses. I do not know if the two popes everread TheIdea of a University, but they certainly have shown familiarity with Newmans thoughton education. In fact, one of the documents issued in the reign of Pope John Paul II representsinsistent and clear pleading to engage the culture on Newmans idea:

As we approach the third Christian Millennium, the Second Vatican Councils call for generous dedi-cation to the whole enterprise of Catholic education remains to be more fully implemented. Few areasof Catholic life in the United States need the leadership of the bishops for their re-armation andrenewal as much as this one does. Any such renewal requires a clear vision of the Churchs educa-tional mission, which in turn cannot be separated from the Lords mandate to preach the Gospel toall nations.


Pope John Paul II, Op. cit., no. 2.


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Effects have causes, and if Catholic universities are to begin to engage the culture as partof the new evangelization, that needs to take place as a result of action by the bishops, or bythe board of directors and administrators of the universities themselves, or by the particularreligious congregations that may still have a say in the governance of these institutions. All ofthis is doable if there is the will, but it will require men of imagination, vision, and above all

courageand perhaps a large dose of sanctityto carry out this reform following the correctinterpretation and implementation of the Council as it has been so patiently laid out for us byJohn Paul II throughout his pontificate and now by Benedict. The vision of both popes extendsinto the future for the next hundred years. All of us here, regardless of age, will spend the restof our lives coming to grips with the meaning of their thought both for our personal lives andfor our society, culture, and civilization.

In the ad limina address already cited, we are told that this renewal is in a special way theduty of the bishops, which they must not shirk: The mission of the Catholic school is the inte-gral formation of students, so that they may be true to their condition as Christs disciples andas such work effectively for the evangelization of culture and for the common good of society.2The key word here is integralthe formation of the whole human person or, as Pope JohnPaul II might put it, the acting person. Newman might have spoken of the need for the uni-

versity man, teacher or student, to make a real assent and not simply a notional assent tothe truths of Revelation which affect ones whole personality in all its aspects.

Formation, of course, covers a good deal of ground. However, it is clear that universityeducation cannot simply be a matter of transmitting knowledge, an idea, which, of course,is primary in the Newmanian ideal of university education. It also means that ways must befound, respecting the human freedom of the student, to help him in his physical and super-natural development, to help him to be a man of character, capable of exercising what Newmanreferred to as personal influence on those around him. As Pope John Paul II said, Catholiceducation aims not only to communicate facts but also to transmit a coherent, comprehensivevision of life, in the conviction that the truths contained in that vision liberate students in themost profound meaning of human freedom.3

This naturally calls to mind the in loco parentis function of a university as an alma mater.The university should attempt to create an environment which would help the student to bein the world but not of the world, following the Gospel injunction. It would seek to createa campus environment which would make it easier for the student to be virtuous, rather thanmaking virtue close to impossible. Naturally, this task means rules and regulations, in manyareas, that perhaps todays students might find onerous. Nonetheless, those very same studentspresumably come from Christian homes, domestic churches where there were also rules andregulations, handed down by parents, which deal with matters of dress, dining, neatness, or-der, schedule, relationships with the opposite sex in dating, etc.

Newman, who certainly did not believe that the university should be a monastery, nonethe-less would be aghast at the slovenliness of life on our nominally Catholic campuses. Separateresidences for men and women on campus with parietal regulations are an absolutely necessarystarting point. Newmans Ideal of a Gentleman, while not the model for a modern Catholicstudent, certainly would be major improvement. Jesus Christ, not a Victorian gentleman, is themodel, but virtue is still virtue and grace still perfects nature.

As the Congregation for Catholic Education put it: In the Catholic school there is no sepa-ration between time for learning and time for formation, between acquiring notions and grow-

2 Ibid.

3 Ibid., no. 3.


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ing in wisdom. The various school subjects do not present only knowledge to be attained butalso values to be acquired and truths to be discovered.4 At the heart of the university as anevangelizer of the culture must be the creation of an environment in which the student maygrow not simply in the knowledge of his Faith but also in the practice of it. John Paul II remindsus: Catholic schools must help students to deepen their personal relationship with God and todiscover that all things human have their deepest meaning in the person and teaching of Jesus

Christ.15

Practice should be defined not only as sacramental practice, although that is indeedfundamental, but also as Christian service. This would take seriously our Lords declaration:Whatever you do to the least of my brethren, you do unto me. There is need for a concomitantgrowth in virtue as a way of studying and accepting truth. Virtue predisposes to truth.

My own experience with the work of a Catholic chaplaincy at Princeton University, a pres-tigious secular campus, has convinced me that an energetic, faith-driven campus ministry is anecessity in order to create a Catholic culture on campus that is capable of forming modern-dayapostles. Piety, reverence for Catholic history and tradition, beauty in the liturgy, the encour-agement of personal prayer, frequent confession and Communion, the presence of the BlessedSacrament, the availability of sound, experienced spiritual directors should be part of any trulyCatholic university experience.

Newman was a great friend of freedom of conscience and also of the variety of spiritualitiesin the Church. I think that if he were alive today he would be intrigued with the new institu-tions, communities, and movements that have arisen in the Church and would welcome theirpresence working together with the local campus ministry to help students to be aware of andto act upon their baptismal vocation to holiness. Newman himself suffered from those whofavored spiritual monopolies and would probably welcome the varieties of religious experi-ence given by these new groups, faithful to and affirmed by the Church, that have arisen in thetwentieth century. Pope John Paul II, in speaking to American bishops, stressed the key role of

chaplains:

Bishops should take a special interest in the work of university chaplaincies. . . . The university cha-pel is called to be a vital center for promoting the Christian renewal of culture, in respectful and frankdialogue, in a clear and well-grounded perspective (cf. 1 Peter 3:15), in a witness which is open toquestioning and capable of convincing [Address to the European Congress of University Chaplains,May 1, 1998, no. 4]. Young adults need the service of commied chaplains who can help them, intel-lectually and spiritually, to aain their full maturity in Christ.

If Newman were here today, he would no doubt see the importance of the Catholic universi-tys sharing its revealed truth with the increasingly important sphere of science in our culture.Scientism with no ethical bounds seems to be the predominant belief system for many educatedpeople. Newman was aware of the theories of Charles Darwin and commented on them in hisLetters and Diaries. Although a man of letters, like many Victorians, he was fascinated with thenatural sciences and the discoveries and technological advances that were being made through-out the nineteenth century. He did not find them ominous or see them as a threat. He recog-nized that the real threat was heresy, apostasy, or schism. He saw the liberal arts as includingnot only the letters and languages but also the natural sciences, and he established chairs forthem in his University of Ireland and indeed acknowledged their importance in Idea. He wouldhave agreed with this statement by Pope John Paul II:

4 Congregation for Catholic Education, The Catholic School on the Threshold of the Third Millennium (December

28, 997), no. 4.

15 Pope John Paul II,Ad Limina address, VI, no. 4.

Ibid., no. 7.


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The Churchs involvement in universities, which goes back almost a thousand years, quickly tookroot in the United States. . . . To belong to a university community . . . is to stand at the crossroads ofthe cultures that have formed the modern world. It is to be a trustee of the wisdom of centuries, a pro-moter of the creativity that will transmit that wisdom to future generations. . . . Catholic universitiesshould be expected to uphold the objectivity and coherence of knowledge. Now that the centuries-old conict between science and faith is fading, Catholic universities should be in the forefront of anew and long-overdue dialogue between the empirical sciences and the truths of faith.7

We are no longer an immigrant Church. Indeed, our problem, in part, is that we have beentoo assimilated. Now is the time for renewal and revival, after thirty years of decline and fall.Now is the time for a second spring in Catholic university education in the United States.This reform and renewal will have consequences far beyond our bordersinto the universalChurch. It is our moment to evangelize and engage and apply the saving balm of the heart andmind of Christ to our society, which suffers much more from internal decay than it ever willfrom outside terrorists.

Our Catholic universities should and must produce the leaders in this new century to showthe way. We have a few excellent small Catholic colleges. Let us produce larger Catholic uni-versities according to the mind and heart of the Church and of Cardinal Newman, and many

of us will witness at least the beginnings of the civilization of love and truth that Pope JohnPaul II and his successor, Pope Benedict XVI, have urged us to build. We can count clearly onthe intercession of John Henry Newman, whose influence in the ambit of Catholic universitylife will continue to grow, most particularly in the United States.

7 Ibid., no. .


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