With Good Reason Be Bearers of Truth

May 20, 2008

In a recent Wall Street Journal op-ed, Bill McGurn (former Bush speech writer now a regular Tuesday columnist at the Journal) penned some insightful thoughts about Wheaton College--an academically rigorous, Christian liberal arts college in Wheaton, Illinois. McGurn observed that at Wheaton, students, academics and administrators enter into a covenant which embodies a creedal set of beliefs and a promise to adhere to certain personal mores which accord with Christian faith. McGurn observed that Wheaton came under heavy criticism for applying its own standards and for calling one of its long-time faculty members on a breach of covenant. Wrote McGurn:

 

Whenever an institution or community applies its standards, it will likely be the heavy in the public eye. This is true whether the institution is a church, a school, a local government or even the Boy Scouts. Mostly this is because an institution is by nature more impersonal and hence less sympathetic than a human being. Partly it is because the rest of us, conscious of our own weaknesses, will tend to empathize with good people who come up short. And when the institution in question is an evangelical college, the champions of diversity go silent, and ridicule and caricature become the rule.

 

Wheaton understands this... At the same time, it proposes that people who freely join a community that is honest and upfront about its beliefs can reasonably be asked to abide by them. Wheaton's ways are not my ways. Yet there is something refreshing about an institution willing to stand up for its convictions rather than trim its sails to the prevailing winds.

 

 

Refreshing, indeed.

 

Wheaton College has a specific understanding of its Christian identity and simply expects and requires everyone in the Wheaton academic community to behave on campus and in the classroom in accord with that identity. 

 

At any number of Catholic universities by contrast, such a conviction would be perceived as quaint at best.  Which brings me to the topic of Pope Benedict's address last month to 200 presidents of Catholic universities and colleges in the U.S.

 

What did Benedict tell these individuals--so many of whom not only find a Wheaton approach to Christian identity on campus problematic, but have arguably also found the Church's minimalist requirements for Catholic identity[1] no less problematic?

 

First and foremost, affirmed Benedict, every Catholic educational institution is a place to encounter the living God who in Jesus Christ reveals his transforming love and truth. Consequently, the Pope said, a Catholic campus should also be a place that abounds on Christian witness.[2]

 

It follows that the dynamic between personal encounter, knowledge and Christian witness is integral to the "diakonia of truth"--or stewardship of the truth--which the Church exercises in the midst of humanity.

 

The Pope used the word 'truth' no less than 39 times.

 

He quite obviously finds the search for truth to be at the heart of a genuinely Catholic campus identity:

 

A university or school's Catholic identity is not simply a question of the number of Catholic students. It is a question of conviction - do we really believe that only in the mystery of the Word made flesh does the mystery of man truly become clear (cf. Gaudium et Spes, 22)? Are we ready to commit our entire self - intellect and will, mind and heart - to God? Do we accept the truth Christ reveals? 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 God's creation? Only in this way do we really bear witness to the meaning of who we are and what we uphold.

(Column continues below)

 

 

In other words, is it evident that our Catholic institutions of higher learning foster a faculty and campus culture that gives unabashed and unambiguous expression to the truths of faith to which we adhere--sacramentally, liturgically and through the exercise of Christian charity?

 

The Pope gave ample expression to a number of things implied by that adherence to the truths of faith within a Catholic intellectual community, namely:

 

• That the truths of faith and of reason never contradict one another.
• That the Church "serves all members of society by purifying reason, ensuring that it remains open to the consideration of ultimate truths."
• That the Church "reminds all groups in society that it is not praxis that creates truth but truth that should serve as the basis of praxis."
• That "the Church never tires of upholding the essential moral categories of right and wrong, without which hope could only wither, giving way to cold pragmatic calculations of utility which render the person little more than a pawn on some ideological chess-board."
•  That "any appeal to the principle of academic freedom in order to justify positions that contradict the faith and the teaching of the Church would obstruct or even betray the university's identity and mission." 

While this speech did not quite rise to the intellectual caliber of his other two university addresses--at the University of Regensburg and the one he was scheduled to give at La Sapienza University in Rome--it nonetheless accomplished the modest goal of refreshing our understanding of what "Catholic identity" means and should look like at Catholic universities. In that sense, it was an address well tailored to its audience.  Personally, I do not share the disillusionment of those who were expecting Benedict to give his listeners a tongue lashing and read them the riot act. Benedict believes in the "semina Verbi"; he sows seeds of the Word--for the benefit of all. He also believes presidents of Catholic universities in the U.S. are intelligent and intellectually honest enough to give thorough consideration to his message. On that score, let's try to be optimistic.

 

_______________________________

 

[1] Four "essential characteristics" of that identity are enshrined in John Paul II's 1989 Apostolic Constitution on Catholic Education Ex Corde Ecclesiae, n. 13:

 

1. a Christian inspiration not only of individuals but of the university community as such;

2. a continuing reflection in the light of the Catholic faith upon the growing treasury of human knowledge, to which it seeks to contribute by its own research;

3. fidelity to the Christian message as it comes to us through the Church;

4. an institutional commitment to the service of the people of God and of the human family in their pilgrimage to the transcendent goal which gives meaning to life.

 

[2] Cf. Spe Salvi, 4.