What makes a college Catholic?

National Catholic Reporter, Oct 28, 2005 by William C. Graham

I have worked at a series of Catholic colleges and universities for 15 years and some days feel quite confused about what makes these institutions Catholic. The Second Vatican Council seemed clear in the Declaration on Christian education, Gravissimum Educationis: "The hoped-for result is that the Christian mind may achieve, as it were, a public, persistent and universal presence in the whole enterprise of advancing higher culture, and that the students of these institutions may become truly outstanding in learning, ready to shoulder society's heavier burdens, and to witness the faith to the world." Our faculty's fit with the mission will help or hinder in achieving that lofty goal, but rarely will it be a neutral factor.

I suggested to a religious studies colleague that if one hires a nurse or a biology graduate from a Catholic university, it would seem that she or he might bring something to the workplace that another with a secular education would not. For example, ought one not legitimately be able to ask such a graduate what the church teaches about cloning or artificial insemination? Should not the graduate of a Catholic college with a degree in one of the sciences be able to answer that question whether or not she or he subscribes to or embraces the teaching? "I'm not sure I agree," my colleague said. She had no specific reason, but she knew she did not like the idea. Why would one disagree? Is the teaching of the church so very dangerously flawed that we have to shield our students from it? If we cannot ask such a question of the graduate of a Catholic institution, how is her or his degree different from that granted by a public institution? If there is no difference, why should Catholic institutions continue to grant degrees?

At the college where I currently teach, I have often asked how our curriculum differs from that of either of the local branches of two state universities. If we were to take the curriculum from the Catholic college and put it side by side with the curricula from the state universities, could a disinterested party point to the one that was Catholic? If not, why not? My query is most often answered with a tight smile and pursed lips.

A colleague is reported to claim that she is distressed coming to work day by day to a place where there are images of first-century capital punishment on the walls of many classrooms and public spaces. The clear implication is that these crucifixes are objectionable as well as politically incorrect and should be removed so as not to offend finely tuned sensitivities.

Another colleague quizzed me, in the last months of John Paul II's papacy, as to whether or not I thought the pontiff should retire. Before I could comment, he offered his angry opinion that the pope should step down immediately. I did not have an opinion, but was stunned by the vigor and vituperation with which he offered his. I pointed out that as a diocesan priest and professor of theology, John Paul II's retirement and replacement by another bishop of Rome could have some impact on my life. But how, I asked as demurely as possible, would it affect my questioner who is, I think, a non-practicing Protestant? He made no answer but another colleague later helped me to understand that if the church is regarded either as the Great Satan or the Evil Empire, those who oppose it would seek the immediate retirement of any pope whose agenda did not match theirs, idea for idea.

A third colleague, a nonbeliever who not only applied to but was hired to teach in a department of religious studies at a Catholic college, insists that the foundation of all religion is the abuse of the human spirit. All of his classes take off from this insight.

A June 14 article in The New York Sun reports that a Brooklyn college professor who described religious people as "moral retards" decided to step down as chair-elect of the department of sociology after the college president expressed outrage over his views. The controversy involves an essay the professor published in 2001 in the online journal Fifteen Credibility Street, in which he argued that religious people are "incapable of moral action." He opined, "In the name of their faith, these moral retards are running around pointing fingers and doing real harm to others. One only has to read the newspaper to see the results of their handiwork. They discriminate, exclude, and belittle. They make a virtue of closed-mindedness and virulent ignorance. They are an ugly, violent lot."

It is both interesting and alarming that a secular state university would create a situation in which a blatant antireligionist wasn't acceptable as chair in sociology while a college that self-identifies as Catholic makes room for someone with similar views in the religious studies department.

We are being assassinated from within. How did it happen that assassins were enfolded in institutions they find so objectionable? Is that what diversity requires? And why would one want to cash a check week by week from an institution of which one disapproves or even loathes? Would it not be better, more honest, or more ethical to work at a place whose sponsoring body one does not find so horribly offensive?