Being Catholic: a college president speaks - interview with Saint Francis College pres. Frank Macchiarola - Interview

Commonweal, Sept 26, 1997 by Margaret O'Brien Steinfels

What are Catholic colleges doing about their Catholic identity? How will they react to the Vatican's insistence on a juridical relationship between school and local bishop? Commonweal asked Frank Macchiarola, lawyer, professor, civic figure, and president of Saint Francis College, Brooklyn (and a 1962 graduate). Macchiarola became president in 1996 after thirty years in academic posts at City University of New York, Columbia University, and the Benjamin Cardozo School of Law, Yeshiva University. He also served as chancellor of the New York public school system from 197883. Lively, articulate, and candid, Macchiarola launched immediately into answers to these questions during an interview on September 5 in his campus office in downtown Brooklyn.

* FRANK MACCHIAROLA: When I came back to Saint Francis a year ago a couple of things struck me. One was that the Catholic nature of the institution had an overlay of civil law that defined it: Legally speaking, we are not Catholic. Even so, I found everybody here thought of us as being Catholic, though they may have defined what that meant differently from one another. For a long period of time, there had been no effort to give attention to that definition. Because I really believe this is an institution of the church, I began to look at my role. How could I find ways to define our mission that made sense to the people here?

When I looked at external forces that intruded into the college, I saw the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) rules that examined high school English courses taken by some of our foreign students. I looked at the number of athletic scholarships we could award within the city of New York because of the NCAA regulations on the residence of students receiving scholarship. The State Education Department certifies the credentials of our faculty: If we want a course or a major, what degrees are required, in what field, what sub-field? What does a chairman of a Department of Aviation Management need for a Ph.D. when there is no Ph.D. in the field? All these regulations are given to us by the NCAA, the State of New York, and the Middle States Association, our accreditation body.

In all of this, I never received a single word from the church, from the bishop, that wasn't positive. There was a desire to help us in our liturgy, help us with events that we were having. We needed a church for the opening Mass. Whatever you want, Frank, no problem, no charge. That was the attitude of the bishop. The desire to help us is the only thing I've heard from the church.

Then I see this juridical discussion around Ex corde ecclesiae. From my standpoint, it's a distraction. If I spent my time trying to figure out what that meant, I would spend less time figuring out what it means to be a Catholic college. For example, can we have crosses up in the classrooms? Well, my answer to that is, yes. We put up the Franciscan cross of San Damiano. This is a Franciscan college. We should have reference to the namesake of the college.

How should we shape our financial-aid package? How should we look at students who can't pay their bills? We're letting a lot of students who couldn't make payment come to class on the basis that they will make those payments at some point in time. We're not a grocery store. That's what a Franciscan college should be about: to serve the poor.

The juridical stuff gets in the way of all of that. I respect the bishop; the bishop and I get along. He doesn't want to hurt this college. He wants this college to grow. If there's one thing that's missing in this world, it's a sense of faith. And if we're going to have to pass the definition of faith through a distillate that's legalistic and juridical, we're going to miss the faith. I don't want to be distracted by that.

* MARGARET O'BRIEN STEINFELS: If a juridical requirement becomes part of the norms, do you think Americans would feel duty-bound to observe it?

* MACCHIAROLA: If the church were to impose certain rules, which incidentally I think it can't, it wouldn't work. American Catholics are not inclined to carry out the rules any longer. There is no inclination on the part of religious people to see religious belief in the organizational way that a bureaucracy would like to see it.

What do I say to people when they face these questions: Make believe you're getting this message not by fax, but by courier. Make believe it takes a while. Let conscience be part of what you do. And with Ex corde ecclesiae, let conscience play a role. Let time have its effect on the people who are here now. They are not the people who will be here ten years from now.

* STEINFELS: What, in fact, if the norms finally require a juridical relationship with the bishop? What would you recommend to your own board?

* MACCHIAROLA: Well, one of the good things about being Saint Francis College is you know you're not the first!

* STEINFELS: You may be among the first in Brooklyn.

* MACCHIAROLA: Our board of trustees is juridically independent. That's the starting point. So the question would be: What would someone want us to do in order to qualify to be defined by them as Catholic? The discourse starts on the other side. Somebody has to come to me and say, in order to get the following - be accredited as a Catholic college....