By Dr. Judith Dwyer
Executive vice president

I thank the Community Day Planning Committee for inviting me to share with you a few reflections on the issue of diversity within the context of American Catholic higher education. I am honored to do so. Since the Second Vatican Council, serious reflection and debate concerning the mission and identity of American Catholic higher education emerge in official church documents, (1) histories of American Catholic higher education, (2) and philosophical and theological works. (3) This essay seeks to identify major themes within the literature, rich themes that provide the framework for a proper understanding of diversity. (4)

The Inherent Integrity of the Academic and the Religious

One of the more prominent themes within the literature is the inherent integrity of the academic and the religious. John Paul II’s 1990 apostolic constitution, Ex Corde Ecclesiae, opens with the concept that the privileged task of a Catholic university is "to unite existentially by intellectual effort two orders of reality that too frequently tend to be placed in opposition as though they were antithetical: the search for truth and the certainty of already knowing the fount of truth." (5) The Pontiff calls upon the Catholic university to embrace a "universal humanism" with enthusiasm, to dedicate itself completely to the research of all aspects of truth in their essential connection with the supreme Truth, who is God. (6)

John Paul II also envisions the Catholic university, with its humanistic and scientific inheritance, as playing an indispensable role in the dialogue with which the Church engages contemporary culture. As point of encounter between numerous fields of knowledge and the richness of the Gospel, the Catholic university explores the very meaning of the human person, whose dignified life is enhanced by culture. As intellectual insights and the richness of the Gospel transform human beings, so too does the culture become ever new. (7)

One of the most articulate American Catholic exponents of this belief in the inherent integrity between the academic and the religious is Michael J. Buckley of Boston College. (8) Claiming that the intrinsic relationship between the academic and the religious is the "fundamental proposition of the Catholic university," Buckley argues that any movement toward meaning and truth is inchoately religious:

To understand Catholic higher education, therefore, is to see the Catholic university as an organic fulfillment of the two drives for knowledge: the drive of inquiry toward an ultimate or comprehensive meaning that is the object of religion and the drive of Christian faith, i.e., of living within the self-giving of God in Christ and in the Spirit, toward the appropriation of this comprehensive experience in understanding. The Catholic university serves as the essential locus where the faith experience moves toward intelligence and finite intelligence moves toward completion. (10)

Catherine LaCugna echoes this same position in her essay "Some Theological Reflections on Ex Corde Ecclesiae," (11) in which she argues that to say that the Catholic university is born ex corde ecclesiae means from "the heart of the people of God whose quest for knowledge is genuinely religious. What is the heart of the Church? The heart of the Church is the Holy Spirit who is leading the Church to the fullness of truth." Noting that the desire to know all things religiously is not bestowed by the Church, LaCugna stresses that the Catholic university, nevertheless, serves as a vehicle of the One who brings all things to truth, the Holy Spirit, when it authentically searches for the truth and does so from a self-consciously Catholic perspective. The Catholic university testifies, therefore, to the belief that the search for truth is an inherently religious enterprise, regardless of the discipline.

Viewing Ex Corde Ecclesiae through the Lens of Gaudium et Spes

Speaking at the 1995 conference on American Catholic Higher Education at the University of St. Thomas, J. Bryan Hehir of Harvard University suggested a key hermeneutical principle: to read Ex Corde Ecclesiae through the lens of Gaudium et Spes (The Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World). (12) In calling upon the Church to engage the modern world seriously, Gaudium et Spes provided a rich and broad framework in which the other conciliar documents could be interpreted. In similar fashion, the document functions to give an internal Church message, namely Ex Corde Ecclesiae, the inspiration for themes such as dialogue with culture and service that permeate the 1990 apostolic constitution. The opening words of Gaudium et Spes continue to resound now and will do in future decades:

Gaudium et Spes anticipates Ex Corde Ecclesiae’s call for the Church, through its universities, to engage the human condition in the complex process of dialogue, a pattern of discussion marked by confident modesty, as Hehir describes it. With Gaudium et Spes’ view of the world as a theological object of reflection, as well as a matrix of intellectual, historical, political, cultural, and social activities, the indispensable role of the Catholic college and university is obvious. What "questions of special urgency" ought to engage the intellectual community within Catholic higher education today? (14) How do various disciplines relate to one another in the modern world? How should resources be allocated to address the most pressing problems of the contemporary world with intellectual rigor and integrity? How should this dialogic engagement with the joy and hope, the grief and anguish of the human community shape the vision of administrators and faculty in American Catholic higher education? How do faculties, in turn, craft a curriculum that is both relevant to the modern world and imaginative? Questions such as these emerge when one sees Ex Corde Ecclesiae as part of the rich tapestry of Church teaching, whose inspiration must be kept ever new in the heart of the Church.

Mission and Identity

Within the broader framework of belief in the inherent integrity of the academic and religious dimensions of the university, and a commitment to service and sustained dialogue with the culture, the Catholic university assumes a certain mission and identity. David O’Brien notes the general consensus concerning mission and identity in American Catholic higher education: that Catholic schools sustain their Catholic commitment by institutional profession (official texts that say they are Catholic), strong departments of theology or religious studies, vigorous campus ministry programs, and, in some cases, continued presence of religious in positions of administrative leadership. In addition, contributing to this sense of mission and identity are an overall campus "atmosphere" marked by personal concern for students, a warm and welcoming community, cooperative programs with the local church, and great generosity in providing services to people in need. (15)

In recent years, however, several scholars have called for a more rigorous analysis of the question of mission and identity, (16) and they do so by invoking representative themes central to the Catholic tradition. For instance, in his essay "What is a Great Catholic University?" Richard A. McCormick lists several qualities that ought to characterize a graduate of a Catholic university. (17) His first quality is having a "Catholic vision," a way of viewing the world sacramentally, that is, a vision that sees all reality as sacred in that it is grounded in God’s gracious self-communication (grace). To achieve a climate that fosters such a "sacramental" view, the community within a Catholic university must include persons, places, and events that function to mediate this way of seeing the world.

In a similar fashion, Paul C. Reinhert and Paul Shore call upon the modern Catholic university to be a place where the spiritual dimension of life is affirmed and explored not as peripheral activity but as the heart and raison d’être of the institution. (18) In reclaiming a sense of "mystery" in its mission and identity, Catholic higher education would present life not so much as a puzzle to be solved but rather as an initiation into a realm of experience that is visible only to the initiated. Continue Reinhert and Shore:

If the sacramental vision and the sense of mystery ought to characterize how the Catholic university perceives itself, so too should the sign of the cross, according to David Hollenbach. (20) Although Hollenbach acknowledges that his proposal could raise fears that the sign of the cross might sacrifice the intellectual life of the university or might limit the university’s aim to explore all systems of meaning, the Boston College scholar rejects any such uses of the Christian symbol. Instead he points to the suffering and misery that continue to shatter modernity’s hope in progress guided by enlightened rationality. Indeed, is contemporary intellectual thought doomed to nihilism? Can today’s university have any hope of uncovering a meaning of existence that sustains human life and harnesses the energies of numerous disciplines for the enhancement of human culture? queries Hollenbach.

In the face of such questions, Hollenbach situates the central symbol of the cross in the effort to articulate a Christian humanism that embraces not only the goodness of creation but also the reality of arrogance, pride, and sin. The undertakings of the contemporary university ought to flow from a conviction of compassion, "the deepest attribute of the ultimate mystery behind the many shards of our fractured world." (21) The cross, as Christian sign that the ultimate mystery that surrounds life embraces human suffering and shares human misery, points to a humanism of compassion, a message with universal implications as it challenges the university to directly confront human suffering throughout the world.

In his work concerning the mission and identity of Catholic higher education, Michael Buckley challenges mission statements that present Catholic universities as secular realities modified by the presence and the influence of the sacred, but which nevertheless remain a secular self, as if the academic and religious are extrinsic to one another. (22) Too many mission statements, according to Buckley, remain vague and indeterminate in their general commitments, failing to address the inherent integrity of the academic and religious, a fact that Buckley attributes to a diversified faculty which inhibits a rigorous and forthright statement concerning the mission and identity of the institution. Notes Buckley: "What emerges is the lowest common denominator, offending no one and subsuming the Catholic commitments of the university under general phrases about tradition and slogans that have become almost politically correct." (23)

Diversity

Within this broader thematic context, scholars situate the topic of diversity. At times, one hears the following comment at the University of St. Thomas: "How can we pursue our Catholic identity when, at the same time, we talk about diversity?" (24) Beneath such an inquiry is the belief that these two realities -- a Catholic university deeply committed to its mission and identity and the quest for diversity within such a community -- are mutually exclusive.

Yet Catholic theology, at its best, always has been open to all cultures and has been accessible to every human person through a process of inculturation. Notes the Second Vatican Council’s The Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World:

This final sentence captures the sense of mutuality within the meaning of authentic inculturation, namely that the Gospel introduces something new to a culture; at the same time the culture brings something new to one’s understanding of the Gospel. Inculturation connotes a process of integration and of encounter, of being transformed and of transforming. Authentic inculturation demands an ongoing and dynamic exchange between the Church and other cultures, a willingness to dialogue. (26)

Similarly, Vatican II’s Declaration on Religious Liberty (Dignitatis Humanae) notes the following, from which I quote at length:

The Declaration on Religious Liberty clearly recognizes the moral imperative to follow one’s conscience faithfully in all activity. Therefore one can neither be forced to act contrary to one’s conscience nor prevented from acting according to conscience, especially in religious matters.

It is within this broader context of Vatican II documents that Ex Corde Ecclesiae presents the following definition of a "University Community":

Given this theological foundation, Catholic universities, by their very nature, are fitting contexts for diversity. For this reason, Father Charles Currie, President of the Association of Jesuit Colleges and Universities, notes that racial and ethnic diversity enriches the entire educational experience, promotes personal growth and a healthy society, strengthens communities and the workplace. While early notions of a diverse community assumed an assimilation model, today’s vision bases itself on mutual respect and collaboration of differences. Claims Currie, "The process of working through the differences is an important part of creating a thriving social and intellectual multicultural community. In that perspective, quality emerges from diverse ways of thinking and acting…This can be true in the worlds of ideas, art, and culture, and certainly in education." (29) With the commitment to diversity, new writers are introduced, new forms of art and music explored, traditional ways of learning challenged, a dialogue between and among equal partners undertaken. (30)

For this reason, David Hollenbach argues for an intellectual solidarity within Catholic higher education, a willingness to take other persons seriously enough to engage them in conversation and debate about what makes life worth living, including what will contribute to the good of our deeply interdependent public life. Hollenbach contrasts intellectual solidarity with pure tolerance in that it seeks positive engagement with the other [as other] through both listening and speaking. Rooted in the hope that understanding might replace incomprehension and that perhaps even agreement could result, intellectual solidarity offers the possibility of an emerging community of freedom. (31) To this understanding of intellectual solidarity, Hollenbach adds social solidarity, that is, opening the minds of students and faculty of the university to the reality of human suffering in the world.

Conclusion

This brief overview of selected key themes points to an unambiguous movement in Catholic higher education to identify more clearly the richness of the intellectual and religious heritage of Catholic life. Catholic institutions of higher learning ought to demonstrate the oneness of all truth, engage the human community with its joy and hope, its grief and anguish, embrace a commitment to Christian humanism with its call to compassion, and provide a context of learning that appreciates the sacredness and mystery of all reality. Hope, humility, openness and a commitment to diversity -- coupled with the courage to engage the deepest expressions of human ignorance and suffering -- ought to characterize the American Catholic university, as it finds itself on pilgrimage in this modern complex world.

Footnotes

1. John Paul II, Ex Corde Ecclesiae, issued August 15, 1990 (Washington, D.C.: United States Catholic Conference, 1990).

2. Philip Gleason, Contending with Modernity: Catholic Higher Education in the Twentieth Century (New York: Oxford University Press, 1995); David J. O’Brien, From the Heart of the American Church: Catholic Higher Education and American Culture (Maryknoll: Orbis, 1994).

3. For example, Michael H. Himes and Stephen J. Pope, (eds.) Finding God in All Things: Essays in Honor of Michael J. Buckley, S.J. (New York: Crossroad Publishing Company, 1996); Current Issues in Catholic Higher Education, vol. 12, no. 1 (Summer, 1991) on the topic, "Catholic Intellectual Excellence: Challenges and Visions."

4. See Judith A. Dwyer and Charles E. Zech, "ACCU Survey of Catholic Colleges and Universities: Report on Faculty Development and Curriculum," Current Issues in Catholic Higher Education vol. 16 no. 2 (Winter, 1996) 5-24; Dwyer and Zech, "American Catholic Higher Education: An ACCU Study on Mission and Identity, Faculty Development and Curricular Revision," Current Issues in Catholic Higher Education vol. 19 no. 1 (Fall, 1998): 3-32.

5. Ex Corde Ecclesiae, #1.

6. Ibid, #4.

7. Ibid, #3, 6-11.

8. Michael J. Buckley, "The Catholic University and the Promise Inherent in its Identity," in John P. Langan (ed.) Catholic Universities in Church and Society: A Dialogue on Ex Corde Ecclesiae (Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press, 1993), 74-89.

9. Ibid, p. 82.

10. Ibid, p. 83.

11. Catherine Mowry LaCugna, The Challenge and Promise of a Catholic University, 117-125, with quote at p. 121. For a tribute to Dr. LaCugna, an award winning teacher and highly respected scholar at the University of Notre Dame who died on May 3, 1997 at the age of 44, see Lawrence S. Cunningham, "God is for Us," America vol. 176 no. 9 (31 May 1997) 6-7.

12. J. Bryan Hehir, "Observations and Conversations," Occasional Papers in Catholic Higher Education, vol. 1 no. 1 (November, 1995) 34-43.

13. Gaudium et Spes, #1 in Austin Flannery (ed.) Vatican II: The Conciliar and Post Conciliar Documents (Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans, 1988) 903.

14. See Judith A. Dwyer (ed.) Questions of Special Urgency: The Church in the Modern World Two Decades after Vatican II (Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press, 1986).

15. O’Brien, 79-80, 88.

16. David O’Brien presents a complete and clear analysis of the history of the debate on mission and identity in Catholic higher education, with positions ranging from fear of a complete loss of a Catholic identity in higher education to those who believe that all is well. I do not revisit that history here.

17. Richard A. McCormick, "What is a Great Catholic University?" in The Challenge and Promise of a Catholic University, 167-68.

18. Paul C. Reinhert and Paul Shore, The Catholic University’s Recognition of Mystery," America (27 May 1995) 17-35.

19. Ibid., 19. Reinhert and Shore acknowledge that certain tensions exist between this vision and the worldview of the natural scientist or the pragmatic perspective in the fields of business or education.

20. David Hollenbach, "The Catholic University under the Sign of the Cross," in Finding God in All Things, 279-298. See also his excellent, "Is Tolerance Enough? The Catholic University and the Common Good," in Conversations no.13 (Spring, 1998) 5-15.

21. Ibid., 293.

22. Michael J. Buckley, "The Catholic University and the Promise Inherent in its Identity," 76-82.

23. Ibid., 78. For an excellent example of a university mission statement that rejects such vagueness, see "The Mission Statement of the University of Notre Dame."

24. At the University of St. Thomas, the word "diversity" describes a broad range of issues that include differences in race, ethnicity, gender, age, physical ability, economic status, sexual orientation, and religion. See "Working Document of the Activities of the University Diversity Steering Committee 1998-1999.

25. Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World, #58.

26. Lucien Richard, "Inculturation," in Judith A. Dwyer (ed.) The New Dictionary of Catholic Social Thought (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 1994), pp. 481-83.

27. Declaration on Religious Liberty, #2-3. See also J. Leon Hooper, "Religious Freedom," in Judith A. Dwyer (ed.) The New Dictionary of Catholic Social Thought, pp. 822-26 where the author demonstrates that Vatican II’s position is a clear (and positive) development from an earlier teaching.

28. Ex Corde Ecclesiae, #21, 26.

29. Charles L. Currie, "Arguing for Diversity," AJCU Higher Education Report, 1998, pp. 3, 11-12, with quote at 11.

30. Ibid., p. 12.

31. David Hollenbach, Is Tolerance Enough? The Catholic University and the Common Good, p. 190.