Introduction
JOHN A. RYAN INSTITUTEIntroduction
Norman Maclean once said that “The problem of self-identity is not just a problem for the young. It is a problem for all time. Perhaps the problem. It should haunt old age, and when it no longer does it should tell you that you are dead.” With the increasing discussion and debate over the question of the identity of Catholic universities, we can say that we are not dead yet—far from it.
Realizing we stand on the shoulders of a profound intellectual tradition of remarkable depth, the seminar on the Catholic Intellectual Tradition (CIT) explores some of the great books of the Catholic Tradition. It affirms the importance of this tradition by taking it seriously. As G. K. Chesterton once wrote:
Tradition means giving votes to the most obscure of all classes, our ancestors. It is the democracy of the dead. Tradition refuses to submit to the small and arrogant oligarchy of those who merely happen to be walking about. All democrats object to men being disqualified by the accident of birth; tradition objects to their being disqualified by the accident of death.
The seminar is grounded in the Aspen Style, which is designed to provide a rigorous, sustained and disciplined intellectual experience of the influential ideas forming the Catholic intellectual tradition and contemporary culture. The CIT seminar is not a think tank, nor is it for “specialists” in theology or philosophy, although a number of them do participate in the program. Nor is the seminar a quick fix to Catholic identity in the university. It proposes no curriculum or research agenda, although discussions and debates over these issues do occur. Rather, the seminar is design to engage enduring texts which both support and challenge the Catholic intellectual tradition so as to foster personal and institutional reflection on our vocation as teachers and administrators within Catholic higher education. In order to do this effectively, participants are encourage to debate, discuss and bring the fullness of their own experiences to the table as we encounter the scriptures, Augustine, Aquinas, Newman, Stein, Maritain, Day, as well as the challengers to this tradition, Machiavelli, Nietzsche, and Marx (texts will change depending on the moderator and session).
Finally, the seminar brings to light the important role Catholicism has in university life. Catholic is often translated to mean “universal,” but Walter Ong points out that we often confuse the root meanings of the world Universal (universalis) and Catholic (ka-tholikos): the etymology of universal or universalis, he states “suggests using a compass to make a circle around a central point. It is an inclusive concept in the sense that the circle includes everything within it. But by the same token it also excludes everything outside it. Universalis contains a subtle note of negativity. Ka-tholikos does not. It is more unequivocally positive. It means simply ‘through-the-whole’ or ‘through-out-the-whole.’” A Catholic education strives for connections and relationships between and among cultures, races, ideas and fields of study. It strives for “permeation of the whole” a unity of knowledge that can serve as a unity of our lives. It should always attempt to avoid a specialization that makes us partial people. This is why, as John Paul II puts it, “A faith that places itself on the margin of what is human, of what is therefore culture, would be a faith unfaithful to the fullness of what the Word of God manifests and reveals a decapitated faith, worse still, a faith in the process of self-annihilation”
