By JAMES K. FITZPATRICK
The Cardinal Newman Society devoted a recent newsletter to statements made by the recently deceased Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia about the state of our modern Catholic colleges. It offers evidence for why Scalia will be greatly missed.
The newsletter begins with comments by Scalia at one of the Newman Society’s conferences in October of 1997. Scalia used the opportunity to urge Catholic colleges to retain their Catholic religious identity to combat the rising relativism and secularism of modern society:
“The American landscape is strewn with colleges and universities, many of them the finest academically in the land, that were once denominational, but in principle or practice no longer are. With foolish sectarian pride I thought that could never happen to Catholic institutions. Of course I was wrong. We started later, but we are on the same road.”
Scalia urged secularizing Catholic colleges to consider the patrimony they are rejecting: “Part of the task of a Catholic university, at least at the undergraduate level, must be precisely moral formation. Catholic universities cannot avoid that task, and indeed betray the expectations of tuition-paying, Catholic parents if they shirk it.”
The newsletter quotes from a speech Scalia made at Duquesne University School of Law’s Centennial Celebration in Pittsburgh in September 2011: “Our educational establishment these days, while so tolerant of and even insistent on diversity in all other aspects of life, seems bent on eliminating the diversity of moral judgment, particularly moral judgment based on religious views. I hope this place will not yield, as some Catholic institutions have, to this politically correct insistence upon suppressing moral judgment, to this distorted view of what diversity in America means.”
Scalia rejected the claim that we often hear that an emphasis on moral formation at the university is anti-intellectual and sectarian. Moral formation, he told the audience at Duquesne, “has nothing to do with making students better lawyers, but everything to do with making them better men and women….Moral formation is a respectable goal for any educational institution, even a law school. Religious educational institutions from universities down to local schools are not strangers to the American scene. They are as American as apple pie. A Catholic law school should be a place where it is clear, though perhaps unspoken, that the here-and-now is less important, when all is said and done, than the hereafter.”
Are there modern Catholic colleges that have not forgotten their reason for being, as described by Scalia? J.B., a physician from Alabama, says there are, offering praise for the University of Dallas, which J.B. describes as “a faithfully Catholic college in Irving, Texas.” J.B. writes:
“My wife and I have been thrilled with the University of Dallas, as has our son. Its academic standards are superb, working from a Great Books curriculum while also ably preparing students in a number of non-liberal arts fields such as pre-med, pre-law, chemistry, physics, mathematics, etc. Our son is a physics major there. We are told that something on the order of 85 percent or more of the university’s undergraduates who wish to go to medical school are admitted, and a similar percentage to law school. UD is academically rigorous, and was once labeled as the finest undergraduate Catholic university in the country by George Weigel, Pope St. John Paul II’s official biographer. (The other contenders for that title would be Thomas Aquinas in California, Franciscan University in Steubenville, Ohio, and Christendom College in Virginia.)”
J.B. continues, “I think your readers should know that the University of Dallas has its very own campus in Marino, Italy — a magnificent campus courtesy of a wealthy donor, within sight of Castelgandolfo, exclusive to UD. UD students typically spend one semester in their sophomore year at the Rome campus, where sleeping rooms remain segregated by sex. There, the students continue the core curriculum of great books while spending long weekends exploring Europe, mostly staying in youth hostels while doing so. Our son has already traveled with 14 friends to Barcelona, Spain, and seen the Sagrada Familia; and to the south of France; and as of this week, his whole class has journeyed to Greece for a week, to study the classics amidst the ruins of the pre-Christian Greece.
“His class has already been to St. Peter’s, toured many churches in Rome, as well as the Colosseum; and seen the tomb of St. Peter, under the altar of St. Peter’s Basilica. UD students are privileged to be one of only about 20 schools worldwide to be allowed into the temple at the Acropolis. Your readers will appreciate that UD’s Irving campus has undergone considerable beautification, and has had several new buildings opening recently. The dorms are in separate buildings for men and women (except for one married students’ dorm).
“There is daily Mass; Confession is readily available, with priests on campus, as well as across the road at a Cistercian Abbey and at the Holy Apostles Seminary next door. There is a highly regarded Gupta School of Business, courtesy of generous donations by two UD alumni, in a beautiful new building on UD’s campus, offering graduate degrees in business.
“We (my wife and I) have a friend in medical management in Dallas who has told us that UD graduates are prize hires for many firms, because they ‘know how to think,’ according to this person. Indeed, graduation from UD requires completion of a thesis worthy of a graduate degree. No wonder that routinely 95 to 100 percent of UD students already have jobs lined up before graduation day, even in these tough economic times.
“Last but not least, we should point out that UD often leads to young men and women meeting and eventually marrying — finding one’s faithful Catholic soul mate is a frequent occurrence at UD. We have heard people say that ‘Yeah, half the class marries the other half at UD.’ (Not entirely true, because priestly and religious life vocations do spring from UD fairly often.)”
J.B. goes on to note that “as a baby boomer myself, I can’t help but feeling betrayed. Not only have most of our erstwhile Catholic colleges betrayed the faith, but the bishops have steadfastly refused to take leadership roles in correcting these institutions; and, so far as I can tell, have failed to speak publicly against sending our sons and daughters to these schools.”
First Teachers would welcome letters from parents with good things to say about other Catholic colleges. As well as letters from those with less satisfactory experiences. It is our hope that First Teachers can serve as a sounding post to help parents become aware of what is happening at American colleges, which very often is markedly different from the impression that is given in the school’s glossy admission brochures.
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Readers are invited to submit comments and questions about this and other educational issues. The e-mail address for First Teachers is fitzpatrijames@sbcglobal.net, and the mailing address is P.O. Box 15, Wallingford CT 06492.
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