By JAMES K. FITZPATRICK
I am not sure if “canon law colleges” is an official, or even a commonly used, term for Catholic colleges that publicly comply with the Church’s higher-education requirements, specifically canon 812 (the so-called mandatum) and canon 833 (the Oath of Fidelity), directing Catholic colleges to be “faithful to the teachings of the Catholic Church.” I came across it for the first time in a column by Tom Hoopes in a recent edition of the National Catholic Register. Perhaps it is just a shorthand expression that Hoopes uses to describe these colleges.
In any event, Hoopes used the term in making the point that it is worth the expense to attend these schools, even though that may not be the case with the bigger and better-known Catholic colleges that do not abide by the mandatum. Numerous surveys have shown that students who attend Catholic colleges that refuse to comply with the mandatum tend to graduate from these institutions with a decreased commitment to the Catholic faith and with attitudes largely indistinguishable from students who graduate from public and private, nondenominational colleges.
Hoopes, a 1990 graduate of the St. Ignatius Institute in San Francisco, now a writer in residence at Benedictine College in Kansas, points out that the results are different at “canon law colleges.” He maintains these schools are “worth it.”
“When a school takes the Church’s directives seriously, the result is impressive. Rather than lose their religion, students rediscover their faith on campus or discover it for the first time. At Benedictine, for instance, the students in the campus’ Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults program are in the double digits every year.”
Hoopes writes of “horror stories” that he hears from students who transfer to Benedictine from “big state universities and noncompliant Catholic universities,” relating how their beliefs about abortion, premarital sex, and the definition of marriage were “aggressively challenged” at their former schools. “Such schools often teach a doctrine of tolerance that adds up to intolerance toward adherents to the world’s major religions.” It is a familiar story.
Hoopes closes with the following: “The money I spent to go to a profoundly Catholic program for college has paid off enormously. I am still in regular contact with many of the students I met in college. They are successful people, both in financial terms and in human terms. The words of the mentors I met in college still ring in my mind at critical times. Without my Catholic college education, I wouldn’t have the wife I have, I wouldn’t have nine children, and I wouldn’t be dedicating my life to helping more people discover what I did.
“Is Catholic college worth it? There is no doubt that Catholic colleges should be more affordable. Attention donors: The best way to do that is through endowed scholarships. But if it is a truly Catholic, truly academic place, there is no doubt in my mind that it is worth it. If I could do it all again, with what I know now, I would be willing to pay even more for what I received.”
Which Catholic colleges fit Hoopes’ definition a “truly Catholic” college? According to the web site Catholic Answers, the following schools abide by the mandatum:
Aquinas College — Nashville, Tenn.
Ave Maria University — Naples, Fla.
Belmont Abbey College – Belmont, N.C.
Benedictine College — Atchison, Kans.
Creighton University — Omaha, Neb. DeSales University — Center Valley, Pa.
Franciscan University of Steubenville — Steubenville, Ohio
Magdalen College — Warner, N.H.
Our Lady of Holy Cross College — New Orleans
St. Gregory’s University — Shawnee, Okla.
University of Dallas — Dallas, Texas
University of St. Thomas — Houston, Texas
Those with the Oath of Fidelity (schools whose theology faculties have taken fidelity oaths in lieu of the mandatum, usually because they are in dioceses where the local bishop does not offer the mandatum) are Christendom College in Front Royal, Va., and Thomas Aquinas College in Santa Clara, Calif.
We would add Wyoming Catholic College and Thomas More College in Merrimack, N.H., and First Teachers would appreciate hearing from readers if there are any schools that we have missed and that deserve to be on this list.
On another topic: tenure rules. Writing in the April 14 edition of America magazine, Fr. Raymond A. Schroth, SJ, has come up with a suggestion for how to reform the system. Schroth is aware of the public’s impatience with the status quo. Without exception, correspondents to First Teachers share this impatience. They have heard the stories of incompetent, irresponsible, and reprobate teachers who have to be kept on the payroll in our public schools because of the protection afforded them by their tenure. Schroth writes of the students in California who “sued the state over a policy that grants tenure to a teacher after only 18 months; then the school is basically stuck with him or her forever.”
Schroth is aware of the position held by most teachers; that they tend to agree “that only tenure can keep teachers from being arbitrarily fired.”
(It has been my experience that even the most politically and culturally conservative teachers agree that there is a need for tenure. I can recall several times during my years teaching in a public high school when I was convinced that newly elected school board members would have let go the best and most experienced teachers on the staff to keep taxes under control, if they were legally permitted to do so. In private business a skilled and dedicated worker can make his worth obvious on the company’s bottom line. It is not as easy for a veteran teacher to demonstrate how much more he is worth compared to a first-year teacher.)
What does Schroth recommend? First, that tenure not be granted until the sixth year of employment. And that it should be the result of specific and detailed evaluations, not the mere completion of time on the job. “Norms should be the same: teaching, research and publication, and community service.”
(He makes clear that the “research and publication” requirement he envisions for elementary and high school teachers needs to be different from what is required of college professors; that it need not “resemble the scholarly tomes of research university professors,” but could be “articles, book reviews, and presentations” at teacher conferences.)
He insists that “chairpersons and deans should evaluate every teacher every year with several class visits, student interviews, and syllabus analysis…concluding with a written evaluation signed by the dean, chair, and teacher with the teacher’s strengths and weaknesses detailed. Committee work demonstrates one’s service to the immediate community.”
Schroth concedes that his recommendations would require more time and money than the current system, but says that, quoting Jacques Barzun, there is a need for a “severe winnowing of the unfit at every phrase of a long apprenticeship” if we expect to build and maintain a high-quality faculty in our schools. Schroth adds, “The future of American democracy is at stake.”
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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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