Opinion
Pope Benedict Clamps Down on Catholic Higher Education?
By Richard J. Bishirjian, Ph.D.
Mar 14, 2008, 14:50

Those of us who were non-Catholics but chose to pursue a postgraduate degree at a Catholic university during the 1960s found a higher education community in turmoil.  Vatican II had unleashed reforms championed by liberal Catholics and less stringent rules came to govern Catholic priests and nuns. 

I remember watching with some amazement as Catholic seminarians chose to earn their postgraduate degrees from secular institutions.  Around that time I took an accelerated course in Latin studies that attracted adult males with what was called “belated vocations.”  A good percentage of my classmates were obviously conflicted about their gender.  In this instance, the stern Jesuit in charge ran them out of town thus saving future generations the embarrassment and expense of child abuse that has bankrupted many Catholic dioceses and religious orders.

Also around that time presidents of leading Catholic universities committed to make their institutions more academic by removing restrictions on hiring of non-Catholics.  Vocations tanked, orders of women religious went out of existence, the few Catholic women’s colleges that refused to become coeducational went out of existence, and Universities like Notre Dame, Holy Cross, Georgetown University and all other Jesuit institutions lost their Catholic identity.  This had a negative effect on the job prospects of those of us who were educated at Catholic institutions and wanted to teach in a religion-influenced academic environment.  The Catholic colleges that could be depended upon to hire Catholics chose non-Catholics.  This ‘lost generation’ of Catholic trained educators left the teaching profession and Catholic higher education lost some bright and principled talent. 

Pope John Paul II became so concerned that he issued an encyclical laying down the guidelines for institutions that called themselves “Catholic.”  The minimum standards he set were a Faculty that was 50% Catholic.  Notre Dame, Georgetown, Holy Cross and dozens of other ‘Catholic’ universities chose not to call themselves “Catholic.”  Visit the websites of institutions run by members of the Jesuit order and you’ll find that these institutions refer to themselves as “Jesuit,” not “Catholic.”

Today the Washington Post reports that Pope Benedict will make a major speech on Catholic higher education when he visits Washington, D.C. next month.  Some expect him to live up to his reputation as doctrinaire enforcer of orthodoxy which was his role under the Pontificate of Pope John Paul II.  My guess is that Pope Benedict is too rooted in the tradition of German higher education to engage in anything that would sully his reputation amongst the educator classes.  On the other hand, events at institutions like Notre Dame where that college’s administration has affirmed its commitment to ‘academic freedom’ as opposed to Catholic orthodoxy, and appeals from conservative laymen to “do something,” will compel Pope Benedict to speak loudly, but carry a twig.

European Catholics don’t have a ‘feel’ for the secularization of American society that began in the 1950s and which has dissolved the authority of Church, corporations, elected officials and parents.  They don’t know how far Catholic institutions of higher education have fallen, nor do they have a clue about what to do about it.  A recent publication of the Newman Society that ranks “Catholic” higher education has a special chapter explaining why many traditional Catholic institutions are not ranked.  The reason?  They’re not Catholic.  Included in that chapter are some institutions that in the popular mind are the epitome of “Catholic.”

What then can Pope Benedict do?  He can declaim, but that won’t encourage reform.

He can chastise, but leading Catholic colleges and universities couldn’t care less what the Pope thinks of them.  What Pope Benedict can do is conduct a tour d’horizon of the decline of Catholic higher education and pledge to finance twenty new colleges and universities in twenty American cities with a bequest of $50 million each.

The financing will arrive at Pope Benedict’s doorstep within a week and true competition will be introduced into Catholic higher education.

Will Pope Benedict think of that?  It’s doubtful.  European higher education is state education.  In Pope Benedict’s homeland, there is one Catholic University of Eichstatt which is a state university created by the Bavarian (mostly Catholic) state government and the Bishops of Bavaria. 

In England where a once proud Anglican communion nourished the spiritual needs of the British, only one private university exists, founded by Margaret Thatcher and Michael Oakeshott. 

There are no state solutions for private Catholic higher education in the United States, however, only private solutions.