Jesuit educators offer no guarantees for
future
By PAMELA SCHAEFFER
NCR Staff Philadelphia
Officials, faculty and staff of
Jesuit colleges and universities from around the country gathered at St.
Josephs University here for five days of soul-searching on the status and
future of the Jesuit schools.
The June 25-29 meeting, the first of its kind in a decade,
reflected a significant shift, participants said, from a sense of crisis to a
sense of hope.
Secularization has lost its leading edge -- an edge it
had as recently as a decade ago, said Kathleen Orange of Spring Hill College in
Mobile, Ala. Orange, who teaches political science and directs a community
service program, asserted in an interview that a buoyant mood at
the conference reflected a turning point in Catholic higher education -- a
willingness to renew the religious mission of the schools.
Nevertheless, if there is a will, there is hardly any clear sense
of an effective way, a point made emphatically by keynote speaker Peter
Steinfels and several Jesuit leaders. We shouldnt let this end with
the conference, Steinfels said, outlining a series of problems ahead.
Jesuit Fr. Martin Tripole, associate professor of theology at St.
Josephs and organizer of the conference, said he hopes the combined
effect of the conference talks -- more than 90 in all -- will contribute to a
deeper understanding of Jesuit education. I hope this will have some
effect on how Jesuit institutions develop in the future, he said.
Tripole said videotapes of conference sessions will be available
this fall, individually or as a package, through the universitys office
of academic affairs, as will a one-hour video production showing highlights of
conference talks. The full proceedings will be published next year by St.
Joseph University Press.
Identity crisis
Concern for the future, combined with prodding from Pope John Paul
II in Ex Corde Ecclesiae, his 1990 document on Catholic identity in
higher education, has galvanized intense discussion and frenzied, if
fragmented, action aimed at preventing Catholic institutions of going the way
of, say, Harvard and Yale -- schools whose original religious missions have
long since disappeared.
Still, few if any among the Jesuit educators at this meeting,
Jesuit Education 21, were delivering guarantees. According to
Steinfels, religion and ethics columnist for The New York Times, while
survival odds have probably improved in recent years,
anything even remotely approaching a guarantee remains out of the
question. Citing a persistent gap separating discussion, insights and
action, he said, In too many cases the analyses of 10 years ago could
have been the analyses of one year ago.
Despite many efforts over the past decade to shore up Catholic
identity at Catholic colleges and universities, one cannot escape the
feeling that these efforts remain like beachheads, still isolated conquests
that threaten to remain just that and never coalesce into a breakout that would
establish secure territory -- establish, that is, a place where both
academic excellence and religious mission could flourish, Steinfels said.
Speakers noted repeatedly that Jesuit universities have been
subject to some of the same forces that have combined nationwide to create a
crisis of Catholic identity on Catholic campuses:
- A dramatic decline in numbers of U.S. Jesuits that has reduced
their presence on many campuses to a handful;
- a quest for academic excellence in recent years at the expense
of religious mission;
- increasingly diverse student bodies;
- a focus on social justice in Jesuit documents that has
attracted Jesuits to other ministries and threatened to diminish the
societys educational mission;
- a culture that requires Jesuits to compete with laypeople for
faculty and administrative positions.
Jesuit Fr. Joseph A. OHare, president of Fordham University
in New York, noted that only 22 scholastics are in training in his New York
province. Over the next 10 to 15 years, one or two Jesuits will become
available each year to support the work of our four institutions of higher
education, our nine high schools and all other ministries of the province. I do
not believe that a decline in the number of Jesuits is inevitable in the long
run. For the next 10 to 15 years, however, we know now how many Jesuits will be
available for assignment to higher education. Very few.
The number of Jesuits in the United States has dropped from 8,000
at the societys membership peak in 1965 to less than 4,000.
Educators were soothed by warm praise from a Vatican education
official. But some were dismayed when a fellow Jesuit, a canon lawyer,
expressed support for giving bishops more control over theological
education.
The Vatican official, Archbishop Giuseppe Pittau, intervened in a
heated debate that broke out shortly after his talk. He said he finds Catholic
educators in the United States to be unmatched anywhere in the world --
such a well-formed group of laypeople who are especially
well-versed in theology. After several hours in discussion I find them very
loyal to the church, but very open to the problems of today, he said.
Pittau, a Jesuit, serves as secretary for the Congregation for
Catholic Education at the Vatican.
The heated debate was prompted by remarks by Jesuit Fr. James J.
Conn, canon law professor and theology school dean at St. Marys Seminary
and University in Baltimore. Conn said he favored the report of Cardinal
Bevilacquas subcommittee as the standard for implementing Ex
Corde Ecclesiae in the United States. The subcommittee, headed by Cardinal
Anthony Bevilacqua of Philadelphia, called for, among other things, theologians
to obtain a mandate from a bishop as required by Canon 812 in the churchs
Code of Canon Law. Most U.S. college and university officials strongly oppose
such a requirement as unworkable in the American context of academic freedom.
I cannot imagine anything more harmful to the task of
theology in the United States than to demand a mandate, said Jesuit Fr.
David Hollenbach, theology professor at Boston College. To say you have
to obtain approval of a local bishop is to put a nail in the coffin. It will
kill theology to do that.
Education and justice
For many Jesuits, the relationship between the Jesuit justice
mission and the orders education apostolate has been rocky in recent
times. The societys declared focus on social justice for some was at odds
with a market-driven educational mission that, to some, often serves to shore
up the economic status quo.
In an essay in his book, Promise Renewed: Jesuit Higher
Education for a New Millennium (Loyola Press), Tripole traced the source of
confusion and division among Jesuits, which he said flourished after the
societys General Congregation 32 in 1975 and threatened to undermine its
educational mission.
Documents from that international meeting stated, The
mission of the Society of Jesus today is the service of faith, of which the
promotion of justice is an absolute requirement.
The decree was ambiguous on the definition of justice, and most
Jesuits took it to mean social justice and political action, said Tripole, the
conference organizer. Those Jesuits whose work was in that area took
heart from the statement, while those in education felt
threatened, he wrote. Some Jesuits felt this was appropriate,
because Jesuits in education had failed to turn the minds and hearts of their
often well-heeled students to a concern for the poor and oppressed.
Twenty years later, the documents of General Congregation 34 in
1995 broadened the mission statement to the service of faith and the
promotion of justice, now interpreted to mean any ministry that
promotes the coming of Gods Kingdom, Tripole wrote. It is a
definition of which education is clearly a part, he said.
Meanwhile, the potential promise and problem of lay faculty
surfaced often in formal and informal conference sessions. Lay faculty,
increasingly looked to as a resource for strengthening Catholic identity, are
paradoxically often the biggest obstacle to achieving it, even where it is an
institutional priority.
If faculty dont own this [the need for strengthening
Catholic identity], if it doesnt get into the classroom on a regular
basis, I dont think it matters what we do structurally, said John
C. Hollwitz, dean of arts and sciences at Loyola College in Maryland.
A quest for academic excellence at many Catholic schools through
the 1970s and 1980s led to hiring faculty who were, though notable in their
fields, often indifferent to the religious mission of the schools. Steinfels
said a fair number of non-Catholics have been appointed to
faculties of Catholic schools -- people who are not hostile to the
Catholic nature of the schools but who entered when little was made of
it. In some cases, those people feel as if the ground is
shifting under their feet and regard the renewed focus on Catholic
identity as unfair, he said.
Hiring for mission
Today the term hiring for mission has become one of
the most controversial planks in any proposed platform for Catholic identity.
It is an elusive concept representing for most educators not some wistful
return to the past, as some loyal alumni would like, as OHare put it, but
a yet-to-be-worked-out negotiation between the culture, the rigors of academia
and a post-Vatican II church.
How often do we meet alumni who boast that the Jesuits
taught them how to think and cite in support of this claim the large number of
philosophy courses required in an earlier generation? OHare said.
The more one knows about the content of those courses and the
qualifications of those Jesuits teaching them, the more difficult it is to take
these claims seriously.
The process of hiring for mission makes people
very nervous, especially if they were hired before the term was used,
said Jesuit Fr. Frank Haig, physics professor at Loyola College in Maryland and
former president of Le Moyne College in Syracuse, N.Y.
The task at hand is finding ways to draw people in, said Jesuit
Fr. Joseph Appleyard, newly appointed vice president for mission and ministry
at Boston College. Faculty often do not have much religious
upbringing and others raised as Catholics may have a lot of
baggage, he said. Sympathy for strengthening Catholic identity is
limited, Appleyard said, even among the Jesuit faculty. He
hopes to get Boston College faculty involved in retreats based on Ignatian
spirituality and in service programs for students.
OHare said, The fact that academic loyalties are so
often to a particular discipline rather than the central mission of the
institution can pose a serious obstacle to the renewal of the Catholic identity
of our institutions.
The challenge is not overcome, though, simply by hiring
faithful Catholics, he said, even if one could find a
reliable way to identify this particular species of Catholic. ... In
fact, he said, alienated, anticlerical Catholics can often be
particularly antagonistic to the institutions mission, while men
and women of other religious traditions or of no religious tradition can
often be the most effective supporters of our distinctive mission, he
said. Some are attracted to a tradition that poses questions of ultimate
meaning; others have a personal commitment to education for justice and the
need for a countercultural critique.
Strategic planning should begin with the question What
sets us apart? said Jesuit Fr. William J. Byron, distinguished
professor of management at Georgetown Universitys School of Business and
former president of The Catholic University of America. An ambiguous
answer sounds an uncertain trumpet in the campaign for Catholic students,
faculty and money, Byron said. Such a strategy does not mean we
dont welcome a pluralism of faith communities and a variety of
points of view, he said.
U.S. JESUIT SCHOOLS FACTS AND FIGURES |
Universities and colleges
28 Students 200,000 Faculty 19,000 Alumni 1.4 million
Combined endowment $5.5 billion
Institutional financial aid $538
million Federal and state financial
aid $812 million |
Many speakers said it is a grounding in Ignatian spirituality --
the spirituality of Ignatius of Loyola, the 16th-century founder of the Jesuits
-- that sets Jesuit schools apart. Members of the order, formally known as the
Society of Jesus, were to strive always for the greater glory of
God through action rooted in contemplation. But Kevin Duffy, vice
president of student affairs at Boston College, one of 300 conference
participants, said university faculty are often left confused. You hear
the terms Jesuit and Ignatian used like pepper and
salt, he told NCR. Its tough to get people on
board with a mission if they have no idea what it is.
Ronald Modras, theology professor at St. Louis University, is
planning to tell the story of Jesuit humanism in a book he is writing by
illustrating its incarnation in notable Jesuits through history. He undertook
the project, he said, because he found the Jesuits he worked with had a hard
time articulating their distinctiveness.
For others who serve the schools, a distinction between
Jesuit identity and a less acceptable Catholic identity
is alluring. OHare, Fordham president, was among several speakers who
warned that the distinction is invalid and potentially dangerous.
At the risk of stating the obvious, let me say that it is
more important that Catholic higher education survive in the United States than
that the special subset of Catholic colleges and universities that are Jesuit
in inspiration and direction survive. That said, the Jesuit tradition
possesses tremendous resources to aid in that survival, he added.
Pursuit of excellence
Jesuit Fr. Francis X. Clooney, theology professor at Boston
College, warned, however, against shifting the focus from academic excellence
to religious identity. Do not be ashamed to say we are excellent,
just like other institutions. But once we have that, we should say
excellence is not enough, he said. Clooney, an expert in Hinduism, also
warned against marginalizing voices from other religions and cultures. Plato
and Aristotle, along with a host of others who have made significant
contributions to Catholic thought, not only were non-Catholics, they
didnt go to Jesuit schools, he said.
Lisa Sowle Cahill, theology professor at Boston College, said,
The fact that we at Boston College have an ongoing
Christian-Muslim-Jewish trialogue headed up on our campus by a
young woman rabbi is not a compromise of our Catholic identity but a
fulfillment of its truly ecumenical, incarnational and global potential.
Further, she said, religious traditions can be well-served by
exposure to postmodern and liberal critiques. Religious traditions can in
fact be undemocratic, often unjustifiably so, as is so sadly
revealed by official ecclesial investigations of many moral theologians past
and present, several of whom were subsequently vindicated by theological
consensus and church teaching alike, she said.
As another example, she cited the march of European Christianity
in the New World in a very unChristian mood of conquest and
exploitation, creating the social conditions that half a millennium later
necessitate conscience re-education through solidarity with the poor.
The gap within
Denise Carmody, religious studies professor at Santa Clara
University, cited a gap inside Jesuit institutions between the societys
commitment to promote justice -- the convocation rhetoric -- and
reality. The institutions are playing catch-up when it comes to
hiring women and hiring for diversity, she said. Another measure of
institutional justice would be to ask whether salaries at the low end of an
institutions pay scale could be published without
embarrassment, she said.
Student life on campus is another sensitive area, according to
Jesuit Fr. Thomas P. Rausch. Now that the model is no longer in
loco parentis, the culture is not much different from that of secular schools.
Rausch is professor and chair of theological studies at Loyola Marymount, Los
Angeles.
Alcohol abuse remains a problem, he said, as does
poor class attendance, no restrictions on coed visiting. Many students
are sexually active. Its difficult to see anything Catholic or Christian
about the atmosphere, Rausch said.
It wont do to say Christianity is humanistic, so we
can be like all the other universities around us, said Hollenbach. The
question Why are we doing this anyway? needs to be at the
center of our focus.
For Orange, that question is easier to answer after the high
school massacre this spring at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colo.
Faith is coming to be more important to people as we see young people
falling apart, she said. The need young people have for formation
in values is now everywhere apparent.
For one of a few speakers from outside the United States, the
question Why are we doing this? hardly needs to be asked.
Jesuit Fr. Charles J. Beirne, academic vice president at
Universidad Rafael Landivar in Guatemala, described the stark context of Jesuit
higher education there.
I live in a country where just a little over a year ago, and
less than 48 hours after he presented a devastating report on decades of
barbarism, a bishop was stoned to death in his rectory, just five miles away
from my residence in Guatemala City, Beirne said.
Our Jesuit universities have to help integrate ethical
considerations into a world at times comfortable with corruption, he
said. My martyred predecessor as academic vice president at the [Central
American University] in El Salvador, Nacho Martin-Baro, a University of Chicago
graduate in psychology, used to say, For us its a question of
publishing and perishing.
But the war is over in Guatemala now, bullets have stopped
flying and education can get on with the task of trying to make a
difference with scant resources in a land that feels more like Good
Friday than Easter Sunday. ...
Is there a future for Jesuit higher education in the Third
World? Is there ever! he said. Even though we are painfully
conscious of our limitations, yet we are spurred on by day-to-day contact with
desperate needs.
National Catholic Reporter, July 16,
1999
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