Catholics on Campus
Tim Reidy’s new article in Commonweal on campus ministry at Princeton is the kind of thick, juicy piece of reporting and analysis that makes me want to invite Tim back out to San Francisco so I can argue with him over Irish Coffees at the Buena Vista.
Tim’s argument is that an increasing number of campus ministry programs are presenting a vision of the Catholic faith that appears to discourage intellectual wrestling with Church teaching and that favors more traditional forms of piety over other ways of being Catholic. Tim wonders whether this narrowness is discouraging more Catholics from participating in campus ministry activities and whether students are being adequately equipped to deal with challenges to their faith that they will encounter as students and ultimately as adults living in a religiously diverse society.
I hope I got that right and I’ll count on Tim to correct me if I didn’t.
Now I think Tim and I are probably in agreement that if your campus ministry speakers’ list is drawing primarily on the Neuhaus-Weigel-Novak team, then you are certainly getting a somewhat one-sided view of things Catholic, particularly on issues related to the economic, social and foreign policies of the United States. Why not, for example, Cardinal Theodore McCarrick on the responsibilities of Catholic politicians? Or former Archbishop John Quinn offering his views on the exercise of papal primacy that were inspired by John Paul II’s encyclical Ut Unum Sint? Both are somewhat bete noires in conservative circles, but they are solidly in the mainstream of the tradition. Students should know that the “theology of the body” is just that—a theology—and does not possess, in and of itself, magisterial authority.
Now let me offer a couple of areas where Tim and I may differ moderately. I have no problem with campus ministry programs emphasizing catechetics over social action, which appears to be part of the subtext of Tim’s argument. As noted by a number of regular Commonweal contributors over the years like Peter Steinfels, John Cavadini and Dean Hoge, the level of religious literacy among teenage and young adult Catholics is simply appalling. One of my own professors at the JSTB recalls the time that an undergraduate told him how excited she was to find out there were actually books you could read about your faith. I’m not against having social action be a component of campus ministry. But as I like to tell my clients, strategy is about making choices and if I was a campus minister with limited resources and time, liturgy and catechesis are what I would focus on.
I’m also not convinced that making a self-conscious effort to root oneself deeply in a tradition makes it more difficult for you to intellectually engage your faith. Are those who participate regularly in Aquinas Institute programs really less able to do this than Catholics formed by other types of campus ministry programs? One can disagree deeply with someone like Robert George about many things, but there’s no question his arguments have intellectual rigor. While I don’t accept everything in the neoconservative critique of higher education in the United States, it seems inarguable that university students these days are far more likely to be exposed to intellectually rigorous liberalism than intellectually rigorous conservatism. With regard to Catholics colleges and universities, I think that students are far more likely to be exposed to critiques of certain controversial Church teachings than a full-throated defense.
Finally, I’m not as disappointed as Tim that the Aquinas Institute only seems to involve about 30 percent of Princeton Catholic students in its activities. Given how well campus ministry programs were doing when I went to college that seems to be a pretty respectable number. One could always hope for more, certainly, but I’m not necessarily convinced that a more “inclusive” approach would yield significant gains.
That said, I thoroughly enjoyed the article and I hope Tim (and others) can take some time to respond to my reflections.
Hi Peter,
Thanks for your comments on this. Let me add a few from my own perspective as a campus minister.
If I understand Tim correctly, he’s saying that campus ministries that bring in well known academics who accept Church teaching and who engage the secular environment with this teaching, and that provide for traditional expressions of Catholic faith are 1) somehow doing less than they should and 2) even driving students away.
Let’s look at the context which he doesn’t discuss. Too many campus ministries became experimentation centers where you heard everything except Church teaching; where you could walk labyrinths and know your Enneagram number but be snubbed if you wanted to pray the rosary. Others became social action clubs–or even mere social clubs–that didn’t bother presenting the Catholic faith in an intellectually sophisticated manner or inviting people to faith in Jesus Christ.
Newman Centers are centers of evangelization–they exist to support Catholic students, to promote Catholic teaching, and to engage university culture.
It seems to me that Princeton is a model of a good Newman Center, as is St. Mary’s at Texas A&M University, and St. John’s at University of Illinois–and many, many, many, more that are doing the same kinds of things.
As to whether students are somehow staying away — again, wrong perspective. As students have become more interested in orthodox Christianity, and Newman Centers stayed in the hands of aging boomers, those students who wanted more substance often went to neighboring parishes rather than to the Newman Center.
Empowered by the Spirit, the Bishops 1985 pastoral plan, calls us to have a broad-based ministry that includes catechesis, evangelization, personal development, justice education, etc. But faithfulness to the Church’s teaching has to undergird all of this. A Newman Center can’t do everything–but a good Newman Center will be a place where various movements and groups which are in union with the Church and authentic Catholic teaching can work together.
I sometimes think some folks in campus ministry are a little insecure; they feel threatened by students who are bold in their defense of the faith; they are threatened by the Holy Father; they feel threatened when other campus ministries actually start getting a reputation for orthodoxy; they feel threatened when students turn from them to Catholic ministries that give the students more meat. They feel that these folks are somehow out to get them. Maybe they should come to see that no, these folks are just hungering and thirsting for the faith once delivered to the saints.
The touchstone is not whether dissenting views are welcome, as Tim would seem to suggest, it’s whether the Newman Centers actually provide a home to Catholic students and Catholic teaching and welcome all Catholic movements that are supported by the local bishop.
I would agree that in reality, today, students are far more likely to be exposed to “intellectually rigorous liberalism than intellectually rigorous conservatism” on college campuses. While this might reflect the at large experience, one cannot deny, as Tim Reidy has pointed out in the article, that there are trends on the other end of the spectrum that are gaining in prominence.
The end of the spectrum that Aquinas Institute represents has a somewhat loud and definitely growing voice on today’s college and university campus’s, both Catholic or otherwise. One of the challenges that Campus Ministers face is striking a balance while keeping students engaged in the church and their faith in a mature way. Wrestling with questions of the church and coming to divergent points of view is important, and we need to foster a church that is home to those multiple conclusions. My fear is that the folks like the Aquinas Institute are fostering not only an attitude of rigorous self-defined “orthodoxy”, but also a church that will not tolerate those who find answers that are different from their own.
Tim Reidy’s article is excellent, I truly enjoyed it.
Luke Timothy Johnson is bringing “The Da Vinci Code, the Culture Wars, and the New Gnosticism” to our Michigan State University student parish Saturday.
I’m not really interested in another discussion about the Da Vinci Code, but I might attend in light of Tim Reidy’s article to see who shows up and how it goes.
The parish attracts a lot of people from the surrounding area who feel the student parish is more liberal. I have only been there for funerals, so I don’t really have a sense of what it’s like, except that there are no kneelers.
Further point, Peter, let me echo your comments about the 30% figure.
Consider the case of a state university with 50,000 students, and assume that 25% were Catholic, or about 13,000. Thirty per cent would be nearly 4,000 students, and I somehow doubt any of our Newman Centers at large state universities gets anywhere near that number of students, even on Ash Wednesday. So Tim’s off base for criticizing Princeton’s ministry for attracting 30%, as if this were somehow a low number.
I’m glad to see my article is provoking some debate. Peter makes a number of good points; let me see if I can respond to some of them. First, I think Peter’s right that, considering that many college students know little about the faith, catechesis must be a part of any campus ministry program. But what do we mean by catechesis? Are we talking about CCD classes? Lessons in the Catechism? That is what the chaplaincy offers at Princeton, and it only attracts a small group of students. I’m not surprised, given the range of other intellectual activities available on campus. Chaplains need to find ways to entice students to learn about their faith. Cultivating a vibrant intellectual life is an excellent way to do that, especially at an Ivy League university where students are accustomed to sophisticated intellectual inquiry.
I did not mean to imply that social action programs should take priority over catechesis. In fact, I wrote a short piece for Commonweal a few years ago laying out my problems with campus ministry programs that put too much emphasis on social action. My principal problem with Princeton’s program is that it presents a narrow view of the Catholic tradition. Would it help if people like McCarrick and Quinn were invited to campus? Certainly. I would also add Bryan Hehir, John Noonan, Lisa Cahill, and David Hollenbach to that list.
Are students who are grounded in the faith able to engage the larger community? It depends upon the model of engagement that they adopt. Robby George and others at Princeton and have adopted a “culture of life” vs. “culture of death” model. Now while I agree that Catholic students should not be afraid to challenge to secular values of the university, they should also try to find areas of common ground. This is in keeping with a Thomistic model of engagement, which emphasizes the commonalities between the church and the culture. When you continually demonize “secular orthodoxy,” as Robby George does, I think it’s much more difficult to find that common ground.
Peter and Bill note that reaching 30 percent of Catholic students isn’t half bad. I think they set the bar too low. The CARA studies on campus ministry indicate that students who take part in these programs are much more likely to be active members of their parish community. If we want to increase participation by Catholics in general, then we should devote more resources to campus ministry. Will the campus ministry program I envision be more effective than the tradition model? I think so. If you show students that Catholicism is a living tradition, one that welcomes their doubt and their questions, then I think they will think twice before dismissing the church as antiquated or out-of-touch.
“If you show students that Catholicism is a living tradition, one that welcomes their doubt and their questions, then I think they will think twice before dismissing the church as antiquated or out-of-touch.”
Tim, that’s what many campus ministries offered for the past thirty years — doubt and questions. It too often became a place in which campus ministers vented their own insecurities. That did nothing to build up the faith of Catholic young adults.
Orthodox campus ministries are vibrant and growing, because they aren’t afraid to give answers to those questions.