Diakonia of truth and intellectual charity
The Pope was warmly received by Catholic educators when he gave his talk at The Catholic University of America yesterday. Heads or representatives of all Catholic colleges and universities had been invited as well as the heads of education departments in US dioceses. The talk was interrupted twice by applause, first when the Pope expressed the Church’s gratitude for the sacrifices and commitments, past and present, that had made our Catholic schools possible and valuable, and then when he urged that Catholic schools in poor neighborhoods not be abandoned.
Two phrases the Pope used to describe the purpose of Catholic education struck me: it was a “diakonia of truth” (service to the truth) and an embodiment of “intellectual charity.” He stressed that it was an act of love to try to communicate to students that it is possible to seek and to reach the truth and thus to help free them from the narrowness of positivism and relativism. The talk was positive in tone throughout and belied the predictions that he would offer a “stern rebuke” of our educational institutions.
The headlines today, of course, are about the Pope’s having met with survivors of clerical sex abuse. The Washington Post does have a short piece on the Pope’s comments on academic freedom, which read:
To all of you I say: bear witness to hope. Nourish your witness with prayer. Account for the hope that characterizes your lives (cf. 1 Pet 3:15) by living the truth which you propose to your students. Help them to know and love the One you have encountered, whose truth and goodness you have experienced with joy.
“The Pope didn’t offer any advice as to how conflicts between the two principles he set out are to be resolved”.
That was wise. I doubt there are any easy guides that would help. It is more a question of dispositions, virtues or the lack of them. What is needed is profound modesty and profound patience (Newman, as cited) in intellectual as in other matters. Also a certain cautious but real openness. These qualities are often missing in persons of great intelligence as well as in persons of not so great intelligence. The are not always found in spokespersons for the church–the Holy Spirit is not a ventriloquist–or in its opponents–the human mind is not the measure of all things, as in fact Plato said, answering Protagoras.
I thought the Pope’s address to Catholic Educators was impressive. It was carefully nuanced and was at times both elegant and eloquent.
I wonder what others thought of his repudiation of “statistics” as a measure of Catholic identity.
I couldn’t help checking how the Cardinal Newman Society would spin the Pope’s address. It won’t come as any surprise, but according to Patrick Reilly the Pope condemned the Vagina Monologues.
Two questions:
1) Who appeals to academic freedom “in order to justify” claims that contradict the faith? Perhaps one would appeal to academic freedom in order to justify MAKING such a claim within an academic context, but the claim itself would be justified by other claims that are appropriate for supporting the claim in question.
2) At what point does true faith become something different from faith that is not properly understood? If faith = truth, then claiming that faith cannot be false is meaningless. To say that faith might be wrongly understood would seem to suggest that truth is wrong understood, which is another way of saying that what one understands to be true is not, in fact, true; that is, it is false.
Coleen Carroll Campbell thinks she knows exactly what Benedict said and it is in complete agreement with her neocon way of thinking. This road has been very lucrative for her. http://thepope.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/04/17/a-catholic-identity-overhaul/#comment-1733
Thankfully, Peter Steinfels places Benedict’s words in perspective as does Rosemary Reuther. Obviously, there is much avoidance here and Campbell might have an argument that Benedict favors her more than people like Ted Hesburgh who has made Catholic higher education the excellent product that it is.
http://thepope.blogs.nytimes.com/
The right is spinning out of control; they seem disappointed that the Pope did not say what they wanted him to say. Check out the interpretation by the president of Ave Maria as quoted by the Kansas City Star:
Nicholas Healy, president of Ave Maria University, said he was surprised that the speech had no specific prescriptions for how schools should uphold the faith.
“My guess is that if he had been legalistic in describing that certain schools had not met certain standards, it would not have had nearly the impact this will have over time,” Healy said. “This is now a new paradigm for Catholic education in the 21st century. I think many schools are going to have to take a hard look to see whether they are following it.”
I thought that, while not a stern rebuke, this passage was intended as a course correction (so to speak) for Catholic educators. This interpretation seems especially evident when listening to the address, which becomes slow and full of emphasis throughout this passage.
This same dynamic of communal identity – to whom do I belong? – vivifies the ethos of our Catholic institutions. A university or school’s Catholic identity is not simply a question of the number of Catholic students. It is a question of conviction – do we really believe that only in the mystery of the Word made flesh does the mystery of man truly become clear (cf. Gaudium et Spes, 22)? Are we ready to commit our entire self – intellect and will, mind and heart – to God? Do we accept the truth Christ reveals? Is the faith tangible in our universities and schools? Is it given fervent expression liturgically, sacramentally, through prayer, acts of charity, a concern for justice, and respect for God’s creation? Only in this way do we really bear witness to the meaning of who we are and what we uphold.
From this perspective one can recognize that the contemporary “crisis of truth” is rooted in a “crisis of faith”. Only through faith can we freely give our assent to God’s testimony and acknowledge him as the transcendent guarantor of the truth he reveals. Again, we see why fostering personal intimacy with Jesus Christ and communal witness to his loving truth is indispensable in Catholic institutions of learning. Yet we all know, and observe with concern, the difficulty or reluctance many people have today in entrusting themselves to God. It is a complex phenomenon and one which I ponder continually. While we have sought diligently to engage the intellect of our young, perhaps we have neglected the will. Subsequently we observe, with distress, the notion of freedom being distorted. Freedom is not an opting out. It is an opting in – a participation in Being itself. Hence authentic freedom can never be attained by turning away from God. Such a choice would ultimately disregard the very truth we need in order to understand ourselves. A particular responsibility therefore for each of you, and your colleagues, is to evoke among the young the desire for the act of faith, encouraging them to commit themselves to the ecclesial life that follows from this belief. It is here that freedom reaches the certainty of truth. In choosing to live by that truth, we embrace the fullness of the life of faith which is given to us in the Church.
Clearly, then, Catholic identity is not dependent upon statistics. Neither can it be equated simply with orthodoxy of course content. It demands and inspires much more: namely that each and every aspect of your learning communities reverberates within the ecclesial life of faith. Only in faith can truth become incarnate and reason truly human, capable of directing the will along the path of freedom (cf. Spe Salvi, 23). In this way our institutions make a vital contribution to the mission of the Church and truly serve society. They become places in which God’s active presence in human affairs is recognized and in which every young person discovers the joy of entering into Christ’s “being for others” (cf. ibid., 28).
Mr. Pettit:
Re (1) Concedo.
Re (2) The doctrine of creation could be wrongly understood to mean, e.g., a) that at some point in time, God decided to create; b) that God created all the genera known to exist; c) that God’s creative power renders secondary, creaturely power superfluous; d) that God is in a real relationship to his creation; etc., etc. All of these I would argue are misunderstandings of the Christian doctrine of creation, and could cause no end of difficulties in a discussion of faith and science.
Augustine said babies are going to hell unless baptized. Now we say no. First there was limbo. Now no. It was outside the church no salvation. Now no. So how important are these kind of doctrines. The Magnificat trumps all of this and seems central. Yet the doing seems elusive.
In Haiti, India, Africa and other places our brothers are eating garbage while we cannot walk straight because we are too fat. Faith is not that difficult.
http://votfwny.blogspot.com/
I don’t see any reason to pit right against left, forever.
The Pope by my count is so far emphasizing equally the American Churches’ duties to truth, freedom, and new immigrants.