I mentioned a couple of days ago a link Derek sent me to an editorial by the president of Trinity College. As Derek said, it’s got a lot of problems — it’s very fisk-worthy, though I’ve not got the time to fisk it today. Mark was reading it last night, and he pointed out something that explains quite well the source of the dissonance between the writer and Pope Benedict:
The mission of Catholic higher education is to educate citizen leaders to enable them to address these grave moral and social challenges with conscience, conviction and intellectual strength.
"Anything missing from this statement?" scoffed Mark.
In that editorial Patricia McGuire makes a great show of loyalty to John Paul II’s Ex Corde Ecclesiae. This is what Ex Corde Ecclesiae says is the mission of higher education:
Its purpose is that "the Christian mind may achieve, as it were, a public, persistent and universal presence in the whole enterprise of advancing higher culture and that the students of these institutions become people outstanding in learning, ready to shoulder society’s heavier burdens and to witness the faith to the world"(12).
Spirit of Vatican II alert! The quotes and the (12) refer to the declaration on Catholic education from the documents of Vatican II. If you like, you can go to the document and read a section entitled "The Mission of Service of a Catholic University," with sub-headings entitled "Service to Church and Society," "Pastoral Ministry," "Cultural Dialogue," and "Evangelization," and details spelled out under each explaining how a Catholic university is to fulfill each of these missions.
Ah, it’s easy to address challenges with conviction. It takes a little more work to address them with a conviction. Patricia McGuire cannot tell the difference.
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