Idea And Prospects Of A Center For Catholic Studies At A Public Institution Of Higher Learning, The
(Remarks given at the Opening Gala of the Center for Catholic Studies, Nassau Community College, Garden City, New York, April 22nd, 2001)
Theoretically, the instituting of a Center for Catholic Studies at a public institution of higher education (in the specific case at hand, at Nassau Community College of the State University of New York) is easily justified. This is so because the ever expanding corpus of Catholic social thought and the ever evolving cultural heritage of the Catholic religion represents a source that can enrich both the intellectual-scholarly-academic mission of the university and its moral-ethical-social policy concerns to help construct a Good Society based on truth, beauty, and justice. However, theoretical justifications, no matter how intrinsically persuasive, logical, and reasonable, oftentimes are casualties to a host of other empirical, historical, and political realities. One doesn't have to be an expert in American history and the history of higher education in this country to realize that what Michael Schwartz has claimed to be the case in the general society is, if anything, even more true in the academy, i.e., that Catholicism has been subject to the "persistent prejudice." On the other hand, in the specific case of Nassau Community College, the prospects for a Center for Catholic studies are enhanced somewhat by a series of factors: the existence of an administration that understands that the logic of multi-culturalism must be inclusive, the presence of at least several college trustees who have demonstrated a willingness and ability to resist political correctness, by the courage of at least a few Catholic college professors willing to risk their faith commitments exiting the catacombs and becoming public, and the presence of a significant core of serious and influential Catholic citizens in the surrounding community who desire, very strongly, to see the concept take on flesh.
The Catholic contributions to the serious academic calling are many, even if any one contribution is not specifically or solely a Catholic one. First of all, Catholicism claims that there is an objective reality in the nature of things that can be reached through the critical application of reason and that can be plausibly demonstrated through empirical application. Secondly, the universal thrust of the Catholic sensibility breeds within its faithful adherents a sense of obligation to pursue the truth courageously in a non-politically correct manner and to be fair-minded and even-handed to the students and all others in one's dealings in the academic community.
Thirdly, there is a philosophically distinctive and historically demonstrable Catholic contribution to scholarship based on the Catholic religion's understanding of itself as incarnational, sacramental, and integrative — that can only enrich and enlighten students and intellectual discourse in general. Catholicism, in short, can make a contribution to just about everything that goes on within the university, especially in the humanities and social sciences.
Fourthly, Catholicism advocates what might be termed a "realistic interdisciplinary" approach to academic study, one showing the good fruits of intellectual exchanges between and among such disciplines as biology, psychology, sociology, philosophy, and theology which has as its goal the comprehension of as much of ultimate truth as is humanly possible. Fifthly, in "spanning the ages," Catholicism's memory brings with it the insights of many cultures and historical ages and, just as importantly, the lesson that tradition can be dynamic and relevant to the modern age.
Sixthly, Catholic social thought brings to the academic plate a host of important natural law concepts (e.g. subsidiarity, solidarity, personalism, the universal purpose of goods) and philosophical anthropological claims regarding the inherent nature, freedom, and responsibility of human beings as social creatures that can and should be debated honestly within the academy regarding either their scholarly utility or applicability in social policy to aid in the social reconstruction of society along more humane lines.
The social encyclicals of the Popes and other elements of Catholic social doctrine have something intelligent and important to say about all aspects of social existence. These include, among many others, an understanding of the family as the basic unit of society, the need for other intermediary institutions to protect against the monopolistic tendencies of either the State or corporate capitalism, the requirements of a just economy and polity, the creation of work that is dignified and inherently meaningful, the inclusion of spiritual issues in a discussion of human and social potential and, conversely, poverty; the moral obligation of wealthier societies to those poorer; a balanced understanding of environmental responsibilities, the rights and obligations of unions, and the protection and development of life from the moment of conception throughout the life course.
However, today the claim that Catholicism can add something important, indeed perhaps indispensable, to the academy and to the larger Republic is, at very best, a hard sell. The contemporary prospects of a Center for Catholic Studies at a public institution of higher education are less than the merit of the idea itself. This is not the case, again, due to any intrinsic deficiency in the Catholic tradition, but primarily because of the pervasive anti-Catholic bias historically present throughout the greatest part of American history, first generated by a generic and hegemonic Protestantism and now by an almost pristine secularism approaching monopolistic status in the American public sphere. It is important to point out that the Catholic community, or at least a major part of it, also must bear a certain amount of blame for insufficiently shaping the university and nation. Ironically, just as Catholics, qua Catholics, seemed poised, in the early 1960s, to take a leading position in American society, large sectors of the Catholic community collapsed under the weight of its desire to conform to standards of success defined by the non-Catholic cultural elite. The precipitating factor in many Catholics "giving up the Ghost," so to speak, was a distorted, selective, and false understanding of the theology of Vatican II, an interpretation or spin that gave a religious veneer justifying the "making it" in society as the top priority of too many Catholics. Similarly, within the educational community, both secular and Catholic, too many Catholic academics bought, as a rationalizing device justifying conformity and acceptance by the cultural gatekeepers of the time, the argument that Catholics were not up to snuff in terms of intellectual achievement and, at least implicitly, must learn from their non-Catholic academic superiors.
Today, Catholicism faces the incredibly difficult task of putting its house back together in a situation in which secular elites control the key idea and image-generating locations in society and in which too many younger Catholics — now two generations removed from the, at least relatively speaking, salad days of a 1950's Catholicism — are almost totally innocent of their 2000 year old Catholic heritage. The same unhappy situation faces the Catholic heritage in the realm of higher education, in both secular and Catholic spheres. A strong case can be made, empirically, that many of the overlapping philosophies, concepts, and programs that shape the present landscape of higher education are interpreted in such a way as to be inhospitable at best, to outright destructive, at worst, to the Catholic worldview. For instance, academic freedom is a needed concept to protect serious research and researchers who write from the academic periphery. However, it can be, and often is, broadened inappropriately to defend almost any utterance, however intellectually indefensible, or artistic or humanistic creation whose sole purpose is the promotion, on almost pristine political grounds, of some blatantly antinomian, ideological, or Utopian end. Multi-culturalism is a potentially useful philosophy that appropriately can encourage the incorporation into the cultural center of groups and traditions hitherto and undeservingly under-represented. Oftentimes, however, it can turn into an instrument to foment the de-Christianizing of American civilization and, within the academy, to grant an often monopolistic advantage to secular leftwing perspectives (e.g. Marxism, feminism, homosexualist, deconstructionist). Cultural relativism was an idea originally propounded by Western anthropologists as a methodology to guard against a narrow and excessive ethnocentrism in research. It is now routinely misused and expanded into a full blown worldview, a philosophy of cultural relativity, that denies the existence of objective truth, deprecates the exercise of reason to pursue that truth, and, in its place, exalts emotion and mere opinion. Likewise, the call for "tolerance" in the university was originally designed to afford elbow room for a forum for intelligent discussion for legitimately debatable lifestyles. Now, many times, calls for "tolerance" are anything but that. Rather they serve, as Allan Bloom has claimed, to not only cut off any meaningful debate about the social and emotional consequences of some contemporary social arrangements (e.g. cohabitation among both heterosexuals and homosexuals, out-of-wedlock births) and practices (e.g. abortion, assisted suicide) but to actually stigmatize those scholars raising such questions as narrow minded bigots.
However misused, consciously or not, the concepts of academic freedom, multi-culturalism, cultural relativism, tolerance, and the like can and must be utilized and rehabilitated by Catholic scholars and other serious but marginal schools of thought to get their ideas into the university and the American public sector for debate and discussion. In short, Catholic scholars are "academically free" to bring their philosophical presuppositions, in a responsible and academically appropriate way, into their scholarship and into their classroom teaching. A truly inclusive multi-culturalism, similarly, has no good reason not to grant the Catholic scholarly tradition a place at the academic table. The logic of cultural relativism, for its part, gives Catholic scholars "the right to their opinion and voice" which much be granted, at least formally, equal ontological status with other philosophical positions. And, finally, given that everyone is expected to be tolerant of everything and everyone, this obviously includes tolerance to Catholic scholars and their claims that there are absolutes, an objective morality, and ultimate Truth. To use these terms and ideas in such a manner is, following Peter L. Berger, to "relativize the relativizers" and gives Catholic scholars, in the light of the day and mano a mano, a chance to convince the open-minded, the searchers, the curious, and the ambivalent. To the naked eye, the modern orthodox Catholic scholar surrounded in a secular milieu will have the odds stacked overwhelmingly against him/her. The Catholic scholar, however, will have a fighting chance — and a chance better than his opponents would ever publicly acknowledge — because of the increasingly widespread awareness of the various failures of secularism in education and social policy and because of a subliminal acknowledgement of the incredibly sophisticated intellectual, moral, and organizational heritage of Catholicism.
Just how much of an impact the Catholic scholarly tradition can make in the American educational system and within the civilization that surrounds it remains a question presently without a definitive answer. But only the arrogant secular ideologue or the simple fool would count serious and knowledgeable Catholics out of any enterprise that they put their mind, heart, and soul into in a systematic, unified way. I end by making a plea to those in the audience who are sympathetic: I need your prayers, your financial support, and your willingness to volunteer your time and creative abilities. Together, we will make history at Nassau Community College and beyond.
Dr. Joseph A. Varacalli is Professor of Sociology and newly appointed Director of the Center for Catholic Studies at Nassau Community College. In 1992, he co-founded (with Stephen M. Krason) the Society of Catholic Social Scientists. He is the author, most recently, of Bright Promise, Failed Community: Catholics and the American Public Order (Lexington, 2000, 1-800-462-6420)
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