Cardinal Burke: ‘Every aspect’ of a Catholic university’s life must be Catholic

December 16, 2010

In a recent address at Thomas More College of Liberal Arts, Cardinal Raymond Burke discussed the teaching of Venerable John Paul II and Pope Benedict XVI on the vocation and mission of the Catholic university.

“Identifying a university as Catholic means identifying every aspect of the university’s life as Catholic,” he said, adding:

According to the ancient canonical wisdom, corruptio optimi pessima est, “the corruption of the best is the worst.” Sadly, we have witnessed the truth of the axiom in so many Catholic colleges and universities in our nation, which once gave pride of place to their Catholic identity and the Catholic life of the campus but now are Catholic in name only, usually qualifying their Catholic identity by another name, for example, calling themselves a Catholic university in the Franciscan or Jesuit tradition. What the tradition, with a small “t”, means, in practice can have little, if anything, to do with Tradition, with a capital “t”. The word, “Catholic,” in the name of a university has its full qualification, that is, it accepts no modifiers.

 

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Further information:

• Cardinal Burke Criticizes “Catholic in name only” Colleges, Praises TMC (Thomas More College of Liberal Arts)