The Wall Street Journal finds that religious colleges are becoming more concerned with orthodoxy among the faculty. Well, evangelical colleges are and a few Catholic ones. Boston College is bravely resisting the trend.
At another Catholic school, Boston College, some administrators would like to hire more people committed to its religious mission, but its faculty has proved “particularly resistant,” says a 2004 report by the Association of Jesuit Colleges and Universities. To achieve its goals, the college is contemplating establishing research centers on Catholic intellectual tradition and Catholic education. Georgetown University, also a prominent Catholic school, appointed its first vice president for mission and ministry, a Jesuit priest, in 2003.
But is it orthodoxy they’re pushing or just more religion, even if it’s heterodox? Notre Dame seems to be improving in the orthodox direction, but what about Georgetown? An administrator in charge of mission and ministry could just as easily be the same squishy heterodoxy as before.
As we highlighted in a Technorati Tags: Catholic, college, education, Jesuits, orthodoxy
The faculty, outside of the philosophy department, really would get angry if it became orthodox. The most angry would be the Jesuits in the theology department.
Dom, is the CWR piece you reference available online?
Sorry, I forgot to include the link. I will add it now.
Thanks!!!
A very nice story but let’s be clear: the Pope never said, don’t hire non-Catholics; he said, make sure that Catholics consist of the majority of professors.
For the media to compare the two is somewhat irresponsible.
Surely it should be Catholics teaching in the theology and philosophy department, except for the occasional teacher of, say, Buddhist philosophy.
Infanted……Haven’t I seen you on Spengler’s site? Small virtual world. Spengler is required reading for those who don’t know him:
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/others/spengler.html
Crack down time. That “pitbull” Ratzinger/Benedict is sending a signal. Some of these Catholic Colleges (particularly their theology/philosophy departments) might want to start reconsidering their approach. The Ratzinger effect is real and the laity are stirring and increasingly inspired from what I can tell. There are plenty of private and public universities devoted to working from the assumption that Jesus Christ was a Roman invention. There is no need for Catholic colleges to pile on here.
Make no mistake. The Catholic Church has some powerful intellectual tools at her disposal. You get a brilliant glimmer of them in Ratzinger’s “Introduction to Christianity.” (I say Ratzinger since he wrote it 30 years ago). Catholic Schools need more philosophers and theologians of Ratzinger/Benedict’s mindset and less ex nun’s and priests like Karen Armstrong and Jim Carrol who would like to reduce Catholicism to Unitarianism. Otherwise Catholic Universities serve no real purpose.
100% correct. There is absolutely no reason why a Catholic college (or high school for that matter) should need to hire non-Catholic personnel. It’s not like we don’t have capable people, especially in philosophy and theology.
I read not long ago that students coming out of Catholic colleges are less likely to have retained their faith than those coming out of secular colleges. I believe it totally. There is absolutely no excuse for this.
I read not long ago that students coming out of Catholic colleges are less likely to have retained their faith than those coming out of secular colleges.
Perhaps you read it at the top of this page when I wrote it there.
The first person who needs to leave Boston College is John McDargh, “a tenured faculty member in Boston College’s Theology Department”. ” McDargh who was among a group of faculty that on May 19 launched the Lesbian and Gay Faculty,Staff and Administrators Association at Boston College.”(Bay Windows,June 3,2004:“BC faculty band together to promote change” by Laura Kiritsy). Among the theology courses he teaches is “Spirituality and Sexuality”. The same Bay Windows article reports that “Paul Breines,an openly bisexual tenured facultu member, has regularly taught a GLBT history course since the early 1990s; (and) Kevin Ohi teaches queer theory courses.” “Breines recalls that there was no resistance when he decided to offer his gay and lesbian history course-the first gay-soecific course in the school’s history-not long after he came out as bisexual.“People were very responsive. They were very supportive,” he says.”
Fr. Leahy, president of Boston College, and Jack Dunn, the B.C. spokesperson,are fully aware of this. Bay Windows honors McDargh and his “openly gay colleagues” at B.C. for the changes they have made at “Boston College,the Jesuit Catholic Institution”. Fr. Leahy and Jack Dunn appear to agree. How tragic!!
I didn’t realize the “homosexuality is an identity” propaganda was so deeply ingrained at BC now. The school should be ashamed of themselves for promoting this false mind/body dualism that is the very antithesis of Christianity.
John, I doubt you’ve seen me on Spengler’s site. You may have seen me somewhere else though.