Being Catholic
Steinfels, Margaret O'Brien
Margaret O'Brien Stein f els BEING CATHOLIC A college president speaks hat are Catholic colleges doing about their Catholic Widentity? How will they react to the Vatican's insistence on a...
...U FRANK MACCHIAROLA: When I came back to Saint Francis a year ago a couple of things struck me...
...How will they react to the Vatican's insistence on a juridical relationship between school and local bishop...
...We're not being tolerant...
...We also have a number of professors here who are not Catholic and if I felt that we had to impose on them, or to feel that they had to be "baptized," it wouldn't work...
...MACCHIAROLA: The Franciscans are here by their own choice...
...Even so, I found everybody here thought of us as being Catholic, though they may have defined what that meant differently from one another...
...All these regulations are given to us by the NCAA, the State of New York, and the Middle States Association, our accreditation body...
...We put ashes on everybody...
...They are not the people who will be here ten years from now...
...Then I see this juridical discussion around Ex corde ec Margaret O'Brien Steinfels is the editor of Commonweal...
...There is no inclination on the part of religious people to see religious belief in the organizational way that a bureaucracy would like to see it...
...The coaches brought the kids...
...The brother in campus ministry prepared a whole presentation on what ashes meant...
...Because I really believe this is an institution of the church, I began to look at my role...
...The 1998 dates are: January 3-February 12 May 2-June 11 & October 5-November 14 DIRECTED RETREATS 1997-98 Nov...
...You get the campus minister to get them involved and see what being Catholic means...
...The fullest meaning of Ash Wednesday became clear...
...The State Education Department certifies the credentials of our faculty: If we want a course or a major, what degrees are required, in what field, what sub-field...
...We have to promote that...
...We're being who we are...
...MACCHIAROLA: What number of Catholic colleges that now identify themselves as Catholic would say yes to that...
...I am trying to grow that number...
...Most kids have not defined their connection to the church or to God in the traditional way that we did...
...28-Dec...
...It's something we've got to develop and nurture...
...They are with us in spirit...
...The desire to help us is the only thing I've heard from the church...
...I am a social worker...
...In fact, our mission statement talks about both our Catholic and Franciscan traditions...
...What does a chairman of a Department of Aviation Management need for a Ph.D...
...MACCHIAROLA: Our board of trustees is juridically independent...
...4-12/98 June 16-24/98 June 26-July 4/98 June 26-July 4/98 - 8-Day Directed Retreat - 8-Day Directed Retreat - 8-Day Directed Retreat - 8-Day Directed Retreat - 8-Day Directed Retreat - 8-Day Directed Retreat - Enneagram Retreat For descriptive fivers, or information contact: Secretary, [.A018...
...We're letting a lot of students who couldn't make payment come to class on the basis that they will make those payments at some point in time...
...When I looked at external forces that intruded into the college, I saw the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) rules that examined high school English courses taken by some of our foreign students...
...One was that the Catholic nature of the institution had an overlay of civil law that defined it: Legally speaking, we are not Catholic...
...MACCHIAROLA: Yes, but the woman who chairs that department isn't Catholic...
...STEINFELS: You may be among the first in Brooklyn...
...American Catholics are not inclined to carry out the rules any longer...
...MACCHIAROLA: One of the new initiatives was Ash Wednesday...
...16-24/98 Mar...
...The first step is doing good works and seeing what the meaning of those good works is, and then at a certain point saying we need something to keep us going...
...We do feel committed to the church...
...It's a two-step process...
...I don't want their indifference to Sunday Mass attendance, for example, to be looked at as anti-Catholic or non-Catholic...
...MARGARET O'BRIEN STEINFELS: If a juridical require ment becomes part of the norms, do you think Americans would feel duty-bound to observe it...
...MACCHIAROLA: Well, one of the good things about being Saint Francis College is you know you're not the first...
...Let time have its effect on the people who are here now...
...There was a desire to help us in our liturgy, help us with events that we were having...
...El LOYOLA HOUSE Guelph Centre of Spirituality 40-DAY INSTITUTES Cost: $2200 (CnN) We offer the Spiritual Exercises of St...
...What was important was to support the work, the mission of the the Franciscans: working with the poor...
...We're not a grocery store...
...But the institution itself hasn't been formally connected in many years...
...That's what a Franciscan college should be about: to serve the poor...
...STEINFELS: But you have a religious studies department...
...Is this what the situation has evolved into...
...STEINFELS: It might be pretty simple...
...He also served as chancellor of the New York public school system from 197883...
...How should we look at students who can't pay their bills...
...What would you recommend to your own board...
...We do good because we are required to do good...
...For example, can we have crosses up in the classrooms...
...The church was packed...
...We're not being liberal...
...I don't want to block any message of what the faith is by imposing on them regulations that haven't been part of their upbringing...
...The juridical stuff gets in the way of all of that...
...It was a wonderful preparation for coming back to Saint Francis College because I very much felt I was being who I was...
...Commonweal asked Frank Mac chiarola, lawyer, professor, civic figure, and president of Saint Francis College, Brooklyn (and a 1962 graduate...
...As an institution we have to internalize that...
...For us, it doesn't even raise a problem in terms of academic freedom...
...This is a Franciscan college...
...How should we shape our financial-aid package...
...STEINFELS: So you believe Catholic identity is not going to work unless it works from within...
...Our sports dinner opened with a Mass...
...We had a Mass for deceased alumni...
...STEINFELS: Is it then voluntary...
...We're not being nice...
...clesiae...
...Somebody has to come to me and say, in order to get the following-be accredited as a Catholic college...
...We should have reference to the namesake of the college...
...MACCHIAROLA: I love it...
...We need liturgy, we need the Mass...
...If you want to work in the Franciscan tradition come and work with youngsters who need your support...
...In life you're either a policeman or a social worker...
...STEINFELS: Sounds great...
...Macchiarola became president in 1996 after thirty years in academic posts at City University of New York, Columbia University, and the Benjamin Cardozo School of Law, Yeshiva University...
...And with Ex corde ecclesiae, let conscience play a role...
...Who we are requires us to do that...
...So you're starting with an effort that will Commonweal 1 5 September 26,1997 not necessarily lead to success...
...That's the starting point...
...He doesn't want to hurt this college...
...MACCHIAROLA: If the church were to impose certain rules, which incidentally I think it can't, it wouldn't work...
...Let conscience be part of what you do...
...What is it...
...And if we're going to have to pass the definition of faith through a distillate that's legalistic and juridical, we're going to miss the faith...
...I looked at the number of athletic scholarships we could award within the city of New York because of the NCAA regulations on the residence of students receiving scholarship...
...Make believe it takes a while...
...When I was at Yeshiva, I always felt I was doing what I was supposed to do as a Catholic in a Jewish environment that supported religion...
...We put up the Franciscan cross of San Damiano...
...STEINFELS: What does the school do about liturgy...
...We think of ourselves as being part of the Catholic tradition...
...For a long period of time, there had been no effort to give attention to that definition...
...6/97 Feb...
...If I spent my time trying to figure out what that meant, I would spend less time figuring out what it means to be a Catholic college...
...So the question would be: What would someone want us to do in order to qualify to be defined by them as Catholic...
...We don't have a theology department here...
...Lively, articulate, and candid, Macchiarola launched immediately into answers to these questions during an interview on September 5 in his campus office in downtown Brooklyn...
...in the field...
...STEINFELS: What, in fact, if the norms finally require a juridical relationship with the bishop...
...That was the attitude of the bishop...
...They'll just say if you want to call yourself a Catholic college, you incorporate these norms into your bylaws...
...Now all of sudden it's something for someone who had never experienced it...
...How could I find ways to define our mission that made sense to the people here...
...We needed a church for the opening Mass...
...We present the opportunity for religion on campus...
...We need their presence in our community...
...Ignatius three times a year...
...First decide who you are and then you have to act in consistency with that...
...The first step is not necessarily getting them to church...
...I venture to say it would be a small number...
...That is our obligation...
...when there is no Ph.D...
...Well, my answer to that is, yes...
...From my standpoint, it's a distraction...
...The discourse starts on the other side...
...llouse, 1'U Box 245, Guelph, ON Nll-I 6J9 Tel: (519)824.1250 lext.2661 Fax: (519)767-0994 Commonweal 1 6 September 26,1997...
...Our philosophy department is traditional...
...In the past it was ritual observed only by people who knew...
...If there's one thing that's missing in this world, it's a sense of faith...
...MACCHIAROLA: It will never work if it is mandated...
...I keep telling people we can't stop doing good because there are people who take advantage of us...
...In all of this, I never received a single word from the church, from the bishop, that wasn't positive...
...They don't own the school...
...I don't want to be distracted by that...
...We need the presence of the Holy Spirit...
...Schools once felt connected directly to the church through the religious communities that organized them-the Franciscans, the Jesuits-that was the "juridical" relationship...
...What do I say to people when they face these questions: Make believe you're getting this message not by fax, but by courier...
...When I was inaugurated, we had the opening Mass at the Cathedral of Saint James...
...We did the closing Mass at Our Lady of Lebanon, which is Maronite Rite...
...Why would anyone insist that we...
...That's the part that's making the college more Catholic...
...I respect the bishop...
...Whatever you want, Frank, no problem, no charge...
...18-26/98 Apr...
...We do teach a course in Catholic theology...
...the bishop and I get along...
...There are a number of Franciscan trustees and a number on our faculty...
...When we hung the San Damiano Cross in each and every classroom and in all of the public rooms, we had a number of public events, lectures about what the cross meant...
...He wants this college to grow...
...There has been a long period of time in which that juridical authority hasn't been exercised...
...It is the presence of liturgy and the fact that liturgy means something to us...
...Margaret O'Brien Stein f els BEING CATHOLIC A college president speaks hat are Catholic colleges doing about their Catholic Widentity...
Vol. 124 • September 1997 • No. 16
