AN INTERNATIONAL DIMENSION
McInnes, William C.
NEW UNIVERSITY DIRECTION? AN INTERNATIONAL DIMENSION A departing delegate from the August meeting of the International Federation of Catholic Universities in Delhi, India, was heard to remark as...
...There was more to be seen than to be heard at the Assembly...
...Can the Theologians provide the first real professional back-up for international insight by Catholic institutional leaders so that the group can avoid both presumption (we have the answers) and naivete (the answer is simple...
...The Assembly urged uni-versities to undertake interdisciplinary research projects and to develop new curricula in the field of population and human development, to teach valued in the light of faith and to assume a life-style that shows concern for justice and poverty, and not just the preaching of it A floor resolution criticizing the lack of more lay people, professionals and women was passed with pious unanimity...
...The American and Euro-pean, Australian and Indian, Japanese and South American Catholic systems of higher education evidence radically different institutional forms...
...Many of them were in India...
...IFCU just happens to be there if the schools wish to use it to meet their challenge...
...The growing significance of the organization might be judged by the people it attracted: several Bishops, a representative from UNESCO, the personal delegate of the General of the Jesuits, administrators from many prestigious uni-versities...
...The democratization of membership opens the door to a wider group of institutions...
...And the Indian delegation-77 strong-was proudly present...
...Will the broader membership be present in three years in South America as it is today...
...The meeting in Delhi offered a look at posIn the United States, participation in Catholic international educational organizations has been cham-pioned by Fr...
...So today the struggle is uphill...
...Pedro Arrupe, has been pushing the international apostolate, had met with the Jesuit presidents the week before fat Rome to encourage them, and had delegated Fr...
...He has served as Presi-ditt of IFCU, but bis personal interests have not been generally contagious among his fellow American academicians...
...Only time will reveal their efficacy...
...But few knew how to carry them out...
...If it does not gather increasing support from institutions committed to its philosophy, it is hard to see how it can move more centrally to the intellectual power centers of the world...
...They look more readily to local communities and state governments for their interests...
...It poses a challenge to higher education in the U.S.: is the academic road ahead to be national or international...
...In 1963 permanent headquarters and a staff were set up in Paris...
...Perhaps the Third World educators will be the real heralds of international education for the Catholic Church...
...The Assembly, too, was an event more to be seen than heard...
...Only one American woman-Sr...
...are already receiving new international students on their campuses...
...Cardinal Garrone, a congenial sturdy man of 75, perspired through all the sessions, spoke publicly and frankly-and most graciously-on the delicate problems of secularized priests teaching the-ology, and on the need for a new Apostoic Consti-tution on education to update that of Pius XI...
...Only twelve out of over 250 Catholic colleges and universities in the U.S...
...Though not yet widely known in academic circles, IFCU showed at Delhi a visible presence in the international intellectual world which might be worth more than a cursory glance by American Catholic academies...
...Already the inter-national world is at our campus gates in the U.S...
...Helen Volkomener from Ft...
...Pedro Pi, S.J., Provincial of Spain, as his personal representative to Demi...
...Even if such recognition did not move them to the center of international intellectual power, it certainly was a step in the right direction...
...Accustomed to only glancing attribution by others, the leaders of the Federation were overjoyed at this publicity...
...Though the Church is by its nature an international institution, its educational activities have been largely local and regional...
...The organizational directions approved by the Assembly are perhaps of more immediate and practical import than the resolutions...
...Of all Catholic educational organizations, IFCU presently seems to have greatest credibility with the Vatican...
...They often combine international largesse and provincial vision...
...Can the proffered invitation by Cardinal Garrone for collaboration with his Congregation in the future be realized in practice...
...It has met eleven ones...
...The Apostolic Pro-Nuncio threw a party at his embassy, and the Archbishop of Delhi joined SO con-celebrants at Sunday Mass in his cathedral...
...The strength of IFCU is in its local members...
...Herve Carrier, S.J., Rector of Rome's ' Gregorian University, served as President Most prestigious of all was His Eminence Cardinal Gabriel-Marie Garrone, Prefect of the Congregation for Education in Rome and the top man for education on the Vatican staff...
...John Murphy of NCEA and members of the American delegation to diseuss recent correspondence which had raised great concern among some university presidents...
...At present, IFCU is the most impressive and visible Catholic academic organization on the international scene...
...The International Federation of Catholic Universities records its own history from 1924 when several presidents of Catholic universities in Europe first got together to talk...
...Can the focus on regional activity, prompted by both limited international re-sources and unexplored local possibilities, be imple-, mented successfully...
...World problems of justice, peace and poverty, though seemingly far away in Delhi, have a habit of traveling fast across space...
...Three years earlier at Salamanca, the 10th Assembly had expressed similar noble aspirations...
...In addition to participants of importance, external recognition was also extended generously...
...And if this direction becomes dominant, will it encourage the undergraduate colleges...
...The implications of the Assembly were more in the cast of characters than in the resolutions...
...Theodore Hesburgh of Notre Dame, himself no mean world-traveler...
...Will the new Commission of Theologians be able to provide the professional input for Assembly discussions...
...AN INTERNATIONAL DIMENSION A departing delegate from the August meeting of the International Federation of Catholic Universities in Delhi, India, was heard to remark as he taxied his way to the airport: "I wish I had brought my camera instead of my cassette...
...Wright College in Spokane-appeared...
...Do they have the enthusiasm and resources to carry out these directives...
...Georgetown is working in Iran...
...But if the challenge of the international apostolate is real for all institutions, it is the American colleges that need IFCU as much as it needs them...
...Regionalization, research, broadening of membership, closing the gap with the Church hierarchy, increasing professional expertise on major world problems-these are steps proposed to increase the service of IFCU...
...rsity of San Francisco...
...Several regional organizations were present...
...But will it diffuse the intellectual focus of primarily graduate universities...
...Can this be translated into real co-operation, thus significantly altering a traditional method of Vatican administration...
...Four American Jesuit university presidents went to India...
...The University of San Francisco already has 1,100 students from 87 countries, twice as many nations as started the UN in San Francisco in 1946...
...Loyola of Chicago is in Italy...
...Frequently when major problems, such as population and development, are discussed by institutional heads (especially when done in three languages), major documentation and expertise are missing...
...Its educational systems tend to be indigenous to national locales...
...Prime Minister Indira Gandhi opened the formal session, using the occasion to give a widely reported review of the present political crisis in her country...
...The votes to broaden membership, to encourage more regional meetings, to explore an international research center, to establish a separate Commission of Theologians and to promote closer relations with Cardinal Garrone's Congregation affects not only the membership but all of Catholic higher education...
...Eight of these were Jesuit institutions, indicating a small but growing interest on the Jesuits' part The General of the Jesuits, Fr...
...If, regionally, institutions-as in America-re-main indifferent, it is hard to see how it can grow...
...If they can be internationalized in attitude, the organization will grow...
...She too was more visible than vocal...
...The gap between poor and rich grows...
...IFCU's aim: "to contribute to the development of the arts and sciences in a Christian perspective...
...As in so many other cases, perhaps those in need rather than those with resources will be the first to call attention to the new international order of things...
...Internationalization, therefore, of Catholic higher education is still be-fort us...
...Fak-huddin Ali Amed, President of India, received the group at his palace...
...After over two decades of relative in-viadbility, it received helpful recognition in 1948 from the Roman Congregation for Seminaries and Universities The Federation met in General Assembly for the first time in Rome in 1949...
...were represented at Delhi...
...American colleges and universities from Maine to California are already part of an increasingly visible international world...
...Is an international research center a premature dream for an organization without staff or expertise...
...Has it sufficient imagination, let alone funds, to make this effective...
...Otherwise it will become an empty shell...
...If it cannot stir the imaginations of faculty and administrators at the local level to develop new methodologies and approaches to major problems, it will harden as a centralized bureaucracy...
...Many American universities in the U.S...
...In 1951 the statutes of the Federation of Catholic Universities were approved by that Congregation, giving the IFCU a special place in Vatican educational concerns...
...He also met privately with Msgr...
...Eleven new institutions were admitted to full membership (schools with graduate faculties) and 27 to associate membership (undergraduate colleges), significantly broadening, the membership...
...Perhaps when participants travel to Porto Alegre in Brazil for the next General Assembly of IFCU in 1978, they will find it advisable to carry both camera and cassette...
...As with most diffuse organizations, the pronouncements were more bland than incisive, more ex-hortatory than mandatory...
...WILLIAM C. MCINNES (Father William C. McInnes, S.J., is President of the University of San Francisco...
...Capital of a country of 570 million people (1/6 of the total world's population, 70 percent illiterate), its people and sidewalks, its cows and palaces give concrete evidence of the problems of population and development which the 165 university delegates from 27 countries had come to discuss...
...The Indian delegation had expressly requested that the Assembly be held in their country so they could afford to attend...
...Delhi is-especially for Western citizens-an eye-opening city...
Vol. 102 • October 1975 • No. 15
