KEEPING COLLEGES CATHOLIC: WHAT'S AT STAKE?
Nichols, Francis W.
Francis W. Nichols A PROFESSOR'S VIEW Catholic studies are here to stay I graduated from a small Catholic college in 1952. As with practically all my classmates, I had attended Catholic grade...
...Not all the departments secularized, and the campus ministry programs were generally successful...
...Catholic authors—a very typical English class—summed up the spirit of the times...
...Our college had midnight lights out, mandatory chapel, and an annual retreat...
...As with practically all my classmates, I had attended Catholic grade and high schools, and nearly all my teachers had been members of religious orders...
...Religion/theology/religious studies departments at Catholic colleges have analogous problems...
...Commonweal 3O April 9,1999...
...Clearly, Catholic colleges have left the old Catholic ghetto, but the move came with a price...
...Some closed, others were secularized, and many joined forces with other Catholic institutions to survive...
...The Francis W. Nichols is associate professor of theological studies at Saint Louis University...
...In the 1960s and 1970s, however, they "ecumenized," sometimes becoming religious studies departments, sometimes becoming indistinguishable from a subset of anthropology...
...How different things are today...
...Partly in response, administrators created campus ministry programs to maintain the Catholic character of the institution...
...A doctoral graduate who teaches at a small Catholic college recently told me there are three Catholics on her entire faculty, and that the college had just reinstated a theology requirement...
...The big red course anthology included readings from Newman, Chesterton, Mauriac, Maritain, Brownson, and Merton...
...At one time, philosophers in Catholic schools were generally Thomists...
...Traditionally, one means of maintaining Catholic identity was through courses offered in philosophy and theology...
...Today, they come in all flavors...
...No one ever wondered about Catholic identity...
...It even included luminaries of the liturgical renewal: Adam, Guardini, and Michel...
...Into the breach comes the latest morph on Catholic campuses: Catholic studies...
...Thomas Landy, a founder of Collegium, an institute on Catholic intellectural life, has described the emergence of these new programs (see, America, January 3,1998...
...Of those that remain, many are now looking for ways to reaffirm their Catholic identity...
...Philosophy departments can no longer be expected to be the primary bearers of Catholic identity...
...Once theology departments were concerned with imparting advanced catechetics...
...Most of the programs originated in the manner of the Catholic studies program at Saint Louis University, where I teach...
...But many observers feel the Catholic identity of these Catholic colleges and universities was betrayed...
Vol. 126 • April 1999 • No. 7
