Catholics at Oxford

...2. They will get more harm in London life than at Oxford or Cambridge...

...By a somewhat strange coincidence the meeting took place on the anniversary of Elizabeth's accession to the throne...

...A full-time chaplain looks after the religious interests of the Catholic students...

...How can separate education be carried on completely...

...There is a residence for women conducted by the Sisters of the Holy Child, and the Benedictines, Jesuits, Franciscans, Dominicans and the archdiocese of Birmingham all have houses at Oxford for their clerical students...

...3. Why are you not consistent, and forbid him to go into the army...

...When one remembers Challoner and Milner and Wiseman—adversaries worthy of any Oxford man— and the fact that many Catholics had during this period been educated on the continent, one may be tempted to look upon this description by Purcell as somewhat overdrawn...

...William George Ward was an ultramontane, and no one would accuse him of the least disloyalty...

...2) That the Catholic undergraduates are left without those safeguards and Catholic educational advantages which might be provided were the position of Catholics at the universities frankly recognized by the Church...

...Plans are being pushed to secure more adequate quarters in the near future...

...At Cambridge a somewhat similar situation exists...

...Cardinal Bourne said that: He was glad for many reasons to find that he had been able to accept their hospitality that evening, and primarily because it was an opportunity—which he valued—of testifying by his presence to the extreme importance of the work to those who as Catholics were members of that university, and to add by any means in his power—on that occasion by his presence and his words—to the work of those who were trying to build up Catholic influence in that place...

...Accordingly at the meeting of the bishops on January 4, 1895, Cardinal Vaughan urged that the Holy See should be petitioned to withdraw, on certain conditions, the admonition against the attendance of Catholics at the universities...

...It was part of what Newman afterwards called the policy of "nihilism" pursued by the authorities...

...Doyle mixed schools, that is, equal rights in education was the cry...

...They forbid," said Newman, "but they do not direct or create" (Id., 486...

...Cardinal Bourne, in his presidential address at the National Catholic Congress held in Birmingham in 1923, recognized frankly that it was hopeless to expect an English Catholic university within any short time...

...He was thoroughly convinced of the advantages of Oxford, its training, its culture, its opportunities for meeting the future rulers of England, the prestige attaching to its degrees...

...These feelings I found to be in full possession of educated minds in 1854Ten years later, in reference to Catholics going to Oxford, Newman developed this idea somewhat...

...And while we may think his criticism somewhat harsh, as not allowing sufficiently for the handicaps, financial and otherwise, under which the Catholics of that day were laboring, he was probably fairly accurate in his statement...

...During the fifteen years that were left of Manning's life, intermittent attempts were made to reopen the question of Catholic attendance at the English universities, but they came to naught in the face of the resolute opposition of the Archbishop...

...The whole philosophical fabric which occupies our colleges," he wrote to Newman in i860, "is rotten from the floor to the roof...

...The plan suggested by Manning was that the question of Catholics going to the universities should be brought before the next meeting of the bishops in Low Week, 1864, and that if any difference of opinion should arise the matter should be referred to the Holy See for decision...

...In the aggregate, Catholics at these other universities far outnumber those at Oxford and Cambridge, and in some ways they are more active and better organized...

...What we have to do is to develop healthy Catholic constitutions that will resist their attacks...

...Moreover, in philosophy itself, what was theologically orthodox was in some quarters insisted on as therefore necessarily intellectually convincing...

...Most of those who are in any way connected with this movement in England are enthusiastic over the actual good accomplished and the still greater possibilities...

...When he was in this country a dozen years ago, he told me that attendance at this college had been one of the regrets of his life...

...Father Charles Plater, the famous Jesuit, wrote in the same strain, using the very same figure of speech...

...With his deep trust in men and his confidence that Catholicism could hold its own in the modern world, Cardinal Wiseman at first rather welcomed this move...

...The number is steadily on the increase...

...Today, after a much longer experience, the whole Catholic body, from Cardinal Bourne down, seems to concur in this judgment...

...But sometimes, in some places, this ideal is impossible of fulfilment, and she must be content temporarily with half a loaf...

...In a paper read at the National Catholic Congress in Birmingham in 1923, he stated that "at a minimum—probably far below the truth—we have 1,600 Catholic young men and women studying in the universities...

...He has a residence, chapel and library...

...This Federation publishes the Inter-University Magazine (cf...

...Until we can come out of our charmed circle, and measure our intellectual and moral worth, not by the circle's standard, but by the world's, we shall never improve...

...Well did he realize that what was not possible in Ireland was less possible in England...

...Given the situation, the decision could hardly be doubtful...

...In their controversial writings against unbelief or agnosticism Catholics were apt to fall into blunders, which exposed not only themselves but their faith to ridicule...

...In the issue of January 10, 1914, the Tablet reprinted at episcopal request an article by Miss Mary Segar, member of the tutorial staff of the Association for the Education of Women in Oxford...

...One wrote: It has made men of everyone who has come to Oxford...

...Concurrently with the growth of Catholic attendance at Oxford and Cambridge, there has been a steady increase in the Catholic students at the newer English universities, such as Liverpool, Manchester, London...

...In his life of Cardinal Vaughan (II, 80, 82-83) Snead-Cox writes: When a little later he had to consider a numerously and influentially signed petition on behalf of the laity urging that Catholics should be allowed to attend the universities, . . . what did touch him was the testimony of the Jesuits at Oxford, and of Monsignor Scott, of Baron Anatole von Hiigel at Cambridge, who, knowing the universities well, and having special opportunities of judging the conduct of Catholic undergraduates, reported most favorably from the point of view of both faith and morals...

...Several years ago I was in correspondence with the heads of the Catholic houses for clerics at Oxford...

...but it left the practical problem of the higher education of English Catholics unsolved...

...He brought arguments to bear on the aged Cardinal which eventually induced him to forego his hopes of a Catholic house at Oxford...

...In September of the following year a joint letter from the bishops was addressed to Catholic parents announcing the appointments of chaplains and the formation of a universities board...

...That is why both at Oxford and Cambridge the bishops have established houses in connection with the universities...

...I think I could say without exaggeration that the men who have been through the university training are not only more efficient but more safe than the others as a class...

...In his life of Manning (II, 288) Pure ell says: No one knew better than he did, how grievous was the loss suffered by English Catholics from the want of a university education...

...There are about fifty Catholic undergraduates at the two universities...

...He had tried earnestly to build up a great Catholic university in the centre of Irish Catholicism, and had failed because of the insuperable divisions among Catholics themselves...

...These ideas, however, were not to triumph until the great leader's death...

...He may get at Woolwich as much harm in his faith and morals as at the universities...

...Purcell wrote in his life of Cardinal Manning (II, 290): What Dr...

...The history of its failure can be read in Purcell's life of the great Cardinal...

...And he urged further that the only effective way of preserving the Faith was to prohibit parents from sending their children to Oxford or Cambridge...

...He wrote (Ward, II, 70) : How are you to prepare young Catholics for taking part in life, for filling stations in a Protestant country as England, without going to the English universities...

...But now the bishops decided that there should be such a prohibition, and Newman's plans were thus definitely quashed...

...Catholics have done themselves credit in both universities...

...He says: Personally I think that the opening up of Oxford to Catholic priests and clerics has been one of the greatest blessings the Catholic body has received since the Reformation...

...It has brought us out into the open...

...The year before the war, when I was in Oxford, Father Pope, S.J., told me that the Catholic students were in no especial danger to their faith from the courses at the university...

...Snead-Cox says (Id., II, 85) : It only remains to add that the experiment seems to have been completely successful from every point of view, and that Cardinal Vaughan lived long enough to be able to acknowledge that the fears of those who had resisted the change had so far been happily disappointed...

...In his Life of Newman (II, 186) Wilfrid Ward says: The final relinquishment of the Oxford scheme left the extreme party triumphant...

...In that article Miss Segar says very frankly that one of the great gains for Catholic women attending the university will be a breaking down of that separateness under which they formerly existed...

...The dangers of fresh air seem to me smaller, taking them in the main, than those of a stuffy and hothouse training...

...But lest someone should attribute to me the conclusion that, because the English hierarchy finds attendance of Catholics at the English universities satisfactory and recognizes the inadvisability of attempting a separate Catholic university, we in this country should follow their example, it may be better to point out that no such conclusion legitimately follows...

...for in the higher walks of literature, in philosophy, in science, Catholics occupied a lower intellectual ground...

...Father O'Dowd, of St...

...Argument first...

...Nay, no one who has not been mixed up practically in a seminary would imagine to how great an extent it intellectually debauches the students' minds...

...Whatever 2,000,000 English Catholics faced with Oxford and Cambridge are compelled to forego in the way of separate Catholic universities, certainly 20,000,000 Catholics in the United States are numerous enough and wealthy enough to have universities of their own...

...Wilfrid Ward was sent by his father to this college...

...All of them were enthusiastic over the results...

...But Wilfred Ward, a far more reliable witness, is even more specific in his condemnation of the intellectual training given at that time in English Catholic schools...

...the Tablet, August 11, 1923...

...Then we shall see Americans going to this Oxford divinity school as now they go to Rome, or Innsbruck, or Louvain...

...It is really the only way of breaking through the narrow ring in which the system is that A educates B, and B educates C without reference to any of the educational currents flowing through the country at large...

...The attitude of the Catholic body during the last half dozen years of Manning's life may be described as one of somber acquiescence...

...Then, pointing out that neither the Irish nor the Scotch bishops had taken any action in regard to Oxford or Cambridge, he continued: "Upon the Catholic youth of England alone there rests, if not a formal precept actually forbidding them to frequent the universities, at least a strong disapproval, amounting almost to a prohibition, on the part of the Holy See and the English bishops...

...Charles House, the residence for clerics from the Birmingham diocese, replied to my enquiries: It is obvious that to get in touch with the educated people of a country it is necessary to be educated according to their fashion and standing...

...He wrote: "The present position of English Catholics at Oxford and Cambridge is intolerable...

...The consequences are: (1) That injury is inflicted on the loyalty to the Church of these Catholics who are led to frequent the universities, in spite of the warnings and dissuasions of the Holy See...

...The work which Newman conceived at that time for Catholics at Oxford has gone on increasing and developing, and has spread to other universities...

...And so when Herbert Vaughan came to Westminster one of the first problems he had to face was this question of university education...

...Either then refuse to let Catholics avail themselves of these privileges, of going into Parliament, of taking their seat in the House of Lords, of becoming lawyers, commissioners, etc., etc., or let them go there, where alone they will be able to put themselves on a par with Protestants...

...3) That while the number of Catholics at the universities continues to increase the present evils will become permanent, instead of being temporary and transient, unless their position be duly recognized and regulated on Catholic principles...

...Their intellectual inferiority as a necessary result of the lack of higher training was a reproach to the Church, It was more and worse: it was a danger to faith...

...While Manning was trying his ill-starred experiment of founding a Catholic college, his great contemporary, who did an equally important work for the Church in England, and upon whose life was set the seal of Rome's approval in the cardinalatial dignity, was consistently opposed to this collegiate separation...

...Edmund's...

...It was not surprising, therefore, that under such circumstances Newman's thoughts should turn to some plan whereby the Catholic youth, without extreme danger to their faith, could enjoy the training under which he had so marvelously developed...

...The number of Catholic students at Liverpool, Manchester, Birmingham, London, Sheffield, Leeds, Edinburgh and Glasgow, is sufficiently large, and the work for them well enough organized, to make advisable the Federation of Catholic Societies in the Universities...

...She exclaims: We Catholics have lived with ourselves too long...

...To found a Catholic house at Oxford where his voice might again be heard and his influence felt in university circles, not only in training Catholic undergraduates, but in explaining the Catholic faith to Anglicans and others, or in defending before the graduates of the university the first principles of revealed religion, seemed to Newman to be the greatest service he could render to the Church...

...He was too much in touch with the laity not to feel the deepest sympathy with their desire to enjoy the same intellectual advantages possessed by their fellowcountrymen...

...There has been, on the other hand, no loss, little or great...

...Some families continued to send their sons to continental universities, but it was only natural that others should take advantage of their new opportunities and avail themselves of university training at Oxford and Cambridge...

...I should prefer to leave the question here...

...A bishop said the other day: "Where is the line of demarcation to be drawn...

...That theological faculty has now become a fact in Oxford...

...Cardinal Vaughan had to face this situation: in spite of every official discouragement the number of Catholics at the universities had increased, and was likely to go on increasing...

...On the evils consequent on this habit in the ecclesiastical seminaries W. G. Ward often spoke with characteristic vehemence from his personal experience at St...

...But one other fact remains to be mentioned in this connection...

...The only question for us is how far we can supply the whole need of Catholics in the field of higher education, and what can and should be done for those Catholics who have legitimate reasons for going to non-Catholic universities...

...That Catholics should once more be trained in the universities raised by their forefathers, in that day when so many of the noblest sons of Oxford were returning to the Church, seemed to Cardinal Wiseman like the fulfilment of one of the dearest dreams of his heart...

...Catholics were now authoritatively warned against going to Oxford or Cambridge...

...They were everywhere placed at a disadvantage in the race of life...

...but where else were they to go for university training...

...Father Martindale, S.J., said in the address from which I have already quoted: "We should look to the universities, therefore, with the most ardent hope...

...For Manning's attempt to found a Catholic college was not practicable, as was shown by the event...

...Under the penal laws of England, Catholics were not allowed to attend the English universities, or to have universities of their own...

...A boy of nineteen goes to some London office, with no restraint—he goes at that age to Oxford or Cambridge, and is at least under some restraint...

...but, on the contrary, has to no small extent quickened their zeal in defense of religion, whilst the advantages of university training have placed them on an intellectual level with their non-Catholic countrymen...

...In a memorandum for Propaganda, written some five months before his death, after alluding to the leave given to Catholic laymen and then to ecclesiastics to go to the universities, he said: "I must report most favorably of the effect of these two permissions...

...Manning declared his belief that instead of un-Protestantizing the university, the university would de-Catholicize the Catholic hall...

...Up to this time there had been no authoritative prohibition against Catholics going to Oxford, there was no public discouragement even...

...practicable remedies were not found...

...And it was a bitter disappointment to the old man, when, for good reasons alleged, individual bishops and sometimes even the Pope himself, granted special permission to this or that youth to go to the universities...

...We have to some extent lost our sense of proportion...

...It is hoped that they will begin to lift up the education of future priests from the very beginning...

...There is a residence for secular clergy, and the Benedictines have a house...

...and for want of university training let the argument against Christianity go by default...

...Was it better to continue a prohibition which had largely failed to secure its object, or to remove the ban and at the same time to secure for Catholics attending the universities whatever safeguards for their faith were possible...

...As a sort of substitute, he advocated a theological faculty "at the very side of, in close contact with," one or other or both of the great national universities...

...Cardinal Vaughan knew that a negative policy was impossible, and he regarded a continuance of that state of things then existing as impossible...

...It has enabled us to get into touch with the thought of the day and to influence it...

...They admitted, and admitted most gratefully with all their hearts, that those Catholics who had come up, those who were there, those who would come up after those who were there, had received, were receiving, and would receive inestimable advantages from all the university could give them...

...Manning did not anticipate but experience has shown, the frequentation of the universities by Catholics well trained in their own secondary schools has not turned to their detriment, morally or spiritually, or lessened their fidelity to the Church...

...In his diary for February 24-27, 1854, Newman wrote (Ward's Newman, I, 335) : For years under Dr...

...Today there are some three hundred Catholics attending Oxford, and these embrace men and women, priests and sisters...

...Actual difficulties were not faced...

...I think the hothouse policy a bad one...

...There were those, however, who opposed this policy, and chief among them was another Oxford convert, Manning, who was to be Cardinal Wiseman's successor as archbishop of Westminster...

...The chief of these conditions was that provision should be made for a resident chaplain, and for courses of lectures on Catholic philosophy and church history...

...In argument with adversaries of the Faith possessed of the advantages of a university education they were often worsted...

...Why don't you forbid him to go to such an "academy" at Woolwich...

...The result was that for the most part they held their peace...

...Father C. C. Martindale, S.J., is general chaplain to the Federation...

...In a few cases Catholic students frequenting these universities obtain a permission, by way of exception, from their bishops, but in general no such permission is sought...

...Impossible...

...He writes: Philosophical and theological tenets and arguments were imposed by professors as though they were certain, with insufficient recognition of facts that did not square with them...

...We cannot hope to shield our young men from the microbes of infidelity and immorality, which exist outside universities as well as within them...

...On November 24, 1923, the Tablet had a four-anda-half column account of the meeting of the Cambridge University Catholic Association...

...We admire ourselves too much, and we bestow lavish praise on very mediocre performance...

...For this problem the English experience offers encouragement to hope that we can be equally successful in looking after the faith of such Catholics...

...For several years the Dominicans have had a complete theological course in their Oxford house, and the time will probably come when they will be able to accommodate others besides their own members...

...When people are mixed, and society is mixed, education must be mixed...

...And when, after living for generations under these conditions, such disabilities were removed, Catholics were in no position to establish a separate university...