By John Norton

Clarion call to fidelity in education

One of Pope Benedict XVI's most closely watched speeches will be to a gathering of presidents of Catholic colleges and universities. The interplay between faith and reason has been one of the main themes for Pope Benedict, a former university professor himself. His host during the April 17 visit to The Catholic University of America will be Vincentian Father David M. O'Connell, the university's president. Though some commentators have said Pope Benedict will use the meeting to "rebuke" wayward educators, Father O'Connell told Our Sunday Visitor the pope will take a different approach.

Father David O'Connell: It's my expectation that this speech will be very uplifting and positive. It's going to focus on the importance of the stability of our Catholic institutions and their fidelity to their Catholic identity and mission. I believe the Holy Father is going to present his thoughts and reflections on Catholic education in the United States in a positive way, not as a rebuke or as a stern message as some have predicted. I think it's going to be a very uplifting and encouraging talk.

Our Sunday Visitor: What is the recipe for Catholic identity at a university or college?

Father O'Connell: This is something that we've already been provided the answer in Ex Corde Ecclesiae ["From the Heart of the Church," a 1990 apostolic letter]. John Paul II, Benedict's predecessor, outlined for us what he called the essential characteristics of a Catholic university or college.

OSV: How can the intangibles outlined in the document be translated into concrete application?

Father O'Connell: What is the fundamental difference between a Catholic college or university and a secular college or university? It's the value added by faith. Faith is based on mystery. So, by its very nature there are going to be things that are intangible there. But you know them when you see them, and you know them when you feel them. I had dinner last night for students in the student bar for our law school. And several of them were not Catholic. They spoke to me in very clear ways, and very good ways, about how they would never trade their experience in the law school at Catholic University with any other experience they had. That they could feel in the law school a sense of care, a sense of compassion, a sense of the difference that faith makes in peoples' lives. How do you present that or how do you demonstrate that? You can't really. It's just there. And there are colleges, and some religious colleges, where you don't feel that presence. So an institution's ability to demonstrate success is something that is intangible, but very real and very present.

OSV: Implementation of Ex Corde Ecclesiae has been spotty, for instance in the number of theologians who have sought the mandatum. Is the document obsolete?

Father O'Connell: It's the magna carta for Catholic education. I don't think that it loses its vibrancy or validity at all with the passing of time. It's our road map. It's like an institution with a strategic plan. It's the Catholic strategic plan. You keep coming back to that. As you make decisions, as you implement things on the campus or develop initiatives, it's the thing you keep coming back and touching. Saying, 'Well, how does this reflect what's said here? How does this reflect what we believe? How does this reflect our identity?' So that's the way I look at Ex Corde. I don't look at it as a document that is shelved by any means.

OSV: If the educators had been given an opportunity to address the pope, what concerns do you think they'd raise?

Father O'Connell: It's hard to say because even though Catholic higher education represents diversity within the broader American educational system, the institutions themselves do differ significantly among one another. Perhaps not as much in terms of their Catholic identity as in terms of other dimensions of the institutions. And so presidents are going to have probably different questions and issues in mind. You know, what I look to the Holy Father for in this speech is encouragement. I look to the Holy Father for a shot in the arm. I look to the Holy Father to say to us that it is critically important that Catholic identity and faith are vibrant parts of what we are and what we do. And that they lead our students and our faculty and staff somewhere. Somewhere that's positive. Somewhere that's Catholic. And somewhere that affirms what our faith represents.

I couldn't say what the president of Georgetown has on his mind. I couldn't say what the president of Notre Dame has on his mind, or Boston College, or one of the prominent institutions. But I can say what's on my mind, and what's on my mind is give us encouragement, and let that encouragement be a clarion call to fidelity. ...

Sometimes when you're in a setting with other Catholic college president, like for example the annual meeting of the Association of Catholic Colleges and Universities , you kind of get a little bit of the sense of the Land O'Lakes decision -- you know, that people are happier if the Church and its officials keep its hands off. [In 1967, a group of educators and administrators met at Land O' Lakes, Wis., and issued a statement disavowing bishops' oversight over Catholic universities.] But I can tell you, because Catholic University's board is bishops and cardinals,that there's not really a great interest on the part of the bishops and cardinals of the United States to interfere. What they're looking for is signs of fidelity. And that fidelity is not simply a matter of what's taught in the classroom. It's the way that our teachings and beliefs are lived on the campus. So it includes more than just the curriculum. It includes the way that students live; it includes the way that students play, and the opportunities provided for that, and what goals and dreams and hopes are put forward for the students, and the persons who represent those hopes as role models. What are they, who are they and what is it that they're leading them to?

-- John Norton