Catholic Higher Education Officials Engage in Dialogue at 'City on a Hill' Symposium

May 03, 2007 - 12:00 PDT

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
MEDIA ADVISORY

STEUBENVILLE, OH, MAY 3, 2007 - Representatives from dozens of Catholic colleges and universities from across the nation and around the world gathered at Franciscan University of Steubenville to dialogue about the purpose and identity of Catholic higher education. College presidents, administrators, and faculty shared their different visions and aspirations for Catholic education from Thursday, April 19, through Sunday, April 22.

The conference began on Thursday evening with the inaugural Henkels Lecture delivered by Archbishop J. Michael Miller, CSB, the Vatican secretary for the Congregation of Catholic Education. In his lecture, Archbishop Miller spoke about the need to strengthen and maintain Catholic identity within Catholic institutions of higher learning. Addressing the neglected norms in Ex Corde Ecclesiae, Pope John Paul II's 1990 Apostolic Constitution on Catholic higher education, he objected to the "bleaching" of Catholic identity and noted that "some institutions have ignored, hidden, or lost their ecclesial identity."

To correct that problem, Archbishop Miller urged schools to adopt quantifiable measures of assessment about their Catholicity. He recommended that those measures include, among others, ensuring that a majority of the faculty are Catholic, that all scholarship and research are in accord with Catholic teaching, and that the schools' theologians obtain a Mandatum from their bishop, guaranteeing that all they teach is in conformity with the teachings of the Catholic Church. He also made it clear that "assessment is not an end in itself." Rather, he stressed, "the whole point of assessment is enhancement."

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Father Michael Garanzini, SJ, president of Loyola University in Chicago, spoke on Friday on the obstacles Catholic colleges and universities encounter when attempting to strengthen their identity, the challenges of integration and the need for service as a component of that identity.

On Saturday morning, Father John Jenkins, CSC, president of the University of Notre Dame, addressed the importance of the intellectual life on the Catholic university campus and the need to facilitate a dialogue between faith and reason.

"What are the implications of God's law for society, for the moral life, for music, for literature, architecture, economic life, political life, and so on?" Jenkins asked. "These are questions that should animate the life of the Catholic university. The Catholic university brings together the tradition of faith and the insights and discoveries of the wider culture."

On Sunday morning before Mass, European Parliament Vice President Mario Mauro delivered the final address of the symposium. He asserted that Catholic universities must show man "the meaning of his life and teach him how to be human." Addressing the "deep crisis of the human being," Mauro went on to say, "We have tried to get by in education with giving all the information, except the information that matters most, information about meaning. The results are in front of us: invincible boredom, an incapacity for true interests. What students really need is to be introduced to the totality of reality and to be shown its relevance to their life."

Other presentations during the symposium included an address by Dr. Richard Yanikoski, president of the Association of Catholic Colleges and Universities, and a talk by Father Michael Scanlan, TOR, chancellor of Franciscan University. Archbishop Daniel Pilarczyk, of Cincinnati and authors Dr. Melanie Morey and Father John Piderit, SJ, also participated. Numerous workshops and paper presentations over the course of the symposium also dealt with issues of core curriculum, student life, and the Great Books.

At the 11:00 a.m. Sunday Mass on campus, Archbishop Miller expressed his gratitude for the conference and for the opportunity to celebrate the liturgy with the attendees of the conference and Franciscan University faculty and students.

Dr. Max Bonilla, vice president for Academic Affairs at Franciscan University, said he hopes the conference will lead to increased dialogue between schools and faculty about what it means to be a Catholic university. He also said that other administrators have already spoken of their intent to hold workshops and seminars at their own universities. Though the symposium will not become an annual event, for the next several years the University plans to devote the spring semester Henkels Lecture to the topic of Catholic higher education.

"We were extremely pleased by the depth of dialogue," Bonilla said. "I hope this is a rich contribution to the Church as she seeks to serve society through higher education, a means for institutions of higher learning to freely embrace the most fundamental aspects of their purpose."

Contact

Franciscan University of Steubenville
http://www.franciscan.edu
OH, US
Tom Sofio - Ass't. Director of Public Relations, 740 284-5893

Keywords

higher education

Category

Catholic Schools & Religious Education

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