Raleigh News & Observer
April 9, 2008
A US flag is seen as Pope Benedict XVI is driven through the crowd during his weekly general audience in St. Peter's Square, at the Vatican, Wednesday, April 9, 2008. The pontiff is scheduled to visit Washington D.C. and New York in his upcoming April 15-20 US trip.
(AP Photo/Pier Paolo Cito)
'Is the Pope Catholic?" is a popular comeback used to denote an obvious fact. Of course he is. The answer to "Is Notre Dame Catholic?" used to be equally indisputable. But not any more.
That's a shortcoming many American Catholics pray that Pope Benedict XVI confronts next week when he makes his first papal visit to the United States. Among the many events he will preside over is a meeting with, and address to, Catholic educators. It's a summons, really. Presidents and chancellors from all 235 U.S. Catholic colleges and universities are expected to atttend.
To borrow a Protestant phrase, I hope the pope's address is really a "Come to Jesus" meeting. Too many Catholic universities -- the University of Notre Dame is a high-profile example -- have become "CINOs," or Catholic In Name Only. Many have used the cloak of academic freedom to support causes and events contrary to church doctrine, leading to serious questions about the definition and role of Catholic identity in higher education.
The decline of Catholicism at U.S. Catholic colleges and universities has reached the point that only 10 percent adequately preach and practice church doctrine, according to the Cardinal Newman Society, which monitors Catholic higher education. A Catholic university should be the last place to find a performance of the play "The Vagina Monologues," yet it's scheduled on 19 Catholic campuses this academic year, including Notre Dame. The good news is, that's less exposure than the play had in 2003-04.
Although Pope John Paul II defined the ideals of a Catholic education in Ex Corde Ecclesiae ("From The Heart Of the Church") in 1990, it was a 2003 Georgetown University commencement speech that woke lay people to how secularized many Catholic colleges and universities have become.
In his Georgetown speech, Cardinal Francis Arinze of Nigeria said this: "In many parts of the world, the family is under siege. It is opposed by an anti-life mentality as is seen in contraception, abortion, infanticide and euthanasia. It is scorned and banalized by pornography, desecrated by fornication and adultery, mocked by homosexuality, sabotaged by irregular unions and cut in two by divorce."
This was hardly a new theme, particularly from a cardinal who was thought to be a leading candidate to succeed John Paul II. To the faithful, that Cardinal Arinze delivered these remarks at the oldest Catholic university in the United States seemed as natural as making the sign of the cross.
Instead, all hell broke loose. A feminist professor seated on stage walked off during the speech. About 70 faculty members signed a letter of protest. Others, including a priest, criticized Arinze's pointed, pro-traditional family remarks as inappropriate and insensitive.
Criticism of Catholic universities' adhering to church doctrine hasn't abated. Catholic institutions are under continuous pressure to reject core belief to conform to what are becoming cultural norms, including offering students contraception on demand and opening resource centers for homosexuals. These are pressures a number of Catholic colleges and universities have given into or probably will succumb to.
I'll leave it to the holy father, a former theology professor himself, to explain the orthodoxy of having Catholic educators return to church teachings. As a layperson, I just want my church's educational leaders to stop using the academic freedom argument to undermine religious freedom.
Refusing to pass out condoms to students isn't undermining academic freedom. Refusing to establish gay resource centers has nothing to do with academic freedom. Refusing to stage a play that includes graphic descriptions and depictions of acts considered by the church as serious sins is not an issue of academic freedom.
If Catholic beliefs about human life, morality and culture aren't going to be taught and supported at Catholic universities, then what is the point of being a Catholic institution? Why would a parent looking for a Catholic learning environment send a child -- and pay top dollar to do so -- to a campus that intellectually is nothing more than a secular school decorated with crosses?
These are the issues I hope Pope Benedict will discuss in clear and concise terms, as only he can, when he meets with Catholic educators next week.
Rick Martinez is director of news and programming at WPTF-AM (rickjmartinez2@ verizon.net).
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