The Bulletin of Catholic Higher Education

Volume 1, Number 1 October 2008

IN THIS ISSUE

EDITOR’S NOTE
Joseph A. Esposito

FEATURE ARTICLES
World Youth Day and Catholic University Students
Cardinal George Pell

“Benedetto”: Benedict XVI and Dietrich von Hildebrand

Exploring a Common Bond
Dr. Alice von Hildebrand

CATHOLIC SCHOLARSHIP
The Fides et Ratio Seminars
Dr. Angelyn Arden

The Vatican Studies Center:

A Project of the Thomas More College of Liberal Arts
Charlie McKinney

Bringing Hope, Empowering Individuals:

The University of St. Thomas (Houston)
Micro-Credit Program
Dr. Rogelio Garcia-Contreras

STUDENT CULTURE
Room At The Inn and Pregnant College Women
Jeannie Wray

MINISTRY AND EVANGELIZATION

Catholic Missionaries Evangelizing Catholic Campuses
Curtis Martin

Why We Play: Mount St. Mary’s University

Sports Chaplaincy Program
Barbara Ruppert

MAGISTERIUM
Pascendi Is Still Relevant
Dr. Peter A. Kwasniewski

BOOK REVIEWS

EVENTS
INSIDE
2 ........................................ Editors Note
3 ........................................ Feature Articles
7 ........................................ Catholic Scholarship
19 ........................................ Student Culture
17 ........................................ Ministry and Evangelization
19 ........................................ Magisterium college women. Jeannie Wray, executive director of Room At
21 ........................................ Book Reviews life initiative.
22 ........................................ Events One of the most vital Catholic organizations in the area
23 ........................................ Center News
24 ........................................ About the Center
Editor’s Note
By Joseph A. Esposito
Welcome to the first issue of The Bulletin of
Catholic Higher Education, a quarterly publication of
The Center for the Study of Catholic Higher Education.
The Bulletin provides fresh insights into issues affecting
Catholic colleges and universities and shares information
about successful initiatives.
We are blessed to have two internationally known Catholic
leaders provide the first two featured articles in this issue.
Cardinal George Pell, the Archbishop of Sydney, Australia,
begins with a discussion of World Youth Day, which was
held in Sydney in July 2008. The second essay is by the
distinguished philosopher Dr. Alice von Hildebrand, who
reflects on the relationship between Pope Benedict XVI and
her late husband, Dietrich von Hildebrand.
The next group of articles deals with Catholic scholarship,
and there are three insightful essays. Dr. Angelyn Arden, an
associate professor of humanities at Holy Apostles College &
Seminary, writes about her attendance at two Fides et Ratio
Seminars and how her college is following up. Similarly,
faculty and students are benefiting from a new, multi-faceted
Vatican Studies Center at Thomas More College of Liberal
Arts, which Charlie McKinney describes.
This section concludes with an article on a new international
micro-credit program, combining development theory,
2
Catholic thought and hands-on involvement by students,
which is thriving at the University of St. Thomas (Houston);
advisor and assistant professor Dr. Rogelio Garcia-Contreras
discusses how this initiative came about.
We also will be exploring student culture in each issue of
The Bulletin. This issue focuses on an important new home
being planned at Belmont Abbey College to help pregnant
The Inn of Charlotte, North Carolina, tells us about this pro-
of ministry and evangelization is the 10-year-old Fellowship
of Catholic University Students (FOCUS). The founder and
president, Curtis Martin, writes about FOCUS’ expansion
from secular to several Catholic campuses.
Also impressive is a unique spiritual outreach to students
at Mount St. Mary’s University. Here, as Barbara Ruppert
relates, seminarians participate in a chaplaincy program that
serves each of the university’s 19 sports teams.
Our last section of articles deals with the Magisterium.
This issue Dr. Peter A. Kwasniewski, one of two Newman
Fellows at our Center and an associate professor of theology
and philosophy at Wyoming Catholic College, provides a
perspective on the papal encyclical Pascendi Dominic Gregis,
which received little attention on the 100th anniversary of its
release last September. He tells us why Pope St. Pius X’s
encyclical on modernism has meaning to today’s college
students.
Finally, to highlight the great contribution of Cardinal Avery
Dulles in many areas of the Catholic Church, including higher
education, we have included brief reviews of his two recent
books. These works, one on the Magisterium and the other
on 20 years of His Eminence’s McGinley lectures, are to be
savored.
Before concluding, we mention a few upcoming
conferences of note and identify some of The Center’s
plans for the next few months. These sections will continue
to grow in our January issue of The Bulletin and beyond.
We hope that these articles help advance your thinking on
Catholic higher education and offer ideas that might be
implemented in a variety of ways. Please contact us
with any suggestions. 
Feature Articles
World Youth Day and Catholic University Students
By Cardinal George Pell
Universities have played an enormous part in my life. I had
the immense privilege of undertaking doctoral studies at Oxford
University in the late 1960s, and I have also been fortunate to
study at universities in Rome and Australia. As a young priest,
in my home diocese of Ballarat, I served as Director of Aquinas
College, a small diocesan teachers college that later became a
campus first of the Institute of Catholic Education in Victoria
and then of Australian Catholic University (ACU). I headed the
team that brought ACU, Australia’s first Catholic university,
into being, and when I was Archbishop of Melbourne, I was
able to assist in consolidating the University’s two suburban
campuses into one major inner-city site.
As Archbishop of Sydney, I have been delighted to
play a part in establishing campuses of Australia’s second
Catholic university, the University of Notre Dame Australia
(UNDA) in prime inner-city locations; with the law school
and education faculty located in Broadway, just down the
road from our oldest university, the University of Sydney;
and the medical and nursing schools located in Darlinghurst,
right in the middle of the largest Catholic hospital
and medical research precinct in the country.
So, I am deeply committed to what universities can
do, and in particular to what Catholic universities can do.
I believe wholeheartedly in the importance of university
education and the role of the Church in helping to form the
next generation of leaders. For secular universities, this means
a serious commitment by the Church to chaplaincy services.
One could be tempted to describe the role of Catholic
university chaplaincies as providing a refuge for students on
campus. To some extent that is undoubtedly true, but it is only
part of the picture. Chaplaincies provide a positive service that
not only sustains student faith life, but also seeks to nurture
and strengthen it.
To that end the chaplaincy teams in Sydney archdiocese work
hard to build a Catholic culture on campus to help students
access the spiritual and intellectual riches of the Church,
regularly and freely. An effective chaplaincy ensures that
daily Mass, prayer and scripture study are always available.
Naturally, the organization of social activities is a crucial part
of the mix to enable students to meet each other—the modern
university campus can be a very lonely place—and form
strong networks and lasting friendships.
There is also a missionary element to all this work. As
Catholics, we believe that the Gospel message is timeless and
will always have something to contribute to the betterment
of people and society as a whole. Through activities such as
stalls (sites for distributing material), mission weeks, forums
and debates, the chaplaincies continue the fine tradition of
Catholic intellectualism and engagement with the wider
culture.
We must never forget that it was the Church that first inspired
the idea of the university. We should have the confidence to
treat it as home turf, and use the opportunities and challenges
of university life in a secular age to encourage and prepare
young leaders to take part in public life and in the battle of
ideas.
The renewal of university chaplaincy in Sydney has made
good progress, and I hope for more in the future. Of course,
success in any work of the Church is never due to one single
cause. There always are a number of factors that come
together to bring about success, especially grace and God’s
blessings. I wanted to strengthen university chaplaincy when
I arrived as Archbishop in Sydney, and after considering the
opportunities and resources available, and hearing a number
of suggestions as to what to do, a Christ-centered, sacramental
and missionary model of chaplaincy was implemented, largely
led by lay people.
This model has worked well so far, bearing more and more
fruit with time on the campuses where it is in operation.
Critical to this has been employing good people who work
“So, I am deeply committed to
what universities can do, and
in particular to what Catholic
universities can do. ”
3
Feature Articles
hard and are committed to the faith, and who can cooperate
effectively with the existing Catholic student societies. My
ambition is to expand this model of chaplaincy to reach other
campuses across the Sydney area. Having the resources to do
this is one thing; but having the right people to take on and
lead this work is another, perhaps even more important, factor.
The most important factor, in all our efforts, lies in prayer and
faithfulness to Church life and teachings.
The Developing Impact
It is from within this context that we can glimpse part of
the effect of World Youth Day on campuses. The chaplaincy
at Sydney University, for example, geared its entire first
semester program this past year towards encouraging students
to register for World Youth Day. Given the enormous financial
pressures on university students today, which are significantly
greater than they were for my generation, it would have been
no surprise if some were put off by the registration payment of
up to $300. But this proved not to be the case.
The groundswell of enthusiasm for World Youth Day across
the country, and especially in Sydney, was tangible and strong.
For example, in 2007 we had 180 young adults take part in a
short training course for pilgrim group leaders; this year we
had over 650 participate. A proportion of these leaders came
from among university students, although the segments from
parishes and schools were larger.
There were an enormous number of people working for
World Youth Day in Sydney and in every diocese throughout
Australia. Parishes, schools, religious orders, communities
and ethnic groups got on board. I have no doubt that the
chaplaincy work we have been doing boosted the numbers of
university students willing to take part in this sort of course.
Some say that once university students “get” the faith
they are likely to keep it for the rest of their lives. Certainly
adult conversions are normally longer lasting. When we are
born into something we can take it for granted—the “cradle
Catholic” syndrome. On the other hand, as the saying goes,
adult converts run the risk of being “more Catholic than
the Pope,” sometimes to the amusement and discomfort of
cradle Catholics.
Young adults are generally still idealistic, seeking what is
authentic to answer their questions about meaning, values and
integrity. They are looking for purpose in their lives, something
to give them orientation and a reliable compass in the craziness
of the modern world. And for many of them this means using
their gifts and talents to serve Christ and others. This desire to
be of service to others runs very strong in the young. When it
4
fails to find fulfillment in something life affirming, hurt and
bitterness can follow. The university is often a testing ground
for different answers, so it is essential that students be exposed
to the Gospel message and the Catholic tradition in all their
genuine vitality.
World Youth Day offered what is authentic and life
transforming not just to students at university, but to young
people everywhere. The work we have done in university
chaplaincies has given rise to a number of associations which
took a very active part in World Youth Day, and these groups
played an important part in bringing the World Youth Day
message to university students among the pilgrims.
I hope many of these pilgrims have come back to their
universities and studies with a renewed commitment and
energy to spreading the word on campus. Pope Benedict XVI
is not only a wonderful pastor, but an intellectual in the best
traditions of Catholic Europe and European university life.
University students in particular found much to inspire them
and to pray about in the Pope’s teaching during World Youth
Day. Pope Benedict is an exemplary role model who combines
a brilliant intellect with humility, and a depth of culture with
great faith.
“Some say that once
university students “get” the
faith they are likely to keep it
for the rest of their lives.”
Countless young people throughout the world have
rediscovered their faith through a World Youth Day experience.
There are also many who have found their vocation—either to
marriage, the priesthood or religious life. My hope and prayer
is that similar fruits will be born in Sydney, for Australia and
our region first of all, and in all the countries to which the
pilgrims returned after the Holy Father departed.
Cardinal George Pell has been Archbishop of Sydney since
2001. Pope John Paul II named him a Cardinal in 2003. He
previously served for nearly five years as Archbishop
of Melbourne.
For a complete biography of Cardinal Pell see:
www.sydney.catholic.org.au/Archbishop/bio.shtml 
Feature Articles
“Benedetto”: Benedict XVI and Dietrich von Hildebrand Exploring a
Common Bond
By Dr. Alice von Hildebrand
If a journalist were apprised of the fact that Benedict XVI
had granted a private audience to Dietrich von Hildebrand’s
wife—when it is well known that it is a privilege very rarely
granted—and would be given 24 hours (the time usually
allotted newspaper reporters) to write an informative article
to justify this “discrimination,” he would hastily turn to
the Internet.
He will come to the conclusion that both men being German
and having lived for many years in Bavaria, inevitably shared
a bond. Moreover, he might find out that they briefly met in
Munich in 1951.
When after many years of voluntary exile, Dietrich von
Hildebrand returned to the Bavarian capital, his friends
arranged for him to give a talk. The topic was “The Role of
Beauty in Christian Life.” The talk was attended by a young
priest named Ratzinger, who was an assistant pastor at St.
Georg Church in Bogenhausen. It had been Dietrich von
Hildebrand’s parish from the time of his conversion in 1914
until he voluntarily left Germany when Hitler came to power
in 1933, refusing to live in a country headed by a “criminal,”
as he called the Führer.
Through a piece of luck, this journalist also might find
out that both men shared a great love for Bavarian Baroque
architecture and for great music, both having a rich musical
background and a common love for the Gregorian chant. To
give a final light touch to his task, he might add that both
share a special affection for cats whose grace enchanted them.
Armed with this information, he would now feel well equipped
to write an article on the topic assigned to him.
The late journalist Malcolm Muggeridge wrote in his memoirs
that the information hastily garnered is often inaccurate and
usually leaves out the essential. Even though the imaginary
journalist I have alluded to does give valid information, it would
be ludicrous to claim that it had answered our original query.
We must look deeper.
Most of Dietrich von Hildebrand’s youth was spent in
Florence, not in Germany, and even though he struck deep
roots in Bavaria and loved its Baroque architecture and its
high musical culture, his heart remained deeply attached
to the country that sheltered much of his early years.
He remained very Italian in his ways.
The lecture mentioned above was given in the summer of
l951. When invited to attend Dietrich von Hildebrand’s talk,
young Father Ratzinger might have been briefly informed that
the speaker had left Germany voluntarily when Hitler grabbed
power, and had chosen exile and poverty to fight a “sample”
of the anti-Christ. It is most likely that he was not aware
that upon leaving Munich, Dietrich von Hildebrand first took
refuge in Florence, and then with the full support of Austrian
Chancellor Engelbert Dollfuss, founded in Vienna an anti-
Nazi, anti-Communist magazine which earned him the honor
to be dubbed by Franz von Papen, German ambassador in
Vienna (as formulated in a top secret message sent to Hitler),
“the Reich’s enemy number one in Austria.” This information
was not yet available at the time. Father Ratzinger could not
possibly realize that he had met a hero.
Josef Ratzinger was a child when Hitler came to power, and
willy-nilly, from his sixth year until he was 18, he lived in a
country poisoned by Nazism. Thanks to his deep faith and the
political clear-sightedness of his father—who opposed Hitler
from the very beginning—he was unaffected by the Nazi virus.
But most German citizens were far from being fully aware of
the immensity of the Nazi crimes.
The content of the talk, the eloquence and love with which
it was delivered made a deep impression on Father Ratzinger.
The lecturer was clearly a great truth-lover and a dyed-in-the-
wool enemy of relativism. Father Ratzinger perceived that the
approach of the speaker was like a fresh philosophical breeze,
far removed from the pretentious and abstract chatter that
affects many university professors. Every word found an echo
in the soul of a future Pope who, from his early childhood on,
had fallen in love with Gregorian chant and been overwhelmed
by this voice coming from heaven.
When Dietrich von Hildebrand entered the Church at the
age of 24 and discovered this liturgical music—which is
in fact a prayer which in pure sounds says what the human
soul would like to say in words, but cannot because human
“The content of the talk, the
eloquence and love with which
it was delivered made a deep
impression on Father Ratzinger.”
5
Feature Articles
vocabulary is to anemic to capturing experiences which are
like a dew from heaven—he too fell in love with this arch-
Catholic music, this pure expression of Catholic worship.
From this moment on, he never missed a single chance of
attending a Gregorian high Mass. This was apparent in his
talk, and resonated in the soul of the young priest.
Common Bonds
Father Ratzinger had met a kindred soul. A common
love of beauty, seen as a reflection of God, creates a bond
between souls. Not only did they share a great love, but the
speaker made him fully realize that Catholicism, far from
downgrading human values, gave them a new splendor by
relating them to Beauty itself.
Dietrich von Hildebrand was superbly
equipped to give this talk. The son of a great
artist, knighted by the King of Bavaria, raised
in a country of sublime beauty, fed from
his earliest youth on masterpieces in art,
music and literature, he understood, when
he converted that all this beauty, far from
becoming irrelevant in religious life, was a
glorification of God who is Beauty itself. This
is why he wrote in his unpublished memoirs
that it is only when he became a Catholic that
he fully appreciated the sublime beauty with
which he had been acquainted as a child. A
totally new dimension opened up to him; he
saw it in the light of eternity, as a hint of the
beauty of the Eternal Hills. He gained deep insights into the
crucial importance of beauty in religious life.
Common love of beauty, common love of truth, common
rejection of relativism had led both Dietrich von Hildebrand
and Father Ratzinger to the thought of St. Augustine
who they both viewed as the greatest of the fathers of the
Church. This love was to last for the rest of their lives. In his
memoirs, Dietrich von Hildebrand expresses his gratitude in
the following words, “Beloved St. Augustine, how can I ever
thank you for what you have given me.”
For Dietrich von Hildebrand (I assume that the present
Pope would agree), The Confessions of St. Augustine was
the greatest book ever written after the Bible. This preference
refers not only to his immense intellectual debt to the Bishop
of Hippo, to a spiritual and intellectual affinity, but to a
profound gratitude for the fact that the works of this great
saint, illumined by faith shed light on the key questions of
human existence: man’s relationship with God, his nature,
6
his destiny, his relationship with others. St. Augustine shows
how faith purifies reason and the human heart, and teaches
man how to love, by partaking in God’s love. Augustine’s
superb literary skills are put at the service of Truth itself.
St. Augustine never falls into the pitfall of intellectualism
and abstractionism: man is a person, made to the image of
the Holy Trinity. It is this supernatural revelation that sheds
an invaluable light on the mystery that man is: Platonic
exemplarism (so crucial in the thought of both thinkers) finds
in St. Augustine its completion and fulfillment. De Trinitate
is a philosophical and theological gem, so rich in insights,
so profound, so illuminating that in it, man is given precious
tools shedding light on who he is. He can only validly relate
to himself by relating to Him who is closer to man that he
can be to himself. This is expressed in the
Confessions: Augustine realizes that for many
years he was away from himself because he
had strayed away from God. “Late have I
loved Thee, O Beauty so ancient and so new.”
Numerous are the philosophical books
that are so dry, so abstract, because man’s
intellect is isolated from the riches of
the human person. The affective life is
labeled as “subjective” and “dangerous”: no
distinction is made between its caricature
(sentimentality and emotionalism) and its
authentic meaning, namely the stirring of the
human heart when it faces what is great, noble
and true.
It is said in the Bible, “give me your heart,” not your intellect.
In the Canticle of Canticles, we read the following words:
“Feed me with apples, because love makes me swoon.”
The word “heart” appears some 800 times in the Bible, and
it is one of St. Augustine’s innumerable merits that he sheds
light on “holy” affectivity which in fact presupposes both
the intellect (the object of our love must be known) and the
sanction of our will: love unifies all of man’s spiritual powers.
Plato saw this, even though in a limited and imperfect way
when he wrote, “Love is heaven’s greatest blessing” (in his
dialogue, Phaedrus).
It is easy to draw a caricature of the heart. Yet it is also
easy to show that pride is the cancer of the intellect, and the
great danger of “intellectuals.” Self-will is self-slavery. St.
Augustine “baptized” Plato, in placing his “world of ideas” in
God, while totally rejecting his errors and pagan limitations.
But he does not hesitate to proclaim him the greatest of the
Greeks, an intellectual precursor of Christ.
CATHOLIC SCHOLARSHIP
How deep are the words, “Thou hast made us for Thyself
and our hearts are restless till they rest in Thee.” How
poignantly St. Augustine etches the duel that takes place
in the human soul between good and evil. How admirably
does he unveil the nature of true freedom. Whereas the
Confessions are totally centered on the relationship
between the soul and God, The City of God completes it
and highlights the role of community and communion in
Christian life, the bond existing between men giving us a
magnificent understanding of history viewed in the light
of revelation.
How precious is his distinction between ontological
freedom and moral freedom. How sublime are Augustine’s
interpretations of the Psalms. Far from overlooking the
distinction between faith and reason, theology and philosophy,
he shows convincingly that faith both purifies and illumines
human intelligence, how crucial humility is for an authentic
intellectual life, how it fecundates man’s mind.
A great common love for someone who fully deserves
love forges a bond between men that is based on a rock. St.
Augustine opens up the field of personalism that has now
flowered in contemporary thought.
Truth-based philosophy should not be imprisoned in a
system that, valuable as it might be, tends in the hands of a
great master’s disciples to become an intellectual straightjacket
The Fides et Ratio Seminars
By Dr. Angelyn Arden
For decades, ecclesial and ecumenical groups have voiced
dismay over the secularized, fragmented, highly specialized
state of education. Even secular concerns have been expressed
(William Deresciewicz on the disadvantages of elite colleges
in The American Scholar, Summer 2008, Vol. 77, No. 3). It is
not an understatement to say that the study of core curricula
and great books continues to be quite minimal.
Pope Benedict, in his “Address to Catholic Educators” at
The Catholic University of America, calls for the Catholic
college or university to be a “place to encounter the living God
who in Jesus Christ reveals his transforming love and truth.”
Both he and Pope John Paul II before him (e.g., Fides et Ratio
encyclical) provide guidelines for recovering past voices of
wisdom that taught revealed truth.
which rejects on principle insights that transcended its limited
vision. “Who said so?” should be replaced by, “is it true?”
Pope Benedict in his speech at Regensburg revealed
eloquently that he knows what the Church urgently needs
today, namely a philosopher to whom God has granted a
powerful mind, fecundated by faith, a deadly enemy of
relativism, someone who knows full well that the latter is a
poison which bars the way to God. Once the objectivity of
truth is grasped, the way is opened to the one who said, “I
AM THE TRUTH.” Benedict XVI knows that the thought of
Dietrich fits the bill: this, I believe, is why his wife was the
beneficiary of a priceless privilege—a face-to-face encounter
with the successor of Peter.
Alice von Hildebrand, Ph.D., is a professor of philosophy
emerita at Hunter College, where she taught for 37 years.
She serves as an Honorary Member of the Advisory Council
for the Dietrich von Hildebrand Legacy Project.
For further information on the Dietrich von Hildebrand
Legacy Project see: www.hildebrandlegacy.org g
In an October 2008 research paper of The Center for the
Study of Catholic Higher Education, Dr. R. E. Houser notes
several factors, including core and great books, that constitute
the essence of Catholic education. He traces the growth of these
factors from medieval times to their decline since. Working
with Pope Benedict’s “Address to Catholic Educators”, he lays
out prospects for rekindling the Catholic Intellectual Tradition.
For those interested in the issues that Dr. Houser raises, the
question of praxis arises. That is, how do we implement such
renewal without the stamp of dogmatism, parochialism or
“oppression”? In the summer of 2007 and 2008, I participated
in a weeklong seminar for faculty at Catholic colleges and
universities that aims directly at proliferating and promoting
great texts and thought of the Catholic Intellectual Tradition.
Its method nurtured open conversation between participating
7
CATHOLIC SCHOLARSHIP
faculty while addressing controversial issues in the great
works. It is instructive to all reformers.
The Fides et Ratio Seminars on the Catholic Intellectual
Tradition of the 20th and 21st centuries, sponsored by the Faith
& Reason Institute, have the goal of strengthening Catholic
liberal education. The Seminars do this through faculty
development with a view to nurturing the souls of young
men and women who are taught by the faculty attending the
seminars. The seminar focuses on great works by a wide range
of modern and ancient poets, philosophers and theologians
who shaped 20th century Catholic culture.
Strengthening Faculty
The Seminars provide participants—professors from
Catholic colleges, universities and seminaries in the United
States (and one from Peru)—with an extensive Library of
Works that grew to 53 in the summer of 2007 and now has
grown to nearly 100 classic and contemporary works. The
weeklong seminar fosters a growing community of scholars
who take back to their respective institutions and classrooms
the grounding in the great Catholic library explored in common
during the Seminar.
The first Fides et Ratio Seminar was held in 2006 at
Benedictine College in Atchison, Kansas. The second, the
first I attended, convened at the University of St. Francis in
Fort Wayne, Indiana. The third, held this past summer, was
held at two locations: Providence College, July 13-19, and the
one I attended at Notre Dame, July 27-August 2.
The seminar director, Dr. Patrick Powers, and co-director,
Dr. Robert Royal, ran four to five sessions per day. Specific
novels, from the 19th to 20th centuries, were required reading
prior to the seminar with the rest of the assigned, shorter
readings to be done during the week at reading periods
between discussion sessions. The 2008 novels were: Graham
Greene’s A Burnt Out Case, Walker Percy’s The Moviegoer
and Willa Cather’s Death Comes for the Archbishop.
Each year, the Library of Works has expanded in number
and scope. I find the texts illuminating and also helpful in
my teaching, writing and spiritual development. They remain
an ongoing part of my thought and inquiry. Whereas most
conference and seminars include members within a similar
field, what distinguishes this group is that expertise in a
specialized area is not the point. Participants face one another
and texts in fields not their own in a stance of openness,
without anyone being in authority.
8
The experience is one of a sort of kenosis: emptying
oneself of foundational assumptions, convictions, and the
frameworks of one’s research and study to work on material
with a freshness and intuitive acuity. Faculty differed in age,
field of specialization and, geographical location, yet all were
moved to be part of the renewal of the Catholic Intellectual
Tradition. Paradoxes and contradictions both between texts
in the Library of Works and also faculty perspectives sparked
lively discussion both years I attended.
The goal of these discussions was not achieving uniformity
of conclusions, but probing the richness of great minds and
wrestling with multifaceted meanings of their works—for the
sake of unveiling the larger ideas behind education through
reason and knowledge impelled by Revelation. For example,
we encountered the “old world” colliding with and informing
the “new world” in Death Comes for the Archbishop compared
with Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart.
One might expect an element of chaos from a seminar of
30 people; instead the conversations were well focused. The
director and co-director sat at either end of the table moderating
the many who spoke in turn. The group was divided with
half discussing the text while the other half listened. In
the next session, their roles were reversed. In all sessions,
I experienced a fluidity of discussion that precluded repetition,
dilution or digression.
I think that the uniqueness and depth of conversation was
the function of a few factors: the works were very rich and
stimulating, the faculty genuinely wanted to understand the work
rather than lecture one another and we had experienced leaders.
Additionally, the seminar methodology added a dimension of
trust, respect and conviviality extending to meetings outside
the sessions.
The seminar’s mission includes the continuation of Fides et
Ratio readings and discussion at the home institution as well
as the preparation of the faculty member who will be attending
the seminar the following year. Seminars have sprouted up at
prominent Catholic institutions, such as the University of Dallas,
the University of Scranton, St. Francis University in Indiana as
well as my home institution where I inaugurated a seminar in
the spirit of Fides et Ratio Seminar which is already becoming
a tradition!
In the fall 2007, with the support of the president-rector
Father Douglas Mosey, C.S.B., I brought a selection of the
Fides et Ratio Seminar readings back to Holy Apostles College
& Seminary as the basis of a weekly seminar. There was a
CATHOLIC SCHOLARSHIP
large turnout, approximately 11-14 faculty members (of
about 30). Pope John Paul’s encyclical Fides et Ratio was at
its core.
This work was followed by Joseph Conrad’s Heart of
Darkness, Pope Benedict’s On the Way to Jesus Christ, Dante’s
The Divine Comedy and, finally, Nathaniel Hawthorne’s
The Marble Faun. This was a great venue for faculty, accustomed
to dealing with one another primarily administratively, to
engage deeply intellectually.
Ripple Effect of the Catholic Intellectual Tradition. This will be interspersed
An unexpected offshoot of this group emerged. As the
sessions progressed, our Academic Dean, Father Maurice
Sheehan, O.F.M. Cap., a Church history scholar, revealed an
expertise in literature, a love of his since his Oxford days.
Even colleagues with whom he had worked for decades were
unaware of this side of him. The second semester we chose
an author from the Fides et Ratio Library of Works, Evelyn
Waugh, and Father Sheehan lead a stimulating three-week
seminar on Waugh’s A Handful of Dust. It was uplifting
to all to see the flowering of these interests in this forum.
We learned much.
Another seminar emerged from the Fides et Ratio Seminar’s
goal of implementing such discussion within the academy.
The Vatican Studies Center:
A Project of the Thomas More College of Liberal Arts
By Charlie McKinney
The Vatican Studies Center was established at the Thomas
More College of Liberal Arts in 2007 to deepen and spread
understanding of Church institutions and teachings. Through
the Center’s array of educational programming, Thomas More
College is offering an accurate, informed perspective on the
ongoing role of the Vatican in world civilization.
This new Center is both scholarly and pastoral. Its programs
emerge from a profound immersion in the great body of Catholic
reflection on the issues of our time—but from that still point of
certitude, it reaches out to the uninformed or misinformed in an
engaging, attractive way. Like the best apologetics, the books,
lectures and other products of this Center shows respect for
the totality of human experience—illumined by the Church’s
understanding of the human person and his divine origin
and destiny.
Through the Vatican Studies Center, Thomas More College
Father Mosey organized a Fides et Ratio group on Tuesday
evenings, open to all faculty and students, lead by Dr. Roger
Duncan, a philosophy professor. First semester was a textual
analysis and discussion of Pope Benedict’s 2006 Regensburg
Address. Second semester was a discussion of “Darwin &
Galileo: Friends or Foes?”
This fall we are beginning as well a Faculty Seminar where
faculty members present their current writing and research to
one another. Such papers will be discussed according to the
Fides et Ratio encyclical and themes relevant to the renewal
with another “Fides et Ratio Seminar” based on texts from the
Library of Works.
We all are hopeful that the renewal of great texts and thought
of the Catholic Intellectual Tradition, both at the national level
as well as at the specific ones at home institutions of faculty
attending the annual Fides et Ratio Seminars, will bear fruit
in strengthening the presence of core curricula of Catholic liberal
education in the great books tradition
Angelyn Arden, Ph.D., is an associate professor of humanities
at Holy Apostles College & Seminary, Cromwell, Connecticut.
is radiating the Catholic vision by examining the implications
for a healthy Christian culture that comes from reflecting on
the historic institutions of the Church. Inspired by Pope John
Paul II’s call for a “new springtime” for the Church, which
has been carried forward by his successor Pope Benedict XVI,
Thomas More College and its Vatican Studies Center is on the
cutting-edge of the New Evangelization.
Social Communications
The Vatican Studies Center is particularly concerned
about communicating the Church’s teaching through a wider
audience through a wide range of media forums and outlets.
As part of this effort, the Vatican Studies Center conducts a
series of lectures entitled The Vatican Forum, which offers
international journalists, members of the Roman Curia and
students and seminarians in Rome an informed and intelligent
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CATHOLIC SCHOLARSHIP
perspective about current cultural controversies or issues in the
news involving the Church.
Vatican Forum speakers have included theologians,
journalists, clergy and academics of various specialties
addressing reporters from the Associated Press, Fox News,
The Wall Street Journal, Reuters, Newsweek magazine,
CNN and the BBC, as well as journalists from
Catholic outlets such as Zenit News Agency, Inside
the Vatican, Catholic World Report, The National
Catholic Reporter and The National Catholic Register.
An event hosted in Rome in April 2008 discussed the
differences between Pope John Paul II and Pope Benedict
XVI in preparation for the Holy Father’s visit to America.
Journalists attending this event included Kate O’Biern,
Laura Ingraham, Peggy Noonan and Maggie Gallagher,
among others.
Vatican Forum lectures in 2008 included:
• An Insider’s View of the Vatican by Peter Martin of the job” in sectors of culture and the economy, and to seed
U.S. Embassy to the Holy See.
• Chesterton on the Youth of the Church by Dale Ahlquist, Vatican Studies Center has established a series of internship
President of the American Chesterton Society.
• The Problem of Modernism in the Thought of
Flannery O’Connor and Pope Benedict XVI by
Dr. Hank Edmondson, Georgia College & State University.
• The Intelligible Sphere: Religion and Civil Society in coupled with the opportunities normally associated only with
the 21st Century by Dr. John Farina of George
Mason University.
• The God That Did Not Fail: How Religion Built and The Vatican Studies Center has established the following
Sustains the West by Dr. Robert Royal, President of the internship programs:
Faith & Reason Institute.
As a result of positive feedback from attendees, we
intend to continue offering this series both in Rome and
New Hampshire.
Partnership with Zenit News Agency
In 2008, the Thomas More College of Liberal Arts partnered
with the Zenit News Agency to spread Vatican news and the
teachings of the Catholic Church throughout the world in
an effort to advance our shared mission of evangelizing the
culture. Because Thomas More College’s Vatican Studies
Center will be constantly producing essays, lectures and
books that explore a variety of Church teachings, issues and
trends, Zenit News Agency will have an ongoing source of
intellectual content that can be disseminated throughout
the world.
10
The director of Thomas More College’s Vatican Studies
Center, Tony Assaf, is also the founder and editor of the
Arabic language edition of Zenit and the founding editor
of the Arabic edition of H2oNews.org. From Thomas More
College’s campus, he is translating the Pope’s words and
reporting on Church news in Arabic and spreading it widely
into the Arabic-speaking world, along with the intellectual
content from Vatican Studies Center-related programs.
Through this effort, we are strengthening the bond among
Arabic Christians and the Universal Church, correcting
misconceptions and prejudgments about the Catholic Church
in the Middle East, and filling the void of Catholic information
in the Arabic language by tirelessly promoting the news and
teachings of the Catholic Church. Zenit News is the only
news agency that translates all of the Holy Father’s speeches
into Arabic.
Internships
In an effort to help our students find that critical “first
organizations with well-educated, bright young Catholics, the
opportunities for its students.
In this way, Thomas More College is offering students the
strong formation that is found at small orthodox colleges,
larger institutions.
• The Culture of Life Foundation – Established in 2008,
this internship is currently offering two students of the
Class of 2009, the opportunity to work as Junior Fellows
at the Foundation in Washington, D.C. The Foundation
was created in 1997 in answer to Pope John Paul II’s
encyclical Evangelium Vitae, and works with philosophers
and journalists, theologians and scientists. The students
are writing and researching for one of the leading bioeth-
cists of our time, Dr. William E. May. Two students will
receive paid internships annually.
• Zenit News Agency – The College’s students are regularly
invited by Zenit News to write articles on various issues,
including pro-life developments, bioethics and
Church news.
CATHOLIC SCHOLARSHIP

• H2o News Agency – This past spring, eight Thomas More Future lectures of the Center will feature topics such as
College students worked as interns for H2o News, Catholic social teaching, the relationship between faith and
narrating news reports and reading the Sunday Gospel. reason, sacred Scripture, sacred art, liturgy, music, Church-
Several other students have engaged in similar state issues, cultural trends and bioethics, among others.
internships on our campus in Merrimack. This internship
provides our students who are interested in a Book Publishing Program
journalistic career with journalism training, experience
and credentials. Faculty and staff members are also Recently, Thomas More College entered into a collaborative
involved in H2o News. Dr. Christopher Blum gave Pope partnership with Sophia Institute Press. This new partnership
Benedict XVI a voice by reading aloud the English version provides a solid framework for widely disseminating content
of Pope Benedict XVI’s incisive, deeply inspiring recent related to the work and mission of the Vatican Studies Center.
encyclical Spe Salvi (Saved In Hope), for an audience The Center will initiate the publication of biographies,
of millions. translations of important works, histories and poetry that
stimulate a culture of life in our time and help the public better
• The Pontifical Council for Social Communications – understand the teachings of the Catholic Church.
Prefect Archbishop Claudio Maria Celli has invited one
student to intern for the Council each year, working inside Pilgrimages to Rome
the Vatican and closely with the Pope’s communication
team. Thomas More College is only the second institution A key element of the Vatican Studies Center is the annual
of higher education to have its students invited to pilgrimage made to Rome by each of the College’s sophomore
participate in such a unique opportunity. students. The history of Christendom is written in the stones
and on the ceilings, in the streets and the cemeteries of great
The Vatican Studies Center is also working to establish cities, where we stand astonished at the beauty unveiled by
internships at the Victims of Communism Foundation and man. If our study is both of God and man, and if God made
Parable, the magazine of the Diocese of Manchester, man so that man might be made God, then we are called to
among others. learn from and love the works of man. So it is fitting that
Thomas More College students spend a semester in one of the
Lectures world’s great cities—site of the empire that shaped Western
history and the seat of the universal Church.
The Vatican Studies Center has hosted a series of lectures
to educate priests, nuns, high school teachers, professors, Each day, in between the classes that replicate the core
students and the general public about Church teaching curriculum going on in New Hampshire, Rome program
and Church-related issues in the news. Previous lectures director Dr. Paul Connell leads the student body on explorations
have included: of the city focused on theology, art and architecture. Students
also travel outside Rome, exploring Renaissance churches
• Father Romanus Cessario
(St. John’s Seminary) on Scholarship and Sanctity. in Florence and Orvieto, visiting the cave of St. Benedict
in Subiaco, the Etruscan tombs at Cerveteri and the city of
• Thomas More College’s incoming artist-in-residence St. Francis, Assisi.
David Clayton on Hope and Suffering:
The Art of the Baroque. Students are also able to take advantage of Vatican Studies
Center events and tours to meet with the staff of L’Osservatore
• Professor John F. Quinn (Salve Regina University) on Romano, Vatican Radio and the Congregation of the Doctrine
New England’s Unsung Saints. of the Faith. In future years, the Vatican Studies Center will
feature lectures, meetings with cardinals and other informative
• Charles A. Coulombe (Knight Commander of the encounters with the people who help the Vicar of Christ govern
Papal Order of St. Sylvester) on The Pope’s Legions: the Church throughout the world.
The Remarkable Story of the Papal Zouaves.
In 2005, Thomas More College students were privileged to
• Robert Moynihan (editor-in-chief of Inside the Vatican) on be in Rome at the death of Pope John Paul II and the election
Fatima, Ecumenism, and the Icon of Our Lady of Kazan. of Pope Benedict XVI. In 2008, through the College’s Vatican
Studies Center, students and faculty gained tickets to the
memorial Mass Pope Benedict held in St. Peter’s Square for

11
CATHOLIC SCHOLARSHIP
the anniversary of Pope John Paul II’s death.
The Roman semester is meant to do more than immerse
students in the details of ancient, medieval, and Renaissance
art—or even the particulars of Church doctrines represented in
those artworks. Instead, the major metaphor of the College’s
sojourn in Rome is that of a pilgrimage. One undertakes a
pilgrimage in part to undergo an interior transformation—a
change of heart, to change their life. In this way, the College’s
Rome Semester is a transformative experience that deeply
impacts the life and faith of our students.
Plans for the Future
While the Vatican Studies Center has accomplished a great
deal in its short history, we have ambitious plans for the future.
With sufficient funds, we hope to expand our commitment to
fashioning a new generation of Catholic journalists capable of
mediating the Vatican’s perspectives and teachings to a wider
public, as well as offering unique educational opportunities
in areas related to Vatican studies. Simultaneously, we hope
to increase our ability to deliver quality lectures, conferences,
teacher training programs, books, internships and other
educational projects and resources. The Lord has blessed this
endeavor over the past year, and we look forward to many good
things to come from the Vatican Studies Center in the future.
Bringing Hope, Empowering Individuals:
The University of St. Thomas (Houston) Micro-credit Program
By Dr. Rogelio Garcia-Contreras
The Micro-credit Program (MCP) at the Center for
International Studies (CIS) of the University of St. Thomas
(UST) is an initiative originated from an extremely simple yet
revolutionary idea initially developed a couple of decades ago
by economist and Nobel Prize winner Dr. Muhammad Yunus.
Through a loan of only a few dollars, micro-entrepreneurs
living below the poverty threshold are able to start up an
income-generating business. As a result, families from all
around the world, too poor to be creditworthy by traditional
market criteria, are able to raise their standards of living, avoid
financial loan sharks and build a better future. The idea is
so prevalent in contemporary politics of development that as
part of its Millennium Goals, the United Nations proclaimed
2005 the International Year of Micro-Credit in the hope that a
large number of micro-finance institutions would be opened.
12
Charlie McKinney is director of institutional advancement
at Thomas More College of Liberal Arts, Merrimack,
New Hampshire.
For further information on the Vatican Studies Center see:
www.thomasmorecollege.edu/index.php?/content/
view/123/121/
“The history of Christendom is
written in the stones and on the
ceilings, in the streets and the
cemeteries of great cities, where
we stand astonished at the
beauty unveiled by man. If our
study is both of God and man,
and if God made man so that
man might be made God, then
we are called to learn from and
love the works of man.”
At the University of St. Thomas, a small group of students
learned about Dr. Yumas’ revolutionary idea and its positive
impact around the world. With this in mind and together with
a CIS faculty member, these students proposed in the fall of
2006 the creation of a Center for International Studies Micro-
credit Program. By the following summer, the University
of St. Thomas approved its bylaws, student-run board of
directors and a board of advisors composed of UST alumni
and faculty.
The program has a dual mission. It envisions granting
thousands of hardworking, destitute individuals the necessary
cash to apply their entrepreneurial spirit toward creating
income-generating enterprises that will remove them and
loved ones from poverty. The program also offers a unique
CATHOLIC SCHOLARSHIP
educational opportunity for students to learn first hand how
to run a non-profit financial organization; develop policies
and procedures; assess risk; manage loans, payments and
collections; conduct public relations; raise funds; deal with the
media and write documents; and do other important tasks.
How Does It Work? lend to institutions or so-called “not-for-profit organizations”
The Center for International Studies Micro-credit Program
is funded through donations and fundraising events organized
by CIS students. The First Annual “Dum Spiro” Fundraiser
and Silent Auction surpassed our expectations. It featured
over 30 pieces of art, including 19 paintings by 4th and 5th
graders from Houston’s St. Anne’s Catholic School. Attendees
included not only UST students, faculty and staff, but many
members of the Houston community. Close to $10,000 was
raised. The event, called “Dum Spiro,” translated as “while I
breathe,” is a reminder of our Catholic faith and our intention
to do what we can to alleviate injustice for as long as we
breathe, as long as we are alive.
Once the money for loans were raised, students had the
challenge to allocate the money to people in need. In order to
distribute loans, an official partnership was established with
Kiva.org, a San Francisco-based non-profit organization that
specializes in small loans for micro-entrepreneurs around
the world. From Kiva’s database, students responsible for
loan accounts can make all risk assessments and assign the
monetary contribution to the micro-entrepreneur of their
choice. Students monitor the success or failure of the loan
by analyzing the repayment rate and assigning new loans
as money enters the Fund, either through new donations
or through the money repaid by the initial beneficiaries of
our loans.
In January 2008, Dr. Yunus and UST President Dr. Robert
Ivany met with members of UST’s Center for International
Studies Micro-credit Program to mark the launch of the lending
process. This event not only marked a high point start for the
UST MCP, but it also provided the necessary legitimacy and
public attention that any organization, whether run by students
or not, should have to increase its chances for success.
Success, however, was not defined by Dr. Yunus’s visit.
Students understood that the honorary membership of a Nobel
Peace Prize in our Program increased our chances for running
a successful program, but this fortuitous event couldn’t be
defined as success itself. Happily, every one of the students
running the UST MCP understands something that I consider
to be essential for the honorable procurement of justice and the
honest respect of human dignity: The road to success only runs
through hard and honest work.
Volunteer work, effort and dedication have made the UST
MCP the relative success it is today. Since our first loan,
students have established strict lending criteria requiring our
individual borrowers or field partners, among other things, to
exhibit a high level of transparency and consistency in both
their financial and social services. We have decided to not
that charge excessive interest rates to their affiliates. Nor
do we support organizations that engage in social programs
that are not in line with the social teachings of the Catholic
Church, which is not the same as saying that we do not lend to
non-Catholics.
Today there are 72 beneficiaries of our program in 22
different countries. We can proudly say that UST money is
financing the development of 72 individuals, an achievement
that will become sustainable and impact at least 72 families
and, eventually, 72 communities.
But the students’ efforts have not stopped there. Students have
been working in the design, development and implementation
of what may turn out to be a much more comprehensive chapter
of our Program in a small Mayan community south of Merida,
Yucatan, called Petac. The purpose of this new enterprise is
to enhance the development of alternative sources of income,
while promoting the entrepreneurial spirit and comparative
advantage of the local economy.
To facilitate the successful development of a local micro-
finance institution in the community, a group of UST
students traveled to this impoverished town in Mexico to
gather statistical material; conduct a field study; identify
business opportunities; promote academic research; design,
develop and establish a micro-finance program in the
region; apply for grants to finance this program; and identify
alternative funding sources.
“Today there are 72 beneficiaries of
our program in 22 different countries.
We can proudly say that UST money is
financing the development of
72 individuals, an achievement that
will become sustainable and impact at
least 72 families and, eventually,
72 communities.”
13
CATHOLIC SCHOLARSHIP

We have started to see the results of this exciting effort. The
Program has identified three potential business opportunities
for the people of Petac. Students are now working on the second
phase of the program that includes the formal development of
business plans and training programs as well as a formal quest
for grants to finance these programs.
Dum Spiro Spero (While I Breathe, I Hope)
Some may argue that luck accounts for Dr. Yunus’
endorsement. I like to think, however, that whenever we act
with some sense of good intention, the Divine helps to clear
the way. As a student-operated program, our objective has
always been to set into motion the concept of social change
by a humble call to action directed to other fellow students,
faculty, university peers and the Houston community in
general. To accomplish this goal, we have tried to constitute
the Program as a concrete reflection of UST’s mission and
objectives as a Catholic institution of higher education.
Assisting fellow men and women from around the world
in their efforts to overcome the cycle of poverty should not
be seen as an altruistic endeavor, but as a conscious attempt
to help ourselves by procuring solidarity and justice among
the human family. We are not only assisting the working
poor, we are promoting freedom, fairness and democracy
around the world by endorsing basic principles of micro-
entrepreneurship, self-employment, property rights, wealth
accumulation, democracy, basic human rights and an overall
appreciation of human dignity.
“Whenever I think of my
responsibilities as a man of faith
and all those values that I treasure
and appreciate as a Catholic,
I like to think as well of little things
I can do to bring to life
those values and desires.”

Rogelio Garcia-Contreras, Ph.D., is an assistant professor

in the Center for International Studies, University of St.
Thomas, Houston, Texas.

For further information on the Micro-credit Program see:

www.stthom.edu/Schools_Centers_of_Excellence/
Centers_of_Excellence/Center_for_International_Studies/
Resources_and_Achievement/MicroCredit/Index.aqf 
Whenever I think of my responsibilities as a man of faith
and all those values that I treasure and appreciate as a Catholic,
I like to think as well of little things I can do to bring to life
those values and desires. By providing a tangible opportunity
to impact the world in a positive and fulfilling way, the MCP
program not only has given me a unique opportunity to do
precisely this, but I can proudly say that the program itself is
a living testament of how faith, hope, peace and justice can be
spread through simple, yet clear goals and actions.

The program not only offers an opportunity to close the

gap between theory and practice by connecting concepts
and ideas discussed in the classrooms with administrative
techniques. The program also creates the opportunity
for volunteer student participants to develop from
scratch, rational and concrete mechanisms for decision-
making and problem solving, always within the context
of our commitment to the truth and our efforts to find it.

14
STUDENT CULTURE
Room At The Inn and Caring for Pregnant College Women
By Jeannie Wray
Southerners are proud of their many contributions to
American life. Those of us involved in the pro-life movement
believe that another, emerging contribution is taking hold
in Charlotte, North Carolina, at a little organization called
Room At The Inn.
With 14 facilities run by 11 different organizations, North
Carolina has a rapidly expanding maternity home system that
primarily serves economically disadvantaged pregnant mothers.
However, none of these existing
residential maternity and after-care
programs has a residential program
specifically designed to serve pregnant
college women. Now, Room At the
Inn is changing that with two related
programs, Inn Good Company and the
college-based Residential Facility.
Room At The Inn opened its doors in
1994 as a “home for unwed mothers”
and a way to combat the rising
abortion rate. Founded by a group
of dedicated and devout Catholics who recognized the need to
provide tangible support to women facing troubled pregnancies,
Room At The Inn purchased a home in south Charlotte with the
capacity to house six mothers and their infants. The program
was blessed from the beginning, and within its first year received
a letter of support from Mother Theresa of Calcutta.
From its foundation, Room At the Inn understood that
education was the key to happier futures and more productive
lives for single mothers. Its program was designed so that
clients could remain in residence for up to two years but had to
be enrolled in a post-high school educational program or find
employment. Mothers who had one other child were also eligible
for the residential program. These two facts set the Room At The
Inn program apart from all others in the state.
Mary, a former residential client, recently observed, “I was
a 20-year-old high school graduate, pregnant with nowhere to
go. I was fortunate enough to find Room At The Inn. I was a
resident for 13 months. Room At The Inn supplied me with
all the knowledge and resources I needed to become self-
sufficient. I completed my bachelor’s degree and am now living
independent. I truly believe that I would not be the proud parent
and woman I am today without the love, support and resources
Room At The Inn provided me in my time of need.”
The year 2005 marked a turning point in the program for
two reasons. The first is that the Extended After-Care and
Outreach Program was started in response to the temporary
closure of the residential maternity facility, and the second was
that the board of directors began a long-range planning process
that would determine Room At The Inn’s future direction—
serving pregnant and parenting
college women.
During the 2005 planning study,
the Room At The Inn board
and staff researched numerous
regional resources and national
programs to determine what
resources were available for
college women. Room At The
Inn became aware of Feminists
for Life and the work that they
were doing to champion the cause
of pregnant college women, including building awareness of the
great need for maternity and after-care services for this segment
of the population. According to research, when asked why they
had abortions, women gave the following top three answers:
pregnancy/a baby would interfere with their education; they
lacked the financial resources to care for a child; and they did
not have the emotional support to parent.
The feedback was appalling. And the regional reality was
grim; no residential maternity facilities focusing on this
population existed in Room At The Inn’s service area. In
response, Inn Good Company was formed as an outreach
program to offer counseling and material goods assistance
to pregnant college women at surrounding colleges and
universities. This outreach program would lay the groundwork
for the future college-based Residential Facility, the nation’s first.
“When I heard the announcement
that Room At The Inn was starting
a college program, I felt my soul give
a sigh of relief because I thought,
‘Finally! Somebody gets it!’”
15
STUDENT CULTURE
Enter Belmont Abbey College
But how could this be possible and where would it be
located? As we all know, prayers are answered and angels
abound. Abbot Placid Solari and the monks of Belmont Abbey
offered a four-acre site on property adjacent to Belmont Abbey
College for this new facility. As a result, future residents will
be able to continue their education either at Belmont Abbey
College or one of the other area educational institutions within
commuting distance. Belmont Abbey College President Dr.
William Thierfelder enthusiastically supports the project and
has offered a scholarship for a resident. The college will be a
great source of student volunteers and the location is ideal.
With preliminary drawings in place, a capital campaign is
underway to make the new facility a reality. The building will
have a chapel, childcare and rooms for 15 clients and their
babies. It will provide counseling, laundry, dining and other
facilities required to enable these young mothers to complete
their college education and learn to become better parents—
and not have to choose between the two. Some believe that
this will become a model for the nation.
Catholic Missionaries Evangelizing
Catholic Campuses
By Curtis Martin
Raised a Catholic and enrolled at a Catholic college, Joshua
Gideon looked very much like your “typical” college guy:
baseball, parties, ambitious about his future but unsure how
to become a better man. But he has said, “The lifestyle that I
was leading wasn’t satisfying.” Whether enrolled at Catholic
or secular institutions, a Gallup Poll revealed that 85 percent
of Catholic young adults ages 18 to 25 stop practicing their
faith, many of them during their college years; Joshua was
becoming one of them.
“Then one day out of the blue, a guy (who was a missionary
for Fellowship of Catholic University Students or FOCUS)
invited me to play ‘wiffle ball’, of all things! From that
invitation my life began to change. He then asked me later
to join his Bible study and I began to look at what a fulfilling
life in Christ looked like, and how I wasn’t living it. It was
in January at the 2002 FOCUS National Conference that
I decided to give my life to Christ and start pursuing a life
in Christ.”
This was what we had in mind when we founded FOCUS in
1998 with two missionaries and the hope to be at the service
16
Breaking new ground and creating a program like this takes
vision and courage. It requires the generosity and support of
others and it takes dedication and the desire to serve. Room At
the Inn is fortunate in all of these things and hopes to be able
to eliminate stories like the following:
“I was 18 years old and a sophomore in college when
I became pregnant. The campus nurse told me to go look
up “Abortion Clinics” in the Yellow Pages. So I did. There
were no words of compassion, hope or support. It reaffirmed
my belief that I had no choice. If only someone had been
there to show me that I had the strength to face the truth, face
my mother and face my child with joy. When I heard the
announcement that Room At The Inn was starting a college
program, I felt my soul give a sigh of relief because I thought,
‘Finally! Somebody gets it!’”
Jeannie Wray is executive director of Room At The Inn,
Charlotte, North Carolina.
For further information on Room At The Inn see:
www.rati.org 
of the New Evangelization called for by the late John Paul II.
Ten years later, FOCUS has nearly 200 missionaries serving
on 39 campuses in 22 states. Of those 39 campuses, six are
Catholic institutions: Benedictine College (Atchison, Kansas),
Loras College (Dubuque, Iowa), Seton Hall University (South
Orange, New Jersey), University of St. Thomas (Houston,
Texas), Mount St. Mary’s University (Emmitsburg, Maryland)
and Belmont Abbey College (Belmont, North Carolina).
Earlier this year, I was at Belmont Abbey, where we helped
prepare 79 new missionaries plus dozens of returning staff who
were receiving advanced leadership training. With the goal of
raising up young men and women who can help change the
culture for Jesus Christ, these dynamic young missionaries are
trained in Scripture, Evangelization and Catechesis, and sent
to college campuses where they invest their lives in fulfilling
Christ’s command to “Go, therefore, and make disciples of
all nations.”
Joshua Gideon is part of that effort. Now 27, he is married
and he and his wife, Elisabeth, are expecting their third child.
Since he graduated college five years ago, Joshua has served
MINISTRY AND EVANGELIZATION
as a FOCUS missionary, and since 2006 his assignment has
been his alma mater, Benedictine College. In fact, FOCUS
began at Benedictine College in 1998, and the campus of
more than 1,300 undergraduate students has a team of eight
full-time FOCUS missionaries.
The Need at Catholic Campuses
Why have Catholic missionaries at a Catholic college?
According to Father Brendan Rolling, director for mission and
ministry at Benedictine, “The job of a Catholic college is to
make disciples by educating students who become witnesses
for Christ. Catholic university students need and deserve
dynamic orthodox theology and faithful professors. Even
more, they need witnesses. I’ve seen FOCUS missionaries
inspire our students to take the faith they’ve learned and
pursue Christ’s vision for life
as witnesses on the court, in
chapel and on campus. That
is their mission.”
The leaders of the
Church of tomorrow
are gathered on college
and university campuses
today. We want to reach
college students at a time when they are making decisions
regarding the rest of their lives. Whether it is a Catholic or
a secular campus, the same challenges exist for young men
and women during this critical time: rampant promiscuity,
a culture of alcohol and drug abuse, and a tendency
towards mediocrity. FOCUS counters the college culture
by promoting chastity, sobriety and excellence, virtues
that can only be lived out with the transforming power of
Jesus Christ.
Many Catholic schools are making strides towards cultivating
a culture that encourages virtue and excellence in students.
FOCUS missionaries seek to enter into the lives of the students
they encounter, meeting them on common ground in dorms,
cafeterias, athletic fields and coffee shops. Missionaries share
the joy they find in a Christ-centered life while winning the right
to offer students a personal invitation to live the Gospel. These
students are then built up through small-group Bible studies and
one-on-one mentoring called discipleship. FOCUS missionaries
work as part of the Catholic campus ministry already in place at
the school where they serve. Their role is to go out and bring in
students to the life of the Church on campus and to build up the
Catholic community by building leaders.
In fact, having the team of FOCUS missionaries at
Benedictine College has been beneficial to the overall mission
of the school. “The impact of FOCUS is measurable and
positive. Since FOCUS was founded, Benedictine’s enrollment
is up, vocations are up, grades are up, service is up and Mass
attendance is up. It’s exciting to see the fruit our Lord expects
from Catholic higher education growing at Benedictine,”
said Father Brendan.
While we work on the university campus, our eyes are on
the horizon. In 2 Timothy 2:2, St. Paul instructs his fellow
Christians to teach teachers to teach, and this model of
spiritual multiplication is at the heart of the FOCUS mission.
We empower students to not just live the Gospel, but to share
it with others and become leaders in their own generation.
This is a great need on both secular and Catholic campuses.
Lives are changed through this approach to evangelization.
As just one measure of the impact on this generation, in the
past ten years, 140 young men
have entered the seminary and
40 young women have entered
religious life after being
involved with FOCUS.
In January 2008, more
than 3,000 young men and
women, from 200 campuses
across the nation came
together in Dallas, Texas, for the 10th annual FOCUS Student
Leadership Conference. As I stood at the back of the ballroom
packed with students, missionaries, priests and religious, I
was approached by a young woman. She said, “During my
first year of college, I was headed down a path that led not
only away from my Catholic faith, but into profound darkness.
If I had not encountered FOCUS during my sophomore year,
I would not have encountered Christ, and I would not be on a
path to heaven. Thank you.”
Curtis Martin is founder and president of Fellowship of
Catholic University Students (FOCUS).
For further information on FOCUS see:
www.focusonline.org 
17
MINISTRY AND EVANGELIZATION
Why We Play:
Mount St. Mary’s University Sports Chaplaincy Program
By Barbara Ruppert
In an age when athletic competition often seems to bring out
our worst, the Mount St. Mary’s University sports chaplaincy
program reminds us of sport’s potential to bring out our best.
The Mount, a small Division I school in Emmitsburg,
Maryland, is a Catholic liberal arts university that also includes
one of the largest Roman Catholic seminaries in the country.
For several years now, the university
has paired varsity and club teams with
chaplains chosen from among the men
studying for the priesthood.
Team chaplains lead prayer before
practices and games or in times of crisis;
gather student athletes for retreats and
special Masses; and assist the teams in
community service efforts. They also
monitor study halls and encourage
students academically (very much
appreciated in required theology and
philosophy courses!). They are mentors,
authority figures and friends.
University President Thomas H. Powell believes the program
is an important way to support Mount athletes. He said, “Student
athletes are held to a higher standard—and they often have
higher GPAs—as they balance academics with a demanding
practice and competition schedule. Even a small Division I
program can reassert the value of intercollegiate athletics. We’re
here to develop a trilogy of mind, body and spirit.”
To Father Leo Patalinghug, Mount St. Mary’s Seminary
director of pastoral field education, competition is valuable—
for the right reasons. “College athletics should be about the
desire to be the best athlete you can be, not simply wanting
to win,” he said. “Our chaplains are there to help men and
women ask, ‘What am I going to do with these God-given
talents? Who am I playing for, and to what end?’”
Chaplains are carefully chosen and normally paired
with a team for the duration of their seminary training. When
a seminarian expresses interest, Father Patalinghug works
with the seminary rector, vice rector and formation advisor
to determine whether or not he is a good fit for the program.
Candidates must be healthy, have good grades and have the
potential to be relevant and effective in the ministry.
18
An interest in athletics is essential, explained Father
Patalinghug, who is a third-degree black belt and former member
of the U.S. martial arts stick fighting team. Chaplains have played
on college varsity and intramural teams, majored in physical
therapy or are avid runners. Many continue to play on Mount
intramural teams or on the seminary’s champion Rector’s Cup
soccer team.
Noted Father Patalinghug, “The pres-
sures of a popular athlete become
very difficult, and the chaplains
are there as a sounding board, a
reminder that God is everywhere and
He can help you learn to win—and
lose—well.”
Mentors and Friends
Does the program work? Yes, on
several levels. Simply having seminarians
in the stands and on the field has a
positive influence on athletes, coaches and fans. Several
chaplains have noted that sometimes athletes tone down their
language or fans behave in a more sportsmanlike manner
when they see the clerical collar. While team member
reaction ranges from enthusiastic to mildly curious to
the few who think it is “weird,” most see the program as a
positive thing.
Coaches have called on chaplains to talk to an entire
team whose members are making unhealthy choices. Many
athletes agree the chaplains are valuable mentors because
they add a fresh perspective without being judgmental.
Several say they feel comfortable asking their chaplain for
help with everything from relationships to school work to
disciplinary issues.
According to Vincent Berry, a junior soccer team captain,
“The chaplain is a man of God, a man of many virtues, and so
I feel I can trust him fully. He brings a different perspective
because he’s not a teammate or a coach.” Captain Steve Cant,
a senior, added, “I appreciate the chaplain’s openness and
willingness to help. I’ve discussed everything with him. He
wants to see the team win and do well, but he also remembers
that sport is about our growth as individuals.”
MINISTRY AND EVANGELIZATION
Strong friendships often develop between a chaplain and
team members. Noted sophomore Katie Bollinger, who
plays defense on the women’s lacrosse team, “Our chaplain
offers friendship to everyone and sincerely cares about the
whole team and coaching staff. You can tell him anything in
confidence and know he is there to listen and guide you in the
right direction. I value our chaplain as a respectable friend
from a higher authority.”
As with many college friendships, bonds often last far beyond
graduation. Coaches and students have attended their chaplains’
ordinations and asked them to preside at weddings. Former
chaplains have come back to campus for games or traveled to
their team’s tournaments. Remarked director of intercollegiate
athletics Lynne Robinson, “The program is incredibly positive
and enriching for both student athletes and seminarians.”
The Big Picture
Many at the Mount believe that the program’s spiritual
connection gives student athletes an advantage in their sport
and much more. Casey-Mae Fleischer, a senior on the cross
country and track teams, explained, “Having a chaplain who
reminds us to pray enables us to see the purpose beyond that
particular race on that particular day, to see how we should
strive to glorify God in the quality and effort we put into
competing. This really gives us an edge in competition.”
It is an edge that can carry over into all aspects of life. Head
cross country and track coach Jim Stevenson reflected, “Seeing
God in their passion for sport helps the students see God as an
integral part of their life. Having a team chaplain can forge a
connection to their life beyond college and sports.”
Jason Weber, the men’s soccer team chaplain, noted that he
actively encourages team members to look beyond soccer and
the pleasures of college life. “Part of this is encouraging them
to practice their faith, whether it’s getting the Catholics to
Mass or helping those of other faiths find a church nearby,” he
said. “I try to draw out that a lot of life choices they’ll make—
marriage, career, growing spiritually—will require sacrifice
and commitment, just as in their training for soccer.”
Pascendi Is Still Revelant
By Dr. Peter A. Kwasniewski
On September 8, 1907, Pope St. Pius X issued his famous
encyclical Pascendi Dominici Gregis, On the Doctrine of
the Modernists. The Modernists in question were a group
of mostly Western European Catholic intellectuals of the
late 19th and early 20th centuries who, as they saw it, had
the mission of bringing Christianity “up to date” and into
conformity with the Zeitgeist, the spirit of the age. To them,
The chaplains stress the value of the many virtues
intercollegiate athletics can foster: discipline, dedication,
perseverance, teamwork, leadership. These form a person of
character, someone ready for life’s challenges. Said Father
Patalinghug, “When you rely on inner strength, whether you
recognize it as God’s or not, you don’t have to just play to the
crowd or rely on drugs. You achieve a focus that helps you be
your best.”
A Winning Combination
The program is a natural for the Mount. According to
Monsignor Stuart Swetland, vice president for Catholic
identity and mission, “More than one-fifth of our students
are athletes, plus we have a strong seminary program—it’s a
win-win situation that builds faith and community, pillars of
our university.”
Seminarians benefit as much as student athletes. Tim Naples,
cross country and track chaplain and assistant coordinator of
the chaplaincy program, said, “It’s a taste of the ministry we’ll
have one day as priests. It’s a challenge, to bring faith into
ordinary situations without being pushy.” Weber added, “The
experience is very practical, the fellowship is inspiring … and
I get to watch great soccer!”
Monsignor Swetland added, “The chaplaincy program is
among the best field training our seminarians get because it’s
so real. Athletes are dealing with the struggle to balance their
commitments, just as our future priests’ parishioners will be
struggling to balance career and family. The need for balance
is a fact of life.”
Balance, character, inspiration and our best: The very
soul of intercollegiate athletics is what the Mount St. Mary’s
University sports chaplaincy program is all about.
Barbara Ruppert is a communications consultant at Mount
St. Mary’s University, Emmitsburg, Maryland.
For more information on the chaplaincy program contact
Monsignor Stuart Swetland at swetland@msmary.edu. 
the march of modern progress, most plainly seen in the ever-
expanding discoveries of the sciences, forced a reinterpretation
or redefinition of every major tenet of Christian doctrine. The
attempt to do so, however, meant sooner or later rejecting the
very idea of an inerrant deposit of faith contained in Scripture
and Tradition and of a Magisterium that understands and
teaches this deposit without error. As a consequence, many
19
MAGISTERIUM
of the Modernists came to reject the great Creeds, drifted away
from the Faith and turned into hardened skeptics.
While the Modernists never formed a definite school with
a definite system—there was much variation in opinion from
individual to individual, country to country, discipline to
discipline—nevertheless their ideas tended to emerge from
similar currents of modern thought and to issue in similar
proposals. As a result, it was possible and desirable for St.
Pius X to publish a survey of the overall system to which these
ideas would of necessity give rise, and then to demonstrate
how it is utterly irreconcilable with confessional Christianity
or even with sound philosophy.
The 100th anniversary of Pascendi
in 2007 came and went without public
celebration or official commemoration;
relatively few Catholics nowadays have
heard of the encyclical or the problems
that led to it. Theologians and historians
who deign to mention the document often
dismiss it as an embarrassing papal tantrum,
a belligerent caricature that fell wide of its
mark, or a protest that was buried with Pius
X and holds no lasting significance. Indeed,
a recent Jesuit writer declared that, “the
movement of the [Modernist]‘innovators’
(at least the doctrinal and theological
movement) remained confined to the restricted circles of
Catholic scholars, mostly young priests or seminarians,”
and therefore had no real impact on wider Catholic life
and thought.
Pius X: A Prophet
And yet, it can hardly escape
the notice of an attentive reader
that this encyclical is not only not
irrelevant, it is vastly more relevant
now than it was a century ago. The
errors in doctrine and practice that
Pius X condemned are far more
prevalent in the Church today, and
in Catholic educational institutions
than they were in the heyday of
the Modernists such as Alfred
Loisy, George Tyrrell and Friedrich
von Hugel. As for the Jesuit’s
remark, one is perhaps reminded of those who say that the
Americanism condemned by Leo XIII was a “ghost heresy”
that only existed on European paper and never really existed
on American soil. As with Pascendi, I challenge anyone who
20
reads Leo XIII’s Testem Benevolentiae today to deny that the
principles rejected there in fact permeate and dominate the
church in this country.
Leo XIII and his successor, Pius X, were astute doctors of
the body politic and the body ecclesiastical: they knew the
cancerous effects of false principles if they are not strongly
counteracted. That is why they did their utmost to lead the
Church away from the many reductive and destructive “-isms”
of modernity, toward the only whole that precontains and
validates all partial truths, the Catholic Faith.
Consider, for a moment, the Modernist reinterpretation
of Christianity, as it is set forth in the encyclical Pascendi.
For the Modernist, faith is an interior
“sense” originating in a need for the
divine; it is not a gift from without, but
an immanent surge, an intuition of the
heart, a subjective “experience.” Religion,
accordingly, is when this “sense” rises to the
level of consciousness and becomes
an expression of a worldview. What,
then, is revelation? It is the awakening
consciousness of the divine within me.
Doctrine, in turn, is the intellect’s ongoing
elaboration of that awakening, while dogmas
are mere symbols or instruments by which
the intellect tries to capture the meaning of
religious experience.
Hence, of necessity, dogma evolves: ever-changing beliefs
corresponding to ever-changing understandings of reality and
of subjective experience, in response to the pressure of vital
forces. What becomes of Scripture and Tradition? Tradition is
the sharing with others of an original experience in such a way
that it becomes the experience of others too, while Scripture is the
written record of particularly powerful experiences, expressed
with poetic inspiration. Sacraments, finally, are public gestures
by which the faith community represents to itself a certain
worldview and excites in itself a consciousness of the divine.
No wonder the 1907 document Lamentabili Sane from the
Holy Office condemned the following Modernist proposition
(among others like it): “Truth is no more unchangeable than man
himself, since it evolves with him, in him, and through him.”
As Cardinal Desire Mercier of Belgium wrote in the same year:
“Modernism consists essentially in affirming that the religious
soul must draw from itself, from nothing but itself, the object
and motive of its faith. It rejects all revelation imposed upon the
conscience, and thus, as a necessary consequence, becomes the
negation of the doctrinal authority of the Church established by
Jesus Christ, and it denies, moreover, to the divinely constituted
MAGISTERIUM
hierarchy the right to govern Christian society.”
Pascendi and Students
On one occasion I was teaching Pascendi to a group of college
students and after we had finished laying out the Modernist
redefinitions of all these traditional terms, I paused and asked
them, “So, what do you think of all that?” Sure enough, one
student said, “Well, that sounds like what we learned back in
my catechism class.” Another said, “Yeah, I’ve heard stuff like
that preached a few times from the pulpit.” Still another: “My
friend had a book about the Mass that was exactly the same as
what you said.”
Then I asked, “Why does St. Pius X reject all of it, lock,
stock and barrel?” A student piped up: “Because it’s all
subjective, it’s all in your head, and where’s God?” To which
a neighboring student added: “It completely does away with
the idea of faith as a gift, as something God does for you. The
Modernists created their own God and their own religion, so
that they don’t have to submit their minds to the real one. It
takes humility to abandon oneself in faith and not to think that
modern man is so special and different.”
As our discussion went on, this much became painfully
clear to me (and, I hope, to my students as well): all the errors
that Pius X analyzes in Pascendi are still being taught today,
and there is more need than ever for teachers who, deeply in
love with the truth of Christ and of His Church, will speak that
truth with love.
After all, as our Lord said in no uncertain terms: Veritas
Book Reviews
Cardinal Avery Dulles, S.J., is probably the foremost
Catholic theologian in the United States today. Since being
ordained in 1956, he has written and spoken on most of the vital
issues confronting the contemporary Church. His academic
career at Woodstock College, The Catholic University of
America and Fordham University has spanned nearly a half-
century. Pope John Paul II named him a Cardinal in 2001.
Cardinal Dulles had a private audience with Pope Benedict in
New York in April 2008. He celebrated his 90th birthday four
months later.
While it would be difficult to pick out the most important
works of his lengthy academic career, Cardinal Dulles’ speech
at the presidential inauguration of Dr. Francesco Cesareo of
Assumption College in October 2007 was of great interest
to The Cardinal Newman Society. The speech, “Catholic
liberabit vos, the truth will set you free. He Himself is that
truth—Ego sum via, et veritas, et vita—and His Church is the
“pillar and bulwark of the truth” (1 Timothy 3:15). Because
of the flight from God that began with Adam’s rebellion and
worms its way into the children of Eve, we will not be surprised
if the world prefers the slavery of subjectivism to the truth that
sets us free: “The time is coming when people will not endure
sound doctrine, but having itching ears they will accumulate
for themselves teachers to suit their own likings, and will
turn away from listening to the truth and wander into myths”
(2 Timothy 3:3–4).
But surely it is not too much to ask of Catholic schools that
they not follow suit. That, instead, they welcome and promote
sound doctrine in all faith and humility, never contradicting
the Magisterium; that they turn away from fashionable modern
myths to embrace a heritage of perennial truths; and that they
accumulate teachers who, unashamed to be lowly pupils in the
school of Christ, feed upon every word that comes from the
mouth of God.
Peter A. Kwasniewski, Ph.D., is an associate professor of
theology and philosophy at Wyoming Catholic College and
a Newman Fellow of The Center for the Study of Catholic
Higher Education.
For the full text of Pascendi see: www.vatican.va/
holy_father/pius_x/encyclicals/documents/hf_p-x_enc_
19070908_pascendi-dominici-gregis_en.html 
Colleges and Universities Today,” was a ringing endorsement
of true Catholic higher education.
He ended this speech by saying, “Whatever the latest theories
of professors or the inclination of students may be, the college
should not forsake its Catholic allegiance. While offering its
students a vast panoply of skills and learning, it gathers up the
scattered fragments of knowledge under the luminous aegis of
Christian faith, proclaimed today as always by the successor of
Peter and the bishops in union with him.” [For the full speech,
see www.assumption.edu/inauguration/dulles-address.html.]
This and other works of Cardinal Dulles match themes
advanced by Pope Benedict XVI during his visit to the United
States as well as elsewhere. Two of his recent books provide
further insights.
21
BOOK REVIEWS
Magisterium, Teacher and Guardian of the Faith
Sapientia Press of Ave Maria University, 2007
Reviewed by Evangeline C. Jones
In his address to Catholic college presidents, Pope Benedict
clearly reaffirmed the necessity for orthodoxy in course
content while also calling for a fully lived assent to the truths
of revelation. He said educators have “the duty and privilege to
ensure that students receive instruction in Catholic doctrine and
practice. This requires public witness to the way of Christ as
found in the Gospel and upheld in the Church’s Magisterium.”
The Magisterium, which embodies the authoritative teaching
as well as the authoritative teachers of the Church, is the subject
of a recent book by Cardinal Dulles. Magisterium, Teacher and
Guardian of the Faith is a scholarly introduction appropriate
for college-level and above students and readers. As a work of
doctrinal theology, it expounds “in the light of faith the nature
and functions of the Magisterium.” Cardinal Dulles surveys the
historical development of the teaching office, placing today’s
concept of the Magisterium in context for his subsequent
chapters on its various organs and levels of authority.
Of particular contemporary interest are his sections on
infallibility, the role of academic theology and the response
due to magisterial teaching. His final chapter looks at the
process of reception, how magisterial decisions are understood
EVENTS
October 3-4 October 9-11
Conference, “Commemorating the 20th Anniversary of
Mulieris Dignitatem”
The Catholic University of America and
Ave Maria School of Law
Washington, D.C.
www.avemarialaw.edu/conference/
October 9-11 Society of Catholic Social Scientists
Bioethics Seminar
“Moral Conviction vs. Political Pressure”
Franciscan University, Ohio
www.franciscanconferences.com
22
and interpreted. Here, he quotes Cardinal Ratzinger on the
Magisterium’s own need to be receptive to the divine message
it in turn transmits: “The task of the teaching office is...to
ensure that the authority of the answer that was bestowed on
us has its say, and thus, to make room for the truth itself to
enter… It requires the humility of submission, of listening and
obeying… of keeping a place for what the Other has to say,
that Other without whose ever-present Word all else drops into
the void.” Cardinal Dulles affirms the teaching authority of the
Church as a God-given gift, describing as a form of humble
service ultimately meant to elicit “a joyful and liberating
response to the good news of the Gospel.”
During the last couple of decades, a number of important
relevant documents have been issued “clarifying points
previously disputed,” as Cardinal Dulles says. He includes
these in the 90 pages of appendices, which also have extensive
bibliographies and citations of canon law and scripture.
Magisterium, Teacher and Guardian of the Faith is a timely
guide on a foundational topic. For anyone wishing to know
more and better appreciate the authoritative transmission of
Catholic doctrine, it is an ideal resource.
Evangeline C. Jones is deputy director of The Center for the
Study of Catholic Higher Education. 
Marian Symposium
Mount St. Mary’s University and Seminary,
Emmitsburg, Maryland
www.mount2007.com/symposium
October 24-25
National Meeting and Conference
DeSales University, Center Valley, Pennsylvania
www.catholicsocialscientists.org
BOOK REVIEWS
Church and Society: The Laurence J. McGinley Lectures, 1988-2007
Fordham University Press, 2008
Reviewed by Joseph A. Esposito
For 20 years, beginning in 1988, Avery Dulles served as
Laurence J. McGinley Professor of Religion and Society at
Fordham University. In that capacity, he delivered a McGinley
Lecture each spring and fall. This recently published book
includes 38 of them.
These lectures, not surprisingly, cover a variety of topics.
Many of them have an indirect, if not direct bearing to Catholic
higher education. The first lecture was “University Theology
as a Service to the Church.” This lecture, itself, is worth the
price of the book for those interested in Catholic higher
education. In one of many nuggets here, Cardinal Dulles
notes, “In living dialogue with contemporary culture and
technology, university theology must bring the full resources
of Catholic tradition to bear on major questions regarding
belief and conduct raised by other disciplines.”
A 1989 lecture on “Teaching Authority in the Church”
speaks to what he identifies in a subheading as “The Need
for Clear Teaching.” Reminiscent of the Holy Father’s
April 17 admonition to seek truth, Cardinal Dulles says,
“Christianity is threatened by the demonic power of a public
opinion that refuses to submit to the discipline of faith.
The tide of public opinion pounds incessantly against the
rock of faith on which the Church is built.”
In a 1991 lecture on “John Paul II and the New Evangelization,”
Cardinal Dulles notes, “The Church is of crucial importance
but is not self-enclosed. It is a means of drawing the whole
world into union with God through Jesus Christ.” So, too, the
Holy Father told U.S. educators that colleges need to be part of
a larger religious commitment, saying, “How do they [colleges]
contribute to the good of society through the Church’s primary
mission of evangelization?”
And for those who ask why so many U.S. Catholic colleges
have been reluctant to adopt Ex corde Ecclesiae, the 1989
lecture “Catholicism and American Culture: The Uneasy
Dialogue” is instructive. Here he asserts, “To the degree that
she [the Church] adjusts to the prevailing opinions and values,
the Church undermines the credibility of her claim to present
a divine message and weakens people’s motivation for seeking
membership. A Church that no longer issues a clear call for
conversion is only dubiously Christian.”
Even when not consciously attempting to do so, these
magnificently argued lectures underscore the link between
Catholic education and the Church itself. The Holy Father
emphasized this connection as well. Quoting from Spe Salvi,
he said at The Catholic University of America, “Education is
integral to the mission of the Church to proclaim the Good
News. First and foremost every Catholic educational institution
is a place to encounter the living God who in Jesus Christ
reveals his transforming love and truth.” It is worth repeating.
Joseph A. Esposito is director of The Center for the Study
of Catholic Education and Editor of The Newman Guide to
Choosing a Catholic College: What to Look For and
Where to Find It.
For further information on Cardinal Dulles see:
CENTER NEWS
The Center for the Study of Catholic Higher Education, launched in
May 2008, has several publications that will be issued in the upcoming
fall and winter:
■ The second Bulletin of Catholic Higher Education will be published in
January 2009.
■ Extensive research papers on topics related to Catholic higher education
will include science in the Catholic curriculum; the importance of
Cardinal Newman to Catholic higher education; academic leadership
on a Catholic campus; the role of sport on a Catholic campus; and a
need for and the proper approach to teaching bioethics at Catholic
colleges and universities.
■ A reprint, with a new preface, of Father Leonard Kennedy’s 1997 book,
How to Keep Your University Catholic.
■ A revised and updated printing of The Cardinal Newman Society’s 2001
conference, “Newman’s Idea of a University: The American Response.”
■ A series of papers exploring the impact of 41 years of the Land O’Lakes
Statement and establishing a new paradigm for Catholic higher
education in the 21st century.
23
 ABOUT THE CENTER
The Center for the Study of Catholic Higher Education is the research division of The Cardinal
Newman Society. Its mission is to promote the ongoing renewal of Catholic higher education by
researching and analyzing critical issues facing Catholic colleges and universities, and sharing best
practices. The Center’s work is guided by the principles of Ex corde Ecclesiae and the Magisterium
of the Catholic Church.

Center Advisory Board 2008 Newman Fellows

William H. Dempsey, Esq. Peter A. Kwasniewski, Ph.D.
President, Project Sycamore; former Associate Professor of Theology and Philosophy
Wyoming Catholic College
President and Chief Executive Officer,
Association of American Railroads Brennan Pursell, Ph.D.
Associate Professor of History
DeSales University
John P. Hittinger, Ph.D.
Vice President of Academic Affairs,
Center Staff
University of St. Thomas, Houston
Joseph A. Esposito
Director
Rev. Leonard A. Kennedy, C.S.B., Ph.D. Evangeline C. Jones
Former President, Assumption College of the Deputy Director
University of Windsor, and St. Thomas More College
of the University of Saskatchewan, Canada
Cardinal Newman Society
Executive Staff
Rev. Joseph Koterski, S.J., Ph.D.
Patrick J. Reilly
Associate Professor of Philosophy, President
Fordham University
Thomas W. Mead
Executive Vice President

Msgr. Stuart W. Swetland, S.T.D.

Vice President for Catholic Identity and Mission, Cardinal Newman Society
Mount St. Mary’s University
National Advisory Board Leadership
Rev. Benedict Groeschel, C.F.R.
Hon. Kenneth D. Whitehead Co-Chairman
Former Assistant Secretary for Postsecondary
Robert Mylod
Education, U.S. Department of Education; author Co-Chairman

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