From the Desk of the President
President Thomas E. Dillon
(Spring 2001 Newsletter)
[Index
of Past Articles by President Dillon]
One of the joys of my office is that it affords me the opportunity
to become acquainted with many fine priests and religious
who are accomplishing great things for the Church and our
society. One such priest is Fr. C.J. McCloskey III, a member
of the Prelature of Opus Dei.
Among his many other duties, Fr.
McCloskey [catholicity.com] is the Director of the Catholic
Information Center in Washington, D.C., a center for Mass
and the Sacraments for those who work in the shadow of our
nation’s capital.
Known to EWTN viewers for a number of years from his live
commentary during televised papal trips, Fr. McCloskey recently
hosted two interview series for EWTN. The first concerned
great Catholic authors, for which I did one interview with
Fr. McCloskey, concerning St. Augustine’s Confessions.
For the second series, Father interviewed me again about John
Henry Cardial Newman and, in particular, his work The Idea
of a University. For now I would like to share with you a
condensed version of the second interview we did about Cardinal
Newman.
Though I read some of Cardinal Newman’s works while
in college, it was not until I became engaged with Thomas
Aquinas College that I began to study him more closely. Our
founding president, Dr. Ronald P. McArthur, hosted informal
discussions of Newman’s sermons in his home on campus
after Mass on Sundays, which I attended from time to time.
Later, as President myself, when preparing periodically to
speak formally to our students about liberal education, I
would inevitably consult Newman, finding that he expressed
just what I thought, but with far greater clarity, brevity
and eloquence. Over the years, then, I have been drawn to
explore more and more deeply Newman’s thoughts about
education.
Cardinal Newman’s book The Idea of a University is actually
a collection of talks that he gave in Dublin over a period
of three or four years. While yet a new English convert to
Catholicism at the Birmingham Oratory, he was asked by the
Catholic hierarchy of Ireland to assist in the founding of
a Catholic university in Dublin, the educational establishment
there at the time being mostly Protestant. On his frequent
trips to Ireland to develop interest in the project and to
set the foundation for what became the University College
of Dublin, Newman delivered these lectures about the nature
of liberal education and its purpose.
In the course of my interview with Fr. McCloskey there were
four main points of discussion.
The first may be the most difficult to grasp, given the intense
focus on professionalism and vocationalism in higher education.
But Newman explains that to the extent one’s education
is pursued for the sake of usefulness (e.g., the practice
of law or medicine), to that same extent it can be described
as “servile” — the education itself serves
the consequent occupation. But a liberal education is pursued
not for its practical use, but because the education is worth
having for its own sake. To be sure, it may be put to use,
but that is not its purpose. Instead, its purpose is the development
of the intellect itself so that it can apprehend truth.
A second point we considered was Newman’s concern for
the order and hierarchy that naturally exists between and
among the various disciplines — another idea with little
currency on most college campuses. But for Newman, such an
order was obvious. The objects of our knowledge — animals,
the stars, humans and their behavior — are all creations
of the same God with a certain relation to each other, and
therefore our knowledge about these things must be similarly
ordered. Here again, the trends to specialize in one or another
field and to compartmentalize knowledge have obscured this
order. And without a sense of where various kinds of knowledge
fit into the grand scheme of things, there can be no hope
of wisdom, the crown of liberal education.
Fr. McCloskey and I also discussed the place that theology
ought to have in a university. Not surprisingly, Newman thought
it should be part of a university, but not as one discipline
among many — rather as the discipline that orders all
others. Since God is the highest object of our intellects,
the science that studies that object, namely theology, should
reign as queen over all the sciences, ordering the parts to
each other and to itself and enlightening all intellectual
pursuits.
We took note, too, of perhaps the most famous and intriguing
passage in The Idea of a University, called “The Idea
of a Gentleman” in which Newman discusses the moral development
of the student engaged in liberal education. He clearly states
that it is not the province of an education to make one good.
A student may become more refined and courteous, and acquire
good habits on account of his liberal education, but in the
end, that education is insufficient to effect goodness in
the soul. Newman saw clearly the necessity of grace and faith.
Towards the end of our interview, Fr. McCloskey asked me
to address, on Cardinal Newman’s behalf, a frequently
raised objection to liberal education. Why should one spend
so much time and effort on an education that will not teach
a profession and cannot give its students the means to provide
for themselves or their families? To that my answer was twofold.
First, because it is the best pursuit for a human being. Our
intelligence is the highest part of our nature, by which we
are said to be made in the image of God. Its development in
the pursuit of truth, then, is the highest activity of human
life. That is worth doing regardless of its practical use.
But second, one is never harmed by a liberal education; in
fact, one’s career success can only be enhanced on account
of it.
Fr. McCloskey concluded the interview by asking me to consider
whether Newman would feel comfortable visiting a class at
the College. I told him that in all honesty I thought he would
feel more than comfortable because he would be able to see
on our campus, a kind of embodiment of the plan for liberal
education he envisioned so many years ago for the Irish university.
For, in many ways, we implement Cardinal Newman’s ideas
at Thomas Aquinas College. We read many of the same kinds
of works he prescribed, and we are engaged in the kind of
intellectual enterprise he thought would cultivate the intelligence
and order it to truth.
And we provide numerous opportunities — through our
campus customs, the daily availability of Mass and the sacraments,
the presence of our chaplains — for the lessons learned
in the classroom to take root through grace in the souls of
our students. But he would see, too, our human failings even
as we strive to live out the life of learning he so well articulated.
And so we ask that Venerable John Henry Cardinal Newman intercede
for us that we not impede the good that God desires to accomplish
through Thomas Aquinas College, but rather nurture and sustain
it.
I am grateful to Fr. McCloskey for highlighting the importance
of Cardinal Newman’s ideas, and for giving me the opportunity
to discuss those ideas with him in his television series on
EWTN.
-- Qtrly Newsletter, Spring 2001
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