Challenge and Promise of a Catholic University - Softcover

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0268008035 ISBN 13: 9780268008031

Publisher: University of Notre Dame Press, 1994

Synopsis

Contemporary Catholic higher education finds itself at a crucial crossroad. The issues are many and complex. How is the Catholic character of the university to be preserved and fostered while avoiding secularization on the one hand and insular sectarianism on the other? Must a majority of the faculty in a college or department be Catholic? How is Catholic to be defined in terms of culture, belief, or practice? What is the level of commitment to intellectual inquiry and the possibility of dissent that must be present on a Catholic campus? These are some of the issues that prompted Fr. Theodore M. Hesburgh, C.S.C., to write a position paper and invite 29 distinguished members of the faculty and administration at the University of Notre Dame to address as they strive to envision and create a great Catholic university. The contributors explore these issues from a wide variety of religious and academic perspectives, and although their backgrounds and fields of study differ widely, they agree on a number of points. First, a great Catholic university must begin by being a great university that is also Catholic. Second, the catholicity, or universality, of a Catholic university fosters the centrality of philosophy and particularly theology as legitimate intellectual concerns, especially as they challenge the disintegration and turmoil of our modern predicament. Finally, how a Catholic university is seen as a community of service is also examined in both its intellectual and practical applications. Throughout, these essays describe a university community where reason and faith intersect and reinforce each other as they grapple with all the problems that face the transmission and growth of knowledge and the multiplication of new and complex moral problems.

About this title

About the Author

Theodore M. Hesburgh, C.S.C. (1917–2015) was president of the University of Notre Dame from 1952 to 1987. As an adviser to presidents, special envoy to popes, theologian, author, educator, and activist, Father Hesburgh was for decades considered the most influential priest in America. He is the author and editor of a number of books, including The Challenge and Promise of a Catholic University (University of Notre Dame Press, 1994).

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

"Who can better speak to the promise and the challenge than those who have dedicated their lives to the creation, re-creation, and development of a Catholic university? On the faculty of the University of Notre Dame, I have known many such people, most of them Catholic but some Protestant or Jewish, some clergy but most laymen and laywomen, in all of our faculties of arts and letters, law, science, engineering, and business. I believe that if we could hear them discussing the promise and challenge of this Catholic university, we would advance greatly the wider discussion of the nature of the Catholic university in our times. I am grateful to my colleagues who added their personal wisdom and understanding to this admittedly diffficult task of clarifying the promise and challenge of the Catholic university in our times." –Theodore M. Hesburgh, C.S.C., from the Preface

Edition details

• Publisher: University of Notre Dame Press
• Publication date: 1994
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0268008035
• ISBN 13: 9780268008031
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 381
• Editor: Hesburgh C.S.C. Theodore M.