In a recent opinion piece for The Torch, Nick Letts asks a seemingly simple question: “Is Boston College still Catholic?” Although he acknowledges that more than half of the University’s students and faculty are Catholic, Letts ultimately concludes that BC is “rapidly becoming a secular university with a Catholic subculture.” Attributing this loss of the University’s Catholic identity to apparent failures in curricular instruction and faculty hiring, Letts (perhaps inadvertently) challenges his readers to ask themselves a second question that lies just below the surface of his article: What makes a university Catholic?
As indicated by the title of this reply to Letts, I disagree with his answer to the explicit question of whether Boston College is still, in fact, Catholic. In my view, Boston College is still very much a Catholic university, albeit with as much potential for growth in its Catholicity as that of any other Catholic institution situated in a predominantly non-Catholic context. Despite our disagreement over the answer to this explicit question, however, there remains fruitful ground for dialogue around the second question implicit in Letts’s article. Given his evident desire for the University to grow in its Catholicity, first identifying what makes a university Catholic can clarify areas in which Letts and I would both agree Boston College should devote increasingly focused attention in the future.
Though he never says so directly, Letts suggests that there are two principal ways to evaluate the Catholicity of a self-professed ‘Catholic university’: interrogating (1) the religious composition of the university’s faculty, and (2) the role of academic coursework in introducing students to the university’s animating religious tradition. Given this two-part framework, Letts asserts that Boston College’s Core Curriculum fails to effectively “make [a] case for the Catholic tradition.” Likewise, Letts posits that Boston College’s faculty—considered as a corporate entity—is not well-suited to making this “case.” To remedy these two apparent failures, Letts proposes that the University “fix [its] hiring” by rejecting candidates for hire and promotion who “hate everything [Boston College] stands for” and opting instead for the “thousands of educated and passionate Catholic graduates in philosophy, theology, and the humanities who love the Catholic faith but cannot find work.”
I may disagree with Letts about the ultimate question of whether Boston College is Catholic, but he and I share an analogous approach—albeit not an exhaustive one—to the preceding question of what makes a university Catholic: faculty and curricula. As Pope John Paul II similarly observed in his apostolic constitution on Catholic universities, Ex Corde Ecclesiae (ECC), “the identity of a Catholic University is essentially linked to the quality of its teachers” and “careful and thorough study of philosophy and theology … enable[s] students to acquire an organic vision of reality and to develop a continuing desire for intellectual progress.” While the Catholicity of a university’s faculty and curricula cannot alone be dispositive in evaluating its Catholicity, Letts and I stand humbly in the tradition articulated by Ex Corde Ecclesiae of placing significant emphasis on these two features of a university in considering whether a university is, in fact, Catholic.
I agree with Letts that Boston College should pay keen attention to how its hiring and promotion practices impact the University’s intellectual environment, one in which students should regularly encounter faculty who embrace John Paul II’s exhortation that a Catholic university “promote dialogue between faith and reason, so that it can be seen more profoundly how faith and reason bear harmonious witness to the unity of all truth” (ECC 17). As Letts (I think rightly) suggests, hiring and promoting faculty who actively embrace this challenge will significantly improve Boston College’s ability to distinguish itself from its non-Catholic peers in the future.
Unlike Letts, it is my view that Boston College is still very much a Catholic university because its faculty—considered, again, corporately—continues to contribute to what John Paul described as the “Christian inspiration … of the university community” (ECC 13.1). As a student at Boston College, my faith has been nurtured by many members of the faculty who were not only excellent scholars in their respective fields, but who also demonstrated through their mentorship a commitment to personal formation. This is not to say that every single Boston College professor reflects Ex Corde Ecclesiae’s model of Catholic teaching, but rather that the community of scholars on The Heights continues to effectively demonstrate that excellence in one’s academic field need not be set over and against a commitment to the Gospel.
Contrary to Letts’s suggestion, the lack of uniformity in how members of the faculty contribute to Boston College’s mission is not, by its nature, a detriment to the University’s Catholicity. As Article IV of Ex Corde Ecclesiae acknowledges, even teachers who are not Catholic do not undermine a Catholic university’s Catholicity by the mere fact of their being non-Catholic. Following the Second Vatican Council’s declaration on the Church’s relationship non-Christian religions, Nostra Aetate, the type of dialogue made possible by the membership of non-Catholics in a Catholic university’s community can contribute to a Catholic university’s mission. As John Paul himself observed, the membership of non-Catholics in a Catholic university’s community enables the Church to engage all-the-more effectively in the type of cultural dialogue (including ecumenical and inter-religious dialogue) necessary for “search[ing] for unity among all Christians” and “discerning the spiritual values that are present in the different religions” (ECC 47).
Just as Letts and I agree that Boston College must be especially cognizant of how its hiring and promotion practices impact the Catholicity of the University’s intellectual environment, we also agree that academic coursework—and especially the Core Curriculum—is central to introducing students to the University’s animating religious tradition. It is my view, however, that Boston College’s Core Curriculum reflects the University’s fidelity to the Catholic intellectual tradition and willingness to facilitate students’ creative engagement therewith. Take for example, the Core’s Complex Problems & Enduring Questions (CP/EQ) program, through which two faculty members from different disciplines co-teach a course on “topics of critical importance.” Though not all CP/EQ courses integrate philosophy or theology with another discipline, the program has facilitated the creation of such distinctive courses as “Neuroscience and Faith.” Thus, if it is true that Catholic universities are called to “explore courageously the riches of Revelation and of nature so that the united endeavor of intelligence and faith will enable people to come to the full measure of their humanity,” it seems to me as though the University’s CP/EQ program is a paradigmatic expression of the mission of a truly Catholic university (ECC 5).
Though Boston College’s CP/EQ program is just one example, there is abundant evidence that the University’s Core Curriculum effectively introduces students to the University’s animating religious tradition. For example, I became a theology major after becoming interested in the relationship between theology and history as an undergraduate student in the University’s Perspectives Program. My anecdotal experience aside, the Student Voices Project—an initiative of Boston College’s Church in the 21st Century Center to better understand student faith formation—similarly found that “Boston College’s coursework and distinctive academic programs are major sites of engagement with questions of faith.” As in the case of faculty hiring and promotion, these indications of the University’s curricular successes should demonstrate that Boston College can indeed facilitate “continuing reflection in the light of the Catholic faith upon the growing treasury of human knowledge, to which [a Catholic university] seeks to contribute by its own research,” if Boston College’s identity as a Catholic university is foregrounded in the minds of University leaders (ECC 13.2).
Nick Letts should be applauded for challenging his readers—and Boston College—to continually ask the challenging question of whether the University is still Catholic. Despite our disagreement about how best to answer this question, he and I share a commitment to the University’s continued growth in its Catholicity. By remaining mindful of the religious composition of the University’s faculty and the role of academic coursework in introducing students to the University’s animating religious tradition, he and I would therefore agree that Boston College can express all-the-more completely its commitment to its Catholic identity in the future. As University Historian James M. O’Toole remarked in his recently published history of Boston College, Ever to Excel, the University “may not always have excelled at everything, but with [the University’s motto, “ever to excel”] as an ideal, it [has] faced the many changes that [has] c[o]me to it with unchanging commitments.” To my mind, Boston College’s commitment to its Catholic identity continues to be unchanging, even as the circumstances around it continue to change ever-more drastically. This proud alumnus and devoted member of the University community can thus only hope that this commitment remains unchanging in the years to come.
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