I’m a college student at a non-Catholic private University. I attended Catholic schools from K-12, and have many friends who attend Catholic colleges; my younger brother will start at one in the fall.
I think there are two issues in play with regards to adherence to Catholic teaching:
- The actual content of courses
and
- The extra-curricular activities at the University
These need to be considered individually, I think, as the Catholicity of the university is reflected differently through each.
College is supposed to prepare you for the real world. Presumably, a Catholic college should prepare you to be a witness for your faith in an increasingly secular society. In the real world, issues which conflict with Catholic teaching will arise. You need to be exposed to these ideas to be fully able to deal with them and fully express your faith.
I’m in pharmacy school, so I’ll use a pharmacy example. The Catholic Church holds, and I believe, that artificial contraception is morally wrong. In an ideal Catholic world, healthy women would not be on hormonal birth control. But in the real world, women will be on these medications. If I am working in a hospital, and a patient is admitted who has been on oral contraceptives, I need to understand how that drug works, what drugs it will interact with, and other information about that drug to make proper recommendations for other therapies for this patient on totally unrelated conditions. Pharmacy schools, medical schools, etc at Catholic universities need to cover these topics simply on the grounds that anyone entering a medical field will encounter a patient who uses them to avoid pregnancy, and a full understanding of these medications will allow them to be a better professional.
Likewise, in an ethics or theology class, alternative viewpoints to Catholic teachings must be presented if Catholic students are to be made fully able to defend Catholic faith. I have found that one of the things that has strengthened my faith more than anything is my interaction with those who challenge me to critically look at the Catholic faith; it has been through challenges that I have come to a fuller understanding of what I believe, and why the Church teaches what it does.
Presenting alternative viewpoints should allow students to mature in their Catholic faith.
This is distinctly different from Catholic colleges restricting the full exercise of the Catholic faith or supporting extra-curricular activities that clearly oppose Catholic teaching. I am reminded of a story one friend told me of her Catholic college, where their pro-life group was prohibited from writing anti-abortion messages on sidewalks because other students found opposition to abortion to be offensive; they were only allowed to write messages that supported choosing life (ie. “Abortion is murder” is no longer permitted; “Choose life” is considered acceptable). The mere existence of school sanctioned (and possibly funded) “pro-choice” group on a Catholic campus is not something a Catholic University should have. Groups on campus use the University name in materials and communications. This would seem to suggest that the school supports the causes the organization advocates, which in many cases are diametrically opposed to Catholic teaching.
The bottom line: Catholic colleges should expose students to a variety of ideas to help them mature in their own faith, especially in controlled classroom settings, where there is the opportunity to present both the non-Catholic viewpoint and the Catholic response. What they should not do, however, is restrict those who boldly support and proclaim Catholic teaching, or promote or endorse those who act in clear opposition to Catholicism.
Does that make sense? It is based on my own personal experiences as a Catholic in college, my discussions with friends, and my 13 years of Catholic education (K-12). I think the manner of discussion of issues I have laid out above is appropriate for high schools, especially in classes for Juniors and Seniors as well. I took an ethics class and a “religions of the world” class in high school. I found both to be instructive for me in developing my own faith and conscience, as they allowed me to see my faith through a different lens.
) and Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen. Just as military academies educate future generals, so do Catholic universities and I assure you, if the military academies had the same level of education as most Catholic universities do today, even Antarctica would have a better army than we do. God is raising an army to combat modernism, progressivism, and relativism. First, the formation of these spiritual soldiers begins with the parents. The Catholic educational system has the charge of nurturing that faith which has been given them by their parents. Most Catholic universities are not doing that, and thus the war continues to be won by the modernists, etc. But for some, there is a civil war going on among campuses between the progressive faculty and students demanding the Catholic faith to be taught with full obedience to the Magisterium. Let me tell you, as a student at a Catholic university, we are winning that civil war. The tide is turning back towards the true Catholic Church.
