(St. Mary s University Twickenham) NEWMAN S IDEA: TOWARDS THE FUTURE OF CATHOLIC EDUCATION

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1 T (St. Mary s University Twickenham) NEWMAN S IDEA: TOWARDS THE FUTURE OF CATHOLIC EDUCATION I am grateful to Professor Campbell and to you all for inviting me tonight to share some thoughts on Catholic education in the light of Cardinal John Henry Newman s The Idea of a University. 1 So first, background, then, foreground, and lastly, some applications to Catholic education. 1. Background First, background. Newman, as you know, always had a remarkable capacity to become engaged in numerous major endeavours at any one time and for him the early 1850s were notable for great industry. He was occupied with the foundation of the Oratory of St. Philip in Birmingham, with his pastoral duties and academic projects and with the foundation of a second house in London, then subsequently with the somewhat strained relations between them; he also became embroiled in a potentially damaging libel case. 2 Nevertheless, in summer 1851, at the invitation of Archbishop Paul Cullen of Armagh, Newman agreed to become the founder and first Rector of a new Catholic University of Ireland and so over the next years he became a commuter between Birmingham and Dublin. As Paul Shrimpton notes in his excellent tome, in this endeavour we see Newman not so much the thinker as the do-er, a brilliant mind turning an improbable dream into a bricks-and-mortar reality. 3 Cullen s plan for a University of Ireland was sanctioned by the Holy See and, at least initially, had the unanimous support of the Irish hierarchy. In the early nineteenth century, utilitarian ideas about education were gaining ground and the government of the day was supporting the establishment of new universities that were secular and non-denominational, in contrast to the strictly religious character of Oxford and Cambridge. 4 These new universities included the Queen s Colleges in Belfast, Cork and Galway, and University College in London (UCL). In the case of UCL, the strong opposition of the Church of England and members of the Establishment to this policy led shortly afterwards to the foundation of its arch-rival KCL, King s College. But in Ireland, the only university at the time was Trinity College, Dublin, founded in 1592 as a Protestant college. The Irish bishops opposed both secular (the absence of religion and theology) and mixed or non-denominational education (Protestants and Catholics together). Instead they sought the establishment of a Catholic university as a counter-balance, or at least a university that Catholics could gladly attend. The model suggested was the recently re-formed Catholic University of Louvain. There, the Belgian hierarchy appointed the Rector, sanctioned the professors, approved its 1 The edition referred to here (henceforth Idea) is that edited and with an Introduction by M. Svaglic. See J. H. Newman: The Idea of a University, ed. Martin J. Svaglic (In, University of Notre Dame Press: 1982) 2 See B. Martin John Henry Newman His Life and Work (London, Geoffrey Chapman Mowbray: 1990) See P. Shrimpton The Making of Men. The Idea and Reality of Newman s University in Oxford and Dublin (Leominister, Gracewing: 2014) cover advertisement 4 Shrimpton

2 budget and curriculum, and organised its structure and administration, whilst the State convalidated its degrees. This seemed an ideal template for the University of Ireland. Eventually, Newman s University would fail. This was for a cumulation of reasons, not least the lack of State recognition, a shortage of students and the shifting internal politics of the Irish hierarchy, who felt the scheme became excessively associated with Archbishop Cullen, especially after his translation from Armagh to the See of Dublin. 5 In 1857, Newman would announce his intention to resign and after his resignation the following year, apart from the Medical School, the University itself went into a steep decline until its absorption in the late-1870s into the new University College Dublin. However, back in 1852 Newman set to work in earnest and despite the growing headwinds and initially disappointing student numbers, began to put in place all that was needed. His working definition was this: If I were asked to describe as briefly and popularly as I could, what a University was, I should draw my answer from its ancient designation of a Studium Generale, or School of Universal Learning. This description implies the assemblage of strangers from all parts in one spot. Accordingly, in its simple and rudimental form, it is a school of knowledge of every kind, consisting of teachers and learners from every quarter. 6 He formally established the five faculties of law, letters, medicine, philosophy and theology, together with accommodation, student halls of residence, an impressive university church, some sound lecturers, a tutorial system, plus innovative student facilities such as a union-type centre with a cricket-field and billiard-room. 7 In November 1854, lectures commenced. 8 Cullen asked Newman to launch the project with a series of public lectures condemning mixed education whilst explaining the purpose of Catholic education. 9 This is the origin of Newman s Idea of a University, a compilation of lectures and monographs that he produced to lay out the stall. Apart from maybe his Grammar of Assent, Newman virtually always wrote for a specific purpose, a concrete situation, and so Idea would disappoint anyone in search of a comprehensive or exhaustive dissertation on what constitutes a university or Catholic education. Newman was writing in order to win over his audience to his specific plan and the type of university he was commissioned to establish. 10 Moreover, it must be added too, that as ever with Newman, the history and evolution of the text through its various editions is complex and whilst individual lectures and compilations of lectures were published in 1852 and 1859, it was the 1873 edition of the Idea that became largely the settled version, until the text reached its absolutely final edition, the ninth, in Martin See J. H. Newman The Idea of a University (Great Britain, Amazon IPP: 2016) 5 7 See C. S. Dessain John Henry Newman. New Edition. (Oxford, OUP: 1980) Martin Dessain 102f. 10 Shrimpton xxxiii 11 See M. Svaglic Introduction Section 3, Idea xiii-xv. 2

3 Essentially, Idea has two parts. The first, called University Teaching, comprises nine discourses on the theory of education. He gave the first five of these discourses in Dublin in early summer 1852, but was forced to interrupt the series in order to return to England to appear in court, and so the remaining discourses were produced as pamphlets and then as a collection the following year. In the discourses, Newman discusses the purpose of a university in general, of a Catholic university in particular but with reference to this Catholic University of Ireland. His understanding of the Church s role in the university is nuanced. The Church s influence is not to be limited to the theology faculty, but on the other hand a Catholic university is not a seminary or a religious house. It is an institution with genuine autonomy; its nature as a university is not altered because it is Catholic, any more than a hospital is altered because it happens to be run by nuns. As he puts it: If.. a University is a direct preparation for this world, let it be what it professes. It is not a Convent, it is not a Seminary; it is a place to fit men of the world for the world. 12 The second part of Idea, called University Subjects, comprises ten occasional essays and lectures that Newman delivered to faculties and members at various times. These deal with a variety of topics such as the relationship of Christianity and literature, the organisation of the sciences, the medical faculty and the function of preaching. For completion, note should be made of the articles Newman wrote for the Catholic University Gazette, a weekly periodical which he edited from These articles, later assembled into a collection often called University Sketches, discuss the development of universities through history. 14 For a full discussion of Newman s views on the nature of a university, scholars must therefore take heed of the University Sketches too. But for our purposes here, and bearing in mind the general caveat that Newman s thought ever resists systematisation, we select four key ideas or principles from Idea that arguably are relevant today, mostly from the Fifth Discourse of Idea Knowledge Its Own End. So let us take these four ideas in turn: the purpose of education, the unity of knowledge, the nature of theology, and Catholic ethos. 2. Foreground First, for Newman the purpose of a liberal education is to develop a philosophical habit of mind. 15 By liberal here, he means a broad or general education in contrast to a technical training for a profession. The purpose of education, he argues, is not to amass a head full of facts but to enlarge the mind and to hone its ability to see the whole, to give appropriate value to the parts, to envisage how the parts fit together, or as he puts it: to develop a comprehensive view of truth in all its branches, of the 12 Idea Shrimpton 117f. 14 These essays were eventually published together as The Office and Work of Universities in 1856, then as The Rise and Progress of Universities in 1872 and finally as part of Historical Sketches Volume III. See the recent reprint: J. H. Newman University Sketches (London, Forgotten Books: 2018) 15 Idea 76 3

4 relations of science to science, of their mutual bearings, and their respective values. 16 At the end of Discourse V, he explains: To open the mind, to correct it, to refine it, to enable it to know, and to digest, master, rule, and use its knowledge, to give it power over its own faculties, application, flexibility, method, critical exactness, sagacity, resource, address, eloquent expression, is an object as intelligible as the cultivation of virtue, [although he adds].. it is absolutely distinct from it. 17 Newman s vision about cultivating the mind, becoming a person of intellectual excellence and wise judgement, seems strikingly different from modern universities with their especial emphasis on research, technology and application. Here he rejects the utilitarianism of John Stewart Mill, Henry Brougham, and Jeremy Bentham, the founder of UCL, that only subjects vocationally or practically useful should be taught. They argued that the classics, which held supremacy in Oxford and Cambridge, be replaced by useful knowledge leading to a trade or profession. 18 Instead, Newman believed liberal education was a worthy goal in itself since a graduate so equipped would be able to enter and to become a leader in any walk of life. In Idea Newman s view of the university also contrasts with the priorities in modern statements on Catholic universities that stress mission and evangelisation, the pursuit of truth and justice. Albeit complementing such evangelistic purposes, Newman says: Liberal Education makes not the Christian, not the Catholic, but the gentleman. It is well to be a gentlemen, it is well to have a cultivated intellect, a delicate taste, a candid, equitable, dispassionate mind, a noble and courteous bearing in the conduct of life; these are the connatural qualities of a large knowledge; they are the objects of a University. 19 Newman sees the Catholic priorities as being pursued through the wider pastoral ethos of the university and the theology faculty, rather than being the avowed aims of particular faculties or of a university education in general. To take an analogy, healing is the aim of a hospital whether it is run by nuns or not. In this we see how Newman in these Discourses is driven by his need to appeal to a more general audience. Secondly, moving on, for Newman knowledge forms an organic whole: I have said that all branches of knowledge are connected together, because the subject-matter of knowledge is intimately united in itself, as being the acts and the work of the Creator. Hence it is that the Sciences, into which our knowledge may be said to be cast, have multiplied bearings one on another, and an internal sympathy, and admit, or rather demand, comparison and adjustment. They complete, correct, balance each other. This consideration, if well-founded, must be taken into account, not only as regards the attainment of 16 Idea Idea For a brief discussion of this, see A. Cardinal Dulles Newman s Idea of a University: Still Relevant to Catholic Higher Education in ed. P. Stravinskas and P. Kelly Newman s Idea of a University: The American Response. Papers presented at the Conference of the Cardinal Newman Society November 2001 (New Jersey, Newman House Press: 2002) Idea 91 4

5 truth, which is their common end, but as regards the influence which they exercise upon those whose education consists in the study of them. For Newman, a university means literally universal knowledge. To omit one branch leads to a lacuna whereby another will seek to cover the breach: To give undue prominence to one is to be unjust to another; to neglect or supersede these is to divert those from their proper object. It is to unsettle the boundary lines between science and science, to disturb their action, to destroy the harmony, which binds them together. Such a proceeding will have a corresponding effect when introduced into a place of education. 20. Newman s point is simple. Omit mathematics, then physics devotes its first lectures to the principles of maths, before moving on to physics, and the maths it offers will not be as secure as that from a specialist mathematician. So too, omit theology then the other branches of knowledge are thrown out of balance and psychology, history, philosophy or whatever will seek to answer questions only theology can answer: [S]upposing Theology be not taught, its province will not simply be neglected, but will be actually usurped by other sciences, which will teach, without warrant, conclusions of their own in a subject-matter which needs its own proper principles for its due formation and disposition. 21 He adds somewhat starkly: [I]f the various branches of knowledge, which are the matter of teaching in a University, so hang together, that none can be neglected without prejudice to the perfection of the rest, and if Theology be a branch of knowledge.. to what conclusion are we brought from these two premises but this? that to withdraw Theology from the public schools is to impair the completeness and to invalidate the trustworthiness of all that is actually taught in them. 22 Newman here rejects the notion of a secular university, that is, one that omits theology and religion. He is arguing the case for theology to be included, not on dogmatic grounds but on general grounds: that to omit it impairs the completeness of a university and distorts the perspectives and contexts of other disciplines. Thirdly, continuing from this, Newman argues that theology is true knowledge and so is rightly included among the faculties and concerns of a university. In the nineteenth century, the relationship of faith and reason was much discussed in the context of rationalist philosophies that contested Divine revelation and stressed the autonomy of human reason over and against faith. In 1870, the First Vatican Council, in its dogmatic constitution Dei Filius, taught authoritatively that faith and reason were two orders of knowledge differing in principle and object, yet not opposed but mutually supportive and interrelated. 23 God is one and Truth is one, and so there can never be a real discrepancy between faith and reason, since the same God who reveals mysteries and infuses faith has bestowed the light of reason on the 20 Idea Idea Idea H. Denzinger, ed. P. Hünermann Enchiridion symbolorum definitionum et declarationum de rebus fidei et morum Editio XLIII (San Francisco, Ignatius: 2012) DH

6 human mind, and God cannot deny himself nor can truth ever contradict truth. 24 Newman would find himself entirely consonant with the Council s position and its rejection of two extremes: on the one hand, fideism and traditionalism which saw the contents of religion as accessible only through faith and commitment, and on the other, liberalism and rationalism which ultimately reduced religion to private opinion and sentiment. Newman all his life fought against these positions, summed up in his term liberalism, 25 which he defined as the anti-dogmatic principle. He particularly contested the evangelical position of religion as mere sentiment. Thus in the Second Discourse of Idea Theology a Branch of Knowledge, he rejects the evangelical belief that faith is not an acceptance of revealed doctrine, not an act of the intellect, but a feeling, an emotion, an affection, an appetency.. based, not on argument, but on taste and sentiment.. on the imagination, in inward persuasions and consolations, in pleasurable sensations, sudden changes, and sublime fancies. 26 If religion were not knowledge but a feeling, then theology could never merit a chair in a university. 27 Yet, he argues, theology is truly knowledge because it is about truth, both natural theology, that which is knowable by unaided human reason, and systematic theology, that which is divinely revealed for human reflection. A university, therefore, should have a theology faculty. And fourthly, in Idea Newman discusses extensively the pastoral ethos of the proposed Catholic university. Why a Catholic university? What is the role of the Church in a Catholic university? In the Ninth Discourse The Duties of the Church towards Knowledge Newman proposes that the Church should have a direct and active jurisdiction over the university, 28 in order to maintain the institution on its course, and especially to enable it to avoid rationalism and secularism, which reject 24 DH In his Essay on Development, Newman contrasts the dogmatic principle of Divine revelation with what he calls the anti-dogmatic principle of liberalism: That there is a truth then; that there is one truth; that religious error is in itself of an immoral nature; that its maintainers, unless involuntarily such, are guilty in maintaining it; that it is to be dreaded; that the search for truth is not the gratification of curiosity; that its attainment has nothing of the excitement of a discovery; that the mind is below truth, not above it, and is bound, not to descant upon it, but to venerate it; that truth and falsehood are set before us for the trial of our hearts; that our choice is an awful giving forth of lots on which salvation or rejection is inscribed; that "before all things it is necessary to hold the Catholic faith;" that "he that would be saved must thus think," and not otherwise; that, "if thou criest after knowledge, and liftest up thy voice for understanding, if thou seekest her as silver, and searchest for her as for hid treasure, then shalt thou understand the fear of the Lord, and find the knowledge of God," this is the dogmatical principle, which has strength. That truth and falsehood in religion are but matter of opinion; that one doctrine is as good as another; that the Governor of the world does not intend that we should gain the truth; that there is no truth; that we are not more acceptable to God by believing this than by believing that; that no one is answerable for his opinions; that they are a matter of necessity or accident; that it is enough if we sincerely hold what we profess; that our merit lies in seeking, not in possessing; that it is a duty to follow what seems to us true, without a fear lest it should not be true; that it may be a gain to succeed, and can be no harm to fail; that we may take up and lay down opinions at pleasure; that belief belongs to the mere intellect, not to the heart also; that we may safely trust to ourselves in matters of Faith, and need no other guide, this is the principle of philosophies and heresies, which is very weakness. J. H. Newman An Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine (In, University of Notre Dame Press: 1989) Idea Dulles Newman s Idea Idea 163 6

7 theology and lead to a distortion of disciplines. The key reason the Church should be involved in a university is the political one of creating an ethos that guarantees the presence of a universe of knowledge, and thus a genuine conversation of disciplines. Yet Newman develops this further. He placed great value on Catholics living together, engaged in a common enterprise. As he puts it: It is a great point then to enlarge the range of studies which a University professes, even for the sake of the students; and, though they cannot pursue every subject which is open to them, they will be the gainers by living among those and under those who represent the whole circle. This I conceive to be the advantage of a seat of universal learning, considered as a place of education. An assemblage of learned men, zealous for their own sciences, and rivals of each other, are brought, by familiar intercourse and for the sake of intellectual peace, to adjust together the claims and relations of their respective subjects of investigation. They learn to respect, to consult, to aid each other. Thus is created a pure and clear atmosphere of thought 29 The mere fact of sitting at table next to, say, a scientist, opposite a theologian, with a medic nearby can be highly formative, with the presence and inter-action of specialists in pursuit of truth. However, Newman explores some of the dangers too: that whilst the Church might have jurisdiction over the university, the Church must be vigilant. The institution could drift, becoming Catholic merely in name, or some of its teaching might ignore or contradict sound doctrine or in the sciences distort the right relationship of faith and reason, religion and science. 30 Yet despite these dangers, Newman sees the Church s involvement as a positive one of providing the context for a real conversation. He develops this point further in the lectures and essays of the second part of Idea in relation to literature, science and medicine. 3. Applications Now to turn to some applications in relation to Catholic education today. Catholic higher education today is essentially of three types: (1) Catholic universities of the Studium Generale type Newman discusses, such as Boston College or St. Mary s here, (2) pontifical universities such as the Pontifical Gregorian University, institutes of higher education and other faculties granting ecclesiastical degrees, and (3) seminaries, colleges and catechetical institutes, granting their own awards or affiliated to other universities. Each institution has its own history, its own selfdefinition, its avowed purpose and its particular approach. If Newman s spirit, in the phrase of Bishop Butler, was brooding over the Council, it is clearly still brooding over the post-vatican II Church. 31 Thus in his 1990 Apostolic 29 Idea See Idea 164, and See B. C. Butler Newman and the Second Vatican Council in J. Coulson and M. Allchin ed. The Rediscovery of Newman: An Oxford Symposium (London, SPCK: 1967) Some have referred to 7

8 Constitution on Catholic Universities Ex Corde Ecclesiae, Pope John Paul II speaks of how scholars must be engaged in the determining the relative place and meaning of each of the various disciplines within the context of the vision of the human person and a world enlightened by faith in Christ. 32 It treats at length of the pastoral ethos of the university. Ex Corde Ecclesiae also mandates that every Catholic university should have a theology faculty, for theology has proper principles and methods which define it as a branch of knowledge. In this, it has a central role in the university of assisting the synthesis of knowledge and the dialogue between faith and reason. 33 Moreover, Pope Francis s recent Apostolic Constitution Veritatis Gaudium, updating the norms for ecclesiastical faculties, also reprises several of Newman s themes. 34 Two of the four fundamental criteria for renewal it proposes are dialogue within the unity of knowledge, and interdisciplinary and cross-curricular approaches. 35 The four ideas from Idea discussed above are as pertinent within the changed context of today as they were in the mid-nineteenth century. They constitute warnings against distortions that all Catholic education, primary, secondary and tertiary, still face: utilitarianism, fragmentation, secularism and rationalism. To take them in turn. First, against utilitarianism Newman s emphasis on a liberal education, on developing a philosophical habit of mind, as a good in itself and as the basis for any vocation, is, as Avery Dulles points out, a bulwark against an overly narrow view of education as professional or vocational programmes imparting information and skills. 36 In any case, a vocational course requires in a person a certain level of general education. We might ask whether this self-evident point is lost in the current politics of education with its emphasis on value for money and measurable outcomes? Whilst acknowledging the complexity of a modern university and its need to meet different ambitions within a competing market-place, might Catholic institutions revisit their mission-statements and course learning-outcomes in order to identify, even refine excessively utilitarian goals and instead, to offer something attractively distinctive? Secondly, Newman s concern with the unity of knowledge is a bulwark against the tendency towards fragmentation, compartmentalisation and silo-thinking by which people know more and more about less and less. My own thought here has been much influenced by the philosophy and theological method of the great Canadian Jesuit and contemporary of Karl Rahner, Bernard Lonergan, who died in Newman was an important tributary in the river of Lonergan s thought, particularly The Grammar of Assent which Lonergan assimilated; it convinced him that the right foundation for philosophy was in human consciousness and its operations. As a student at Heythrop in the 1920s, dissatisfied with the neo-scholastic philosophy he was being taught, Newman as the Absent Father of the Council : see F. McGrath John Henry Newman: Universal Revelation (Tunbridge Wells, Burns and Oates: 1997) John Paul II Apostolic Constitution of the Supreme Pontiff John Paul II Ex Corde Ecclesiae on Catholic Universities 1990 n. 16: available on-line at (February 2018) 33 Cf. John Paul II Ex Corde Ecclesiae n. 19 and Pope Francis Apostolic Constitution Veritatis Gaudium on Ecclesiastical Universities and Faculties: (February 2018) 35 Veritatis Gaudium 4 36 Dulles Newman s Idea 99 8

9 Lonergan providentially took off the shelf Newman s Grammar and read it through several times, perhaps five or six 37. This triggered Lonergan s life-long desire to renew and rework the Church s classical tradition. It led him to explore the desires of the human heart and to propose a generalised method, derived from the operations of human consciousness, that can arguably re-integrate science, scholarship, religion and everyday life into one overall, unified approach. The problem of interdisciplinarity arises because of the continuing exponential growth of human knowledge. In Aquinas s day all the books of human knowledge could be assembled on a couple of library shelves. Today, compartmentalisation is inevitable, yet it soon leads to gulfs between science, scholarship and the arts, personal living and religion, with damaging social and practical consequences. This is where surely Catholic education at all levels is uniquely placed to offer an antidote. At primary and secondary levels, efforts to put Christ at the Centre express the desire to find a unity and central organising principle within a school. 38 At tertiary level, the constraints are greater, yet one wonders whether core-curriculum components might be offered. For instance, the Perspectives Program at Boston College, led by the Philosophy Department and the Lonergan Institute, is an accredited course open to all undergraduates, centred on the great books of the Western intellectual tradition. It seeks to integrate the humanities and natural sciences and to help students reflect on the big questions: Who are we? Where do we come from? Where are we going? Echoing Newman, its aim is to educate the whole person and to help students develop skills in critical thinking and practical living. 39 Thirdly, Newman s argument that theology is true knowledge and that a university should have a theology department is a rejection of secularism within education. Of course, the notion of secularism as of liberalism has been enlarged and transformed since Newman s time. Whilst Newman anticipated the loss of faith and the religious indifference of the future 40 as a rotten fruit of the anti-dogmatic principle, he could never have anticipated the wide-ranging impact of the religious, political, economic and social revolutions of our own times. Secularism is now a common modus vivendi in which many live lives without what Peter Berger called the sacred canopy. 41 Moreover, political activism seeks to exclude religion and religious expression from the public domain, from schools, institutions and national life: not simply freedom of religion but freedom from religion. Consequently, many in today s society are religiously illiterate; they no longer understand their own cultural heritage nor the 37 I read [Grammar of Assent] in my third year philosophy (at least the analytic parts) about five times and found solutions for my problems. I was not at all satisfied with the philosophy that was being taught and found Newman's presentation to be something that fitted in with the way I knew things. It was from that kernel that I went on to different authors. B. Lonergan Reality, Myth, Symbol in A. Olson ed. Myth, Symbol and Reality (In, University of Notre Dame Press: 1980) M. Stock Christ at the Centre. Why the Church Provides Catholic Schools (London, Catholic Truth Society: 2005/2012) 39 See ctives (February 2018) 40 See for instance his homily The Infidelity of the Future preached on 2 nd October 1873 at the opening of St. Bernard s seminary, here in the collection Faith and Prejudice. Catholic Sermons of Bl. John Henry Newman (Assumption Press: 2013) P. Berger The Sacred Canopy. Elements of a Sociological Theory of Religion (New York, Doubleday: 1967) 9

10 heritage of the immigrant traditions now in Britain. As Pope Benedict shewed in his Regensburg Address, in Europe a loss of faith is dissolving the foundations of ethics, yet ethics cannot be constructed on a foundation other than that of theology and right reason. This is why, he argued, theology is needed in a university. 42 To argue the case for theology in a university, and indeed for religious education in schools, is urgent. Would not a Catholic university like St. Mary s be uniquely placed for this task, a crucial task, indeed a salvific anthropological mission? Otherwise religiously illiterate law- and policy-makers will place ever more draconian restrictions on religious freedom for the sake of social security, exactly the dictatorship of relativism Pope Benedict warned of. 43 And fourthly, rationalism. In rejecting rationalism, Newman challenges us to promote a right understanding of the relationship of faith and reason, religion and science. Anecdotally, in our schools many teachers and students see science as true and religion as personal opinion. This view is also widely communicated in the media and so constitutes a massive challenge. Teaching an authentic epistemology should be part of the curriculum at primary and secondary levels of Catholic education, as well as at the tertiary level. In systematically developing some of the key elements of Newman s epistemology, Lonergan in Insight and Method in Theology has shewn the unity of all disciplines to be found in the transcendental operations of the human mind, and these dynamic operations supply the structure for anthropology, epistemology, ethics, natural theology and methodology. If students were taught how the human mind works, the false dichotomies put between science and religion would be overcome. Even if Newman s discussion of the ethos of a Catholic university and the role of the Church today seems limited, he does touch on such contemporary questions as What makes a Catholic school Catholic? Today s context, as Ex Corde Ecclesiae and Veritatis Gaudium point out, is one of mission and evangelisation within a post- Nietzschean secularised culture, largely toxic to Christian values. As David Jones and Stephen Barrie relate, Catholic schools used to have low educational standards yet they produced strong adherents of faith, whereas today their high educational standards tend to produce successful citizens weak in faith. 44 This is where Lonergan s notion of conversion (religious, moral and intellectual) can be helpful. An authentic pastoral ethos is surely one that promotes the spiritual, moral and intellectual 42 See Apostolic Journey of his Holiness Benedict XVI to München, Altötting and Regensburg (September 9-14, 2006): Meeting with the Representatives of Science in the Aula Magna of the University of Regensburg (Tuesday, 12 September 2006). Lecture of the Holy Father Faith, Reason and the University: Memories and Reflections available on-line at (February Today, having a clear faith based on the Creed of the Church is often labelled as fundamentalism. Whereas relativism, that is, letting oneself be "tossed here and there, carried about by every wind of doctrine", seems the only attitude [appropriate to] modern times. Yet [in this] we are building a dictatorship of relativism that recognizes nothing as definitive, and whose ultimate goal consists solely in one's own ego and desires. We, however, have a different goal: the Son of God, the true man. He is the measure of true humanism. See Mass Pro Eligendo Romano Pontifice: Homily of Card. Joseph Ratzinger Dean of the College of Cardinals Vatican Basilica Monday 18 April 2005, available on-line at (February 2017). 44 See D. Jones and S. Barrie Thinking Christian Ethos: The Meaning of Catholic Education (London, Catholic Truth Society: 2015). 10

11 change and development of staff and students, with a sense of the universe of knowledge, of how domains of knowledge interrelate, of the dialogue of faith and reason and between faith and culture. An application of this is the Boston College PULSE Program, 45 in which, for course credits, students study social injustice through contact with marginalised groups and social change organisations in the city. They engage in practical, pastoral activities such as working with addicts, helping in health-care facilities, feeding the homeless, supporting victims of domestic violence, serving the mentally ill, and so on. In class, the issues are discussed in the light of Scripture and Catholic social teaching. Many students testify to life-changing experiences through this program. Again, another Newman-Lonergan concern is with interdisciplinarity. Forgive another example from Boston College. Inspired by Lonergan himself, the Jesuit Institute at BC has for over 50 years facilitated interdisciplinary staff seminars that encourage conversation and collaboration. A common text is taken relating to issues of faith and culture, with the aim of promoting spiritual, moral and intellectual conversion and of raising awareness within each discipline of its interrelations within the totality. Sometimes the outcome is a volume of essays or a conference. 46 Might staff seminars such as this help Catholic education at every level, primary, secondary and tertiary? Conclusion To conclude. Newman once said, from first to last, education has been my line. 47 Unsurprisingly, his Idea of a University remains a classic, a timeless book of abiding importance, as Jaroslav Pelikan avers, a masterpiece that later works on higher education invariably refer to. 48 As Martin Svaglic says in his Introduction, Newman s Idea is intellectually accessible to readers of every religious faith and none. 49 It tackles problems markedly different from those of higher education today, and yet it much illuminates them. Idea remains even still a go-to book that anyone seriously concerned with higher education can read with great profit. Newman s vertiginous scholarship, applied to the context and issues of his own day, is a narrative that speaks profoundly to scholars in today s very different context, not in the sense of offering answers but more on the level of raising questions and situating issues in a broader context. In this way, Newman s rich and multi-layered thought, often impossibly idealistic yet always laden with suggestion and practical consequence, is a hugely helpful navigational tool in an era in which economics, performance and bureaucracy seem to dominate academic concerns. In sum, he elevates us to a higher perspective and inspires in us a more noble ambition. Yet is that not too, in a word, the purpose of a Catholic university? Thank you for listening. 45 See (February 2018) 46 See (February 2018) 47 See J. H. Newman Autobiographical Writings (London, Sheed and Ward: 1956) J. Pelikan The Idea of a University. A Re-examination (New Haven, Yale University press: 1992) 6 49 M. Svaglic Introduction vii. 11