Seminarian questions 'Catholic' nature of Saint Mary's
By Austin Quick
Guest Columnist
Saint Mary’s University is a university that is “Enriched by the Catholic, Lasallian heritage,” or so the Mission Statement states. When I looked into starting an entire page devoted to matters of the faith in this publication, I was told that there were two concerns:
1. As a publication, we want to be careful about not showing more preference to a certain group on campus.
2. Although SMU is a Catholic university, the Cardinal should remain a neutral publication.
(Source: Email from Cardinal Editor regarding a meeting she had with Bob Conover)
What group are we showing preference to? Do they mean Catholics? This is odd to me since we are a CATHOLIC UNIVERSITY.
Read more... The preference is obviously to anyone who is not of the Catholic faith here on campus. Just another example of how everyone is so concerned about offending someone and thus we deny our obligations as Catholics so that we may be politically correct. One would not dream of attending Brigham Young University and state that they are offended by the Mormon faith. You choose to attend this university, and true to the Catholic Church’s teaching, we embrace all people from all walks of life to share in our common goals and common good as men and women of God.
Currently our university is searching for a new president. When I looked into the search committee’s documents, I found the following information regarding the search. The challenges that the next president faces includes “[u]pholding, supporting and enhancing the University’s academic, Catholic, and Lasallian mission,” and one of the qualifications is that he or she must be a “Committed Catholic.” (Source: R. H. Perry & Associates)
On the university’s website, they have under the heritage section that “[a] Catholic university is grounded in the Judeo-Christian tradition and vision and is inspired by Gospel values; faithful to the Christian message as it is embodied in the Church’s history, wisdom and tradition.” (Source: Ex Corde Ecclesiae (#73))
I give you all this information not to bore you but to point out to you that although this all sounds nice and our parents might like to hear that the place they are sending us to is “Catholic” I assure you we can do a great deal more as an institution to truly live up to our obligations as Catholic educators and students.
How many people at this university acknowledge or even know that the Blessed Sacrament is present in the Chapel on the second floor of Mary’s? NOW YOU SEE MY POINT! In many ways we are Catholic in name and heritage, but not in our daily lives and actions. When a professor shows “Brokeback Mountain” to their literature class and endorses that lifestyle rather than expressing the Church’s teachings, they are wrong. When an administrator states that it is okay to watch porn such as “Debbie Does Dallas” as long as it is for educational purposes, they are wrong. When money is raised to add a new soccer field rather than devote funds to the poorly-tended-to Chapel on campus, they are wrong. When the university denies requests to place anti-abortion material around campus, they are wrong. When a Catholic university’s newspaper is scared of expressing the Catholic faith for fear of offending non-Catholics, they too are wrong.
The bishop of this diocese came to preside at the school’s Red Mass, and in his homily he adamantly stated that as a Catholic university we have a duty to uphold the Catholic Church’s teachings in all that we do and all that we are. He pointed out that at that Mass in particular, the true start of the school year, less than 10 percent of the student body and faculty were in attendance. This is a sad reality we live in where MTV’s “Real World” wins over the Source and Summit of our faith and our lives.
Our faith cannot be pushed to the back seat; however it needs to be the foundation of who we are as an institution and as a collective people. The non-Catholics and non-Christian members of our university will understand and respect that we are true to our beliefs and to the teachings of the Church. It’s time to end this fear of offending the non-Catholic members of this community and embrace them with our Catholic faith by showing them that we are not aiming to alienate them, rather we are looking to enrich their lives with our Catholic and Lasallian teachings.
I ask that the patroness of this university pray for us during these times of great challenges and give us the strength to persevere. Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us.
Austin M. D. Quick is a sophomore and is a seminarian studying for the Diocese of Peoria, IL. He invites all questions or comments regarding his columns to be sent to amquic06@smumn.edu
3 comments:
I disagree with pretty much everything Austin Quick wrote in his Oct. 12 column, but I commend him for writing it. Doing so was an act of courage; Mr. Quick surely knew that some readers would be scornful of his remarks, but he wrote them anyway.
It's said that silence is golden, but I don't believe it. We'd all be better off if we spoke our minds on the issues we consider most important. As George Christian said when he spoke here Sept. 18 about the dangers posed to democracy by the Patriot Act, our rights are no good if we don't defend them and use them. Speaking our minds, as Mr. Quick did, puts cards on the table, puts ideas in the public forum where they will prevail or perish based on the support they do or do not attract. If more of us were willing to take the risk Mr. Quick did, we would address our problems head-on instead of trying to tiptoe around them in the superficially polite but foolish hope that they'll go away or solve themselves.
Sincerely,
Steven Schild
Associate Professor
Mass Communication Program
By Tim Hepner
Seminarian
In partial response to Quick’s article (whose faith and love I know to be sincere):
Rather than emphasizing the “no’s” of the Church (e.g. with repeated use of the word “wrong”) I would rather see first presented to Saint Mary’s students the “yes’s” of the Catholic faith. In this is found a possibly more disturbing and personal challenge not just to the university, but to the individual.
This challenge is to look honestly at the Church and her teachings not just as another constraining organized religion, but as a place to come home to and find the deepest meaning of myself. It’s disappointing that many people graduate from this university with a sad sense of uncertainty not just about what they will do, but about who they are.
The question, then, is this: Am I willing to be uncomfortable for a bit, to admit my vulnerability, confusion, and hunger, and to look to the one who came and promised to make sense of my life? Am I willing to go to go sit in the chapel and present all of my fears, my joys, my disappointments—my entire life—to Jesus, and admit that I am not independent?
Freedom isn’t doing whatever I want; it’s becoming who I was made to be. And I was made for something greater than myself. I personally challenge every person reading this to go deeper into themselves than they’ve been, and to say to Christ: “Give me meaning, no matter what it costs.”
By Dr. Eileen Daily
Assistant Professor of Theology
I write because Catholic scholars should “scrutinize reality” (Ex Corde Ecclesiae 15).
In the last issue, Austin Quick argued for more Catholic content in the newspaper and elsewhere. The Cardinal’s editors argued that a page of faith-based content would be the opinion of one campus group and not “objective.” I commend both sides for their zeal, and I challenge both presentations.
In brief, I argue that the editors misunderstand the nature of religion and that Quick focuses on developed aspects of Catholic identity when the problem is more basic.
Religion is elsewhere covered as news, not opinion. Even if it were opinion, does “opinion” belong only on the editorial page? Have arts reviewers stopped making aesthetic judgments, and sports writers stopped favoring SMU teams?
If focusing on Catholicism is editorial bias offensive to some community members, does that reasoning extend to sports? If so, I am outraged at the exclusivity of previous Minnesota Twins articles! The Cardinal should also cover my Red Sox!
Quick argues for more support of SMU’s Catholic identity. I agree. We differ about what that means. Quick emphasizes issues of Catholic reverence, worship and morality.
The issues of reverence and worship are complex, each deserving a whole article. But Catholic identity cannot start there. Genuine reverence and worship of God arise out of love of God, which arises out of knowledge of God. Did Quick offer information about the Blessed Sacrament? Was Quick’s own reverence expressed so as to invite readers to deeper knowledge of God?
Quick took positions pendent to issues the Catholic Church recognizes as objective moral truths. What is not addressed is that the Church also directs those responsible for the care and dignity of adolescents to love and support them.
For example, the Church teaches respect for all human life, from conception to natural death. This is undermined by some anti-abortion rhetoric. Which frightened, confused, pregnant student is more likely to have the strength to respect the dignity of her unborn child: one whose own dignity is undermined by condemnation and exile from her community, or one whose dignity is affirmed in mercy and support?
Being Catholic calls us first to be loving community to each other. While part of that is holding each other accountable, supportive approaches are more effective than judgmental, separating approaches. Do Catholics consistently succeed at this vision? No, but a step toward honoring the university’s Catholic identity would be dialogue in a quest for learning, truth, and peace.
Editor’s Note: In the October 12 edition of The Cardinal, Austin Quick’s editorial cited Ex Corde Ecclesiae as it was paraphrased on the SMU Heritage Web page. The Web page contained a typographical error. The section of Ex Corde Ecclesiae summarized is #13 not #73. It has been corrected on the Web site.
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