The chancellor of the University of Dayton in Ohio came to Marquette Wednesday and said Catholic schools are 100 years behind the times. And he said in this case, that's a good thing.
The Rev. James Heft addressed a crowd of mainly theology professors and graduate students at the Weasler Auditorium. In his lecture, called "Secularization and Catholic Higher Education," Heft said Catholic universities are just beginning to face the issue of secularization that Protestant schools dealt with in the early 1900s.
Heft began his address by delving into the history of American secularization.
Heft said about 100 years ago, intellectuals began to think capitalism, science and democracy could provide all of life's answers for mankind. They dismissed religion and felt it would eventually fade away.
In the early 20th century, Heft said Protestant schools began to grow more secular while Catholic schools were less affected. Several key differences between Catholic and Protestant colleges caused the discrepancy. Protestant schools emphasized hard sciences, while Catholic schools dealt more with liberal arts. He said one priest at the time went so far as to say Catholic schools didn't need to do research; they already had the truth.
Heft said another difference is that after the second Vatican Council in the 1960s many Catholic colleges began to require all students to take some philosophy and theology. Protestant schools began to make fewer such requirements.
Heft said the possibility of Catholic schools becoming more secularized is a complex issue. He had a number of suggestions on how Catholic schools could keep their religious identity, one being that Catholic institutions hire good administrators with religious backgrounds.
"Where there is bad leadership the best professors leave and only the mediocre stay," he said.
The Roman Catholic Church needs to continue to help support colleges, Heft said. As heads of their diocese, bishops have indirect authority over the school, and he said they need to confirm universities' Catholic identities.
Catholic universities need to continue to be strong in the liberal arts, Heft said, because hard science is a source of truth, but not of all truth. By relying too much on science, people begin to ask only the questions that can be answered by scientific methods. On many issues, questions need to be asked of human nature and God — subjects that the scientific method is unable to study.
O'Donnell Hall Minister Michael Smith said he got some "good nuggets of insight" from the talk. He said Heft "has a strong grasp of the different perspectives: Protestant, Evangelical, Catholic."
It "remains to be seen" whether there will be any major changes at Marquette based on Heft's talk, said theology professor Patrick Carey. He characterized the university as being "on a good track" of its Catholicism.
Outside of his work at the University of Dayton, Heft is a published writer on many Catholic topics. In 2001, he founded the Institute for Advanced Catholic Studies and was named as the Institute's first president. The institute's mission, according to its Web site at www.ifacs.com, is to research and promote Catholic viewpoints on current issues.