{"id":4780,"date":"2021-10-01T12:03:16","date_gmt":"2021-10-01T16:03:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cardinalnewmansociety.org\/?p=4780"},"modified":"2021-10-01T12:03:16","modified_gmt":"2021-10-01T16:03:16","slug":"facing-hard-truths-about-secular-colleges","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cardinalnewmansociety.org\/facing-hard-truths-about-secular-colleges\/","title":{"rendered":"Facing Hard Truths About Secular Colleges"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Editor\u2019s Note: The article below is included in the forthcoming fall 2021 edition of the Newman Society\u2019s\u00a0<\/em>Our Catholic Mission magazine. A version of this piece was published at The Catholic Thing.<\/em><\/p>\n

An article by R.R. Reno made waves this summer, especially in academic circles, because of his frank rejection of \u201celite\u201d secular universities.<\/p>\n

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Reno is editor of First Things<\/em> magazine, which caters to a generally highbrow readership. He is a graduate of the prestigious Haverford College, earned his Ph.D. at the Ivy League\u2019s Yale University, and taught theology at Creighton University\u2014a Jesuit institution that has national prominence, despite having drifted away from its Catholic mission.<\/p>\n

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Still, Reno no longer recruits Ivy League graduates for employment.<\/p>\n

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\u201cI don\u2019t want to hire someone who makes inflammatory accusations at the drop of a hat,\u201d he writes, responding to the increasingly hostile \u201ccancel culture\u201d on Ivy League and other \u201celite\u201d college campuses. He also doesn\u2019t want to hire graduates who have become \u201cwell-practiced in remaining silent when it costs something to speak up\u201d against the prevailing campus ideologies.<\/p>\n

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\u201cI have no doubt that Ivy League universities attract smart, talented and ambitious kids,\u201d Reno acknowledges. \u201cBut do these institutions add value? My answer is increasingly negative. Dysfunctional kids are coddled and encouraged to nurture grievances, while normal kids are attacked and educationally abused.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Toxic for Catholics<\/strong><\/p>\n

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Most Catholic college students attend secular colleges (and largely secularized Catholic colleges) where the anti-reason \u201ccancel culture\u201d threatens anyone who espouses Catholic teaching and even Western culture. Shouldn\u2019t the Church be doing more to warn them of the dangers?<\/p>\n

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Jennifer Frey, a philosophy professor at the public University of South Carolina, is a faithful Catholic who promotes multidisciplinary dialogue about virtue and goodness among her faculty. But as she explained recently in The Point Magazine<\/em>, she is confronted by the very definition of secular higher education today. Its focus is deliberately concentrated on scientific knowledge, it rejects philosophical thinking about higher truths, and it excludes the essential truths of theology.<\/p>\n

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\u201cMy own vision of what a university should be is inspired by the Catholic tradition in which it originally came to be: a university is, in its essence, a community of scholars and students who seek the truth together as a common end for its own sake,\u201d writes Frey. She cites St. John Henry Newman and his argument for theology as the foundational discipline of all education, \u201csince God is the only coherent source of the sort of unity and order that such a search presupposes.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Photo via Adobe Stock<\/p><\/div>\n

Newman\u2019s vision of a true university \u201chas no chance of being realized outside of a Catholic context,\u201d Frey acknowledges. But she strives for some \u201calternative vision of a secularized university\u201d that at least recaptures an appreciation of various theologies. It might be the most that can be accomplished in a public university today\u2014but it this the education young Catholics deserve?<\/p>\n

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Concerns about secular education go well beyond academics, of course. Student life on most secular campuses is toxic to students trying to uphold Christian morality and to simply live healthily. Many students lack sleep and good physical habits, they abuse alcohol and possibly drugs, and they may suffer anxiety as a result of promiscuous lifestyles and shallow relationships. Most secular institutions today aggressively promote gender ideology and sexual immorality, even to the point of demanding students\u2019 assent in contradiction to our Catholic faith.<\/p>\n

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The Church has made it a priority to provide Catholic centers and Bible studies on secular campuses, offering some opportunity for Christian fellowship and the grace of the sacraments. But these cannot alter the general campus culture, which is increasingly dangerous for young Catholics. Such apostolates also cannot provide an authentically Catholic education, in which the insights of our Catholic faith bring light to every subject and provide a solid foundation for personal formation.<\/p>\n

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Parents\u2019 right to know<\/strong><\/p>\n

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The Catholic Church must not turn a blind eye to the growing dangers of secular education. There is surely nothing \u201celite\u201d about colleges that embrace depravity and lack commitment to truth and reason. Long ago, they turned against faith-filled, liberal arts education. Many today seem intent on malforming young people.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\u201cWe do not flourish without communion with the good,\u201d Frey argues, and that first requires forming students in \u201cvirtues like wisdom, courage and justice.\u201d These are best cultivated in the home and within an education that is centered on Christ.<\/p>\n

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Secular education, with its focus on training students for functional roles in the economy and society, rejects an authentic higher education that forms the whole person. Catholic leaders must recover confidence in Catholic education and proclaim it, especially (but not only) to the faithful who either have lost appreciation for the superiority of a Catholic education or have been let down by colleges that are not truly committed to their Catholic missions. We need to restore trust as well as confidence.<\/p>\n

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Frey, who argues the essential roles of theology and philosophy to higher education, concedes that the ideal is a Catholic institution. Reno has chosen to hire graduates of \u201cquirky small Catholic colleges such as Thomas Aquinas College, Wyoming Catholic College and the University of Dallas,\u201d which are not \u201cdeformed by the toxic political correctness that leaders of elite universities have allowed to become dominant.\u201d These are among the colleges highlighted by The Cardinal Newman Society in our Newman Guide,<\/a> which offers Catholic families a variety of faithful options for higher education.<\/p>\n

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These colleges are for the most part growing each year, even as many private colleges across the country are struggling to maintain enrollment. Catholics should be rallying around these faithful colleges and encouraging families to give them strong consideration. Meanwhile, we need to talk openly about the dangers that young Catholics face at secular colleges and steer them to better options.<\/p>\n

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I recently spoke to a good friend who provided a strong Catholic education to his children but then sent the eldest to his alma mater, a highly reputed public university. He regrets the choice and bemoans the poisonous campus culture.<\/p>\n

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\u201cI just didn\u2019t know how bad it had become,\u201d the father told me. I think he deserved to know.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Editor\u2019s Note: The article below is included in the forthcoming fall 2021 edition of the Newman Society\u2019s\u00a0Our Catholic Mission magazine. A version of this piece was published at The Catholic Thing. An article by R.R. Reno made waves this summer, especially in academic circles, because of his frank rejection of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":4781,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"issue":[],"item_type":[],"coauthors":[70],"class_list":["post-4780","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blog"],"yoast_head":"\nFacing Hard Truths About Secular Colleges - Cardinal Newman Society<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"An article by R.R. 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Reno made waves this summer, especially in academic circles, because of his frank rejection of \u201celite\u201d secular universities.Reno is editor of First Things magazine, which caters to a generally highbrow readership. 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Reilly is President, CEO, and Founder of The Cardinal Newman Society, which promotes and defends faithful Catholic education. Since 1993, the Society has led a movement of educators and parents to uphold clear standards of truth and fidelity in Catholic education and to build up a strong core of faithful Catholic schools, homeschools, colleges, and graduate programs. This is done in full accord with the Magisterium of the Catholic Church and to promote the vision of the Society\u2019s holy patron, Saint John Henry Newman. Patrick also serves as an adjunct professor teaching rhetoric at Holy Apostles College and Seminary and a teacher and developer of logic, rhetoric, and philosophy courses for students grade 7-12 at Aquinas Learning, a classical Catholic hybrid school founded and led by his wife, Rosario. He has authored and edited many articles, reports, studies, and other publications on Catholic education for The Cardinal Newman Society and national media; addressed audiences for national and local Catholic organizations; and appeared on EWTN, FOX News, MSNBC, and numerous radio programs. Patrick was awarded Honorary Doctorates of Humane Letters from Benedictine College (Atchison, Kan.) in 2022 and Holy Apostles College and Seminary (Cromwell, Conn.) in 2008. He also was awarded the Catholic Culture Award from Our Lady Seat of Wisdom College (Barry\u2019s Bary, Ontario) in 2023; the Excellence in Youth Ministry Award from the Diocese of Arlington in 2019; the Lumen Vitae Medal from the University of Mary in 2018; the Miles Militantis Ecclesiae Award from the Brent Society of the Diocese of Arlington in 2011; the Hall of Fame Award from the Catholic Education Foundation in 2009; and the Spes Nostra Award from the National Association of Private Catholic and Independent Schools in 2003. He previously served as editor and research fellow at Capital Research Center, executive director of Citizens for Educational Freedom, higher education analyst at the U.S. House of Representatives, program analyst at the U.S. Department of Education, media consultant for the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, and chairman of American Collegians for Life. 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