



































Whither Traditional Catholic Institutions


[Expositions 4.1&2 (2010) 12-27]  Expositions (online) ISSN: 1747-5376 

 

 

 

Whither Traditional Catholic Institutions? 

JOHN W. CARLSON 

Department of Philosophy 

Creighton University 

 

 

In recent years, concerns about “identity” have increasingly arisen at what may be called 

traditional Catholic institutions. These colleges and universities, most of long standing, 

typically were founded by orders of religious men and women (Jesuits, Christian 

Brothers, Franciscans, Dominicans, Augustinians, Sisters of Mercy, etc.), often at the 

request of local diocesan bishops. In some cases, the institutions were founded by bishops 

themselves and operated as units of their respective dioceses. As has been chronicled 

rather fully in recent studies,
1
 many of these institutions now face serious questions about 

what, precisely, it means for them to be Catholic, about how and by whom answers to 

such questions are to be reached, and about the implications of all this for their standing 

in the larger American higher education community. I myself have been occupied with 

these questions for some time;
2
 but it was not until contacted by Overheard editor 

Bernard Prusak that I explicitly adverted to the connections between such questions and 

ones raised by the U. S. Supreme Court decision in Yeshiva. My contribution to the 

present symposium will focus on these connections. 

1. To begin on a personal note, in May 2010 I completed my fortieth year of full-time 

service in American Catholic higher education. I first encountered issues about faculty 

roles in college and university governance in the early 1970s, while employed as an 

assistant professor at Saint Louis University, sponsored by the Society of Jesus (or 

Jesuits). After two consecutive years of financial distress at the university – resulting in 

no faculty salary increases – a movement developed to form a union, with the local 

chapter of the AAUP to be designated as collective bargaining agent under the National 

Labor Relations Act. Unsurprisingly, this movement was aggressively opposed by the 

university administration. (I remember being button-holed on campus by a prominent 

Jesuit, who warned darkly that unionization of the faculty would mean the end of 

collegiality at our institution.) For whatever reason or constellation of reasons, the 

movement failed to gain sufficient support. 

During that time I understood rather little about pertinent issues (although, as Prusak 

suggests in his introduction, “collegiality” certainly sounded like something good and 

important, not to be recklessly jeopardized). Now, having served many years in both 

teaching and administrative ranks, including a stint at one institution with a faculty 

collective bargaining agreement, I have developed more perspective on the matter. As 

noted, I also have developed serious concerns about what are, for many Catholic 



13  Carlson 

 

 

institutions, important related issues (although ones that barely appeared on the radar in 

the early ’70s) – namely, issues of “Catholic identity.” 

2. At the end of that decade came Yeshiva.
3
 The majority opinion (which surely was 

applauded by my button-holing Jesuit mentor) noted that universities typically are 

organized in a manner different from that of the “pyramidal hierarchies of private 

industry;” instead, they operate according to a “model of collegial decision-making.” 

Thus the majority held that full-time faculty members are, in the sense pertinent to NLRB 

concerns, “managerial” employees – and accordingly not protected under the National 

Labor Relations Act. This opinion, of course, was strongly opposed by the minority, 

which argued that the majority’s view of faculty status in the modern university was 

distorted by a “rose-colored lens” and that, given governance structures as they actually 

exist in the academy (which seemed to the minority more like those of “any large 

industrial organization”), faculty indeed should enjoy collective bargaining rights. 

The decision involved a 5–4 split. By now, we are used to such outcomes. However, 

unlike many cases, the Yeshiva split did not bespeak strongly held, and opposed, matters 

of principle. Rather, the main disagreement was over the interpretation of facts – i.e., the 

actual operation of American colleges and universities. Seen in that context, a closely 

divided court should have come as no surprise. Indeed, as it seems to this writer, in a 

number of instances the facts tended to support the majority opinion, while in a number 

of others they tended to support the minority opinion; moreover, points about institutional 

operations could be adduced on both sides of the issue. 

3. Today, thirty years later, relevant facts about college and university governance and 

other pertinent issues are changing – and their implications for Yeshiva still seem subject 

to dispute. (Certainly, the percentage of recent non-tenure-track faculty hires, as cited in 

the introduction, seems to call for a re-evaluation of some basic assumptions.) As 

indicated, I wish to focus on a set of governance issues in flux in distinctive ways within 

one particular set of institutions – those we have identified as traditional Catholic 

colleges and universities. 

There are over two hundred such institutions across the country. A handful of them – 

led by Notre Dame and Georgetown – hold Carnegie status as doctoral-granting, are 

genuinely national in their recruiting bases, and have excellent overall academic 

reputations. If annual U. S. News and World Report rankings are to be credited,
4
 many 

regional “comprehensive” or “master’s level” Catholic schools also are of very high 

quality and are recognized as such by their American institutional peers. (For example, 

among universities under Catholic sponsorship, the recently released 2011 U. S. News 

rankings list Villanova, Providence, Loyola of Maryland, and Fairfield among the top ten 

regional universities in the East; Belmont and Loyola of New Orleans among the top ten 

in the South; Creighton, Xavier of Ohio, and John Carroll among the top ten in the 

Midwest; and Santa Clara, Loyola Marymount, Gonzaga, Seattle, and Portland among the 

top ten in the West.) A similar profile emerges for regional liberal arts colleges. The 



Wither Traditional Catholic Institutions?  14 
 

 

reputations in question have been earned; nonetheless, it seems doubtful that these results 

would have been achieved by traditional Catholic institutions if they had not, beginning 

in the late 1960s, adopted governance models in keeping with the norm in American 

higher education – i.e., ones that were more “collegial,” as well as ones that rendered the 

institutions independent of juridical relationships with the Catholic Church.
5
 

4. However, the cutting of juridical ties, and the movement from top-down decision-

making structures (with members of the founding religious orders and/or local bishops at 

the top) to more typical American models, came with an institutional price: the opening 

of these schools to a possible decline in their Catholic identity. This opening has been 

potentiated by several other factors – in particular, a reduction in the number of religious 

order members among these institutions’ faculty and staff; a concomitant increase not 

only in instructors who were lay men and women, but ones who had no prior personal 

affiliation with Catholic higher education; and the rise in federal regulation of American 

colleges and universities, as well as the increasing demands of professional and regional 

accrediting agencies. 

During the past few years, a number of difficult issues related to Catholic identity have 

arisen on the campuses in question. Without claiming to be exhaustive, I suggest that 

most of them can be grouped under three headings: a) determinations of curricular 

offerings and requirements; b) sponsorship of outside speakers and other para-curricular 

events; and c) hiring of faculty and academic administrators. Some concrete cases 

involving these issues have been handled rather smoothly; others have not – with 

accompanying uproar and public embarrassment to the institution. Our concern here is 

not so much with the details of individual cases as with the range of answers, and the 

institutional methods of arriving at answers, to which these issues seemed to admit; and 

also, mindful of Yeshiva, with the different answers’ implications for an assessment of 

faculty roles in institutional governance. 

5. Let us consider briefly salient examples from each category. Regarding the first, 

concerning curriculum, a most salient fact also is a near-universal one: change in the 

“core” or “general education” requirements for the Bachelor’s degree. At Catholic 

colleges and universities in the 1960s, such requirements typically included four or more 

courses each in theology and philosophy. Today, while there is considerable variation, 

the standard seems to be one or two each – and sometimes philosophy is folded into a 

more general requirement in the humanities. Now, arguably, a keystone of the Catholic 

intellectual tradition has been high regard for – indeed, insistence upon – the study of 

philosophy and theology, with the latter itself conditioned by its interaction with natural 

or philosophical reason.
6
 The reduction in curricular requirements in recent decades 

seems to entail a diminution of Catholic identity. But how if at all might this result have 

been forestalled – and how is further diminution to be prevented? It should be noted that 

significant pressure has been placed on core curricula by increased requirements from 

professional accrediting agencies – e.g., for students of chemistry, the ACS (American 



15  Carlson 

 

 

Chemical Society); for students of business, the AACSB (Association of American 

Colleges and Schools of Business); and so on. Still, there is little doubt that in many cases 

the curtailment of core requirements in philosophy and theology has been driven by 

concerns of faculty (and their students) in other disciplines – in particular, by a perceived 

unfairness in allotting such a large share of the curriculum to these two departments. 

Such a perception in part has stemmed from the idea that, as regards the core curriculum, 

all disciplines are essentially equal. This idea is a common one within American higher 

education; that it should have become influential at Catholic colleges and universities 

reflects the faculty diversification noted above. But, I would argue, it also reflects the loss 

of the traditional organization of courses within philosophy and theology programs 

themselves, as well as a general loss of commitment – by faculty of Catholic as well as 

other backgrounds – to these institutions’ historical missions. All this has been 

compounded by lack of nerve (or implicit agreement) among many academic 

administrators, who might have rejected the faculties’ new curricular models and called 

for retention of serious theological and philosophical study. Absent direct intervention by 

senior officials or boards of trustees, or renewed fervor among faculty with traditional 

Catholic commitments (and colleagues who also recognize the value of these disciplines), 

there is little reason to suppose that this trend will be reversed. 

Perhaps less significant overall, but often highly publicized when they occur, are 

issues about particular courses. A current case involves a course on Gay Marriage being 

taught at Seton Hall University in the Fall Semester of 2010. The developer and 

instructor of the course is a tenured member of the political science department; he also is 

a gay man who previously upset people concerned about the institution’s Catholic 

character by writing and making public remarks that not only went against Church 

teaching on marriage but, in the judgment of the individuals in question, subjected it to 

overt ridicule. Now, Seton Hall is somewhat distinctive in that the local Catholic 

“ordinary” (i.e., diocesan bishop) has a formal role in the governance structure of the 

institution. In this case, the bishop determined last spring to try to have the Gay Marriage 

course cancelled – in part, he said, because the issue of same-sex marriage already has 

been settled in the negative by authoritative church teaching. At its June 2010 meeting, 

the Board of Regents debated the matter but was unable to reach a decision. Thus the 

course, which had passed through regular academic approval channels, remained on the 

fall schedule.
7
 By any account, this situation is an extraordinary one; it raises questions 

about the extent to which senior administrators, the board and even local bishops are 

prepared to “reach down” into the details of curricular offerings. Such persons, it is true, 

have a responsibility to ensure that core traditions at the school are maintained. But 

instructors at Seton Hall, as well as at other institutions where such moves might be 

contemplated, understandably will ask: “If the faculty, through regular academic 

channels, cannot make determinative judgments about the courses taught in our 

curriculum, about what can we make determinative judgments?”
 



Wither Traditional Catholic Institutions?  16 
 

 

6. Regarding the second category – sponsorship of outside speakers and other campus 

events – readers will remember the controversy in the spring of 2009 when the University 

of Notre Dame invited President Obama to be commencement speaker and receive an 

honorary degree.
8
 Although the university has a long history of welcoming sitting 

American presidents to campus, a significant number of the nation’s Catholic bishops, as 

well as many lay people (including many Notre Dame alumni), protested the university’s 

decision because of Obama’s aggressive stances on abortion-rights and related issues. 

(The local ordinary boycotted the commencement ceremony.) Perhaps a more important 

– because more common – example involves the annual performance, at a number of 

Catholic as well as other institutions, of the play called “The Vagina Monologues.” This 

play (or, strictly, staged reading of parts) was developed by its author to call attention to 

the plight of women who are subjected to sexual mistreatment or to discrimination 

because of their sexual orientation. Unsurprisingly, its themes often are expressed in 

language that is graphic and, by many standards, obscene. Diocesan bishops and others – 

notably the Cardinal Newman Society,
9
 which focuses on maintaining and enhancing 

Catholic identity at church-affiliated institutions – have called for performances of the 

play to be halted. To date, the results have been mixed – in some cases successful, in 

others not (and, in either event, sometimes with a residue of hard feelings all around). 

Another relevant incident took place a couple of years ago at my present institution, 

Creighton University. The Center for Health Policy and Ethics, which sponsors an annual 

“Women in Health” lecture series, had invited a prominent feminist who devotes 

considerable attention to issues about health care in this country.  A few weeks before her 

scheduled appearance, the invitation was cancelled by the university president. He 

explained that, while persons are welcome to express a variety of points of view at 

Creighton, in this case the speaker’s history (which, it turned out, included an essay in the 

Los Angeles Times detailing her participation in an assisted suicide, and defiantly 

challenging anyone who might object on moral grounds
10

) made university sponsorship 

via a prestigious lecture incompatible with our Catholic mission and identity. This move, 

which pleased officials of the Omaha archdiocese, produced considerable consternation 

on campus. Similar cases occur rather frequently across the country. Happily, in the 

present instance, the occasion was used constructively to develop, through an all-

university committee, an explicit set of policies regarding the selection of outside 

speakers. Questions pursued by this committee have significance for all traditional 

Catholic schools: What are the implications of an institution’s Catholic identity in 

choosing which speakers and events to sponsor? In cases where the events are arranged 

by academic departments and programs, how much scrutiny by institutional officials is to 

be expected and recognized as legitimate? 

7. The third category of difficult issues – related to the hiring of faculty and academic 

administrators – came to wide public attention in spring 2010. At Marquette University, a 

year-long search for a new Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences yielded the 



17  Carlson 

 

 

recommendation of a candidate who had been a successful department chair at another 

Jesuit institution, but one who is a lesbian living openly with her partner and who 

focuses, as a scholar in sociology, on gay and lesbian sexuality and its treatment in 

American public policy. One of the writings on her resume (by no means an isolated 

instance) is titled, “Seeking Normal? Concerning Same-Sex Marriage.” In this article, she 

indicated her belief that public recognition of such marriages is virtually inevitable; but, 

as one directly affected, she wondered whether gay and lesbian couples should even 

aspire to participate in an institution so deeply corrupt. At first, Marquette’s president 

approved the search committee recommendation, but then – after a contract for the 

deanship already had been sent to the candidate – he reversed himself and rescinded the 

offer. In an interview with The New York Times,
11

 the president insisted that the 

candidate’s personal sexuality was not a major factor in his decision; rather, it had been 

discovered that some of her writings were incompatible with Catholic teaching. A press 

release added that a person who had produced such writings could not credibly lead the 

University’s arts college, whose dean in a special way must represent Marquette’s 

Catholic identity. Predictably, the rescinding of the deanship offer led to great uproar on 

campus. Marquette’s Faculty Senate passed a resolution condemning the president’s 

action and declaring that the episode sullied the reputation of the university and gave 

reason to wonder whether it in fact was committed to diversity and collegial operation.
12 

No one – including the university officials involved – regards this issue as having been 

handled well. (To the further chagrin of many faculty members, it later emerged that 

Milwaukee’s archbishop had privately expressed to the president grave concerns about 

the appointment – although the archbishop recognized that the decision was the 

university’s to make.) But, whatever should or should not have been done in the present 

case, the more general question raised concerns the role and autonomy of duly 

established university bodies, especially those with a preponderance of faculty, when 

they are directly concerned with the institution’s academic mission and operation. In 

what types of cases, and for what types of reasons, should senior administrators and 

boards feel free to reject such committees’ findings and recommendations? 

Less-publicized cases occur with some frequency on Catholic campuses in the hiring 

of full-time faculty. The reason is not difficult to discern. Consider that a modern liberal 

education hardly can avoid exposing students to the writings of, e.g., Karl Marx, 

notwithstanding the fact that Church authorities have been cool or even hostile to Marx – 

in part because of his declared atheism, but also because of the notorious totalitarian 

regimes that have claimed his writings as their inspiration. In some cases this curricular 

need, along with other considerations (e.g., the range of courses to be offered in a 

department’s graduate program), will entail hiring a specialist in Marx. Now, such a 

specialist will not necessarily agree with everything Marx wrote; but he or she is unlikely 

to be without sympathy for the author’s basic themes. How, and by whom, are the 

subtleties of this situation to be negotiated – and, if necessary, explained to the Catholic 



Wither Traditional Catholic Institutions?  18 
 

 

institution’s various publics? Similar questions arise in connection with the hiring of 

expert faculty to teach evolutionary biology, feminist literature, and a range of other 

important topics. Each spring such questions can become the daily bread of Catholic 

college and university deans and academic vice presidents, as well as (if they are alert to 

the issues) departmental search committees. 

8. Given the various factors at play, it is predictable that – now and for the foreseeable 

future – issues related to mission and identity, as well as the question of how and by 

whom the issues are to be resolved, will loom large for traditional Catholic institutions. In 

practice, the modes of resolution can take an indefinite number of concrete forms; 

moreover, such forms can evolve over time. In theory, however, the general types of 

resolution seem to this writer to reduce to three. Before exploring them, let us summarize 

the relevant constellation of forces currently affecting traditional Catholic colleges and 

universities. 

First, as noted, there are powerful forces pushing these institutions toward greater and 

greater secularization. Beginning in the late 1960s, there has been, in most cases, a 

severing of juridical ties between the college or university and the institutional Church. 

Further, in virtually every case, there has been a severe reduction in the number of faculty 

and staff who are members of the founding religious order. These individuals’ places 

sometimes have been taken by lay Catholic men and women who are imbued with the 

spirit of the founders; but often – and increasingly – they have been taken by persons who 

have little or no prior exposure to the Catholic intellectual tradition. Adding to the effect 

is a sometimes noticeable loss of fervor among the (generally older) Catholic faculty who 

remain. Finally, along with increased funding of higher education by federal agencies has 

come increased regulation (and thus a tendency toward homogenization); further pressure 

along these lines has come from program accrediting bodies. In light of these factors, it 

should be no surprise that traditional Catholic institutions face challenges to their 

missions and identities. 

As our illustrative cases reveal, in many concrete instances the challenges are 

vigorously met by countervailing forces – ones seeking to promote a return to a strong 

sense of Catholic identity. Sometimes, however, these forces involve what are perceived 

as heavy-handed moves by senior administrators and boards, as well as by persons and 

groups that are not formally part of the institution – in particular, local bishops and 

organizations such as The Cardinal Newman Society. 

The upshot of all this can be confusion – and even open conflict – as to who is 

responsible for and who actually determines the school’s identity and mission. Such 

confusion and conflict takes a heavy toll on the morale of all stakeholders: students, 

faculty, administrators, boards of trustees, and, often, diocesan chanceries. A certain 

amount of ambiguity about these matters probably is inevitable, given the complexity of 

the institutions in question. And the natural tendency toward inertia that characterizes all 

institutions of higher education can be expected to manifest itself, at a number of 



19  Carlson 

 

 

Catholic schools, in continued “temporizing” and issue-avoidance. (However, recent 

events make it seem unlikely that this mode of operation will continue to be viable for 

very long.) 

Among Catholic colleges and universities that do address their identity issues 

squarely, it is to be expected that varying approaches will be undertaken. Moreover, as 

noted, very likely there will be some evolution of approach in individual cases. But a 

sketch of the general types of resolution available should help to clear the air, as well as 

to concentrate the mind. 

9. As indicated earlier, the general types of resolution to issues about Catholic identity 

seem to reduce to three.  

i) First would be to continue and even to strengthen the trajectory suggested by the 

rescinding of the dean hire at Marquette and, at least in terms of the local bishop’s 

intention and effort, the elimination of an approved course at Seton Hall. Institutions that 

choose such a trajectory would, to be sure, solidify their bona fides as Catholic; but this 

approach also would hark back to the “top-down,” pre-1970s model of institutional 

governance and perhaps even lead to re-establishing formal, juridical ties with the local 

diocese. As suggested at the outset, it is difficult to believe that traditional Catholic 

institutions could do this without losing a good deal of their hard-won standing in the 

American academic community. If this option were adopted, instructional staff would 

come to be viewed simply as another category of employees – ones engaged by the 

institution to deliver a curriculum more or less prescribed by institutional leaders. This 

doubtless would negatively impact the morale of many faculty members on the campuses 

in question. Of these, a significant number who could leave and find full-time 

employment elsewhere surely would do so.
13 

ii) Second, it might come to be acknowledged – with or without the intervention of 

local bishops – that full secularization at certain historically Catholic colleges and 

universities either already has occurred or is inevitable. From the standpoint of Catholic 

orthodoxy, these institutions will be seen as “too far gone”; thus they may as well be set 

free to pursue their own paths in American higher education. As happened in many (of 

course not all) schools founded by Protestant religious bodies, there no longer would be 

allegiance to, or serious education in, themes of a Christian and Catholic nature.
14

 No 

special emphasis would remain, for example, on the role of natural reason in conjunction 

with religious faith in students’ coming to develop a matrix for personal choices and 

discussions of public policy. Such schools might retain optional religious services, as 

well as a skeleton team of campus ministers, but they no longer would provide an 

environment dedicated to the holistic development of students (intellectual, emotional, 

social, and spiritual) in line with Catholic traditions.
 

iii) The third general possibility would be to rebuild an explicitly Catholic culture on 

the campuses. Such a culture would be expressed in many ways, including ones related to 

the areas of concern discussed earlier. Institutions that pursued this third model once 



Wither Traditional Catholic Institutions?  20 
 

 

again might come to be imbued with the spirit of Catholicism; this would display itself, 

inter alia, in these institutions’ curricular offerings, their policies regarding outside 

speakers and events, and their administrative and faculty hires. Rather clearly, such a 

renewal of campus culture could come only from inside the institution; it could not be 

imposed by external fiat. It also would need to proceed, so to speak, organically – 

growing in influence on various dimensions of campus life as opportunities and 

circumstances permit. 

Speaking for myself – but also, I believe, for many academics of long-standing at 

traditional Catholic institutions – I have little interest in being part of an educational 

endeavor that involves either the first or the second model. At the same time, however, I 

am concerned about the practical possibilities of implementing the third. Let us explore 

what would be involved in a transformation of institutional culture, as well as the 

difficulties this effort predictably would face. 

10. What would be required in rebuilding an institution’s Catholic culture? As I see it, 

at least the following: 

Initially, and crucially, there would need to be renewed fervor for the school’s 

traditional mission – updated in light of the needs of contemporary students – among a 

sizeable number of faculty, staff, and administrators who are Catholic, as well as 

colleagues who might be recruited to this cause. 

Excellence in teaching and research is of course to be highly valued in whomever it is 

manifested. (The same is to be said for excellence in counseling students, preparing and 

monitoring institutional budgets, the provision of campus food services, etc.) However, 

the coalition here envisioned would constitute a necessary foundation for, and a principal 

resource in pursuing, other things required for cultural change, including a gradual re-

expansion of the numbers of Catholics employed, especially in direct teaching roles. (One 

of the more difficult provisions contained in Pope John Paul II’s 1990 document on 

Catholic higher education, Ex corde Ecclesiae,
15

 is that a majority of instructional 

personnel at the institutions in question themselves should be faithful Catholics. At many 

Catholic-sponsored institutions in the U. S. today, the percentage of faculty members 

who embrace and follow the religious tradition is well under that mark.) 

For there to be an expansion of the number of Catholic instructors at a college or 

university, the institution would need to be quite intentional in its hiring policies; 

moreover, given reasonable legal restrictions on according preference to candidates with 

a particular religious profile, the institution would need to be explicit about this matter in 

position advertisements posted through various media. As suggested, such an expansion 

also would need to be gradual; and in any given year important instructional positions 

may need to be filled for which no Catholics with excellent credentials make application. 

Hard-won academic reputations should not be sacrificed even for the good here 

envisioned. 



21  Carlson 

 

 

There also would be required a return to a well-conceived core curriculum – and in 

particular, well-sequenced sets of courses in philosophy and theology. This would not 

require the numbers of courses that characterized pre-1970s curricula; but it is difficult to 

see how basic elements of these crucial areas of Catholic tradition could be effectively 

communicated via fewer than two or three courses in each department. The design and 

implementation of these core sequences would fall primarily to the departments 

themselves. However, the whole faculty has a stake in an institution’s core curriculum; 

thus the voices of interested and knowledgeable persons across the college or university 

also should be heard. Given typical academic approval processes in American higher 

education, it is almost certain that they would be. 

Let me offer two specific observations and recommendations. Regarding theology, 

although this discipline in no way should relinquish its critical function, students are ill-

served by a steady diet of historical and form-critical studies of Scripture, social science 

based approaches to ecclesiology, and “revisionist” accounts of ethics (according to 

which there is no basis, natural or supernatural, for judging any type of act to be 

intrinsically wrong). The views of those who dissent from the Catholic magisterium 

should be presented as having the gravity they in fact have. However, students also must 

be exposed to the best work of theologians who “think with the Church” (Latin sentire 

cum Ecclesia), not least regarding moral issues of sexuality and family life.
16

 Somewhat 

similarly, philosophy core offerings once again should come to exemplify, not the 

“Introductions” that typify general education across American colleges, but rather an 

ordered sequence that gives students access to the reflective thought on which the 

Church’s understandings of the world, human persons, and God, as well as the 

foundations of morality, in part are based.
17 

These courses also should make students 

aware of, and encourage them to grapple with, challenges to these understandings posed 

by aspects of contemporary intellectual culture (relativism, scientism, fideism, etc.). 

Finally, the renewal of Catholic culture on the campuses would require the 

development and maintenance of offices of campus ministry that are fully oriented 

toward Christ and the Church. Such offices would take as their primary mission helping 

students develop spiritually in keeping with Catholic teaching and practice. Of course, 

students of all faiths and of none should continue to be welcomed at these institutions; 

and, insofar as this can be accomplished, arrangements should be made to address all 

students’ spiritual needs. However, in many and varied ways – e.g., through prominent 

displays of religious symbols, regular availability of Catholic worship services and 

sacraments, frequent weekend retreats, and faith-inspired service programs to assist the 

poor – it once again must become clear that the spirit imbuing the campus is the spirit of 

Catholic Christianity. 

If the cultures at traditional Catholic institutions could be renewed in these ways, not 

only would there be a clarification of mission; neuralgic campus episodes of the types 

mentioned earlier in this essay would be much less likely to occur. Moreover, when 



Wither Traditional Catholic Institutions?  22 
 

 

faculty as a matter of course approach curriculum reform with an eye to better fulfilling 

the college or university mission, when campus speakers and other events are carefully 

selected to complement academic programs (with competing viewpoints presented in a 

responsible manner, without derision of Catholic teaching), and when search committees 

are selected and educated so as to pursue their tasks realistically and conscientiously, the 

institution will come to model the important Catholic principle of social justice called the 

“principle of subsidiarity.”
18

 That is, decisions by and large will be made at the 

institutional levels best equipped to make them and carry them out, with higher levels 

offering assistance (Latin subsidium) as requested or needed. 

11. But while rebuilding a school’s Catholic culture may appear the best of the three 

general approaches to resolving issues about institutional identity, anyone wishing to 

undertake it should have a sober awareness of the difficulties that in most cases would be 

faced. 

First, the initial coalition of Catholics and other interested parties would, as such, have 

no institutional authority; and in the beginning their efforts are likely to be greeted with 

some skepticism and even ridicule. Moreover, a number of well-intentioned colleagues 

who do not share the Catholic faith may be genuinely if misguidedly distressed at this 

initiative. And questions – some of them legitimate and needing to be carefully addressed 

– will be raised about the legality of the hiring policies contemplated. Will the stalwarts 

required for such cultural change come forth in sufficient numbers? Will they express 

their ideas adroitly and maintain their resolve over what is likely to be a very long haul? 

Further, even in the best of circumstances core curriculum reform is fraught with 

difficulties. And it is no easy matter to address cogently the issues here raised, especially 

when key members of the audience have no personal background to help them appreciate 

the significance of theology and philosophy. Will patient and effective communication of 

the need for strong core sequences be undertaken? Will what now tend to be very diverse 

departments in these disciplines come to agree on the design of such sequences? 

Finally, as currently operated, campus ministry programs at traditional Catholic 

institutions often communicate somewhat heterodox messages to students. Or rather, and 

more charitably, the staff members involved seem to act from an inadequate notion of 

what the Jesuit tradition calls cura personalis (care for the individual student). In an 

effort to meet students “where they are” – i.e., as they currently think and act – campus 

ministers often soft-peddle Catholic teaching, especially regarding sexual morality. Thus 

important concerns, e.g., the “hook-up culture” on many campuses, never get 

meaningfully addressed.
19 

Will campus ministry staff be open to a more forthright 

presentation of Catholicism? Will college and university administrators – who sometimes 

strongly support the “softer” approach – come to be persuaded of the importance of 

promoting institutional Church teachings? 

In sum, implementing this approach to the enhancement of Catholic identity indeed 

would be difficult; in some cases, practically speaking, it very likely would be 



23  Carlson 

 

 

impossible. But in other cases such an endeavor, prudently and sensitively undertaken, 

would have a reasonable chance to succeed. In a recent interview, the new president of 

The Catholic University of America, layman and former law school dean John Garvey, 

expressed great hope about the Catholic character of his institution.
20

 He correctly 

pointed out that in the late 1960s leaders at Catholic institutions did not think carefully 

enough about how they would preserve their institutional identities with the 

implementation of, e.g., the famous “Land O’ Lakes” statement. But he is confident that 

things now are different, at least at CUA. Of course, this university is unique in the U. S. 

in being pontifically chartered and having a board of trustees that includes a large number 

of American Catholic bishops, including one who serves as chair. Thus historically it has 

had a bulwark – although a controversial one, for which the university doubtless pays a 

price in its reputation among American academic peers – against classroom teaching and 

ministerial practice that fail to support the Catholic magisterium.
21

 However, it is widely 

recognized that, in addition to relying on formal institutional structures, the former 

president, Rev. David M. O’Connell, C. M. (himself now a bishop in Trenton, New 

Jersey), was highly resourceful in promoting the development and maintenance of a 

vibrant Catholic culture on campus. On this third model, obviously, the latter type of 

effort – institutional renewal from the inside – would serve as the pattern to follow.
22 

12. Let us consider, finally, the implications of the three approaches to institutional 

identity sketched above for issues debated by the majority and minority opinions in 

Yeshiva. 

i) On the first model (continuing and even strengthening the trajectory toward top-

down control), faculty hardly could be characterized as “managerial employees.” Since 

the curriculum – or constraints on the curriculum – would be determined and 

communicated by senior administrators and boards, faculty members would be reduced to 

specialists who deliver various components of that curriculum. This model perhaps would 

be compatible with a very limited sense of collegiality on campus; and those who chafe 

under administrative dictates presumably would attempt to find employment elsewhere. 

Nonetheless, this institutional governance structure would invite a renewal of the 

movement toward faculty collective bargaining. And, although Catholic college and 

university administrators might object, and even file court appeals against successful 

attempts at unionization, it seems likely that judicial majorities would decide the matter 

differently than the Yeshiva majority did in 1980. For with a return to top-down 

governance the prior suppositions about faculty managerial roles clearly would not be 

borne out. 

ii) On the second model (acknowledging that full secularization at certain historically 

Catholic colleges and universities is inevitable), the de facto manner of resolving 

concerns over institutional identity – i.e., by essentially eliminating such concerns – itself 

would be neutral regarding issues of faculty roles in governance. Confirmed 

secularization of a historically Catholic school’s mission, curricular programs, etc., 



Wither Traditional Catholic Institutions?  24 
 

 

simply would mean that, as at most American colleges and universities, other matters 

would provide relevant points for judicial scrutiny – e.g., levels of faculty involvement in 

the setting of academic standards, their roles in the selection of administrators and in the 

institutional budget process, etc. Diverse modes of institutional governance and day-to-

day operation – some favoring the Yeshiva majority, some favoring the minority – all 

would be consistent with this outcome. 

iii) On the third model (rebuilding the institution’s Catholic culture from within), there 

would be great hope for genuinely collegial functioning. Decisions about, say, curriculum 

reform would be made by those specifically trained and positioned to make such 

decisions, i.e., the faculty, with facilitation and final approval by deans and other 

appropriate academic administrators. Since faculty members themselves would be 

imbued with (or at least accepting of) the institution’s Catholic intellectual culture, in 

general they could be counted on to make judicious decisions: ones that respect and 

promote Catholic traditions in light of contemporary developments in the disciplines as 

well as the needs of their students. Senior administrators, boards of trustees, and local 

bishops only rarely would feel a need to intervene – and any such action should be able to 

avoid the heavy-handedness that has characterized recent, controversial events. In this 

way, the principle of collegiality in American higher education – as well as the principle 

of subsidiarity in Catholic social teaching – would be preserved. Moreover, supposing 

faculty members also come to have meaningful – although less decisive – roles in the 

discussion of other important issues (e.g., overall budget priorities), they will be 

participating in a number of appropriate ways in the management of the institution. In 

circumstances such as these, there would be de facto governance relations of the sort 

contemplated by the Yeshiva majority; accordingly, there would be no credible or 

judicially sustainable basis for an effort at faculty unionization. There also, of course, 

would be little perceived need among the faculty to undertake any such effort. 

In the end, therefore, we come to the question: “Whither traditional Catholic 

institutions?” As this essay has sought to demonstrate, this question has great importance 

for the present and future identity of these institutions themselves; it also has implications 

for the question of how the operation of one significant sector of American higher 

education squares with the decision in Yeshiva. 

 

Notes 

 

1. See, e.g., James T. Burtchaell, C. S. C., The Dying of the Light (Grand Rapids, MI: 

Eerdmans, 1998) and Melanie M. Morey and John J. Piderit, S. J., Catholic Higher 

Education: A Culture in Crisis (Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2006). 

2. See my reflections on a recent episode, discussed below, that occurred at Marquette 

University: “Catholic Identity: Shall We Talk?” The Catholic Thing, May 21, 2010, 

http://www.thecatholicthing.org/columns/2010/catholic-identity-shall-we-talk.html 

3. National Labor Relations Board v. Yeshiva University, 444 U.S. 672, 676 (1980). 



25  Carlson 

 

 

4. U. S. News & World Report, http://colleges.usnews.rankingsandreviews.com. 

5. A principal impetus for this development was the 1967 “Land O’ Lakes” statement, 

prepared at a meeting of officers of several premier Catholic universities at a Wisconsin 

retreat center maintained by the University of Notre Dame. 

6. For a comprehensive statement, see John Paul II, Fides et ratio (Boston: Daughters of St. 

Paul, 1998). See also Alasdair MacIntyre’s recent work, God, Philosophy, Universities 

(Lanham, MD: Sheed & Ward/Rowman & Littlefield, 2009). 

7. See the extensive coverage of this case on the website of The New Jersey Star-Ledger, 

www.nj.com/. The present author disagrees with the local ordinary’s reasoning; but he is 

sympathetic to concerns raised by this course. One solution would have been to have the 

course go forward, but be team-taught – with the gay activist professor’s counterpart 

being someone who could clearly articulate Catholic teaching on the question of gay 

marriage. 

8. See, e.g., Tom Coyne’s article for the Associated Press: “Obama’s Notre Dame Visit Met 

with Controversy,” March 27, 2009. 

9. See the Society’s webpage: www.cardinalnewmansociety.org/ 

10. Anne Lamott, “Goodbye, friend,” Los Angeles Times, June 25, 2006, 

http://articles.latimes.com/2006/jun25/opinion/op-lamott/. 

11. Sam Dillon, “Marquette Rescinds Offer to Sociologist,” New York Times, May 6, 2010, 

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/07/education/07marquette.html 

12. See, e.g., the coverage in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, available at 

www.jsonline.com/. 

13. It should be noted that several newer Catholic institutions (e.g., Christendom College in 

Virginia and Ave Maria University in Florida) were formally founded upon allegiance to 

the Church and recruit students and faculty accordingly. Whether they will be able to 

achieve prominence in the minds of their peers in academia remains to be seen. In any 

event, the situation of these schools (and of their faculty) is rather different from that of a 

historically Catholic institution seeking to regain its identity via administrative fiat. 

14. That most traditional Catholic institutions now in fact can be described in this way was 

the burden of a paper delivered in July 2010 by Father Michael Sweeney, O. P., president 

of the Dominican School of Philosophy and Theology in Berkeley. See “The 

Abandonment of Catholic Education,” California Catholic Daily, July 29, 2010, 

http://www.calcatholic.com/news/newsArticle.aspx?id=36c186d5-4595-4ecb-8e00-

7a16977a36bf. 

15. Available in Latin (http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/john_paul_ii/apost_constitutions/ 

documents/hf_jp-ii_apc_15081990_ex-corde-ecclesiae_lt.html) and English 

(http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/john_paul_ii/apost_constitutions/documents/hf_jp-

ii_apc_15081990_ex-corde-ecclesiae_en.html) on the Vatican website. 

16. For an account of revisionist moral theology by a long-time proponent, see Charles E. 

Curran, Directions in Fundamental Moral Theology (Notre Dame, IN: University of 

Notre Dame Press, 1985). For a scholarly critique and a defense of the magisterial 

approach, see William E. May, An Introduction to Moral Theology (2nd ed.; Huntington, 

IN: Our Sunday Visitor Press, 2003), esp. chapter 4. 



Wither Traditional Catholic Institutions?  26 
 

 

17. See the September 2008 study by R. E. Houser, “A Rekindling of the Light: The Past, 

Present and Future of a Catholic Core Curriculum,” The Center for the Study of Catholic 

Higher Education, http://www.catholichighered.org/Portals/3/docs/Houser%208-18-

08%20Web.pdf. (Incidentally, in neither theology nor philosophy would this 

enhancement of core offerings mean an abandonment of excellent, up-to-date majors in 

the disciplines – although it would, in some cases, strain departmental resources and call 

for additional faculty “lines.”) 

18. For an account of the principle of subsidiarity, see the Pontifical Council for Justice and 

Peace, Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church (Washington, D.C.: U. S. 

Conference of Catholic Bishops, 2005), 81–83. 

19. On the “hook-up culture,” see Donna Freitas, Sex and the Soul: Juggling Sexuality, 

Spirituality, Romance, and Religion on America’s College Campuses (New York: Oxford 

University Press, 2008). 

20. See “New CUA president reflects on greater calling for Catholic higher ed.,” Catholic 

News Agency, August 17, 2010, http://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/new-cua-

president-reflects-on-greater-calling-for-catholic-higher-ed/. 

21. Perhaps the most famous manifestation of this bulwark was the much-celebrated and 

much-decried 1986 dismissal from his tenured position in the CUA School of Theology 

of the above-noted “revisionist” moral theologian Rev. Charles E. Curran. 

22. After the present essay was completed and submitted, news broke of the statement by the 

U. S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ Committee on Doctrine regarding the book by 

Creighton University theology professors Todd A. Salzman and Michael G. Lawler, The 

Sexual Person: Toward a Renewed Catholic Anthropology (Washington, D. C.: 

Georgetown University Press, 2008). The penultimate paragraph of the Bishops’ twenty-

three-page critique (“Inadequacies in the Theological Methodology and Conclusions of 

The Sexual Person: Toward a Renewed Catholic Anthropology by Todd A. Salzman and 

Michael G. Lawler,” Committee on Doctrine, United States Conference of Catholic 

Bishops, September 15, 2010, http://www.usccb.org/doctrine/Sexual_Person_2010-09-

15.pdf) declares that “neither the methodology of The Sexual Person nor the conclusions 

that depart from authoritative Church teaching constitute authentic expressions of 

Catholic theology.” From the standpoint of the issues treated in this essay, the public 

release of the Bishops’ document must be regarded as an instance of the first model 

discussed – i.e., as being (in intention) top-down and interventionist – rather than of the 

third model promoted here. (The event also tends to confirm that the time for temporizing 

about Catholic identity is nearly over.) In connection with the public release, both Omaha 

ordinary Archbishop George Lucas and Creighton University issued official statements 

the morning of September 22, 2010. Archbishop Lucas said he was “confident Creighton 

University officials would address the Catholic bishops’ concerns with Salzman and 

Lawler in a manner consistent with the mission of a Catholic University” (“CNS Asks 

Creighton President to Clarify Academic Freedom Remarks and Consider Canon Law 

Requirements,” The Cardinal Newman Society, September 24, 2010, 

http://www.cardinalnewmansociety.org/Home/tabid/36/ctl/Details/mid/435/ItemID/840/

Default.aspx.) For their part, university officials’ opening gambit was to affirm that “as a 

Catholic University, Creighton – in accord with Ex Corde Ecclesiae – presents to its 



27  Carlson 

 

 

students as Catholic doctrine only that which is deemed to be true doctrine” (“U. S. 

bishops criticize book by two Creighton theologians,” Catholic Voice Online, October 1, 

2010,http://www.catholicvoiceomaha.com/main.asp?SectionID=9&SubSectionID=9&Ar

ticleID=14380.) Now, as far as I am aware, neither Professor Salzman nor Professor 

Lawler ever has presented his views about sexual morality as Catholic doctrine. 

However, in the book in question they certainly claim that their methodology and 

conclusions constitute – to say the least – “authentic expressions of Catholic theology;” 

and thus they stand in formal conflict with the Bishops’ doctrinal committee as quoted 

above. The manner in which university officials, Church authorities, and the two authors 

negotiate this matter will have implications far beyond the Archdiocese of Omaha. 


