The Church has suffered great losses in the past few years — enormous losses: Father Richard John Neuhaus, Cardinal Avery Dulles, Msgr. William Smith. Now, we’ve lost Ralph McInerny. My question—which I’m asking only, not answering, by the way — is who do we have to take their place? Or do we only have a giant void?
I asked several friends here at Benedictine College. Their responses made me realize I’m not prepared to answer the question, only to ask it.
1. Does America still have the academic capacity to produce minds of their caliber? These men are not only different in degree from smart folks, but almost different in kind. We’re talking about men who could grasp the nuances of difficult questions, and creatively offer new directions at those higher levels. They are renaissance men for whom terms like “interdisciplinary” and “wide-ranging interests” seems inadequate. You need a vigorous, rigorous higher education to produce these people.
These are men (women have gotten there too; just not on this list) of the academy, produced by the academy, created when a system is chock full of mentors, incentives for rigor, peers who are the Salieris who try to be Mozart too, but just can’t.
The Land o’ Lakes abdication, in which Catholic universities unilaterally disarmed themselves, can only get part of the blame. After all two of the names I mentioned converted after college. Catholic academia’s rejection of the magisterium was the Catholic version of the secular academy’s abdication to concepts of radical autonomy. This wasn’t just wrong, and didn’t just usher in cheesiness — though it sure did that — it robbed the future Church (ours) of a commodity the Church needs: academic greatness.
2. My next question: Who are the great baby boomer greats? This is a version of the first question: Do we have the cultural capacity for greatness?
It’s not just a rhetorical question — I’m looking for names (and have several ... but I want to see what you say).
The “Greatest Generation” grew up in an era that still clung to official forms of the faith. The Baby Boomers grew up in a world that was letting them go. To be a Catholic Baby Boomer intellectual you had to be a contradiction all your life. You had to go for greatness not just in a subculture, but in a culture being sloughed off by the greats.
The reason this question isn’t rhetorical is that there are several top-notch baby boomer intellectuals out there. Do they prove what one friend answered: God never leaves us orphans?
3. Isn’t there hope in today’s Catholic university boom — seven new schools in the past 10 years that actually have the gall to follow canon law on the mandatum, and other universities renewing themselves? Will they produce the greats of tomorrow? Or, as one friend framed it in his response: “Can Ave Maria produce a Dulles?”
On the negative side, you don’t have the academic culture ... on the positive side, God’s good at this very thing: producing people we badly need, when we need them.
4. Last hopeful question: Might today’s Catholic communities help? Here in Atchison we have a little community of Catholics committed to the magisterium in which the adults are badly outnumbered by their kids. We left behind such a community in New Haven. Suburbia has them. Rural communities have them. And these Catholics are networked together with the larger world, too, through technology, such that they aren’t island nations but mission villages in touch with headquarters.
Can these communities give youngsters a proxy experience of a Catholic culture like those oldsters had? If Baby Boomer culture shed the faith, and we who followed them shrugged at it, our mini-culture’s kids are growing up friends with lots of families who are energetically embracing their faith.
I personally believe this will dynamic will produce results that will surpass our highest hopes.
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Dear Tom,
Thank you very much for “The Catholic Greatness Void.” On the negative side, you don’t have the academic culture,... on the positive side, God’s good at this very thing: producing people we badly need, when we need them.” Perhaps, my small letter, is a beginning with keeping and promoting our Catholic Greatness, one, by one…by one.
New Years Eve, my husband and I watched the film ‘Invictus’: The true story of how Nelson Mandela joined forces with the captain of South Africa’s rugby team, to help unite their country. I mentioned to my husband that I have a heartfelt responsibility with the Catholic Church as he does with Africa.
Why:
I’ve been writing a book for the past two years on the imperative need of God and how I survived through my faith. Through-out my book I give gratitude to the many books, authors, and scriptures; thinking it was only proper to mention for keeping unity and not to offend anyone. (Although healing took place first through reflection and reading the Bible alone) - However, a few Christian agents turned away from my manuscript with where my generosity of gratitude and source were mentioned?!
Confused and bewildered that I spent so many years in keeping an open mind with acknowledgments that didn’t bring the unity that I hoped for! I soon found to meet the same opposition at every corner. But there was a twist and turn of the facts noted to me when part of the reason my book was rejected was due to the gratitude given to the authors quotes, where; Truth be given only to God for Christian publishing. So as much as I had a difficult time understanding these words, it all started to make sense! Pieces of my journey began fitting together for the good and what needed to be done ‘by me’ to promote the greatness of the Catholic Church.
I realized to be most gracious and give gratitude to the many people, books, and lectures, which truly helped me to see clearer. What I hadn’t noticed was that I was slightly moving away from what, where, and when, I’ve come to know them from the first place! And the complications that I continued to encounter were nudging me towards simpler, lighter, close at hand resolves in staying with these Truths that I may have forgotten. Miraculously, I’ve become aware of my freedom towards supporting the core of my Christian foundation - and since experience a deeper devotion and responsibility towards the Catholic Church in every respect of the way. For the first time, I understood the scriptures clearer than ever before. I knew that something wonderful was happening. I truly believe with all my heart and soul that I was completely freed - that my eyes are wide open and there’s no more fear in me to write any other words of salvation than those that are written in the Gospels.
I have some revising with my manuscript before sending it out once more - And continuous work with becoming a truer Christian in the Catholic Church.
My work revolves in making known, that, the miraculous written words in scriptures are enveloped within most every self- help and inspirational books that are written today. We are to give gratitude and boast about the good news and point to the scriptures so others may easily find their way, and we remember ours as well.
I’d like to bring attention to the facts that we don’t necessarily have to leave the core foundations of our religion to find those that have already been written from the Inn of our own Church.
Ave Maria? You can’t be serious. Respectfully, I think that you should reexamine what constitutes ‘greatness’ and how it is formed. I put my money and support into the many pockets of thriving authentic Catholicism that exist on the campuses of well-established and respected institutions. McInerny and Neuhaus engaged the culture, from heathens to fringe Catholics; they didn’t form a ghetto enclave revolving around some business-based lifestyle brand.
As far as Catholic Baby Boomer intellectuals, I offer the following names: Robert George, Anthony Esolen, and Dinesh D’Souza. D’Souza, born in 1961, is on the edge of the boom.
The question you haven’t asked is: Has there been a void in Catholic clerical leadership?
If you look at the bishops who were responsible for the sexual abuse scandals and corruption, they were not Baby Boomers. The Baby Boomer Bishops are just now coming into power.
Those who are younger like to blame the Baby Boomers for society’s ills, yet the Baby Boomers, at least in terms of episcopal appointments, haven’t yet run the Church.
If the Church is going to take back the Culture, it first needs to reform itself in a robust, radical way. That hasn’t happened yet.
I think the Notre Dame graduation scandal of last year brought many “great lights”, particularly some of our American bishops, to the fore. I think we’re going to hear more from these courageous shepherds and their voices will become stronger.
But, and I’m aware this may seem like a contradiction, I see “Catholic greatness” at the University of Notre Dame in a very deep way. My son is a sophomore there this year and I am continually impressed by the Catholic depth at Our Lady’s university (I’m also regularly horrified by examples of opposition to and disregard for our Holy Faith as well).
By e-mail, it has been pointed out that Pope Benedict XVI is a great. Yes indeed ... but not a baby boomer.
Others, in random order:
Augustine DiNoia
Mary Ann Glendon
Robbie George
Helen Alvare
George Weigel
Janet Smith
Anthony Esolen
Dinesh D’souza
Jennifer Roback Morse
Scott Hahn
Archbishop Charles Chaput
Maggie Gallagher
Peter Kreeft
I wondered the same thing with regard to whether, in my lifetime, a Catholic American will ever become Pope. I mean, the past two popes have spoken 7 or 8 languages each and grasped philosophy, theology, history, and culture in a profoundly deep way.
Do we have the chops in our American academy and culture to produce such a holy thinker?
Fear not! The Holy Spirit has been and is and will be always with the Church. There is no void - those whose gift is to proclaim the truth and to do it eloquently, incisively, and convincingly are here now. Listen!
Excellent questions, no clear answers. For my part, I am trying to build up the Kingdom of God by networking with other Catholics for the purpose of finding orthodox spouses for our children. Strong, magisterial Catholic families are the “cure” for so much of what ails the Church at the moment. Find us on Facebook at “Catholic Moms Networking”, and join our efforts to strengthen the Church in America, starting with the domestic church.
From those families will come the Catholic greatness we seek.
Pope Benedict opened his Regensburg lecture by fondly recalling the academic discussions that the whole faculty engaged in regularly (see below). That presupposed a common intellectual culture shared by all. Those greats who have passed had that background; few of the current Catholic academic leaders do. The greatness of leaders is rooted in a great culture.
As a member of the Admissions Committee at Thomas Aquinas College (CA), I have been privileged to read some excellent applications from students whose education has rooted them in our Catholic cultural heritage and prepared them to grow tremendously in it during their time in higher education. Catholic K-12 schools need to embrace this as their chief mission in order to raise up the next generation of leaders.
———————-
“The various chairs had neither assistants nor secretaries, but in recompense there was much direct contact with students and in particular among the professors themselves. We would meet before and after lessons in the rooms of the teaching staff. There was a lively exchange with historians, philosophers, philologists and, naturally, between the two theological faculties. Once a semester there was a dies academicus, when professors from every faculty appeared before the students of the entire university, making possible a genuine experience of universitas….”
Dinesh D’Souza isn’t a Catholic, just FYI, though he’s done yeoman’s work in spreading the Gospel.
Given your criteria, the person that first comes to mind is Peter Kreeft. He is always interesting and challenging. Think Frs. Mitch Pacwa and Robert Barron might also fit the bill. Others, who are skilled in their fields, lack to cross-disciplinary component: Fr. Thomas Dubay, Dr. Scott Hahn (maybe he should be with the first three; he’s always the most interesting panelist on “Franciscan University Presents…”), Helen Alvare, et al.
I wanted to comment after only reading the introductory portion only to say that I like Peter Kreeft a lot. I see that someone beat me to it…so I second the motion.
Firstly, D’Souza’s website says he is Catholic. Secondly, I think that many of the traditional centers of learning are still producing (or have just produced) some great minds. These places would be Boston College, Notre Dame, Marquette, Catholic U, and Oxford. These people are both lay or religious. The ones they have produced are so young that they are not major names yet, but the next generation has great potential.
This article claims he says he’s currently attending a Protestant church:
http://zenoferox.blogspot.com/2008/11/dsouza-knows-not-what-he-does.html
I don’t mean to cast any stones about this topic; just trying to clarify so we don’t “claim” him as an outspoken Catholic; he’s clearly doing an outstanding job (perhaps the best?) against the “new atheists”.
Praise be to God. I am so pleased that someone mentioned Archbishop Charles Chaput. I am afraid he will be named to a Vatican post soon and he will be sorely missed in the states.
It may be that degraded cultures cannot produce greatness or if they do so they will only do it by chance. I highly doubt if anyone named on the lists above will be considered anything in one generation. Many of them are actually not much even now even though they are on the lips of people here.
As pointed out above, I doubt if any of those people listed can read or write fluently in more than two languages. They may have trendy thoughts or positions that seem impressive, but nobody will read anything they say now and they have their positions now because they are “media” savvy.
I suspect that the most capable people are probably virtual unknowns who teach seminarians or are writers whose works have not yet been discovered.
If you want a philosopher, the number one American should be Hittinger at Tulsa. If you want a writer, it is probably one of the recently deceased short story / novelist writers.
You will not develop greatness without great teachers. And you will not get great teachers at the new Catholic schools.
God will have to provide.
Patrick, I must disagree with you. Scott Hahn did not become the scholar he is without knowing quite a few languages—Latin, Hebrew and Greek to start and most likely French and Italian with at least a working knowledge of German. Fr Augustine DiNoia is also well-versed in languages, at least Latin and Italian. And I’m sure the others have some non-English linguistic exposure as well.
But more importantly, they do not have mere “trendy” thoughts. Yes, they do get media attention, but that’s because they have something to say that’s intelligent and that the media can digest. Robbie George’s Manhattan Declaration and his speech to the Rose Dinner were not “trendy” by any means. Plus, we have not seen him in action in the classroom and I seriously doubt that sitting in his office and talking with him or sitting in his classroom will leave you or anyone feeling “trendy.”
Someone who hasn’t been mentioned here is Archbishop Raymond Burke. His learning, though mostly in theology, goes beyond canonistics and includes liturgy and dogmatics. He’s also a Latinist, speaks Italian better than Italians (so Italians have told me) and has excellent Spanish as well.
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