WASHINGTON — Amid ongoing debate over what constitutes a Catholic university, Cardinal Timothy Dolan of New York defended the countercultural witness of The Catholic University of America.
In a striking departure from graduation speeches designed to inspire and celebrate career goals, Cardinal Dolan focused a May 12 commencement address on core Catholic beliefs. He urged the graduates to follow “The Law of the Gift” handed down to the faithful through the self-sacrificial love of Jesus Christ.
The cardinal serves as the president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. During a news cycle that marked President Barack Obama’s public endorsement of same-sex “marriage” and Kathleen Sebelius’ upcoming appearance during Georgetown University’s commencement, he affirmed his commitment to the defense of traditional marriage and religious freedom.
He asked the assembled crowd of students, families, faculty and alumni to ponder whether the “university’s genuine greatness comes not from pursuing what is most chic, recent or faddish, but what is most timeless, true, good and beautiful in creation and creatures … ‘that the true goal of a university is to prepare a student not only for a career, but for fullness of life here and in eternity.’”
He told his audience that Pope Benedict XVI underscored the importance of an authentic Catholic education at an ad limina meeting with a group of U.S. bishops earlier this month. During that meeting, the Pope stated that a truly Catholic university is distinguished by “ecclesial communion and solidarity” with the full scope of the Church’s educational apostolate.
Reflecting on the Holy Father’s remarks, Cardinal Dolan noted with dismay “the confusion created by instances of apparent dissidence between some representatives of Catholic institutions and the Church’s pastoral leadership.”
Catholic and American
The commencement address made no explicit reference to the controversy sparked by the news that Kathleen Sebelius, the secretary of Health and Human Services, will speak at a Georgetown graduation event. On Jan. 20, Sebelius approved a federal rule mandating contraception, abortion-inducing drugs and sterilization services for health-insurance plans provided by private employers, including church-affiliated social agencies, hospitals and universities.
However, Cardinal Dolan, a CUA alumnus, suggested that the spirit of joyful celebration during the university's commencement arose, in part, from a ”grateful recognition that this … university is both Catholic and American.”
Critics of Georgetown’s decision to extend an invitation to Sebelius suggest that it is only further evidence of the Jesuit institution’s drift toward a secular template for educational excellence. During his commencement address, Cardinal Dolan challenged the notion that Catholic universities must choose between academic freedom and adherence to fundamental Catholic teaching.
“Some wonder if Pope Benedict’s description of a university is way too impractical; if a university can be really Catholic and American; if the genuine freedom a university demands can flourish on a campus whose very definition includes a loyalty to Holy Mother Church,” he noted.
He answered his rhetorical question with a brief affirmation, pointing to CUA as proof that a Catholic identity secured academic excellence.
Cardinal Dolan’s comments offered an implicit critique of Georgetown’s institutional direction. A similar judgment was expressed in an editorial published last weekend in the Catholic Standard, the newspaper of the Archdiocese of Washington, D.C.
Cardinal Donald Wuerl of Washington, D.C., has not commented publicly on the university’s decision to honor Sebelius at a graduation event, but the Standard editorial marked an apparent shift to his strategy for addressing the controversy.
“Georgetown University has, historically speaking, religious roots,” stated the editorial. “So, too, do Harvard, Princeton and Brown. Over time, though, as has happened with these Ivy League institutions, Georgetown has undergone a secularization, due in no small part to the fact that much of its leadership and faculty find their inspiration in sources other than the Gospel and Catholic teaching. Many are quite clear that they reflect the values of the secular culture of our age. Thus the selection of Secretary Sebelius for special recognition, while disappointing, is not surprising.”
‘The Law of the Gift’
But Cardinal Dolan did not limit his remarks to hot-button issues. He devoted a significant portion of his address to a reflection on the Catholic university as an intellectual community that fosters and clarifies the relationship between authentic love and the inconvenient truths banished by the forces of secularism and political correctness.
“The Holy Father mentions not only truth as being at the core of the mission of a Catholic university, but also love,” Cardinal Dolan observed, as he told students the story of a New York grandmother, Clara Almazo, who recently gave up her own life to save the life of her grandchild.
“Just a little over a month ago, Clara and her little 8-year-old grandson, Michael, were walking home from Holy Thursday Mass at Our Lady of Mount Carmel Parish on Staten Island.
“As they crossed the street, a car barreled toward them, with little Michael in the crosshairs. His abuela, Grandma Clara, pushed her grandson away to safety, taking herself the whole force of the car, and was instantly killed,” the cardinal explained.
“[H]er life-giving act was made the more poignant as it came on the night before Jesus died, returning from the Mass of the Lord’s Last Supper, when he spoke of his own sacrificial death and where he gave the touching example of selfless service in washing the feet of his apostles.”
Clara’s large family “told me she was a woman of constant, heroic, selfless giving,” a witness to “The Law of the Gift,” he said.
“Greater love than this no one has, than to give one’s life for one’s friends: There’s ‘The Law of the Gift’ as defined by the Son of God himself.”
Decades ago, CUA was at the epicenter of theological dissent, with moral theologian Father Charles Curran openly challenging the authority of Pope Paul VI to judge contraception use as immoral. Over the intervening decades, a spectrum of sexual practices, from adultery and premarital sex to homosexual behavior, have been normalized, and U.S. universities have been criticized for indulging “toxic” sexual behavior among students.
Today at CUA, however, open theological dissent is a rare occurrence. Of equal importance, CUA’s new president, John Garvey, has implemented new policies that have sought to provide an integrated vision of Catholic intellectual life and culture. Single-sex dorms and a campaign to promote virtue on campus have been hallmarks of Garvey’s administration.
At CUA’s 2012 commencement exercises, Cardinal Dolan provided further context for Garvey’s efforts in an address that sought to retire a tired assertion of the sexual revolution: Christian moral taboos suppress rather than secure the human person’s full capacity for love.
The cardinal encouraged the graduates to embrace “The Law of the Gift,” quoting Blessed John Paul II: “[W]e are at our best, we are most fully alive and human, when we give away freely and sacrificially our very selves in love for another.”
“The Law of the Gift” was “exemplified in the lifelong, life-giving, faithful, intimate union of a man and woman in marriage, which then leads to the procreation of new life” and the self-sacrificing love expressed in the care and education of their children.
In comments that offered an implicit rebuke to President Obama, who confirmed his support for legal same-sex “marriage” just days before the commencement, the cardinal identified traditional marriage as the fulcrum of a life-affirming culture fostered by “The Law of the Gift.”
His remarks also served as a gentle corrective for young Americans, who are more pro-life than their elders, but also more accepting of same-sex “marriage.”
“That union — that sacred rhythm of man/woman/husband/wife/baby/mother/father — is so essential to the order of the common good that its very definition is ingrained into our interior dictionary, that its protection and flourishing is the aim of culture,” stated Cardinal Dolan.
During an interview after the commencement, Garvey expressed his appreciation for the cardinal’s emphasis on self-sacrificial love.
“What I liked about his discussion of ‘The Law of the Gift’ was that, so often, commencement addresses focus on some variation of ‘dreaming the big dream’ or ‘grab for the brass ring,’” he said. “That is standard graduation fare and (those addresses) have at their heart a modern American notion that it’s about self-fulfillment or personal acquisition.”
For his part, Garvey’s brief commencement address was on the virtue of patience.
“It’s a funky virtue to be talking about at a gradation,” he acknowledged. “But patience turns out to be a great virtue to talk about with students. I said that patience was the seedbed of virtue.
“Today, we often have a limited appreciation for the meaning of this virtue. We might say, for example, that Warren Buffett is a patient picker of stocks. But that’s a skill more than a virtue.
“Instead, we might consider St. Monica’s patience when thinking about her son,” Garvey suggested. “For her, patience means the disposition to await God’s grace. That kind of patience is what people getting out of college need to have.”
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It is amazing that so many people, cradle Catholics even, have missed the point of the great satisfaction and peace that comes with living your life within the teachings of the Church. True science and true religion go hand in hand. Following the teachings of the Church regarding sexual behavior, while it has its challenges, provides a more fulfilling life though I do not intend to diminish some genuine hardships that Christ asks of some of us. For the lay person, whether you are in business, conducting science, or teaching in a University or whatever endeavor in life has been chosen, following the tenets of the Church only reinforces the principles that one needs in their chosen profession to be free, happy and prosperous. Yet, so many,today, have been taken in by the PC crowd: freedom vs license, woman’s choice vs abortion, social(economic etc) justice vs true Charity and the dignity of the person, individual liberty vs gov’t dependence. As Cecil DeMill said in the prelude to his “Ten Commandments” movie where he pointed out that the movie was about whether Man is to be ruled by the laws of God or by the whims of a dictator or State - is Man the property of the State or free souls under God. We have this same battle going on today. God bless Cardinal Dolan.
Yes, it is official, the legitimate teaching authority of the Catholic Church in the Washington D.C. Diocese is no longer vested in the office of the ordinary thereof. Such authority has been usurped by the area’s most prominent ostensibly Catholic institution—Georgetown University.
How has this arrogation of the Archbishop’s rightful duties occurred. It seems, the university has been stolen from its founders and the Church. A nefarious enterprise has been proactively and systematically carried out to complete this grand larceny. The riches of the Catholic tradition have been embezzled, one truth at a time, until we are left with nothing of the metaphysical, aesthetic and moral wealth of the Christian religion. When so many of this institutions administration and faculty lack even the rudiment of traditional Catholic faith or at worst hate the Catholic religion, what else can one surmise.
In the case of Georgetown University, like most church affiliated institutions of higher learning, we Catholics must be honest to ourselves and accept the fact that we have been made fools of. That we are naive idiots, so easily intimidated by an undisciplined and unqualified view of “academic freedom”. Georgetown University is yet one more example of where Catholicism is being led unceremoniously to the front gate and told to “get the hell out”.
Those responsible for Georgetown’s effrontery, vis-à-vis the Church, help to spread misguided descent, undermine Truth and jeopardize the institutional freedoms of the church. And based on what the good Cardinal Archbishop has done in response to past insults the university will continue on the same path with impunity.
I would submitt that defending traditional marriage and religious freedom is like defending Mom, democracy and apple pie. The church has every right to marry or not to marry anyone that doesnot conform to Catholic practices. This right however doesnot extend to those who donot. Just as the Church has a right to exercise it’s freedom of religion, the Church must respect the Constitution when it protects the rights of all citizens to the pursue their own happiness, liberty and freedom. These rights in their wisdom were implemented to protect the rights of minority whether we agree with them or not, they protect all citizens regardless of race color or creed and most would say sexual preference. So on one hand to claim that one’s religious freedom were being infringed upon and then on the other hand wishing to deny others the same Constitutional freedoms is a little hypocritical. I am aware of the states right agruments, but these are the same arguments put forward to deny interracial marriage not long ago. So as a Vatican ll Catholic of conscience I must question the morality of imposing one’s religious beliefs on another, especially if those beliefs havenot been proven to cause harm to anyone but the bigoted. It is contrary to free will which is G-d given and we are all
G-d’s children, although some think of themselves as more so. I have read comments on this websites claiming we Catholics are being persecuted. I then question whether or not it is the gay community that is actually being persecuted and worst yet persecuted by us. Be Blessed, shamed or tormented.
Actually Charles Curran was de chaired by Rome like Hans Kung in Europe from teaching Catholic theology not for contraception over which famous theologians like Karl Rahner and Bernard Haring went uncensured by Popes who well knew them. Curran had much wider problems of laxism that covered a number of issues. He saw some of Christ’s requirements in the gospels as ideals that sometimes could not be reached…rather than as the requirements that Christ gave and knew men could reach with grace. Curran’s permissiveness went well beyond that one issue that Catholic media always mention. He was de chaired for a much wider problem of laxism while Karl Rahner was feted after his death with a retrospective of his theology at the Lateran in the early 2000’s attended by Archbishop Amato of the CDF.
I have two friends who were there for graduation at CUA. How awesome!! Cardinal Dolan rocks!!!
I applaud the Cardinal’s speech and President Garvey’s efforts. A Catholic university is primarily for students who have progressed from an elementary understanding of the faith through a high school understanding and now want to deepen that understanding at a college level, and apply it in their adult lives. Faculty and policies that do not further the students’ intellectual growth based on the truths of Catholicism betray those students. When non-believers study there, or teach there, they should not openly dissent from the religion that is the reason why the school is there and why they chose to be there.
Catholic U., the manifested epitome of “ex corde ecclesia” as it should be tmbc68
It is so refreshing to see a genuine Catholic bishop (Cardinal Dolan) give the commencement address at a genuine Catholic university (The Catholic University of America). Georgetown and John Carroll (in Cleveland) two Jesuit universities that pretend to be Catholic have invited speakers who are not in full accord with the teachings of the Catholic Church. +Most Rev. Richard Gerard Lennon (from Boston) the Bishop of Cleveland has made no attempt to admonish John Carroll for its transgression. He just likes to close Churches.
I am not sure why so many Catholics are upset by who Georgetown University’s commencement speaker is…many of us have known for a very long time that Georgetown isn’t really Catholic!
Catholicism is under secular attack at all levels of amoral government and American society. Thank God we have Cardinal Dolan with the courage to attack the lethargy of the seemingly spineless American hierarchical lack of defense of Catholic doctrine and discipline we have witnessed in the last 40 years. Dissident Catholics have wreaked undisciplined havoc in the American Church and once Catholic Universities with virtual immunity. If we do not mount a Catholic renaissance in doctrine and discipline, we are in danger of losing our religious freedom. I nominate Cardinal Dolan for Pope Peter II.
I think Cardinal Dolan is a colossal hypocrite. He said and did nothing to stop same sex marriage from becoming law in NY through the auspices of a Catholic governor. Homosexual behavior is now legally defined as a social good. How long will it be before it is taught in the classroom? What will the cardinal do then? Give another speech about “The Law of the Gift”? He wants Christ without the cross. He hasn’t figured out that he can’t have Him that way.
Perhaps the cardinal should spend less time adding to his substantial girth and more time fulfilling his apostolic duty.
My question is, “is Georgetown University and other “Catholic Colleges” belong to the Catholic Church”? If so, then why do the local Bishops and Cardinals not “Kick Out” all anti-Catholic secular individuals who are undermining the Church and University?
To Bob Rowland, Thankfully you don’t get to vote on who becomes Pope.
I use to admire the Catholic Church. I even thought of becoming a Catholic. Now I have to hold back my disgust. I will pray that you find spiritual guidance rather than the hate that you are conveying to the world.
This is a wonderful article. I hadn’t realized that it was Pope John Paul II who used the phrase: “the Law of the Gift” until recently. Cardinal Dolan concerns me at times because he acts so like a performer or a politician…slaps on the back, jokes, etc. He stated he would not refuse politicians like Nancy Pelosi the Eucharist no matter how aggressively they stand against the Church and the Bishops on grave moral issues such as abortion, contraception, same sex marriage, ordination of women, etc, because to do so would be to ‘politicize’ the Eucharst. That is so confusing to me because standing strong to honor Christ in the Eucharist is what St. Paul urged us to do so how can such a stand be political? I pray for all our Bishops and Priests and Religious…Cardinal George said that he will go to Prison rather than allow the HHS mandate to be used in Catholic institutions. He also said that he himself will die in his bed; his successor will die in jail; and the one who comes after will die in the public square because persecution is coming for Catholics and we need to be prepared.
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