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I just received a copy of the University Concourse in my box at work and read Kathleen van Schaijik's outstanding article: "NFP, by it itself, does not compromise the married vocation." She addressed an attitude I have been aware of for some time, although I am single and thus not involved with NFP. I think NFP is a God-sent method for many families, and while I too admire those who throw caution to the wind and abandon themselves to Divine Providence, I also believe that life is a cooperative process between God and us, and that this is an area where we do indeed "work out our salvation in fear and trembling."
Carole Brown, MA Theology program
Regarding Dr. John Crosby's article: "Shouldn't we have a real core curriculum at Franciscan University?" published in the first issue of the Concourse: Dr. Crosby's listing of specific courses or numbers of courses without categorizing within the areas of knowledge of our Core Program Requirements serves to mislead the reader. The vast majority of our courses have been classified, with faculty approval, as Communications, Humanities, Natural Science, Social Science, or Theology core. A sequence of courses in an academic discipline is based upon published pre-requisites for different courses. The need for course pre-requisites is an academic decision which has been made by the faculty of each academic department. Hopefully, the faculty of an academic department are cognizant of the syllabi for courses which are offered by that department and do not have to rely on the contents of specific books. In our Philosophy of the Curriculum, our Professors are charged to "lead their students in developing a sense of the unity of knowledge" and to be examples of those "who practice just and balanced judgment in all their teaching, writing, and professional practice." Teachers can bring their life experiences to the classroom to show the way for the students. Yet, should we not expect students to assume some of the responsibility for, and ownership of, their learning? In the "Knowledge Its Own End" chapter of The Idea of a University, Cardinal Newman writes: "It is a great point then to enlarge the range of studies which a University professes, even for the sake of students; and, though they cannot pursue every subject which is open to them, they will be the gainers by living among those and under those who represent the whole circle." This, I suppose, tells us that classes in a specific subject are but a part of a liberal education. The interactions among students, faculty, and advisors are an important part of this education. The comparison of the feelings or thoughts of a professional, with fifteen years of life experience, with those who have just completed a course of study can lead to false conclusions. I too had a "bunch of courses," although very specific, as part of my general degree requirements. Not until I was relieved of the concern to pass certain courses did I begin to see the relationships among the branches of knowledge. Forty years later, I still stumble across these relationships as I live my life and practice my profession. Changes in our Core Program Requirements were not, as Dr. Crosby assumes, "strongly conditioned by the trends" of 1974. The changes were adopted by the faculty after some experimentation and much debate. Since then, the requirements have been modified in an effort to correct problems. The hope (fulfilled or not) was to have the students become exposed to different areas of knowledge. They then could pursue areas of interest outside their major concentration, through electives. Perhaps we should not hastily deduce that the common denominator of our students and alumni is a lack of coherence in the general education at Franciscan University. Is it not the University's Mission Statement that identifies us as being Franciscan and Catholic? Do we not want our students to remember their entire University experience rather than an emphasis on a "grateful recognition that the program of general education as a whole has been a decisive learning experience?"
Dr. R.J. Convery, Professor of Chemistry with contributions from Dr. M.A. Sunyoger, Assistant Professor of English
It seems the Concourse will be a journal truly brave and honest when we note that in the first issue the editor tackled one of the hottest topics not only in the Church, but the world itself: birth control and married chastity. I, too, had read the interview referred to by Mrs. van Schaijik, wherein a Catholic OB/GYN physician indirectly promoted a "providentialist" approach to family life--meaning the absence of all forms of planning, including Natural Family Planning. Mrs. van Schaijik's dissection of this physician's erroneous insinuation (that "providentialism" should be normative for Catholics) was intellectually satisfying and yet emotionally sobering, as one realized that God's beautiful gift of a legitimate, natural and scientifically sound family planning method is being denigrated because one man looks at another and assesses him to be less holy, thus concluding that what the Holy Catholic Church has blessed and promoted (NFP), is not up to producing the true saint. Mrs. van Schaijik was astute in warning us all against a spirit of judgment. In Crossing the Threshold of Hope, on the question of regulating births and married love, John Paul II writes: "responsible parenthood is the necessary condition for human love, and it is also the necessary condition for authentic conjugal love, because love cannot be irresponsible. Its beauty is the fruit of responsibility. When love is truly responsible, it is also truly free." The Pope, along with his predecessor, Paul VI, applauds the advances in science that have revealed to mankind a more precise indication of a woman's fertility. I make the supposition that when lived as taught by our Mother Church (difficult, yet very fruitful) NFP assists the married couple in developing a conjugal love that is responsible and chaste, and allows us to hold ourselves in dominion over creative urges, seeking God's will, making adult decisions and answering to Him alone for those decisions. (Please note: seeking His will, in a spirit of generosity, whether it is to have three children or to have ten.) I hope that young married couples, and those planning to wed, will be taught the true teachings of the Church. Likewise it would be my wish that priests, when sought advice by an older couple truly weighed down physically and emotionally by their living offspring, fearing another pregnancy, would possess the courage and love to voice not the easy avenue of artificial contraception, but the only morally acceptable and effective means of birth regulation, Natural Family Planning. Thank you, dear Heavenly Father, for this gift at this time in the Church! My expressed thanks to Mrs. van Schaijik and the Concourse for initiating this discussion.
Susan Fischer, Class of 84 Susan (Creel) Fischer and and her husband John (class of '83) live in Steubenville with their four children.
I was very glad to receive the first issue of the University Concourse. A delightful publication and a much needed forum for discussion. As usual, Dr. Crosby has hit a line drive right over the center field fence. Also, I can tell by the other articles, especially van Schaijik's article on NFP and Bratten's reflection "To systematize or not to systematize" that this journal does not lack for courage to address the difficult questions. I look forward to future issues.
Dr. Charles Fischer, Associate Professor of Psychology
I just read with great delight Dr. Crosby's diagnosis of our current general education (in the February 13 issue of the Concourse) and want to reply forthwith. It is inconceivable to me that a university can be a community of scholars without some common body of literature to discuss. An overly intellectually disparate group of people has too little in common to be called an intellectual community. Absent some common core of education, how can an intellectual environment be created outside the classroom, where one subject enlightens another, so that, to paraphrase John Paul II, our students might make sense to each other? Most of our more recent alumni certainly do not point to some core of knowledge, or Catholic intellectual culture, that has left an indelible print upon their minds or has sharpened their critical thinking on morals and ethics, or on any other issue for that matter. (Notable exceptions are Humanities and Catholic Culture grads.) Noteworthy, too, is that I have heard from alumni who graduated before the curriculum change about how their liberal arts education formed their minds, gave them a competitive edge in their professions, prepared them to grapple with the myriad of challenges they faced in the modern world, and paved the way for a life-long education. Many of them are deeply grateful for the liberal arts education they received at Franciscan University. I attended an experimental liberal arts school in the University of Oklahoma system, where a rigorous core of interdisciplinary studies was required of every student, who thus received an education in certain fundamentals of science, math, literature, history, philosophy, physical education, the fine arts, and so forth. While impoverished by its secular nature, every year I am more appreciative of that education. Catholic education ought to be more than learning a profession. It ought to develop a life of the mind that asks questions such as, "Why is there something and not nothing? Who is man? What is he for? And, what is his end?" It ought to help him see what is true and beautiful in life, teach his soul to soar when it encounters such beauty, and impel him to give to humanity more of what is beautiful, true, and eternal. A Catholic education should give every student a lifelong appreciation for history, philosophy, music, art, literature, theology, science, business indeed that whole host of human endeavors. A grounding in "the fundamentals" is so valuable because the fundamentals are eternal. Unlike this or that technique which comes and goes, fundamental truth increases in value because it forms a unified foundation for a full and happy life in Him who is Truth, Jesus Christ.
Jim Fox, Executive Director of University Relations
Congratulations on your maiden issue! It looks as if you've launched a wise and worthy endeavor. Long may it prosper! I particularly want to commend you for your statement of purpose, set out most ably on the Editor's Page; the invitation to honest and intelligent debate, conducted with charity, is a worthwhile pursuit. And in that irenic spirit might I take issue with a sentence you wrote? "Even the doctrines of our Faith, though given to the Church once and for all, were not given in finished form, but rather as 'seeds', so that our understanding of them has been emerging only gradually across centuries of Christian experience..." I think I understand what you mean here and I've no quarrel with it. But an implication survives its intended meaning, fed by an ambiguity you doubtless had not intended, which strikes me as unfortunate. In the first place, what was given to the Church two millennia ago were not doctrines to be unpacked over time, but a Person to be encountered in time and at any time. Christ is not therefore any sort of seed whose growth we may chart gradually over the course of centuries, those of us privileged to live at the end of the 2nd millennium somehow better situated to interpret His message. Rather He is the Word whose enfleshment took place at a particular time and thus all time is intersected, all history suffused, with his Gracious Presence. And, point two, to the extent His coming has vouchsafed certain doctrines which the Church holds in her memory, these are not understood in a better or richer or deeper way simply in virtue of one's having lived at a later date; to think that is to fall prey to that "chronological snobbery" C.S. Lewis warns against. St. Iranaeus, for example, who is rightly regarded as the Father of Western Theology, advanced an understanding of the Incarnation back in the 2nd century (see his stunning polemic against the Gnostics who contested the Event), which I don't think modern thought is likely to supersede any time soon. The same might be said of Augustine's psychology of conversion (see Book VIII of his Confessions). There are of course other examples I might cite. But the point of them all is to remind us, in humility, of numberless "dead Masters" whose accumulated wisdom provides the patrimony on which we, their grateful heirs, draw. Once again, congratulations on what you've done and may the forum you've created flourish amid the University community.
Dr. Regis Martin, Associate Professor of Theology The editors reply: We are grateful for Dr. Martin's kind remarks, and for his notice of an ambiguity we had overlooked in the introductory editorial of our maiden issue. We certainly did not mean to imply that the Divine Mysteries themselves have been developing over time, nor that believers today are in a superior position regarding the possibility of communion with the Holy Trinity. Nevertheless, we defend our statement in so far as it referred to the doctrines of the Church. Here we claim the authority of Cardinal Newman's theory of the development of doctrine. Consider the following famous passage from his Oxford University Sermons, regarding the "history of the formation of any Catholic dogma:" "What a remarkable sight it is...to see how the great idea takes hold of a thousand minds by its living force...and grows in them, and at length is born through them, perhaps in a long course of years, and even successive generations; so that the doctrine may rather be said to use the minds of Christians, than to be used by them. Wonderful it is to see with what effort, hesitation, suspense, interruption,--with how many swayings to the right and to the left--with how many reverses, yet with what certainty of advance, with what precision in its march, and with what ultimate completeness, it has been evolved; till the whole truth 'self-balanced on its centre hung,' part answering to part, one, absolute, integral, indissoluble, while the world lasts! Wonderful, to see how heresy has but thrown that idea into fresh forms, and drawn out from it farther developments, with an exuberance which exceeded all questioning, and a harmony which baffled all criticism...And this world of thought is the expansion of a few words, uttered, as if casually, by the fishermen of Galilee." (p.317 of the standard edition) Not (of course) that any one of us, subjectively speaking, is more capable of religiously grasping the truths of the Faith than were the early Christians, but that as a whole the Church's understanding of the "idea" of Christianity has been developing over time. In at least one sense, then, today's believers are in a privileged position (and required to bear its attendant responsibilities) precisely because we are the heirs of 20 centuries of accumulated Christian wisdom.
© The University Concourse, February 27, 1996 |
