New journal of Catholic culture

The Center for Cultural and Pastoral Research, a recently founded subsidiary of the American session of the Pontifical John Paul II Institute for Studies on Marriage and Family, is launching its new online review Humanum in November 2011. http://www.humanumreview.com/

The Future of Catholic Higher Education

Inside Higher Ed has an article today on "The Key Task for Catholic Higher Ed" by Rev. Gregory Kalscheur of Boston College. He worries that while Catholic universities are working hard to maintain a Catholic ethos in their Campus Ministries, Student Activities, and even Residential Life, they are ignoring the most essential aspect of a Catholic education: the Catholic intellectual tradition.

An excerpt:
"Ten years after Ex Corde was formally adopted by U.S. Catholic bishops, Catholic colleges and universities today must meet the challenge to reaffirm and revitalize their engagement with the Catholic intellectual tradition. Failure to do so will mean that they are content by default to risk leaving Catholic identity to what happens outside the classroom by abandoning the conviction that, to be authentically Catholic, they must integrate their 2000-year intellectual legacy into the academic life of their campuses."

Read the full article here.

The Contraception Mandate

Notre Dame Law Professor Rick Garnett has a column in USA Today arguing that the mandate for contraception coverage in all new healthcare plans should be scrapped. The mandate violates the conscience rights of religious institutions who are opposed to contraception, abortion, and sterilization. An excerpt:

"It is true that the administration's proposed mandate includes an exemption for some religious employers, but it is so stingy as to be nearly meaningless. It does nothing for individuals or insurers, and it applies only to employers whose purpose is "the inculcation of religious values" and that hire and serve primarily those of the same religious faith. The vast majority of religious educational, social-welfare and health care organizations — not to mention the ministry of Jesus on earth — do not fit this crabbed definition.

The proposed exemption covers only inward-looking, members-only, religious-instruction organizations while excluding those that respond to the call to feed the hungry, care for the sick, house the homeless and share the good news with strangers. Religiously affiliated hospitals, charities and universities that serve people of other religions would be vulnerable. The exemption assumes that religion is only about belief and values, not service, sacrifice and engagement. It purports to accommodate religious believers, but it actually would confine their belief."

Read the full column here.

Fall Conference news coverage

LifeSiteNews ran an article last week on our annual Fall Conference. Kathleen Gilbert has a lengthy article giving the flavor of the proceedings. Find it here. An excerpt:

"Wandering among crowds of professors, scholars, and students at the University of Notre Dame for the 12th annual conference of the Center for Ethics and Culture (CEC) for the first time, one can get a little overwhelmed.

Sit down with a Baptist scholar with a thick Southern accent, and he may just start talking to you about the richness of Catholic social teaching, and Marian tradition.

Or you might just run into the “Orthodox posse,” a group of Eastern scholars often hovering near ethicist Tristram Engelhardt, who may buy you a scotch and ask just why exactly you haven’t converted to the true faith.
In any event, the first thing that’s clear is that the CEC annual Fall conference is no ordinary scholarly conference. The second, is that this conference forms an intellectual catalyst for advancing the culture of life virtually unparalleled at any other university in America."

Fall Conference highlights

Tom Hoopes from the Gregorian Institute at Benedictine College shared some of his favorite quotes from the Fall Conference on their blog. Here are his highlights:

• “We are the diversity at Notre Dame.” — David Solomon, Director, Notre Dame Center for Ethics and culture, opening the conference.

• “To evangelize is to declare to the various areas of the culture that Jesus Christ is Lord. … Evangelization doesn’t compromise culture, it elevates it.” —Father Robert Barron, Director, Word on Fire Ministries, on his breathtaking series Catholicism.

• “You can never successfully evangelize a culture you don’t love.” — Father Barron quoting Cardinal Francis George, who launched Father Barron’s apostolate at the instigation of Pope John Paul II.

• “Christian morals without God are neither Christian nor moral. When God is removed, they lose meaning and purpose.” —Ryan Topping, St. Thomas University, Fredricton, New Brunswick, Canada.

• “My subject in fiction is the action of grace in territory held largely by the devil.” — Dan McInerny quoting Flannery O’Connor to explain why he likes No Country for Old Men.

• “When your premise is an idea you feel you must prove to the world, and you design your story as an undeniable certification of that idea, you set yourself on the road to didacticism. In your zeal to persuade, you will stifle the voice of the other side.” — Dan McInerny quoting Robert McKee to explain why he doesn’t like Fireproof.

• “Try to exclude the possibility of suffering which the order of and the existence of free wills involve, and you will find that you have excluded life itself.” — C.S. Lewis quoted by Benedictine College counselor Jennifer Schmidt on the need for “perinatal hospice” for infants diagnosed before birth with fatal diseases.

• “The goal of all marketing is the reduction of a big desire to a small desire. In other words, you long for beauty, love, friendship, wisdom, and it is the job of the marketer to convince you that the way you will achieve these desires is to purchase a certain brand of shampoo.” — Kimberly Shankman, Dean of Benedictine College, riffing on Benedictine colleague Salvatore Snaiderbaur.

• “Shakesepeare was probably a Catholic who kept his views hidden because to reveal them to the public would have been too dangerous.” — Lucy Beckett, author of the great In the Light of Christ: Writings in the Western Tradition which she explains here.

• “If I had known Carter Snead would be leading the center I would have retired years ago.”— David Solomon at the close of his last conference, introducing his successor, the incomparable Carter Snead.

Carter Snead to speak at St. Thomas, MN

If you live in the Twin Cities, then you will have a chance to hear the Center's newly appointed Director, Carter Snead, speak on embryo rights and stem cell research at the University of St. Thomas, tomorrow, Wednesday, Nov. 16 at 4 p.m. Read the full announcement here.

Archbishop Chaput on human dignity

Archbishop Chaput of Philadelphia discussed human dignity in an address at the University of Pennsylvania last night.

An excerpt:

"Here’s my first point. We remember Bonhoeffer, Solzhenitsyn, and other men and women like them because of their moral witness. But the whole idea of “moral witness” comes from the assumption that good and evil are real, and that certain basic truths about humanity don’t change. These truths are knowable and worth defending. One of these truths is the notion of man’s special dignity as a creature of reason and will. Man is part of nature, but also distinct from it."

....

"Working against abortion doesn’t license us to ignore the needs of the homeless or the poor, the elderly or the immigrant. It doesn’t absolve us from supporting women who find themselves pregnant or abandoned. All human life, no matter how wounded, flawed, young or old, is sacred because it comes from God. The dignity of a human life and its right to exist are guaranteed by God. Catholic teaching on abortion and sexuality is part of the same integral vision of the human person that fuels Catholic teaching on economic justice, racism, war, and peace."

Read the full address here.