Roman Catholics need to revisit their universities in the United States, promoting a genuine difference in scholarship and curriculum so that in five generations a Catholic intellectual culture might possibly be present and transformative of society. The Christian Church at the heart of the university will facilitate such genuine developments that can only enrich intellectual and cull life, facilitate real pluralism and dialogue, and serve the common good. Liberal society owes itself religious universities. American Catholics owe it to their Church and nation.
The other group of critics, those against ‘sectarian’ projects such as mine, and those against outside interference (the Church) in the university, are to be found in strength – within the churches, as well as from non-religious camps. I argue that such criticisms are misplaced and even self-deluding. Since all enquiry and methods of enquiry are tradition-specific, all forms of education are sectarian in certain ways. There is no high ground in this debate, only differing forms of sectarianism, be they liberal, religious, feminist, psychoanalyst, and so on. But there is an advantage to Catholic sectarianism: its conviction, founded in revelation and beautifully expounded by Thomas Aquinas, that reason has a rightful autonomy.
Gavin D’Costa Theology in the Public Square: Church, Academy and Nation.
