Speaker 0 00:00:00 The bedrock foundation of a Catholic university is the pursuit of truth and the transmission of the truth through teaching and learning and research.
Speaker 2 00:00:23 Welcome to the Catholic Theology Show presented by Ave Maria University. I'm your host, Michael dne, and today we're joined by my good friend and colleague, Dr. Roger Nut, Professor of Theology and Provost of Ave Maria University and Ave Maria, Florida. Welcome to the show.
Speaker 0 00:00:40 Thanks for having me, Dr. Dnet. I'm excited to talk, uh, to you about this topic. I think most of what I know I've learned, uh, from you about this.
Speaker 2 00:00:49 Well, I, I doubt that, but it is a delight to have been able to work together, uh, for many years in our love of Catholic theology and Catholic universities. There's a story, uh, that the great Anglo Irish playwright George Bernard Shaw, upon visiting the United States in DC Shaw was introduced to the Catholic University of America, and he equipped a Catholic university. That's an oxymoron, right? Saying that you could either be Catholic or you could be a university, but you couldn't be both. Right? And I think many people have that kind of native criticism. How would you respond?
Speaker 0 00:01:25 It's a great question. He's not the only one who has made that kind of a, a, a statement or a criticism of Catholic institutions of higher learning. And the broad premise, I think, uh, whether or not Shaw was thinking this explicitly, uh, many people kind of approach it this way, That if you say that you know the truth, we're Catholic, we profess the creed, we profess, uh, fidelity to the teachings of the church, that that inoculates you against university activity. Because how can you honestly do research and search for answers if you're saying upfront that you already adhere to, uh, a belief system? And the reason why that's false and problematic, and really a very superficial criticism of Catholic institutions of higher learning, is that the church has known for a very long time that you can both possess and desire the truth simultaneously. In fact, it's our profession of the faith, our commitment to truth, and our adherence to the truth that inspires us to do further deeper research. I often use the analogy of falling in love. You don't fall in love with someone and then immediately stop and say, Well, as long now that I know that she exists, I don't desire to know anything more about her. It's precisely by being committed to the truth that students and scholars are drawn and inspired to search more deeply for it, and to answer deep, substantive questions. So we understand Shaw's, uh, comment, I think, but it's, uh, deeply flawed and actually not, um, not coherent. You can profess and still desire, uh, to know the truth.
Speaker 2 00:03:22 Wow, that's so well put. It reminds me that, uh, John Paul the second, uh, in his great apostolic letter on Catholic University's Xcor Alaia, right from the heart of the church, he noted that not all that historically, the Catholic Church was the great sponsor of learning and of universities, uh, in the Middle Ages. And those many of those universities, some of them continued to this day. And so university education, this desire to know the truth about the world, about God and about human beings really was born right from the heart of the church. It was people who gathered together first in monasteries and then in cathedral schools, and not only wanted to know the truth of scriptures, but wanted to know the truth of creation. Right. And then the whole rise of the sciences, uh, the rise of law, human right politics, all of this study really came from this deep conviction that the creation was intelligible. Right. Uh, that although we can often get confused by the world and by ourselves, that ultimately Right. Truth was knowable.
Speaker 0 00:04:32 Right. Right. Yeah. There's a, there's a book that I think summarizes well, uh, the inspiration behind Catholic Universities. The title of the book, and it's something along the lines of a journey or the way towards wisdom, and the point that you're getting at, is that the Catholic Church understood that all of the knowledge, all of the luminosity, uh, in the various disciplines was part of a much larger hole mm-hmm. <affirmative>, that the church had understood from the highest perspective as a result of divine revelation and as a result of the great philosophical patrimony that had developed in the church. So the church knew that these forms of learning, whether it was science or law or medicine mm-hmm. <affirmative> or mathematics, were in no way antithetical to the gospel message, but shed light on different aspects of the created order and helped us actually to make distinctions in creation in order to provide a greater understanding of the unity of the whole.
Speaker 0 00:05:41 Yeah. And you know, John Paul ii to connect that to the point that you made, and to the, the state, the reference to Shaw, he says that Catholic universities have always, uh, made it their task to existentially unite to orders that are often separated. Right. The order of faith on the one hand and the order of inquiry. On the other hand, it's easy to just move along with, uh, academic research without reference to a larger whole. But the Catholic universities have always rejected that bifurcation and sought to maintain those two orders in unity and harmony. Yeah,
Speaker 2 00:06:20 That's so well put. And I think you really identify some of the, maybe the kind of secular objections to the Catholic University and show that, uh, because we're convinced that there is truth, we can therefore seek it and do research into it with even greater kind of confidence. Uh, perhaps you might address maybe a question on the other side, which is that, you know, if really we need piety, uh, maybe from a, you know, a Catholic parent or, you know, a Catholic student, if we need piety and we need a job, Right. Why do we need a Catholic university?
Speaker 0 00:06:53 Yeah, that's a great question. And I think this is one of the great gifts that a Catholic university offers to the world today, namely that we do not force, uh, our students to choose between growing in their faith and leaving academic or professional progress behind, on the one hand, um, or pursuing academic and professional learning. On the other hand, at the expense of faith, uh, one of my favorite passages in Xcor, a Alaia is paragraph 23, where he uses the word challenge to describe what should happen to students at Catholic universities. He says that they should be challenged on the one hand to seek knowledge and grow in their academic and professional pursuits, while simultaneously becoming authentic witnesses of Christ. And then he says, and that's why they make a unique impact in the world, is because they can witness to Christ in any aspect of society, in any profession or any community, uh, any parish that they end up in, um, throughout their lives. And so we, uh, I often joke that we don't need more cunning professionals, more wolves on Wall Street on the one hand, but, uh, we, it, it's also not pious to leave your gifts and talents undeveloped, that the Lord needs us to offer, uh, the gifts and talents that he's given us in service to him. And a Catholic university enables young people mm-hmm. <affirmative> to, um, do both of those things without being forced to choose between one or the other.
Speaker 2 00:08:35 Yeah. It reminds me of a quote, uh, from John Henry Newman, uh, now Saint John Henry Newman in his idea of the university, uh, that he establishes so much where he talks about this overall, the fact that the university seeks universal knowledge, so it treat, seeks both the truth about God, the truth about theology, but the truth about the whole world. Uh, and in that he actually says one time that the university is an alma mater, right? A, um, kind of a, a mother of souls, uh, not a foundry mill trying to make lots of students exactly the same, but trying to nurture their own gifts. Uh, and I think that idea that, you know, we have bodies, they can be healthy, we have souls, they can be more integrated, but we also have minds, right. And therefore they can seek the truth. Uh, and so maybe you could say a little bit more about how does the truth, uh, kind of anchor what a Catholic university does and what it offers its students? Yeah.
Speaker 0 00:09:33 There are a number of layers to this question. Uh, the first point, uh, that I think has been at the heart of Catholic universities from the beginning and through the great work by John Henry Newman that you reference and xcor a Alaia, is that the bedrock foundation of a Catholic university, uh, is the pursuit of truth and the transmission of the truth through teaching, uh, and learning and research. If a Catholic university misses, uh, or forgets that central goal, uh, it will not fulfill its mission, uh, to its fullest capability. John Paul II actually uses the phrase in Xcor Alaia that the university is consecrated, that it is theum of the university, the sacred duty of the university to serve the cause of truth. So every aspect of a Catholic university is, uh, ordered to, or I often say, gathered around the alter of truth, whether it's foundational learning, like in theology and philosophy or literature, or highly specialized learning such as nursing or finance or economics.
Speaker 0 00:10:53 Every one of those disciplines has truth to contribute, uh, to the students, uh, uh, about, uh, the world or about the right way of living or working in the world. Uh, so everything at a Catholic institution has to be integrated and unified around an unequivocal commitment to the truth. But I think there's a further, a further layer, and that is, uh, one, one of my old professors in Rome, father Paul Murray, who many people may be familiar with, wrote a, wrote an interesting article on study in the Dominican tradition. Uh, uh, you know, he borrowed a, a phrase from the prophet Ezekiel, uh, where the prophet is, uh, commanded by the Lord to eat the scroll. He titled the article, Eat the Book. Mm. There's a way in which through rigorous study and pursuit of truth we're, we're, we're eating, we're feeding ourselves. But he ends the article by saying, If charity love is holiness of the will, truth is actually holiness of the mind. And so, in addition to having an unequivocal commitment to the truth, yes, there's also a sense in which the pursuit of the truth at a Catholic university and being formed in the truth elevates our holiness, because truth is perfective of our powers of knowing.
Speaker 2 00:12:23 Wow. That's a beautiful, I love that, uh, line, uh, truth is the holiness of the mind. Right? Right. It reminds me of that, that just very simple thing, Right. That, uh, Jesus said we had to write love the Lord your God, with all your heart strength and our minds. Right. Right. So that we aren't meant to turn off our minds, uh, when we begin to follow Christ. Right.
Speaker 0 00:12:42 Even with rigorous study that is not, you know, cata, tical or preachy, there is still a, uh, pursuit of holiness because, uh, truth eliminates those little patches of darkness in our minds. Mm-hmm. <affirmative> and perfects and elevates, uh, our intellect puts our intellect in greater conformity, uh, with reality.
Speaker 2 00:13:05 Yeah. And I think when we think about that sense of the unity of truth, and we see the, that the university right, is a, a one, it's a uni university, it's a turning of all things to one. Right. Um, so it's in that sense, it's also like the unity of the unit. Adversity studies the unity of truth, and so inspires people with a unity of life. Right? Right. The everything we do, everything we study, all the work we do, whatever it is, whatever occupation we take up has meaning and purpose. And I see today, uh, in many people with whom I interact, and lots of young people, just such a hunger and thirst for meaning and purpose. Uh, it reminds me a little bit of Victor Frankel, uh, right. Who had survived the Holocaust and, uh, was a founder, or was, was pioneering psychologist, uh, wrote a book, Man Search for Meaning, but he spoke about coming back into Europe and then into the United States in the fifties, 1950s.
Speaker 2 00:14:02 And he said he saw an existential vacuum, which meant it wasn't so much that people were struggling with mental illness per se, but there was a loss of meaning and purpose, and the loss of meaning and purpose, uh, made it very difficult to bear kind of the burdens of daily life. Uh, he would often quote in that book, Right. Um, a person who has a why can suffer any how, but on the other hand, a person without a why cannot endure any how. Uh, and I feel like today just we see, I think for young people, they're just so many of them as I see in the classroom, and I see even in social media or just different things outside when I visit other universities, they seem to be so hungry for trying to understand how to make sense of their lives. And I think they feel as though the culture doesn't provide that sense of meaning and purpose. Uh, so maybe if you could just make an observation or two about how do you see the university, uh, helping the Catholic University helping to kind of foster that sense of unity of life, the meaning and purpose of, of work and study and, and professional life and family life, and all these different dimensions.
Speaker 0 00:15:13 Yeah. It's a great, it's a great point. When you study at a place that is committed to the full truth, as John Paul II says, the truth about God, man and the world, it's not just that every class and every subject can be related to an integrated whole mm-hmm. <affirmative>, but the way that we live in reality is also a part of that integrated hole. So if you take a very simple example, I think today we have, um, regressed into a very condescending attitude towards work. Uh, so people actually view work as a curse, as a burden. Yeah. Uh, as something that they don't find to be edifying or fulfilling. And if you're working, or if you're studying at a university where, um, theology and philosophy help you to see that not only knowledge can be integrated, but that our lives are part of an order, uh, that shares in the very law of God.
Speaker 0 00:16:19 It's one of the definitions of natural law. And we also learn from creation, the, the theology of creation that human beings were to work even before the fall that they shared, um, in god's, uh, creative activity as mm-hmm. <affirmative>, we're naming the, the animals, um, and so on that, um, not only are students studying in a, in a major at a university that's, uh, often ordered towards some form of professional life mm-hmm. <affirmative>, but they can see that the very nature of their work, of, of their effort, uh, is a way of serving God that is not a curse, but a participation in his ongoing creative activity that with God, we can help make the world a better place by cultivating our gifts and talents and serving, um, you know, in an ethical and Christian fashion and, um, in any profession. So that's a very broad answer.
Speaker 0 00:17:21 Yeah. But, but, um, I think that when your studies and your activity are presented within an order that does proclaim the unity of life as you phrase it, then you can see that it's not just your mind, um, um, thinking and thinking and thinking mm-hmm. <affirmative> about the truth and making bigger and bigger connections. But what you do, uh, is also, uh, part of that, um, created order of the all wise plan of God. And I would also say that the university, uh, authentic Catholic universities at least, should be a bit of a microcosm of a well ordered life. So there's a reason why at Abe Maria University, for example, we do not have co-ed dormitories or why we have a very robust campus ministry program with many masses a day and many opportunities to go to confession, uh, club and household opportunities and grassroots, uh, uh, movements on campus, all of which are inspired and informed by the Catholic faith, so that the work that we do in the classroom and the truths that we teach are support supported and inspired. Yeah. You know, by the, by the faith and vice versa, the non-curricular, uh, activities and components. Um, hopefully feedback into the, into the classroom so that the unity of life that you're speaking of is, um, perhaps realize and experience first by our students in the very structure and organization of the campus life.
Speaker 2 00:18:57 Yeah. That's, that's just so well, so well put. And, and so inspiring. Uh, you know, it reminds me too that, you know, they, they show some studies, but the, you know, the percentage of, or the percentage of the day hours every day that, uh, students either spend on often video games or watching shows, uh, they seem, or on social media, uh, so hungry and, you know, and, and, and the faculty too, by the way, and the staff, Right. This is just kind of part of daily life today. But I think people can get lost admits, diversion and distraction where they're looking, uh, you know, they're looking just to be distracted. Uh, and I think in a way, a Catholic university, uh, when lived well, we not only emphasize the consecration of our minds to the truth, but also right of our lives to recognize in the moral order, uh, but also the goodness of work and all these different elements, but also the recovery of play and recreation.
Speaker 2 00:19:55 So that I feel like a university, Catholic university also ought to be a place where, uh, people can have wholesome, uh, recreation, right. Recreation, this kind of play and activity, A full engagement of the mind and heart on the sports field. Right. A full engagement of mind and heart in, um, all sorts of, you know, whether or not it's a, a scuba diving, uh, club or, you know, going out on a hiking club or I know there were, um, you know, just so many different activities. I feel like trying to recover that sense, because I feel like we also need to do that. I think it was Saint Anthony of Egypt who was, uh, one of the desert fathers and one of the great heroes of early monasticism in the early church, uh, at one point was doing something that some other monk thought maybe was a little silly.
Speaker 2 00:20:44 Uh, and somebody objected to him and he said something like, Well, what happens to your bow if you leave it strung all the time? And he says, Right, Well, of course the bow will, uh, wear out. So he says, You have to unstring the bow. And I feel like people recognize that today, and they want to kind of take time off work, find a work life balance, or, Oh, I need a break cuz I've been studying all week. But in, sometimes it's like, you know, binge watching Netflix doesn't actually satisfy. Uh, so that sense of, or, you know, or just finding ways to do these act again, finding recreational activities play that all of these things too can be integrated into a larger hole so they begin to feed the soul. So instead of having like a work life play balance, we have a, I don't know, you know, like a worship study, work life play integration. Right. When God is recognized as the highest right. Then, so to speak, everything else can fall into place. And I think it's that aspect that not only is a Catholic university a great place to discover the truth, Right. And ultimately to come to know and love Jesus Christ, it's also a great place to have fun. Right. And define joy.
Speaker 0 00:21:51 Right. I often say to prospective students and their parents that our rules on our campus are not, you know, ends in themselves, but the campus is ordered to human flourishing. Yeah. And there is a spirit of joy on our campus because they experience the delights, uh, that you're talking about within a balance and a proper order. And, uh, so I think that human flourishing, which includes worship, play, serious study, uh, is ought to be, um, you know, a goal and characteristic of the life on any campus of an authentic Catholic university.
Speaker 2 00:22:27 Yeah. I think some of our, um, uh, best theology, uh, meetings and conversations occur over cigars. That's right. So, That's right. It's a delightful way. Yeah. Well, thank you.
Speaker 3 00:22:43 You're listening to the Catholic Theology Show presented by Ave Maria University. If you'd like to support our mission, we invite you to prayerfully consider joining our Enunciation Circle, a monthly giving program aimed at supporting our staff, faculty, and Catholic faith formation. You can visit
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Speaker 2 00:23:09 Well, shifting gears a little, uh, Roger would, why don't you tell us a little bit about your own story. Right. How did you, how did you get interested in Catholic theology and Catholic universities?
Speaker 0 00:23:21 Sure. I, um, I'm a convert and I converted to the Catholic faith as an undergraduate. I,
Speaker 2 00:23:29 Wow.
Speaker 0 00:23:29 Didn't have a clear, uh, certainly didn't have a passion for study mm-hmm. <affirmative> or a Catholic intellectual life. When I went to the university, I actually joined the Army, um, following my father's, uh, footsteps mm-hmm. <affirmative>, and then came, you know, later to the conviction that I really needed to go to university and get a bachelor's degree to move forward, uh, with my life. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. So I was thinking of probably majoring in, in business or the path of least resistance. And through a series of really kind, uh, deeply committed Christian professors at the university that I was at, they encouraged me to study and grow in my faith. And my first mentor was a, a Baptist, I was Baptist, and he introduced me to one of his Catholic friends on the faculty and mm-hmm. <affirmative>, I got exposed to, uh, 20th century apologetics, first Lewis and Chesterton, and then to the richer Catholic intellectual tradition, especially St. Thomas and St. Augustine. And when I learned what the church taught about the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist mm-hmm. <affirmative> and how coherent in all encompassing that teaching was for the life of the church, I had a deep desire to, to enter the church, be received into the church so that I could be a regular communic can.
Speaker 2 00:24:59 Wow. That's a beautiful, that's a beautiful story. And it's kind of amazing too, how, you know, like our stories, somehow they, it's almost like, you know, you can see God's hand at work in our lives often while we are simply kind of really just stumbling through. Um, you know, we, we stumble into one professor, we stumble into another amidst hundreds, uh, and, and kind of what a blessing. And it, and it makes all the difference. But, uh, somehow there's that, And, and maybe this is one other point that I think sometimes in a way, when we talk about the Catholic University, I think sometimes we can look about, well, we're trying to control the university to make sure the students do this, the faculty do this. Um, but I, I, I don't see it that way. I, I think it's really more about there's a kind of desire and hunger and thirst right at the heart of each person for truth for God.
Speaker 2 00:25:53 And so it's kind of like what we do at a Catholic university. I think it's best. It's really to see kind of, uh, you know, um, uh, Benedick the 16th, love to speak about this sense of a, uh, and Plato would talk about his, well, but not just aeros in terms of right. Romantic love, but aeros, this desire of the heart, Right. For everything. Right. That at the heart of, We wanna know everything, I wanna love everything. Uh, I think it's even a joke, You can even talk about it today, when people talk about FOMO or fobo, Right? The fear of missing out or the fear of being offline. Well, it's an assurance cuz we want to be at the heart of everything. We want to be a communion with God and in communion with everything. And so when you see your story, again, nothing was imposed on you in your discovery of the truth. It was really proposed and you said, Yes, that's what my heart really wants.
Speaker 0 00:26:46 That's right. I think we're actually, um, unleashing people, uh, at, uh, Ave Maria University, but we're also showing them, uh, the target that they should be, you know, aiming at and, and giving them the food that truly satisfies, uh, as well. And that's why Joy is an after effect of the life of our campus and authentic Catholic intellectual life. Precisely because what you said were hungry and those appetites will latch on often to the nearest thing or the lowest thing. But we're not in any way, um, corralling or tamping down people's desires. We're actually elevating them to higher and more satisfying things.
Speaker 2 00:27:37 Yeah. It reminds me a little of, uh, you know, Dante wrote this great book called The Divine Comedy in the Middle Ages, and kind of probably one of, at least what CS Lewis considered really the greatest poem. Uh, and kind of put into, uh, kind of like technical or poetry, all of tic theology. But one of the things he does, and the second part of that great work, what he called the Purgatorio. Right. And it's not, I see it as not so much a description of actual what life is like in purgatory, cuz we don't really know, but in a certain instance what life is like for us in this world. And he has the, uh, pilgrims in the story as they're climbing Mount Purgatory. Um, what happens is each time they go, they, they, they kind of set a weight aside what he calls one of the seven capital sins.
Speaker 2 00:28:28 And I can think about this both in terms of the moral life letting go of ineffective ways of acting, and, um Right. You know, sinful ways of acting or ineffective ways of responding to the world. Reacting to the world. But also, basically, you think about it in terms of Right falsehoods, false beliefs about human beings, false beliefs about the world, false beliefs about God that basically hinder us. And what's interesting is in the story is they're journeying up the mountain. They don't get more tired. What happens is as they get, they, they are basically naturally drawn up the mountain gravity kind of pulls them up the mountain and all they have to do are let go of the weights. And each time they let go of one capital sin, they go faster, and then they let go of another one and they go faster. And I, I think that's just such a powerful vision of kind of this authentic John Paul II Incor would speak of a universal humanism.
Speaker 2 00:29:24 Right. Right. So, uh, just that idea that we become more fully human, the more we recognize a creator. Right. Right. Val, uh, Vatican, uh, two and Gaudi ez would say, without the creator, the creature vanishes. Um, and one of the beautiful things is when we we discover that there's a God and a creator, uh, and I'm not it, then a lot of the stress and anxieties and burdens that I think we place on young people to manage and solve, all the world's crises are rightly placed back into God's hands. Right. Only the providential creator can somehow bring good out of all the struggles and, and darkness and, and wounds and hurts of the world that's really beyond our powers. And to a certain extent, when I can simply say, Of course I can't do it, of course I can't figure it out on my own. That's when I begin to kind of, kind of almost skip lightly up the mountain. Right. Uh, as in Dante's image.
Speaker 0 00:30:20 Right, Right. Yeah. It's beautiful what you have just described. It's tremendously freeing and, uh, for most of us, it often, um, is like the end of a struggle, right? Yes. Turning, turning our lives over, uh, to the Lord. I'm always struck in the beginning of, uh, the inferno, what turns Dante in, um, onto the path that leads to hell is a lion that has insatiable appetites. You know, he's told like, you can't get around this lion mm-hmm. <affirmative>. Um, and so I think it is good to think about what it is that we're feeding. Are we feeding the road that's going to go, um, you know, to complete contorted disorder? Or are we feeding the road that will actually be a light and easy, uh, burden, you know, burden to carry, um, in our, in our lives.
Speaker 2 00:31:14 Yeah. Now, when we think about the unity of truth, and we talk about the Catholic liberal arts tradition, right. The term liberal there means really free. You have the serv arts, which are beautiful, but they're servile, they're technical, they're, they're manipulative. Um, Right. If you want a pot, you have to find right. A potter to make you one. Um, you know, if you want a house, you have to find a craftsman. These are beautiful, important skills that are noble. But there was another set of learning in the ancient world and in the medieval world called the Free Arts, um, not oriented towards production, but oriented towards discovery of truth. Uh, and I think in a lot of ways today, I think we've kind of lost a sense of what the liberal arts really are and what they mean. Uh, and recently I heard you give a talk where you mentioned in a way that, uh, something I think might surprise people at first, but that, you know, Catholic universities don't exist to teach peop teach students critical thinking. Right, Right. Uh, there's so much more. So would you unpack that statement? Sure.
Speaker 0 00:32:19 I was being a little provocative of, of course, I know that there's a harmless way in which we, you know, can say that we want our students or our children to be critical thinkers to be able to think for themselves. But I was referencing in particular the, uh, change in the way that philosophy and academic life and intellectual pursuits have been viewed since the work in particular of Renee Decart, who developed a method of doubt for him. The way to truth was to doubt everything away, uh, until you could find something that you could not doubt anymore, which is, you know, when he says, I think therefore I am, he finally found, uh, a sure starting point in his mind. And then what's referred to as the critical turn in the work of Emanuel Con, who's three most famous works have the word critique, you know, Right. In the, Okay. Right. In the title. And
Speaker 2 00:33:18 So critical thinking in one sense, that word critical in part almost goes back to kind of the Cartesian doubt or the, uh, Conan critique.
Speaker 0 00:33:29 That's right. And, and critique in this sense, and we've all been subject to it and we don't like it, is often, um, reductive, uh, it's, it's dismantling. Okay. Uh, and, and the, so the reason why I said that Catholic universities ought not aimed to teach critical thinking is because inculcating our students with open ended series of doubts, uh, and criticisms in particular of the past and of received tradition, is not actually a very intelligent way, uh, to and educate their mind. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, I think the object of Catholic universities and any university should be to teach right thinking or logical thinking mm-hmm. <affirmative>, which is much more important than, um, being a critical thinker. One can doubt and doubt and doubt and doubt, but if you're not thinking in a coherent fashion, then you haven't really learned a very productive way to use your mind and your gifts and talents.
Speaker 0 00:34:35 Or another way of putting it is that if we are on a path simply of endless doubt and critique that just dismantles and dismantles were never led to understanding, and one of our great colleagues, the late father Matthew Lamb, uh, would often say that the modern world is focused just on open ended thinking as opposed to Right. Thinking and the ancient world that was pursuing wisdom wanted to, uh, learn Right. Thinking so that it could understand Yeah. And what a Catholic university really ought to teach is Right. Thinking so that we can, uh, come to understand the truth about God man and the world and not just be left at the end of four years or even longer with nothing but, um, uh, you know, an, an ash heap of, of things that have been doubted away.
Speaker 2 00:35:29 Yeah. Um, it reminds me sometimes I think that like this idea that, you know, turning your average 18 year old, um, into kind of a somewhat cynical skeptic is not a major achievement. Right. It's really a much more beautiful thing to help them discover that although much is much has been done wrong by their parents' generation and the generations before them, that is true, but also much has been done. Right. And ironically, the only way we can discover what's been done wrong is by recognizing first what's been done. Right. And so we're always indebted to our predecessors. Gustav Moler, uh, who was a, um, a wonderful 20th century composer, uh, said that tradition is not the worship of ashes, but the preservation of a fire. And I love that image because as a professor and as a student myself, Right. If I think it's my job to change the world, whew.
Speaker 2 00:36:28 That's a hard one. Right, Right. It's hard enough to change well, myself, to change my, you know, my family. That's really, it's very, change is really hard. But if I see my job as a teacher and as a professor is to simply catch the fire, catch the spark, and pass it on a little bit. Right. I can do that in my family. I can do that in my work. I can do it as a teacher. And it's like all of a sudden I realize that's all I have to do. Right. All I have to do today, uh, there's a beautiful psalm, right. Psalm one 18 says, Right, This is the day the Lord has made. Let us rejoice in it and be glad, uh, which I tend to shorten is simply to say, today's a good day. Right. But it's like today's a good day when I get to simply pass on that living fire of truth. Not that I understand much of it, but I do see a little, and I see more because of Right. What the faith has illumined in me and really what reason itself can truly and authentically discover.
Speaker 0 00:37:18 Right. I actually did a study of xcor Alaia word study to see, um, you know, if the word cri or if if the phrase critical thinking came up. Oh, yeah. And it's interesting. He uses the word and it's, it's really insightful, um, or the phrase critical judgment, and that you make a conscious and critical judgment about the transcendent dignity of the human person. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. And the subtle point that might be lost on people is that when we understand the truth Yeah. Then we can judge what the right thing to do is, or how to obtain the end. So it's interesting that he wants us to be able to see right from wrong, to be critical about the difference between truth and its counterfeit, but not simply to be abstractly critical in not ordering our thinking to learning the truth.
Speaker 2 00:38:10 Yeah. That's so well put. And, and in a way it speaks to really the countercultural mission of any university. Um, you know, John Paul ii we were talking about earlier, you know, he, he was a student at a Catholic university when the Nazis came into Poland. Right, right. And took over the university and actually shipped off about 200 of the faculty there, most of the faculty off to, um, a concentration camp. Uh, and then soon afterwards, he was a, at another university in Poland, uh, during, when the Soviet Union was present, um, for many years, and he ended up actually serving as a chaplain there, teaching philosophy there. And one of the things that he saw was that you can't challenge kind of, um, these worldly totalitarian regimes and the falsehoods that they claim and teach and, uh, kind of saturate society with through kind of piety alone.
Speaker 2 00:39:09 Yes. That's probably, you know, pr that's obviously very important, ultimately trusting in God. Absolutely. Uh, and right in his son. Right. Jesus Christ. But also he needed to work against these kind of deformities of the understanding of the students with greater focus on truth. Right. That we weren't gonna simply form another party to try to outsmart or politically oust Right. You know, the Soviet Union or the Nazis, but what what he could do was recover truth, the authentic truth of the human person, uh, and in a way Right. This transcendent and dignity. And I think that's really a beautiful image. Yeah.
Speaker 0 00:39:51 I've been struck by a line in his poetry when he was a young man, he wrote a national drama called Job in which he was recasting the Life of Job. I think he was 19 or 20 when he wrote this recasting the life of, uh, Poland, you know, first under the Nazis at, uh, at that time, but then to suffer under, under the, um, the communist as job being, you know, in a way God's chosen one deeply blessed, but greatly suffering. Yeah. And in that, um, drama, in that play, he says this phrase, We must sprinkle truth across the path of lies and throw truth into the eye of lies. And I thought, Wow, what a great metaphor for, you know, the work Yeah. Of a Catholic university and, and, and students and teachers, uh, working together in pursuit of the
Speaker 2 00:40:43 Truth. Yeah, absolutely. And also just a great, I think a great inspiration for each of us. Right. This is not something, the vision of a Catholic university is not something that, you know, we, um, we achieve. It's something that we are challenged by, and then we recon consecrate ourselves too. Uh, and I think that's kind of the, the great joy, uh, a little bit of this kind of, some of the focus on critical thinking. Uh, you, you, you may remember, uh, Tolkien's Lord of the Rings, uh, and at one time, one of the lo uh, at one time, anyway, in the story, uh, Gandolph, one of the great wizards is, uh, confronting soman who has become an evil wizard, has kind of gone to the dark side to mix, uh, movies, uh, and stories. But, uh, anyway, he says to him, he says at one time, he says, You know, uh, he, that takes a thing apart in order to understand it, uh, is not wise.
Speaker 2 00:41:35 And I think to a certain extent that is something that we kind of delight in, in the modern world, is taking things apart critically. Right. Right. We take apart the human person, We take apart religion, we take apart God, we take apart Right. The founding of America, whatever it is, we take apart everything. And, and it feels wise. It feels as though I have power and control. Um, but ultimately, Right. Of course, I don't have power and control over God. I don't have power and control over the past. I don't have power and control over the world. So it's really an illusion. Right. Right. It's not wisdom. And the deeper path of wisdom is somehow to recognize that the more I have to change in order to be in harmony with reality. And then when I do that, maybe I begin to see a little bit more clearly, Right. In order to discover a few more truths, either about the world or about work, or about life, or about whether or not that's math or biology or theology. And then those truths that I discover in turn challenge me more to turn and convert myself more to that truth. So it's in a certain sense as which we're not cri, we're not being critical of reality trying to take it apart. It's that reality ironically, is critical of us and calls us and inspires us Right. To change and to grow.
Speaker 0 00:42:57 Right. And demonstrates often our futility, <laugh>, uh, and the smallness of even our greatest technological, uh, achievements and face in the face of the ongoing challenges that we take. Again, our, our friend Father Matthew Lamb, often would often say that the greatest myth of all is not, you know, Zeus or Apollo mm-hmm. <affirmative>, but the myth of historical progress.
Speaker 2 00:43:20 Yeah. That's wonderful. Uh, no, that's, that's great. Thank you so much for, uh, sharing that. Um, as we close, I wanted just to kind of ask you three quick questions and see if you can give, uh, three quick answers. Um, but don't rush. Okay. Right. Take your time. Uh, so first I wanted to ask you Right. Uh, what's a book you've recently read?
Speaker 0 00:43:38 Sure. Um, I obviously like to read theology and to stay current in theology, but to relax. Uh, now that I'm in the administration to decompress a little bit, I often like to read, um, history or, uh, or fiction, uh, uh, nonfiction. And I, uh, I read recently a biography of Tre Lao's parents, uh, Lewis and Ze, and really loved learning about them, about their family life, um, about their children, and about, I I didn't realize the various, um, um, challenges, uh, that they suffered throughout their lives, learning, uh, losing children mm-hmm. <affirmative>, uh, and yet persevering, um, in their faith and supporting each other, uh, as, as husband and wife in continuing to seek, uh, consolation in the Lord. So I'm, I'm grateful, grateful for them, and grateful to have learned a little bit more about them through this book.
Speaker 2 00:44:38 Absolutely. How beautiful. Uh, second question, what's a concrete practice that you try to, you know, maybe do every day or at least wish to do every day that helps you to grow in your faith?
Speaker 0 00:44:50 Yeah, I'll mention two if I can. Yeah. Uh, um, as a convert. Uh, one of the things that I find to be a gr great relief and Catholic cra Catholics may not appreciate this is that, um, you don't have to be very creative as a Catholic to, uh, practice your faith. There is such a FSOs of resources to practice your faith. Yeah. And I really love the, uh, liturgy of the hours mm-hmm. <affirmative> and the divine office. Yeah. So I try to pray the, uh, two readings in the office every morning and then morning prayer. I think it's just a great, um, patrimony mm-hmm. <affirmative> of wisdom and of, of spiritual practice in the church that I take deep consolation from. And the second thing is trying to visit the adoration chapel. We're very blessed to work on a campus and live in a community that has eucharistic adoration. And I don't always get to make a holy hour every day, but I often need to stretch my legs at one point throughout the day. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, and to be able to pop in the adoration chapel, uh, and make a visit is something that I take great consolation in.
Speaker 2 00:46:00 Right. Thank you for sharing that. Uh, and last question, what's one truth about God Right. Uh, that kind of has changed your life?
Speaker 0 00:46:11 Yeah. The biggest thing I would say that I come back to often mm-hmm. <affirmative>, and I'm blessed to have studied St. Thomas and in particular St. Thomas's understanding of Christ and in particular how Christ saves us through his death on the cross. The truth that I find most arresting and reflecting on that is that Jesus knew all of my imperfection, sins, betrayals, superficialities, and still died <laugh> on the cross out of love for me, and still uttered words, the words Father forgive them for they know not what they do. So a truth that, you know, I come back to often, um, or when we're praying the sorrowful mysteries, or, you know, different times throughout the year, is that the Lord knew every detail of my life and still suffered, uh, and died, uh, for me, uh, despite, uh, despite what he knew about all the dark, you know, dark corners and contours mm-hmm. <affirmative>, uh, of, of my character. And I think that's a truth that, uh, uh, is, is pretty remarkable to ponder.
Speaker 2 00:47:20 Yeah. That's, that's so powerful. And kind of reminds me too, why not only does the university need God, the university needs Jesus. Right, right. You know, the world, uh, without God is not enough, but also God without Jesus is not enough. Right. We not only need a creator, we need a redeemer. That's right. Right. And it's in that, that we really find hope.
Speaker 0 00:47:38 That's right. And, you know, being able to, um, have a continuous disposition of, um, of repentance, knowing that the Lord, um, you know, knowing that the Lord has loved us in our imperfections, we're not sin, being a sinner is depressing, but we're not just sinners. We're sinners who are loved. And that makes all the difference in the world.
Speaker 2 00:47:59 Well, that's beautiful. Well, Roger, thank you so much, uh, for being on our show and, uh, really appreciate all of the just wonderful insights about really kind of the, the joy and the drama in a way, and the exciting charge, the adventure right. Of, uh, Catholic education and Catholic universities. Thank
Speaker 0 00:48:18 You for having me.
Speaker 2 00:48:19 Absolutely. Have a great day. Thank you. You
Speaker 3 00:48:21 Thank you so much for joining us for this podcast. If you like this episode, please write and review it on your favorite podcast app to help others find the show. And if you want to take the next step, please consider joining our enunciation circle so we can continue to bring you more free content. We'll see you next time on the Catholic Theology Show.
