The visit by Benedict XVI to the United States this week has largely met the expectations of the media and the Vatican. In a speech yesterday (4/17/08) at Catholic University, in Washington, D.C., the Pope directed the attention of more than 200 Catholic university and college presidents to the difficulties of maintaining a faithfully Catholic identity in an atmosphere of academic freedom. Given the Pope’s own academic credentials, it was a topic near and dear to his heart. My reading of press accounts surrounding the Pope’s visit to Catholic University visit reveals to me a Catholic community divided over the question of what it actually means to be a “Catholic” university.

My own perspective on Catholic higher education is quite narrow. For the past sixteen years I have been teaching Jewish Philosophy as an adjunct faculty member of Saint Louis University. There is no doubt in my mind that SLU is a Catholic University. On campus, every public issue of note, from war in Iraq to health care and stem cell research, is discussed, debated, analyzed and criticized from a Catholic perspective. If I were dropped on SLU’s campus from outer space, I would not mistake SLU for Brandeis University. My department head is a priest. In every classroom and lecture hall I have ever taught in, there is a crucifix. Our academic calendar flows to the rhythms of the Church, which means that I have to cancel classes when Jewish holy days conflict. (Since Passover begins on Saturday, I will not have to cancel class this year.) When I do cancel classes, I do not need to explain myself to the university administration—they get it. The buildings are named after saints and local bishops of the Church. Crosses are visible in every campus building design and the bronze sculpture of Jesus next to the College Church on Grand is three times the size of a bronze statue of Robert Frost placed outside the Pius XII Library.

But Saint Louis University is more than superficially or architecturally Catholic. While other institutions of higher learning hold teach-a-thons on the hot topics of the day, SLU manages an annual non-stop marathon reading of the Summa Theologica of St. Thomas Aquinas, called affectionately, Summa-thons. There are regular seminars on the unique approaches to higher learning developed by the Jesuit order. The entire SLU faculty participates in a program called Ethics Across the Curriculum. This program seeks to engage the SLU community in a conversation about ethics and morals as they apply to all academic disciplines. The program starts by teaching the foundation of ethical thought from a Catholic perspective. The on-campus rallies and sit-ins tend to deal with issues on a Catholic moral agenda. And yes, from time to time, when student organizations over-step the boundaries of good taste, they will hear from the Catholic administration.

This very Catholic University is not afraid to submit the teachings of the Church to the scrutiny of academic inquiry. It is not afraid to bring to the campus and the curriculum lectures and courses on Islam and Judaism, taught by adherents of those faiths. SLU is not a convent or monastery seeking to close its gates to the outside world. It is a place where religion is taken seriously and not an after-thought, where religious observance is respected, and no one has to apologize for seeking to live the values of his/her faith. If that is the kind of Catholic education Benedict XVI has in mind, then I am all for it—but what do I know? I’m just a rabbi.