The news is filled these days with reports of sexual assaults against college students, even at some of the most committed and faithful Catholic colleges.
The numbers are disputed, but it’s appalling that even one parent’s daughter would suffer such a violation during what should be happy years of growth in college. The victims of these horrible crimes deserve our prayers, compassion and support as well as justice from our legal system.
Moreover, Catholic colleges should be prepared to offer Christian counseling and support for victims. Too often, colleges of all types and sizes have been found ill-equipped or unprepared to address what appears to be a growing problem.
Ultimately—and most importantly—the assaults must be stopped. Off campus, this is largely the responsibility of law enforcement, although a proper moral formation of students at Catholic colleges can help substantially. On campus, colleges bear great responsibility for preventing these crimes from occurring in the first place.
Insisting upon a culture of chastity and sobriety in campus residences helps protect students while upholding Catholic beliefs and identity.
It’s a commonsense solution.
And it is in this respect, that some of America’s most faithful Catholic colleges have important lessons to teach the rest of higher education—even most other Catholic colleges.
By preserving traditional norms for student access and behavior in campus dorms, faithful Catholic colleges effectively combat on-campus sexual assault.
Such policies come naturally for faithful Catholic institutions, because they are firmly rooted in Catholic morality and fulfill the colleges’ mission of human formation in the light of Christ.
If only the rest of the nearly 200 Catholic, residential colleges would do the same. Catholic families should demand it. It’s long past time that Catholic colleges get on board and set an example of proper campus life, rather than invite the tragic consequences of the secular campus model.
Insisting upon a culture of chastity and sobriety in campus residences helps protect students while upholding Catholic beliefs and identity. It’s a commonsense solution.
Real prevention
Focusing on prevention efforts in campus dorms is how colleges can most immediately and effectively have an impact on sexual assault.
Although most sexual assaults against college students occur off campus—where college leaders have no control over the environment or student behavior—a sizable portion, about a third, occur within student dorms. That’s where colleges bear direct responsibility for protecting their students.
According to the federally funded “Campus Sexual Assault Study” (2007), which considered offenses against female students from 2005 to 2007, 28 percent of the assaults that involved the use of physical force and 36 percent of the assaults against an incapacitated (often drunk) victim occurred in campus residences.
…28 percent of the assaults that involved the use of physical force and 36 percent of the assaults against an incapacitated (often drunk) victim occurred in campus residences.
For most colleges today, preventing sexual assault means educating students about consent to sexual activity, empowering women to avoid and resist assault, and strengthening disciplinary and reporting procedures. These are all very important strategies, and every Catholic college should embrace them.
Still, much more could be done on campus, where college leaders have the authority to regulate student behavior and the environment. Catholic colleges should be leading by example!
Drinking and the hook-up culture
A campus culture of chastity and sobriety is important to reducing sexual crimes, and Catholic colleges should have the moral courage to make it happen.
Alcohol is strongly associated with sexual assault. A report published in 2000 by the U.S. Department of Justice, “The Sexual Victimization of College Women,” found that “frequently drinking enough to get drunk” was one of the four main factors contributing to sexual assault. And the Justice Department’s 2014 report, “Rape and Sexual Assault Victimization Among College-Age Females, 1995-2013” (2014) found that 47 percent of victims perceived their attacker was drinking or using drugs.
These crimes are also associated with the “hook-up” culture on many campuses. One study, “Some Types of Hookups May Be Riskier Than Others for Campus Sexual Assault” (Psychological Trauma, 2016) found that 78 percent of on-campus sexual assaults took place during casual sexual encounters.
Sex and drunkenness are commonplace on the typical college campus. So, we have two risk factors for sexual assault—drinking and casual sex—occurring frequently in campus dorms.
So, we have two risk factors for sexual assault—drinking and casual sex—occurring frequently in campus dorms.
Even when alcohol is restricted on campus, students may return to their rooms intoxicated from off-campus drinking. Isn’t it common sense that colleges should strive to reduce opportunities for sexual activity in student residences, especially at the times when students are more likely to be drinking?
Sadly, few secular colleges today would attempt any restriction on sexual activity. College leaders, the media, and even many victims’ advocates deem casual sex a rite (and right) of passage for college students. They are therefore limited to prevention strategies that have minimal impact on the dorm environment.
But Catholic colleges that take their identity and mission seriously should actively and enthusiastically embrace policies that reduce sexual activity in campus residences.
Every college serious about its Catholicity should be eager to protect the bodies and souls of its students.
Creating and fostering a culture of chastity and sobriety in campus residences is a commonsense way to create a safe and moral environment. Moreover, it is elemental to a faithful Catholic education.
Catholic colleges especially need to be concerned with more than just sexual assault. Consensual sexual activity is a serious sin that has two victims of their own poor decisions. Every college serious about its Catholicity should be eager to protect the bodies and souls of its students.
Step one: single-sex residence halls
A first step toward reducing sexual assault on campus is to designate all dorms single-sex. Coed residence halls have been associated with greater alcohol abuse and sexual activity, as documented by Dr. Chris Kaczor in his 2012 report for The Cardinal Newman Society, “Strategies for Reducing Binge Drinking and a ‘Hook-Up’ Culture on Campus”.
A 2009 study in the Journal of American College Health, “The Impact of Living in Co-ed Resident Halls on Risk-Taking Among College Students,” found that “students in co-ed housing (12.6%) were more than twice as likely as students in gender-specific housing (4.9%) to indicate that they had had 3 or more sexual partners in the last year.” The study also found a higher likelihood of binge drinking in coed dorms.
And another study, “The Impact of Current Residence and High School Drinking on Alcohol Problems Among College Students” (Journal of Studies on Alcohol, 2002), found that “students living in coed dormitories, when compared with students in single-gender dorms, incurred more problem consequences related to drinking.”
Notre Dame’s experience indicates that, while single-sex residence halls should be helpful in reducing sexual assault, they are only a first step to building a campus culture of sobriety and chastity.
The vast majority of Catholic colleges resemble their secular counterparts in sponsoring coed dorms—but thankfully, not all do. The Newman Society has identified more than 10 percent of America’s Catholic colleges that have bucked the trend of the past 50 years. Colleges with single-sex residence halls include some of the nation’s most faithful Catholic colleges and even a few that have waffled on their Catholic identity.
Most notable among the latter group is the University of Notre Dame. This is an instructive case, since its students report multiple sexual assaults in the University’s single-sex dorms each year. Notre Dame’s experience indicates that, while single-sex residence halls should be helpful in reducing sexual assault, they are only a first step to building a campus culture of sobriety and chastity.
Step two: stronger visitation policies
The second step—arguably more important than single-sex dorms—is for colleges to adopt and enforce policies restricting opposite-sex guests in dorm rooms.
Catholic parents understand the effects of temptation and our fallen nature. They know that there is good reason for never letting their teenager have a boyfriend or girlfriend alone in a bedroom. It’s what Catholics have long described as a “near occasion of sin.”
Why do so many Catholic colleges ignore this basic understanding? Don’t the high rates of abortions, STDs and sexual assaults among young men and women teach us something about the limits of self-control?
… 82 percent of U.S. Catholic colleges allow closed-door visitation until 2 a.m. or later on weekends….
More than a quarter of Catholic colleges have open visitation at all hours of the night!
Since most campus residences are little more than bedrooms with a chair and desk, it’s common sense that they should be off-limits entirely to opposite-sex visitors.
Instead, 82 percent of U.S. Catholic colleges allow closed-door visitation until 2 a.m. or later on weekends, and 88 percent allow it until midnight or later on weekdays, according Adam Wilson’s 2016 report on visitation policies for The Cardinal Newman Society.
More than a quarter of Catholic colleges have open visitation at all hours of the night!
Think about that for a moment. What message does it send to students? And what care does it show for helping students remain chaste?
Loose visitation policies indicate low expectations and suggest a college’s lack of concern for natural consequences, including sexually transmitted diseases, pregnancy, abortion, and (have Catholics forgotten?) mortal sin.
And the consequences might also include sexual assault.
The “Campus Sexual Assault Study” found that 52 percent of forced sexual assaults and 90 percent of assaults on incapacitated victims took place between midnight and 6 a.m.—and most others between 6 p.m. and midnight. The later at night, the greater the likelihood of drinking and casual sex, and therefore the greater the danger for students.
Couldn’t Catholic colleges, then, restrict opposite-sex visiting hours to the daytime as an immediate intermediary step?
Better still, colleges should protect students by sensibly forbidding opposite-sex guests in campus bedrooms at nearly all times, like many evangelical Christian colleges and a few standout Catholic colleges. These include:
- Christendom College (Va.)
- John Paul the Great University (Calif.)
- Northeast Catholic College (N.H.)
- Thomas Aquinas College (Calif.)
- Thomas More College (N.H.), and
- Wyoming Catholic College. (Wyo.)
Others, like Franciscan University and Ave Maria University, have limited visiting hours and require open doors.
No more excuses
We have discussed these ideas with Catholic college leaders, and one common explanation for allowing opposite-sex visitation and coed dorms is that students need opportunities to socialize. Gathering in dorm rooms has become an accepted and even expected part of the college experience.
There are also physical plant constraints. Despite all the amenities of the typical campus, most colleges have not created adequate spaces for students to gather outside their private rooms.
Some leaders focus on the link between alcohol and sexual assault, strictly enforcing sobriety on campus while taking a softer approach on sexual activity with messaging that appeals to students’ virtue.
Drinking, however, often occurs off campus, with later consequences for on-campus behavior. And relying on students’ self-restraint amid a culture obsessed with sexuality and pornography seems quite risky and naïve.
Some college leaders worry that they’ll lose students if opposite-sex visitation isn’t allowed.
The difficulties, then, of building a campus environment that demands chastity and sobriety in campus residences are real enough. But they seem surmountable at a college committed to safety and Catholic morality.
The difficulties, then, of building a campus environment that demands chastity and sobriety in campus residences are real enough. But they seem surmountable at a college committed to safety and Catholic morality.
Especially for Catholic colleges, protecting students’ health and their immortal souls must be the higher priority.
Especially for Catholic colleges, protecting students’ health and their immortal souls must be the higher priority.
Adopting commonsense student dorm room policies won’t stop off-campus sexual assaults, and it won’t solve every problem on campus. It doesn’t mitigate the responsibility to provide adequate support for victims of assault. But it could help prevent the many assaults that do occur in dorm rooms as a predictable consequence of casual sex and drinking, while upholding the Catholic mission of the college.
It is here that college officials and those concerned with combatting sexual assaults should emulate the commonsense and faithful policies of some of the Newman Guide colleges noted above.
Ten years ago, Pope Benedict told Catholic educators in the U.S. that the crisis of truth is rooted in a crisis of faith.
Catholic colleges should face the ugly truth that, for many of them, their dorm policies may have the effect of undermining their important faith-filled missions. The fact that this is unintentional—and perhaps even contradicted by other efforts to teach moral behavior—does not make the problems go away.
Catholic colleges should face the ugly truth that, for many of them, their dorm policies may have the effect of undermining their important faith-filled missions.
There is nothing anyone can do to eliminate concupiscence and evil in the world. All the more reason that we believe every Catholic college should build a campus climate that celebrates chaste, Catholic living. This is what Catholic families should expect from Catholic education.
The Cardinal Newman Society’s mission is to promote and defend faithful Catholic education. We believe that families have a right to expect that a Catholic education will uphold Truth in accord with the timeless teaching and tradition of the Catholic Church, so as to prepare young people for this world and for eternity with God in heaven.
Youth Need Truth! A Better Way for the Synod
/in Student Formation Research and Analysis, Youth Synod/by Dr. Dan GuernseyThe Vatican’s “working document” that will guide the discussions and directions of October’s Synod on Young People is flawed.1 It puts tremendous emphasis on personal experience and accompaniment as the primary means for reaching young people today. But what young people most need—what, deep down, they most desire—is the Truth of Christ boldly proclaimed. And what the Church desperately needs to help young people is a thorough renewal of faithful Catholic education as its primary means of evangelization.
There is little sense in this working document of the important role that strong and faithful education—whether in schools, parishes, or homes—should play in teaching truth and virtue to young people. Instead, there is great danger that the Synod will continue the now commonplace tendency of too many Church leaders and programs to soft-pedal the Truth of the Gospel and leave young people lost and drowning in the relativism of “liquid modernity.”
The Synod on Young People will fail if the Synod fathers do not confront the common culture that champions radical autonomy and a false concept of freedom that satisfies desire and a thirst for power instead of conforming to reality. The lives of many youth have become fragmented, incoherent, and indifferent to truth and meaning. The Church must address this crisis head-on, confident that—underneath this culturally sanctioned indifference—every person knows that truth is what they were made for. At their core, youth need truth, and youth want truth!
Confidently Proclaim Truth
The Catechism reminds us, “The desire for God is written in the human heart, because man is created by God and for God; and God never ceases to draw man to Himself. Only in God will he find the truth and happiness he never stops searching for.”2 In other words, the game is rigged in our favor, if we can break through the anesthetizing effects of many elements of modern life. Even though the common culture seems to have the upper hand at the moment, we need not cower in despair. Instead, we need to take our advantage and teach the truth boldly.3 “Man tends by nature toward the truth,” but he is also “obliged to honor and bear witness to it.” The Good News, confidently proclaimed, is what the youth need to hear—and to what we are obliged to give witness!
Some parts of the synod document assist toward this end, but its meager and disjointed musings on the critical issue of truth need more robust development. This is even more necessary amid the crisis of the age, in which the dictatorship of relativism has entranced and enslaved so many people, young and old. The document’s main reflection on truth is limited to two paragraphs (out of more than 200), and they merit scrutiny. Here is the first:
This short section is titled “New Inquiring Paradigms and the Search for Truth.” However, neither the youth nor the modern Church has discovered any new paradigms in the search for truth. We can relax, go about the hard work of every age before us, and join them in the grand conversation, unburdened by any special enlightenment tied to youth or the modern age.
The section unhelpfully clouds the philosophical and theological pursuit of truth with the shallow political reality of “fake news” in “public debate.” The paragraph ends with a more helpful notion of this age being “post-truth” and lacking a “hierarchy of truth.” Unfortunately, these insights are just left hanging, without reflection, resolution, or guidance, as if there is nothing we can or should be doing about them other than to acknowledge them and silently surrender.
This seems to be pattern in other parts of the sprawling 61-page document: stumbling articulation of a challenge (often using the language and lens of sociology), acceptance of the situation as an irrefutable reality to which we must submit, and a sense that the youth are a superior foreign species beyond our ability to educate, rather than our children requiring confident teaching and parenting.4
Young People Want Truth
We see this unfold in the second paragraph:
To unpack what is disconcerting about this paragraph, first consider the quote from the pre-synodal meeting that is cited in the second sentence above. The pre-synodal meeting was intended to gather the input of young people. The full paragraph from the meeting report is as follows:
All the more, the Church draws the attention of young people by being rooted in Jesus Christ. Christ is the Truth which makes the Church different from any other worldly group with which we may identify. Therefore, we ask that the Church continue to proclaim the joy of the Gospel with the guidance of the Holy Spirit.5
Contrary to the conclusions drawn by the authors of the working document, there is no indication in this quote that young people today need the Church to abandon past methods of evangelization. They ask the Church to “continue to proclaim” truth. There is no suggestion that the statement, “Christ is the Truth,” has any “different significance compared to earlier ages.”
If we accept the guidance in the working document, we might falsely conclude that Saint John Paul II’s inspiring World Youth Day VI message (the very theme was “I am the Way, the Truth and the Life”) is incapable of resonating with this generation:
In fact, this message still speaks—perhaps even especially—to this generation. As the darkness increases, so does the brightness of these words.
Young People are Capable of Reason
Paragraph 55 of the working document states that “truth has a relational basis,” and we only discover it when we “experience it from God.” This leads to the problematic advice to primarily evangelize with personal experiences, “since they cannot be called into question”—as if calling things into question was a bad idea or inimical to evangelization or to the pursuit of truth!
The advice relates to the pre-synodal meeting report, where the participants state, “We also desire to see a Church that is empathetic and reaches out to those struggling on the margins, the persecuted and the poor. An attractive Church is a relational Church.” But that is far from suggesting—as the working document appears to do—that a relational approach to evangelization is the primary approach worth pursuing in this “post-truth” age.
In fact, youth need and want so much more. In the pre-synodal meeting report, young people call for the use of “modern communication and expression” to proclaim truth with “answers which are not watered-down, or which utilize pre-fabricated formulations.” The Church, they say, should frankly address gender and sexuality issues and “dialogue with the scientific community.” So young people want, as they have always wanted in every age, the use of contemporary tools of communication, forms of expression, and topics of discussion. But this does not—as the working document argues—alter the “significance” of the Christian message to young people today or suggest changes to the Church’s approaches to evangelization. Instead, young people need and even want the Church to continue to appeal to reason and to explain Catholic teachings—not to retreat from Catholic education, but to better help today’s youth know and understand truth.
We can and must do more than just share personal opinion and experience; we must share truth itself. In Catholic philosophy, truth has an ontological (reality-based) nature. A primarily relational basis for knowledge is the seed of relativism, by which truth is seen as a social construct or based on a relationship of power.
The working document does not itself embrace relativism, but it does read as if the authors have lost confidence in this generation’s response to appeals to reason, which abandons young people to the influence and temptation of relativism. It is false to claim that we need to experience truth to know it. We know many truths by reason, revelation, and trust in the wisdom of others: we will die; Washington crossed the Delaware River; there are atoms; murder is wrong; a thing cannot both be and not be at the same time in the same location; there is the Sacrament of Holy Orders. The crisis of this age persists because the secular world limits truth to personal experience and denies our ability to make binding truth claims on others. This denial of the ontological basis of truth is not Christian.
The Synod’s approach, then, risks giving into the post-truth world, rather than rescuing our youth from it. The Church has a remedy and way out. It is the same remedy that we have always had, if we only remain faithful to it.
Restore Conviction, Renew Education
Catholic thinking, as philosopher Curtis Hancock reminds us, holds that when our senses are in good condition and functioning properly under normal circumstances, and when our reason is functioning honestly and clearly, we can come to know reality and have the ability to make true judgments about reality. We know that through study, reflection, experimentation, argument, and discussion—and especially divine revelation—we can know real things about the world, Man, and God. Of course we must share our personal compelling stories of conversion and belief; they are among the most powerful means of persuasion to be sure. But we must not surrender reason or objective truth in the process. This is precisely what the common culture already demands of our youth.
St. John Paul II, in addressing this crisis of truth, noted that:
Contrast this with the working document’s brief section on catechesis (paragraphs 190-193), which indicates no apparent concern about “the educational crisis” that Pope Benedict XVI so often lamented, describing it to American educators as a “‘crisis of truth’ rooted in a ‘crisis of faith.’”8 9 The “religious illiteracy” of young Catholics and the exodus of young people from the Catholic Church are alarming, yet the working document makes no call for extensive, much-improved catechetical instruction. Instead, it claims that catechesis has a bad reputation among many young people as “compulsory and unchosen,” invites a review of catechetical programs with respect to their “validity for new generations,” and encourages “experience-based” as well as “content-based” catechesis.
The entire working document says little about Catholic education, as if the truths of our faith are not the keys to human happiness. To the extent that Catholic education is mentioned, the document fails to emphasize its traditional role as the Church’s primary means of evangelization. The document repeats Pope Francis’ ambiguous warning “not to proselytize” in Catholic schools, which was first made in 2015 and provoked some controversy—yet still, no clarification is offered.
This is no way to go forward with a Synod on Young People, especially amid the scandals in the Church and the secular assault on Christianity. We must be ready to restore conviction and actively uphold the truth. Modern culture is not infallible, and our youth are not oracles; both are subject to confusion and manipulation. Our job is to help young people find their way.
If we only tell youth what they already know or believe as driven by the common culture and their limited experience, they will rightly ignore us, because we have nothing new to say or different to offer. To effectively reach them, we must be faithful and authentic in making radical truth claims. Since the youth are wired to be bold, we must be bold; since youth is daring, we must be daring. They are attracted to misunderstood underdogs like us, as long as we are personally authentic and proud about who we are. It is radical and appealing to stand athwart this culture and proclaim that there are truths that exist, that hold true in all times and places, and that we must bear witness to for the good of all.
Many idealistic Catholic youth, eager to help change a world they know is in absolute shambles, will respond to this call. Because their world is already a mess, they do not need our permission or encouragement to make it messier. We can authentically challenge them to be more. To be advocates of beauty, seekers of truth, and architects of freedom is a task and adventure worthy of their properly oriented youthful restlessness and idealism. They are looking for answers, not confirmation of their confusion. They know the world they live in. They know it does not satisfy. It was not made to satisfy.
We, however, can play to our strengths by renewing faithful Catholic education and formation. We can embrace the human reality, “Only in God will he find the truth and happiness he never stops searching for.”
October’s Synod on Young People must reject dependency on experience as the primary means of knowing and learning, and instead strengthen the Church’s appeal to youth by reason and divine revelation. Young people, like all of us, need our Holy Mother Church to boldly and confidently proclaim the Gospel. Youth need truth.
Authentic Accompaniment: A Better Way for the Synod
/in Student Formation Research and Analysis, Youth Synod/by Dr. Dan GuernseyThe working document guiding the Synod on Young People, the Faith, and Vocational Discernment focuses on encouraging adults to accompany youth as they face new experiences and challenges. Regrettably, its accompaniment/discernment model falls short in three respects:
As the bishops prepare to discuss the best ways to accompany youth in their October synod, they may benefit from the following insights from Monsignor Luigi Giussani, a modern master on the accompaniment of youth.
Accompaniment Properly Understood
Giussani (1922-2005) influenced the last three popes, especially through his teaching on the pedagogy of encounter and accompaniment. Giussani was a Catholic priest in Italy who was both a high school and seminary teacher as well as the founder of the influential Communion and Liberation movement. Pope Saint John Paul II named him Honorary Prelate to His Holiness. Cardinal Ratzinger, two months before becoming Pope Benedict XVI, presided over Giussani’s funeral Mass with more than 40,000 people in attendance. Although Pope Francis never personally met Giussani, he said of him, “For many years now his writings have inspired me to reflect and have helped me to pray. They have taught me to be a better Christian.”10
Giussani’s impact on these three popes is in part due to his insight that relationship and witness are among the best ways to stimulate the youth to commit to Christ. Giussani also emphasizes that the way to break through the cynicism and despair facing youth is to offer them an education that speaks to the deepest needs of the human heart, as God made it, and with an eye on the transcendent. He warns that errant cultural influences and the teen’s own impulsivity and impatience might obscure Nature’s original reality, power, and beauty. This rejection of reality, he warns, can then allow the teen to be fooled into creating his own standards and thus be at the mercy of whims and outside forces.
Giussani’s solution is to ensure that Catholic teachers and ministers act as stabilizing witnesses of a lived Catholic worldview and culture. This interpretive framework helps provide meaning to all reality and gets young people to commit to Christ as they progress into ever greater autonomy and authentic freedom based in truth.
His process works like this:
In presenting this Catholic worldview in word and deed, the adult must not be indecisive, indifferent, neutral, or hesitant but offer it simply, clearly, and naturally, in full knowledge that the adolescent may still exercise his freedom to reject what he is offered. This is what Giussani calls “the risk of education.”11
Adult Guidance and Discipline
Cardinal Pietro Parolin, Vatican Secretary of State, remarked in January that the Vatican seeks “a new relationship between the Church and young people, based on a paradigm of responsibility exempt from any paternalism.”12 Paternalism seems to be used here as a pejorative term referencing any attempt to limit a person’s autonomy to promote their good.
For an adult, paternalism is usually inappropriate, but by its nature youth is a time when responsibility is not yet fully developed. Providing young people with structure and rules while they grow in freedom and responsibility is something that teachers, coaches, and parents do all the time, as they strengthen young people for success in academics, athletics, and adult life. To abandon the Church’s role as mother and leave youth to their own designs is just abandoning them to other forces.13 Youth will get those standards and ends from somewhere.
Giussani reminds those who work with young people that youth can be fooled into thinking they have created their own standards, when in fact they are at the mercy of their desires, whether by prejudices dictated by youthful narrowness or ignorance or by outside forces leading them to harm. Freedom requires the use of guiding standards and a clear understanding of proper ends. The role of Catholic mentors is to present and live another way, so as to provide the youth with compelling options counter to the world.
The Synod’s working document describes a mentor in part as “a confidant without judgment” who “should not lead young people as passive followers but walk alongside them” (132).
However, “a confidant without judgment” is a role better played by a young person’s casual friend than by a mentor. Lack of input by adults in the life of youth may be interpreted as approval or indifference to a situation, precisely when the adults’ gifts and wisdom are most needed and even expected. The adult must discern the best way to help the mentee grow in the truth. That need not preclude offering definitive guidance in the right place and time, and even definitive judgment.
It is also helpful to remember that “following” is not necessarily passive. Graduate students follow the guidance of professors in conducting their own research, and professional athletes follow their coaches. Radical autonomy is rare, even in adult life. Adults often need to follow other adults on the path to greater health, holiness, and wisdom. Caring guides walk beside, before, or even behind those they lead, depending on the situation at hand.
Clear Church Teaching
From the get-go, the synod document seems so intent on emphasizing the need to meet youth where they are, that the more important reality of “where do youth ultimately need to be?” goes unstated.
It is a best practice to start with the end in mind; in this case, the goal is for young people to be free and intentional disciples. The document, however, simply emphasizes a generic three-step discernment process—1. Recognize, 2. Interpret, 3. Choose—and the document itself is structured this way. But without clarifying a specific end, the process could be used in driver’s training or in career training, as much as in spiritual direction. Instead, a spiritual discernment process always needs to keep the goal of salvation in Christ clear and compelling, while acknowledging that salvation cannot be forced and can be freely rejected.
Earlier we saw how the document suggests adults walk beside and not judge youth, and in other places the document advises that mentors “do” rather than “say.” Specifically it tells adults “to realize they are a model that can influence others through what they are, rather than for what they do or suggest” (130, emphasis added). But this is not a “rather than” situation; it requires “both and.” It may be that the mentor is the instrument the Holy Spirit has sent to speak the words of eternal life to the young person. That must not be preemptively ruled out.
Self-imposed silence of God’s Word in the face of the real needs of youth could be akin to the story of the Good Samaritan, where the righteous pass by thinking, “Surely God or someone else will tend this wounded soul.” St. Paul explicitly exhorts us to “preach the word, be urgent in season and out of season, convince, rebuke, and exhort, be unfailing in patience and in teaching” (2 Tim 4:2). Vatican II states, “nor is it enough to carry out an apostolate by way of example… they are to announce Christ to their non-Christian fellow-citizens by word and examples and to aid them toward the full reception of Christ.”14 Adults should ensure that the young have the truths of the faith and God’s Word before them. The youth have a right to know what we know and believe what we believe, which sometimes entails hearing the Word directly from us. Who else will tell them, if not us?
In other places the document seems to take a Rogerian non-directive and hands-off approach to discernment.15 Such an approach discourages offering clear guidance and, by extension, clear Church teaching or Gospel truth. It views discernment as:
Perhaps if we did not know the meaning or end of life, the salvific role of Christ, and the moral teachings of the Church, this approach might make unqualified sense. But we know that the door is closed to many things, not the least of which are “evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, greed, wickedness, deceit, debauchery, envy, slander, arrogance, and foolishness” (Mk 22) and everything else which defiles us. Each of these has a pre-defined answer with no alternative or opportunity other than the clear call to repentance and holiness.
Adults must be sure and stable guides to youth. We must provide and model real answers from a Christian world-view, otherwise we have no business assisting them in the discernment process. Giussani emphasizes that an adult working with youth must present the truth which inspires him and then step back behind its overshadowing presence and be a living witness of love. This is often the key that will engrave the teacher in the student’s memory and engender feelings of fondness from the student.
Patience Without Fear of Rejection
The mentor puts himself at emotional risk in working with the youth. It is only natural and human for the mentor to hope and expect that the youth will respond with fondness to him or her as a person. And it is only natural and human to hope and expect that once the truth is laid out before the youth and clearly modeled in the person of the mentor, the student will “get it.” But in fact, the young person must be free to reject it all—and that rejection may be humiliating and hurtful to the adult.
For Giussani, it is precisely the risk of confrontation and rejection that helps create the young person’s personality in his authentic relationship to all things; it is here that he develops his freedom. The reality of rejection provides a real and clear inflection point: the point of risk and freedom.
This risk of rejection by youth is at the heart of accompaniment; we should not give in at the end and surrender truth to avoid being hurt or abandoned by the youth. Like the father of the prodigal son, we remain sadly behind, hoping for a return after the loving seeds of truth have been planted. The father neither follows the prodigal into the peripheries with enabling moneybags nor, as Anthony Esolen has observed, does he allow the son to re-enter his home unrepentant with alcohol and whores in tow.16 Rather, the father waits patiently hoping for a free return to the fullness of truth and life.
Compare such Gospel confidence and acceptance of youthful rejection to the Synod document, which worries that if we don’t let youth do what they want, in their way, and without comment, then we must either be “unbending judges” or “hyperprotective parents” who are responsible for driving them away:
Again, the synod document seems to suggest a lesser role for adults; after all, the youth are the “true protagonists,” so it is supposedly necessary to shrink our role in the hopes they might decide to stay with us. But by definition a protagonist is simply a leading character, not the only character. In any good story the leading character will confront challenging realities presented by others that result either in growing in freedom and virtue or falling into vice and ruin. Adults must play their part, even if it risks ruin.
We have to at some point risk rejection and make “The Ask”: to speak the words of Christ, “Come follow Me.” We must lovingly show them that Christ and His Church present a different way—a path out of contemporary shallowness and despair. We enter their world, no matter what world they are in, to show them the beauty and wonder of God’s world and point the way to Christ. We accompany them, sometimes by their side, sometimes leading them, but always in word and example, pointing the way to truth and proposing meaning, so that they might come to love Him, know Him, and—in their own turn—share Him with the world, even at great risk.
So Many Choices: How to Know Which College Is Right for You
/in Blog Newman Guide Articles/by Cardinal Newman Society StaffThe typical advice you will read in books and hear from well-meaning friends and advisors focuses on two priorities in the college search: Will the college help you get a good job? And will you have fun? But there’s much more to choosing a college!
Don’t get us wrong: both questions above are important. College is expensive, and the reality of our modern society is that, for right or wrong, a lot of careers require a college degre. And while you’re working hard at it, why go someplace where you’ll be miserable?
But keep in mind several other key priorities, such as whether you’ll get a good education, sustain and grow in your faith, cultivate your talents, discern your calling from God, and discover or confirm your vocation in life—whether it’s marriage, the priesthood, religious life, or the single life.
Faithful Catholic colleges — like those recommended at The Newman Guide online — can help you do all this and more.
Finding the right college for you boils down to a few things:
CONSIDER YOUR PERSONALITY
Are you an extrovert or an introvert? Will you learn more and succeed in small classes or in larger ones?
Are you self-motivated, or do you need more structure to succeed?
Faithful Catholic colleges range in size from 50 students to more than 8,000 students. Some are on small campuses located in the heart of a city, while others are on sprawling campuses in rural areas. Consider your personality and the environment that would best help you succeed.
REFLECT ON YOUR FAITH
Is your faith as strong as a rock, or is it shaky? Do you prefer a particular kind of liturgical environment—like praise and worship, or more traditional Masses—to keep you motivated to attend Mass at least every Sunday?
Are you tempted by certain kinds of sins?
What environment will help you avoid them?
Faithful Catholic colleges offer not only a terrific education but also a campus environment that can help you sustain and deepen your faith during your college years. The typical college culture may celebrate some things as “fun”—whether it is gossiping, binge drinking, the hook-up culture, or any other number of things—but as a Catholic, you know that these things hurt you. Put yourself in a campus environment that will help you be holy!
EVALUATE ACADEMIC & EXTRACURRICULAR GOALS
Are there particular sports, clubs or activities that you want to participate in during college?
Do you know the field or course of study you are you interested in, or are you still trying to figure that out?
Faithful Catholic colleges provide a strong liberal arts core curriculum, rooted in the Catholic tradition. This not only prepares you for a particular career but also for life.
You can choose from a wide variety of majors at faithful Catholic colleges, and you will be prepared to excel. For example, if you study nursing, you’ll be ready to respond to ethical dilemmas in the workplace. If you become a math or a history teacher, you’ll know how to teach and share the faith with students.
TAKE THE NEXT STEPS
Once you have thought about these questions, the next step is to dig in and research the colleges that are on your short list. The Newman Guide online and college websites are good places to study the various aspects of the colleges that are most important to you.
But don’t stop there! Call or e-mail college professors and staff in addition to your admissions officer.
Use social media networks to find current and recent students, asking them about their experiences.
The most important part of your evaluation involves a field trip—the campus visit!
Searching for a college doesn’t have to be difficult, but it does take a lot of thought, research, and soul searching. Pray for guidance. With your parents, decide on a college that will provide a strong education and bring you closer to Christ.
Should the Church Be a Permissive Parent?
/in Student Formation Research and Analysis, Youth Synod/by Dr. Dan GuernseyWith concerns swirling around the Vatican Synod on Young People this October, the Church’s appalling failures to protect its young from predators, and the growing scourges of pornography, sexual activity, and STDs among even Catholic youth, it’s the right time to reconsider how the Catholic Church should be attending to the current generation.17
I propose that we need to renew the once-familiar notion of the Church as mother to the Faithful.18 The Church gives us new life through baptism and instructs, feeds, comforts, strengthens, forgives, protects, and challenges us as we seek to make our way through the world and reach our heavenly goal.
Specifically, young people need the Church to maintain an authoritative style of parenting that exhibits both deep concern for the child’s wellbeing and confidence in what is right and true. This image of responsible motherhood suggests a hopeful path forward for today’s Catholic schools, colleges, and youth ministry.
Parenting Styles
Parents may be labeled “authoritarian,” “authoritative,” “indulgent,” and “uninvolved”—these are the “parenting styles” often used by researchers to categorize naturally occurring patterns of parental practices and values.19
An authoritarian parenting style is highly directive, with little or no deference to child input and little warmth. It is marked by obedience, strictness, structure, order, clarity, high demands, and rule orientation. Authoritarian parenting may have low levels of communication and harsh discipline (shaming).
An authoritative parenting style is both demanding and responsive. It is marked by clear standards but with disciplinary methods that are supportive and assertive, rather than simply punitive and restrictive. Authoritative parents balance demandingness and responsiveness: they firmly enforce rules and standards expecting them to be met while encouraging independence and communication.
An indulgent (“permissive”) parenting style is marked by responsiveness, leniency, and empathy more than demands and expectations. It allows for considerable self-regulation, avoids confrontation, and is democratic and engaged. Permissive parenting is marked by tolerance and acceptance of a child’s impulses, makes few demands for mature behavior, and minimizes punishment.
An uninvolved parenting style is marked by very few demands and very little parental responsiveness, and it leans toward neglect and rejection.
It should be clear that this last “uninvolved” style is not conducive to healthy and balanced children. But what do decades of research tell us about the relative merits of the other styles, and how might that guide Holy Mother Church?
The ‘Cool’ Mom
Studies show that authoritarian parenting’s harsh control can lead to even more undesirable behavior in the long run and possibly anxiety and low self-esteem. It may also limit a child’s opportunities and decision-making abilities.20
For Mother Church, the negative impact of employing this style is the stuff of legend and lore. Some older-generation Catholics tell stories of the “bad old days” when nuns beat kids and priests told everyone they were going to Hell each Sunday from the pulpit. Incredibly, some young people today have picked up on the tale. In surveys preparing for the youth synod, they complain that the Church seems out of touch and judgmental.
That’s not a plausible characterization of the Church today, but it could simply be what children have always said about their parents. More than 50 years after the social revolutions of the 1960s and the impact of Vatican II, there is little evidence that today’s youth experience a harsh, shaming, and unresponsive Church. Here’s a thought experiment: List three permissive-oriented Catholic universities, schools, and parishes that you know well. Should be a snap! Now repeat the list for currently authoritarian-oriented universities, schools, and parishes. Not so easy.
Instead of authoritarianism, it’s permissiveness and relativism that saturate all elements of the experience of young people today. The crisis facing current youth is not one of rigid Catholics trying to box them in, but of the permissiveness of liquid modernity drowning them in false tolerance and relativism and leading them to think that any truth claim is short-sighted and mean. The dictatorship of relativism has blinded and enslaved many of our young people, hindering their willingness to seek the truth and conform to it when it is discovered. This may also impede their ability to make meaningful commitments and flourish as dynamic disciples.
The solution to this challenge is not more permissiveness, even though this is a temptation: One can almost hear some youth (or even some adults trying to reach them) saying: “Gee, all of the other churches get to have divorce, contraception, pre-marital sex, homosexuality, cool services, fewer demands, less moralism. Why can’t we?” We know from the sad experience of Protestant sects that this is not a recipe for ecclesial growth and commitment. But there is still the temptation to ditch adult responsibility under the guise of being more “relevant” in the lives of youth. Plus there is comfort in conforming to the age and the very human pleasure of rejoicing in our hip-ness in relation to others who are not as “with it.”
This is how one mother recounts her mom’s group discussions of permissive parenting and attempting to be a child’s friend or “the cool mom”:
Research has revealed that permissive parenting deprives children of the direction and guidance necessary to develop appropriate morals and goals.22 Rejecting discipline (i.e., control, punishment) is related to poorer psychological adjustment in children. Permissive parenting has also been shown to contribute both directly and indirectly to antisocial behavior, including increased conflict orientation in adolescent males.23 The chaotic and inconsistent parenting associated with permissiveness can be harmful to healthy relationships leaving children prone to weaker and ambivalent parent bonding and a feeling of insecurity when encountering an adult world.
These are not outcomes the Church can accept, especially in light of the recent scandals and a culture that presses young people into immorality and deviancy. Hands down, authoritative parenting, which is both demanding and responsive, outperforms authoritarian and permissive styles in virtually all areas. Authoritative parenting has been found to relate to higher self-esteem and life-satisfaction and to lower depression in children.24 Research shows these children have better conduct in school, higher cognitive performance, and less drug use and delinquency.25
So authoritative is good; authoritarian and permissive, not so good. By embracing her role as an authoritative mother, the Church engenders the trust, closeness, and dependability that will lead to healthy bonding and lifelong development in the young.
Avoiding Permissiveness
What does permissive parenting look like from Mother Church? It might look like trying to be a friend rather than a parent; like dropping standards; like coddling weakness and calling it strength; like being afraid to speak truth to kids who do not seem to want to hear it; like changing who you are and what you believe, because you fear kids will leave you. It might look like this passage from the document prepared for the upcoming Synod on Young People:
This is not to say that permissiveness is the intent of the document’s authors or the synod—only that it is a temptation and a possible outcome. This is a concern especially if the youth are overly idealized or approached with fear or pandering, or if their childish complaints are weaponized in an attempt to change Church doctrine.
How can we prevent such an outcome? By sticking to a research-proven, authoritative style with the youth.
What might this look like? It looks like caring more about young people than whether or not they care for you. It looks like calling them to their better selves; like presenting a challenge and making love-based demands; like speaking straight and affirming that compromise with lies is a false life; that courage, humility, and patience are absolute requirements for holiness and happiness; that life is tough and the road is hard, but the destination is worth it. That destination is clear: Christ Jesus.
Authoritative parenting from Mother Church might look like these gems spoken to the youth at various times by Saint John Paul II:
Authoritative parenting might also look like this observation from Pope Benedict XVI:
Stay Bold and True
Our young people do not need—and many do not even want—the Church to try to be cool. We need to relate to them authentically as the loving parents we are, rather than wanna-be hip friends. What they value is authenticity. They need people and organizations to believe what they say and do what they say. They celebrate and trust those who “stay true to themselves.”
Our success with youth will come if we stay bold and true to Christ. Eternity and youth are perfectly harmonized in He who is the alpha and omega. “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever” (Heb.13:8).32 He is alive, still with us and still young. It is not He who changes with each new generation of young people; it is His unchanging relevance which is ever new to each new generation. As St. John Paul II put it:
This is the confidence that our shepherds need to have during the Synod on Young People, the Faith, and Vocational Discernment. Jesus Christ spoke “with authority,” and that is how He revealed Himself. Young people today need to know this Christ who speaks with the authority of the Father. His Church leaders need to be confident that she possesses moral and doctrinal truth, and that truth is what young people most need to hear.
Our young people need the Church. Like a caring mother, the Church listens attentively to her young people to understand their needs. But she has the solutions! As mother to the Faithful, she teaches truth and forms young people in humility to listen to the Word and love His commandments.
With this in mind, the Synod on Young People can bear great fruit; but it will not if the Synod is dominated by a spirit of permissiveness and weak confidence in the Church’s superior wisdom. The failure to assert rightful authority is a danger to the lives and souls of young Catholics around the world.
10 Poems Everyone Should Learn by Heart
/in Blog Latest/by Sean FitzpatrickThe world is so full of a number of things,
I’m sure we should all be as happy as kings.
Considering how much unhappiness there is in the world today, there might be a temptation to dismiss this poem and its ilk as an optimistic delusion. There is a sad tendency to view the world as a wasteland rather than a wonderland. This is, perhaps, one of the deepest errors of our time, the error of cynicism. What the world needs, what people need, what Catholics need, is a psychological and spiritual renewal: a renewal of politics, culture, parenthood, education… and poetry.
There is an old proverb that says if a person does not learn poetry as a child, they will not know how to pray as an adult. A more arresting thing could hardly be said, especially in an age where poetry is dead, either shrugged off with indifference or dismissed as unimportant.
Without doubt, the Church and the world need scientists and soldiers in the cultural and spiritual war zones to defend the Faith. But, in as much as civilization needs such professionals, so too does it need poets—and that for a very simple reason. Scientists without poetry can be slaves to systems. Soldiers without poetry can be barbarians devoid of chivalry. A people without poetry cannot be effective missionaries, because the charm of the Faith shines with poetry. Without poetry, without some knowledge or expression of Goodness, Truth, and Beauty, there is less hope of attaining the glorious end of martyrdom—whether through war, marriage, work, or any given Tuesday.
Poetry offers that knowledge and expression, and thus offers children a window to view and begin to understand a world so full of “a number of things.” Poems should be lifelong teachers and they should begin their lessons in the hearts of the young. Once there, they can give satisfying expression to those mysteries of childhood that are beyond a child’s ability to express. And in so doing, poetry can begin to introduce children not only to the outward world and inward emotions, but also to give all things their proper place and relation.
Perhaps the most significant obstacle to providing today’s children with the experience of poetry is that many of today’s parents and teachers have not had the experience of poetry themselves. (It is never too late to have the experience!) Poetry—that art which meditates on beauty, rest, perfection, and the grandeur of God’s presence in nature—is good for grown-ups too. No matter how old you are, or how busy you are, it is always important to be reminded of the beauty and mystery that transcends all our distractions. And this is especially so if you are a teacher.
If you never thought about the importance of poetry in education, do not, by any means, let this article convince you. Take the time to discover great poetry. Read Shelley, Keats, and Byron. Read Wordsworth and Poe. Read the Psalms. Read Homer, Virgil, Chaucer, Shakespeare, Milton, Coleridge, and Hopkins. Write your own book inscriptions and Christmas cards to your loved ones in verse. Allow yourself the opportunity to encounter and engage the kiss of beauty.
Immerse yourself. Engage the material. And, above all else, enjoy it.
Take the time.
No parent or teacher can give their child or student what they do not have. No pupil will take to heart what is brushed off as being unimportant by their parents or teachers. If parents and teachers want their children to pray, they must pray first. If parents and teachers want their children to be good, they must be good themselves. If parents and teachers do not read and savor the poetic works, neither will their children.
The first step to giving your children the gift of poetry is to love it yourself. Following are 10 excellent poems to begin with, to learn by heart and to teach the children you know to learn by heart. The rhythms of poetry reflect the rhythms of creation, of life, and the human heart. They put profundities in the mouths of babes, fortifying them for those times when, as adults, they will cry out from the depths. The power of beauty must not be lost. Like the coming of spring, the world will be saved by beauty, and a line of poetry may make all the difference in a person’s salvation. There is nothing like a poem held in the heart, like a fire in a hearth, to give the first and final context of earthly experience.
Memorize these 10 poems with your children or your students. They are not long or difficult. Neither does it take long, nor is it difficult to incorporate them at the beginning of a class, on a walk, in the car, or at table. Teach your young minds and hearts these poems and plant the power of poetry in their lives. These are only a beginning, but they are a good start.
SEAN FITZPATRICK is a graduate of Thomas Aquinas College and serves as the headmaster of Gregory the Great Academy in Elmhurst, Pa. He also serves on the Advisory Council for Sophia Institute for Teachers. His writings on education, literature and culture have appeared in Crisis Magazine, The Imaginative Conservative, and Catholic Exchange.
Catholic Colleges Should Lead Charge Against Sexual Assault
/in Student Formation Research and Analysis, Student Residences/by Cardinal Newman Society StaffThe news is filled these days with reports of sexual assaults against college students, even at some of the most committed and faithful Catholic colleges.
The numbers are disputed, but it’s appalling that even one parent’s daughter would suffer such a violation during what should be happy years of growth in college. The victims of these horrible crimes deserve our prayers, compassion and support as well as justice from our legal system.
Moreover, Catholic colleges should be prepared to offer Christian counseling and support for victims. Too often, colleges of all types and sizes have been found ill-equipped or unprepared to address what appears to be a growing problem.
Ultimately—and most importantly—the assaults must be stopped. Off campus, this is largely the responsibility of law enforcement, although a proper moral formation of students at Catholic colleges can help substantially. On campus, colleges bear great responsibility for preventing these crimes from occurring in the first place.
And it is in this respect, that some of America’s most faithful Catholic colleges have important lessons to teach the rest of higher education—even most other Catholic colleges.
By preserving traditional norms for student access and behavior in campus dorms, faithful Catholic colleges effectively combat on-campus sexual assault.
Such policies come naturally for faithful Catholic institutions, because they are firmly rooted in Catholic morality and fulfill the colleges’ mission of human formation in the light of Christ.
If only the rest of the nearly 200 Catholic, residential colleges would do the same. Catholic families should demand it. It’s long past time that Catholic colleges get on board and set an example of proper campus life, rather than invite the tragic consequences of the secular campus model.
Insisting upon a culture of chastity and sobriety in campus residences helps protect students while upholding Catholic beliefs and identity. It’s a commonsense solution.
Real prevention
Focusing on prevention efforts in campus dorms is how colleges can most immediately and effectively have an impact on sexual assault.
Although most sexual assaults against college students occur off campus—where college leaders have no control over the environment or student behavior—a sizable portion, about a third, occur within student dorms. That’s where colleges bear direct responsibility for protecting their students.
According to the federally funded “Campus Sexual Assault Study” (2007), which considered offenses against female students from 2005 to 2007, 28 percent of the assaults that involved the use of physical force and 36 percent of the assaults against an incapacitated (often drunk) victim occurred in campus residences.
For most colleges today, preventing sexual assault means educating students about consent to sexual activity, empowering women to avoid and resist assault, and strengthening disciplinary and reporting procedures. These are all very important strategies, and every Catholic college should embrace them.
Still, much more could be done on campus, where college leaders have the authority to regulate student behavior and the environment. Catholic colleges should be leading by example!
Drinking and the hook-up culture
A campus culture of chastity and sobriety is important to reducing sexual crimes, and Catholic colleges should have the moral courage to make it happen.
Alcohol is strongly associated with sexual assault. A report published in 2000 by the U.S. Department of Justice, “The Sexual Victimization of College Women,” found that “frequently drinking enough to get drunk” was one of the four main factors contributing to sexual assault. And the Justice Department’s 2014 report, “Rape and Sexual Assault Victimization Among College-Age Females, 1995-2013” (2014) found that 47 percent of victims perceived their attacker was drinking or using drugs.
These crimes are also associated with the “hook-up” culture on many campuses. One study, “Some Types of Hookups May Be Riskier Than Others for Campus Sexual Assault” (Psychological Trauma, 2016) found that 78 percent of on-campus sexual assaults took place during casual sexual encounters.
Sex and drunkenness are commonplace on the typical college campus. So, we have two risk factors for sexual assault—drinking and casual sex—occurring frequently in campus dorms.
Even when alcohol is restricted on campus, students may return to their rooms intoxicated from off-campus drinking. Isn’t it common sense that colleges should strive to reduce opportunities for sexual activity in student residences, especially at the times when students are more likely to be drinking?
Sadly, few secular colleges today would attempt any restriction on sexual activity. College leaders, the media, and even many victims’ advocates deem casual sex a rite (and right) of passage for college students. They are therefore limited to prevention strategies that have minimal impact on the dorm environment.
But Catholic colleges that take their identity and mission seriously should actively and enthusiastically embrace policies that reduce sexual activity in campus residences.
Creating and fostering a culture of chastity and sobriety in campus residences is a commonsense way to create a safe and moral environment. Moreover, it is elemental to a faithful Catholic education.
Catholic colleges especially need to be concerned with more than just sexual assault. Consensual sexual activity is a serious sin that has two victims of their own poor decisions. Every college serious about its Catholicity should be eager to protect the bodies and souls of its students.
Step one: single-sex residence halls
A first step toward reducing sexual assault on campus is to designate all dorms single-sex. Coed residence halls have been associated with greater alcohol abuse and sexual activity, as documented by Dr. Chris Kaczor in his 2012 report for The Cardinal Newman Society, “Strategies for Reducing Binge Drinking and a ‘Hook-Up’ Culture on Campus”.26
A 2009 study in the Journal of American College Health, “The Impact of Living in Co-ed Resident Halls on Risk-Taking Among College Students,” found that “students in co-ed housing (12.6%) were more than twice as likely as students in gender-specific housing (4.9%) to indicate that they had had 3 or more sexual partners in the last year.” The study also found a higher likelihood of binge drinking in coed dorms.
And another study, “The Impact of Current Residence and High School Drinking on Alcohol Problems Among College Students” (Journal of Studies on Alcohol, 2002), found that “students living in coed dormitories, when compared with students in single-gender dorms, incurred more problem consequences related to drinking.”
The vast majority of Catholic colleges resemble their secular counterparts in sponsoring coed dorms—but thankfully, not all do. The Newman Society has identified more than 10 percent of America’s Catholic colleges that have bucked the trend of the past 50 years. Colleges with single-sex residence halls include some of the nation’s most faithful Catholic colleges and even a few that have waffled on their Catholic identity.
Most notable among the latter group is the University of Notre Dame. This is an instructive case, since its students report multiple sexual assaults in the University’s single-sex dorms each year. Notre Dame’s experience indicates that, while single-sex residence halls should be helpful in reducing sexual assault, they are only a first step to building a campus culture of sobriety and chastity.
Step two: stronger visitation policies
The second step—arguably more important than single-sex dorms—is for colleges to adopt and enforce policies restricting opposite-sex guests in dorm rooms.
Catholic parents understand the effects of temptation and our fallen nature. They know that there is good reason for never letting their teenager have a boyfriend or girlfriend alone in a bedroom. It’s what Catholics have long described as a “near occasion of sin.”
Why do so many Catholic colleges ignore this basic understanding? Don’t the high rates of abortions, STDs and sexual assaults among young men and women teach us something about the limits of self-control?
Since most campus residences are little more than bedrooms with a chair and desk, it’s common sense that they should be off-limits entirely to opposite-sex visitors.
Instead, 82 percent of U.S. Catholic colleges allow closed-door visitation until 2 a.m. or later on weekends, and 88 percent allow it until midnight or later on weekdays, according Adam Wilson’s 2016 report on visitation policies for The Cardinal Newman Society.33
More than a quarter of Catholic colleges have open visitation at all hours of the night!
Think about that for a moment. What message does it send to students? And what care does it show for helping students remain chaste?
Loose visitation policies indicate low expectations and suggest a college’s lack of concern for natural consequences, including sexually transmitted diseases, pregnancy, abortion, and (have Catholics forgotten?) mortal sin.
And the consequences might also include sexual assault.
The “Campus Sexual Assault Study” found that 52 percent of forced sexual assaults and 90 percent of assaults on incapacitated victims took place between midnight and 6 a.m.—and most others between 6 p.m. and midnight. The later at night, the greater the likelihood of drinking and casual sex, and therefore the greater the danger for students.
Couldn’t Catholic colleges, then, restrict opposite-sex visiting hours to the daytime as an immediate intermediary step?
Better still, colleges should protect students by sensibly forbidding opposite-sex guests in campus bedrooms at nearly all times, like many evangelical Christian colleges and a few standout Catholic colleges. These include:
Others, like Franciscan University and Ave Maria University, have limited visiting hours and require open doors.
No more excuses
We have discussed these ideas with Catholic college leaders, and one common explanation for allowing opposite-sex visitation and coed dorms is that students need opportunities to socialize. Gathering in dorm rooms has become an accepted and even expected part of the college experience.
There are also physical plant constraints. Despite all the amenities of the typical campus, most colleges have not created adequate spaces for students to gather outside their private rooms.
Some leaders focus on the link between alcohol and sexual assault, strictly enforcing sobriety on campus while taking a softer approach on sexual activity with messaging that appeals to students’ virtue.
Drinking, however, often occurs off campus, with later consequences for on-campus behavior. And relying on students’ self-restraint amid a culture obsessed with sexuality and pornography seems quite risky and naïve.
Some college leaders worry that they’ll lose students if opposite-sex visitation isn’t allowed.
The difficulties, then, of building a campus environment that demands chastity and sobriety in campus residences are real enough. But they seem surmountable at a college committed to safety and Catholic morality.
Especially for Catholic colleges, protecting students’ health and their immortal souls must be the higher priority.
Adopting commonsense student dorm room policies won’t stop off-campus sexual assaults, and it won’t solve every problem on campus. It doesn’t mitigate the responsibility to provide adequate support for victims of assault. But it could help prevent the many assaults that do occur in dorm rooms as a predictable consequence of casual sex and drinking, while upholding the Catholic mission of the college.
It is here that college officials and those concerned with combatting sexual assaults should emulate the commonsense and faithful policies of some of the Newman Guide colleges noted above.
Ten years ago, Pope Benedict told Catholic educators34 in the U.S. that the crisis of truth is rooted in a crisis of faith.
Catholic colleges should face the ugly truth that, for many of them, their dorm policies may have the effect of undermining their important faith-filled missions. The fact that this is unintentional—and perhaps even contradicted by other efforts to teach moral behavior—does not make the problems go away.
There is nothing anyone can do to eliminate concupiscence and evil in the world. All the more reason that we believe every Catholic college should build a campus climate that celebrates chaste, Catholic living. This is what Catholic families should expect from Catholic education.
The Cardinal Newman Society’s mission is to promote and defend faithful Catholic education. We believe that families have a right to expect that a Catholic education will uphold Truth in accord with the timeless teaching and tradition of the Catholic Church, so as to prepare young people for this world and for eternity with God in heaven.
John Dewey and Progressivist Education
/in Blog Latest/by Daniel HubinDespite its dominance in philosophy and scientific inquiry, Enlightenment empiricism would have but minimal practical effect upon education until it manifested itself powerfully in a philosophy of education—progressivism —that came to prominence during the early years of the twentieth century.
Progressivism was largely founded by the thought and labor of John Dewey (1859-1952), a man whose mind was enraptured by the scientific method, and who expanded its use to education.[1] He took the processes of empirical science, established by such men as Sir Francis Bacon, and extended them further than most of the men of the Enlightenment would have taken them. While men such as John Locke (1632-1704) would have seen the scientific method as a means by which empiricist knowledge is gained regarding objective, physical nature, Dewey understood the scientific method as knowledge itself.[2] While at least most empiricists would have remained consistent with the ages past in holding a division between knowing and doing, Dewey abolished that division and postulated knowledge to be but mere doing.[3]He advocated a theory known as operationalism which held that knowledge is merely the scientific method in action.[4]
In his thought, Dewey reflected in many ways that of the Enlightenment philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778), who seems to have perceived the logical results of the Enlightenment better than did his contemporaries.[5] Dewey paid much heed and respect to Rousseau, who Henry T. Edmundson III described as the “single most important influence on progressive education,” both in Europe and America, although Dewey rightly criticized Rousseau’s neglect of his own children.[6] An essential point of agreement between Rousseau and Dewey was their belief in the natural goodness of man.[7]
Endorsed by pure empiricists such as John Locke, this concept of man’s innate goodness flowed naturally from the nominalist and empiricist positions.[8] In the words of Richard Weaver, “If physical nature is the totality and if man is of nature, it is impossible to think of him as suffering from constitutional evil; his defections must now be attributed to his simple ignorance or to some kind of social deprivation. One comes thus by clear deduction to the corollary of the natural goodness of man.”[9] Without universals, there is nothing to which human nature may be compared and nothing by which it may be deemed corrupted.[10] If anything is wrong with man, the ill is due to something external to man (such as a destructive environment or a lack of information) and not to man himself. Man is, as described by John Locke, born with a mind that is a tabula rasa or “blank slate,” without any natural propensity to evil.[11] The doctrine of original sin is thereby abolished.[12]
As a result of these ideas, Rousseau and Dewey promoted what has since been labeled the “child-centered” approach to education.[13] For them, education is concerned with hands-on experience and physical activities and manipulations—the only true knowledge—with an emphasis on vocational preparation.[14] They saw the rightful foundation of these endeavors as the natural impulses of the child.[15] Based upon the natural goodness of man, they charged previous education with suppressing these impulses as vices and, thereby, with suppressing the selfhood of the child.[16] These impulses should be set free from adult correction or discipline and utilized as guides for classroom activities and instruction.[17] In this way, the ideas of Dewey, reflecting those of Rousseau’s “noble savage,” led to traditional virtue and notions of sin or evil being replaced in America’s educational system by the savage’s right to be “himself,” a shift which encouraged an egocentric, i.e. selfish or prideful, approach to knowledge. The results of such a shift are all too evident in our current situation.
[1]. Clark, Gordon H. Thales to Dewey: A History of Philosophy. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Book House, 1980, 519, 523, 525.
[2]. Ibid., 525.
[3]. Ibid., 524-525.
[4]. Ibid., 526.
[5]. Henry T. Edmondson, John Dewey & the Decline of American Education: How the Patron Saint of Schools Has Corrupted Teaching and Learning (Wilmington, DE: ISI Books, 2006), 8-9.
[6]. Ibid.
[7]. Ibid., 8.
[8]. Russell Kirk, The Roots of American Order (Washington, DC: Regnery Gateway, 1991), 406.
[9]. Richard M. Weaver, Ideas Have Consequences (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1984), 4-5.
[10]. Ibid., 4.
[11]. Kirk, Roots of American Order, 406.
[12]. Weaver, Ideas Have Consequences, 4.
[13]. Edmondson, John Dewey, 8.
[14]. Ibid., 8-9.
[15]. Ibid., 22.
[16]. Ibid., 8, 22, 23, 33.
[17]. Ibid., 22, 23.
DANIEL K. HUBIN resides in the Nashville, Tenn., area where he studies education, history, and literature at Welch College. He earned the Eagle Scout Award in 2014 and currently teaches U.S. government and civics to homeschool students.
America’s Common Core: Standardization by a Low Standard
/in Academics Commentary, Common Core/by Joseph PearceMany years ago, the English writer G. K. Chesterton claimed that the “coming peril” facing civilization was “standardization by a low standard.” Today, almost a century later, Chesterton’s words have something of the mark of prophecy about them. Standards of literacy and numeracy, to say nothing of standards of morality, are not so much declining as plummeting.
The calamitous “dumbing down” of America’s already beleaguered education system is encapsulated and epitomized by the monstrous Common Core. At the risk of seeming a trifle sensationalist, this affront to educational standards is nothing short of being a crime against humanity. Let’s not forget that the humanities are thus called because they teach us about our own humanity. A failure to appreciate the humanities must inevitably lead to the dehumanizing of culture and a disastrous loss of the ability to see ourselves truthfully and objectively.
The problem is that the architects of the Common Core do not believe that it is possible to see ourselves truthfully and objectively. They have a chilling indifference to truthfulness and objectivity in human affairs, rejecting all discussion of truth and objectivity except in terms of that which can be measured empirically by science. With regard to the truth that we can know about ourselves as human beings, and which is expressed in the great works that have graced our civilization through the centuries, they never get beyond Pontius Pilate’s famous question, quid est veritas?, which is asked not in the spirit of philosophy as a question to be answered, but in the ennui of intellectual philandery as merely a rhetorical question that is intrinsically unanswerable. This intellectual philandery spawns numerous illegitimate children, each of which has its day as the dominant fad of educationists, at least until a new intellectual fad replaces it. It is in the nature of fads to fade but in the brief period in which they find themselves in the fashionable limelight they can cause a great deal of damage, a fact that Chesterton addressed with customary adroitness in 1910, over a century ago:
Obviously it ought to be the oldest things that are taught to the youngest people; the assured and experienced truths that are put first to the baby. But in a school today the baby has to submit to a system that is younger than himself. The flopping infant of four actually has more experience and has weathered the world longer than the dogma to which he is made to submit. Many a school boasts of having the latest ideas in education, when it has not even the first idea; for the first idea is that even innocence, divine as it is, may learn something from experience.
Implicit in Chesterton’s critique of the nature of modern education is a condemnation of the intellectual elitism that fuels the transient fads and fashions of the zeitgeist, the antidote to which is the timeless touchtone of Tradition.
It should, of course, be obvious that the disenfranchisement of the past inherent in the Common Core’s manic pursuit of novelty is not only an abandonment of the wisdom of the dead but also a disenfranchisement of the unborn. In denigrating and deriding the Great Books of Western Civilization, and the great ideas that informed them, the doyens of the modern academy have broken the continuum by which the wisdom of the ages is transmitted to each new generation. In refusing any authority beyond the individualism of the self, egocentric Man (homo superbus) has disinherited himself from his own priceless inheritance; in imposing his egocentric ethos on the Common Core, he is also disinheriting future generations. He is a contemptuous and therefore contemptible cad who not only kicks down the ladder by which he’s climbed but tries to destroy the ladder so that no-one coming after him can climb it either.
The Common Core is nothing less than the dogmatic imposition of radical relativism, the only philosophy compatible with homo superbus, a philosophy which goes hand in glove with the implementation of secular fundamentalism, the political ideology of homo superbus. Such a philosophy and its accompanying ideology refuses to tolerate anything but the things it tolerates itself, doing so in the name of “tolerance”, an egregious and outrageous example of the sheer chutzpah of Orwellian double-think! In short, homo superbus has recreated education in his own image, sacrificing all rival dogmas on the altar of self-worship he has erected to himself, on which the tabernacle of any god other than himself has been replaced by the mirror of self-referential subjectivism. There is no place in such self-referential education for religion or for any metaphysical philosophy, nor for the great writers and thinkers who espouse religion or a metaphysical understanding of the cosmos. Homer and Plato and Aristotle are vanquished, vanishing from school curricula. There’s no room for Dante or Chaucer or Shakespeare; or Austen or Dickens or Dostoyevsky. Instead today’s already malnourished high school students will be fed trivia and trash, selected on the basis of its perceived “relevance”. Instead of a good, solid education offering real meat and gravitas, American kids, thanks to the Common Core, are being fed a thin gruel of nutrient-free nonsense. A good education is health-food for the mind and soul, full of nourishing traditions; the Common Core offers only fast food and junk food for the soulless and the mindless.
The reductio ad absurdum at the heart of such a system of education was certainly not lost on Chesterton, who perceived it as the very antithesis of the object of a true education: “The whole point of education is that it should give a man abstract and eternal standards by which he can judge material and fugitive standards.” The problem is that the radical relativism of the Common Core presumes that there are no abstract and eternal standards but that, on the contrary, all standards are merely fugitive, here today and gone tomorrow. Education does not serve truth because there is no truth to serve. Chesterton’s bon mot will not serve as a motto for the modern academy because the modern academy does not serve anything but itself. Its motto is non serviam. In such circumstances, education ceases to be the means to an end because there is no end, in the objective sense of a purpose or meaning to life. Such an education, incarnate in the Common Core, is nothing less than the end of education in that other doom-laden sense of the word. It has put an end to it.
The tragedy of the Common Core is that it has left us perilously ignorant of who we are, where we are, where we have come from, and where we are going. We are lost and blissfully unaware that we are heading for the abyss. Such is the price we are doomed to pay for our blind faith in nothing in particular.
This article was first published in the International Business Times.
Editorial: Infidelity, Dissent and Scandal—from McCarrick to Catholic Education
/in Blog Latest/by Cardinal Newman Society StaffIn light of the terrible scandals confronting the Church in recent days, may we (once again) propose a key part of the solution to widespread infidelity, dissent and scandal?
We propose the renewal of faithful Catholic education.
The Church has been repeatedly wounded by the predatory, criminal and obscene abuse of innocent boys and men by trusted leaders, including former Cardinal McCarrick and those who enabled him.
How can we still be in this situation? After the 2002 scandals, the faithful stood with the bishops and trusted them to end not just the sex abuse scandals—which we were assured were all in the past—but also to work to rebuild and strengthen Catholic identity across the Church’s institutions.
But here we are 16 years later. Church attendance is plummeting, young people are abandoning the faith, and heterodox Catholic colleges, leaders and organizations have persisted in dissent and scandal without consequence or public correction.
If you wonder how we got here, Anthony Esolen’s article on the McCarrick scandals at the Newman Society’s website is a must-read. McCarrick, he points out, was one of the signers of the infamous “Land O’ Lakes Statement” in 1967, which paved the way to outright dissent and academic opposition to Humanae Vitae a year later.
Esolen rightly finds that the Cardinal’s behavior—and the apparent tolerance for that behavior by other bishops—had much the same cause as the decline of Catholic education.
And it can be corrected, if all of us in the Church demand fidelity and true Catholic formation in our homes, our schools, our colleges, and our seminaries.
But this will be easier said than done. In many corners of the institutional Church, we seem to be rushing to meet the (fallen) world where it is, instead of boldly and confidently proclaiming that true happiness is found in Truth, in the Way of Christ. Just look at the agendas, marketing materials and speaking lineups of the upcoming World Meeting of Families and the Synod on Young People.
More than ever, what our families need… what the Church needs… what all the world needs, is a revitalization of truly faithful Catholic education.
Still, in too many Catholic elementary and secondary schools, we find the influence of the utilitarian Common Core and secular textbooks and curricula, often embraced by well-meaning but apparently poorly catechized educators. The Newman Society’s Catholic Is Our Core project exposed the inadequacy of the Common Core, and thankfully many dioceses have abandoned it. A number of them have embraced our faithful Catholic Curriculum Standards. But there is still so much more to be done.
With regard to Catholic colleges, it is well past time for the Church—the bishops, the clergy and religious, and parents—to publicly reject those that undermine fundamental Church teachings while claiming a Catholic identity! This scandal has done enormous damage to souls.
The most heterodox of the Catholic colleges serve as incubators for practically every bad idea in the Church today. Dissident educators and their college leaders bear direct responsibility for leading young people astray—and yet we cannot ignore the painful fact that the Church’s continued endorsement of these institutions leads many Catholic families to send their sons and daughters to be corrupted by sin and relativism.
More than a quarter of Catholic colleges allow overnight, opposite-sex visitation in student bedrooms! What effect do you suppose that has on students and their faith? Where are Church leaders and Catholic parents on this? Why are they not demanding that it stop?
This is just one example of how the Church’s silence on public scandal and the collapse of Catholic moral formation have fostered infidelity and dissent.
The good news is that there is a renewal of Catholic education underway: at Newman Guide colleges; at Catholic Education Honor Roll schools, including lay-run independent Catholic schools that get too little support and attention from the Church; in the exploding Catholic homeschool community that also gets too little support and attention from the Church; and in lay Catholic organizations like the Newman Society, FOCUS, ICLE, the Augustine Institute, and so many others.
Thanks be to God for this!
And thanks also for those orthodox and holy priests and bishops who faithfully live their vocations and proclaim the Truth of Christ. We have met and worked closely with many of them, and they need our prayers and support more than ever.
We need the entire Church, both clergy and laity, to demand fidelity from every Catholic and every institution which claims a Catholic identity. It’s an expression of the greatest love to uphold Truth, Beauty and Goodness in Catholic education and throughout the Church. May we love our young people and fellow Catholics more deeply and fervently in these times of dissent and confusion.
Founder of Catholic Magazines Reflects on Faithful Catholic Education
/in Blog Newman Guide Articles, Profiles in FCE/by Cardinal Newman Society StaffGraduates of Newman Guide colleges are making a difference for the Church and the world, and Rose Rea is no exception! A graduate of Franciscan University in Ohio, Rose is the founder of Radiant and Valiant magazines for young Catholic women and men, respectively. Readers can subscribe to Radiant and Valiant magazines, which are owned by Our Sunday Visitor, at this link. We thank Rose for taking the time to share with us about how her Catholic education prepared her to share the Faith through these magazines.
Photo of Rose Rea by Lisa Wahl.
Rose, how did Franciscan University of Steubenville prepare you to serve the Church and achieve professional success?
Franciscan has a way of bringing people to campus who are not afraid to live out their faith in a beautiful and vibrant way. I had never seen anything like it in my high school years, so when I visited my older sister attending Steubenville, I knew immediately that this was the place I wanted to be. I made life-long friends there, studied abroad and traveled all over Europe learning about the history of our Catholic Church and most importantly, I was educated and formed in a Catholic environment by people who wanted me to succeed in whatever I felt called to do. Having Fr. Michael Scanlan as a spiritual advisor was also the biggest blessing. What a holy man he was!
How has your Catholic college education helped you communicate with young men and women in Radiant and Valiant magazines?
It sounds cliché, but to be around people who were cool and Catholic resonated deeply within my heart. So many adolescents and young adults feel very alone in their faith, because most of their peers around them are not living out a faith-filled life. At Franciscan University, we connected with people from all walks of life who were very great examples of people living in the world doing very normal things, but who were not “of the world”. That definitely motivated me to want to bring that mentality to young women and men everywhere. I felt that if I could just inspire one young lady to save herself for marriage because she is worth it or one young man to step up to make a decision God wanted him to make, even if it was difficult and hard, it would be valuable! The world is in desperate need of courageous men and women who are ready to answer God’s often difficult calling in their lives and we want them to understand that a small yes to God can lead to making a huge difference in the world! Every fire starts with a spark, right?!
What kind of articles can readers, including college students and graduates, find in these magazines?
Readers will find so many different topics covered! For the ladies, we cover topics like dating and relationships, include modest fashion in each issue, and highlight in-depth interviews and personal stories from well-known speakers and authors. We feature artists and photographers, as well as fantastic organizations, who are making a difference in their respective vocations. Overall, women will find all kinds of stories that will uplift and inspire them to grow deeper in their faith and allow them to connect with women just like them.
For the men, we share stories of courage, conviction and determination by guys just like our readers who were not afraid to answer God’s call in their own lives. We feature authors, bloggers, musicians, priests, military men and national speakers who are making a difference. It is so incredibly fun and rewarding to work with these talented young, Catholic men and women. Their stories are phenomenal!
This October, the Vatican will host a Synod on Young People. Some have suggested that the Church needs to back away from certain teachings and traditions to appeal to young people, but to the contrary, your readers and the students at Newman Guide colleges are attracted to the Church. How can the Church communicate Truth, Goodness and Beauty to today’s young people?
I completely agree with the latter; the doctrine and teachings of our Catholic Faith do not need to be updated or changed for our modern times. The teachings only need to be communicated in a more appealing and effective way to reach today’s young in the modern language that they speak. God’s gift to us, the teachings of the Catholic Church and the beautiful examples of the Saints and the martyrs need to be reheard and retaught to the new generation; so many of them are already responding in a positive way! There is much more work to be done, but I see the fruits of the sacrifices our parents and those before us have made. This is a difficult but special time to be Catholic, and our own happiness and the salvation of many souls depend on our complete abandonment to God. When that happens, then we’ll find peace! That is the goal of Radiant and Valiant magazines—to bring our readers to this peace—which we strive to do, led by our most blessed mother, the Virgin Mary.