I have told the glad news of deliverance in the great congregation; lo, I have not restrained my lips, as thou knowest, O LORD.  (Psalms 40:9)

Let the children come to me; for the kingdom of God belongs to such as these. (Mark 10:14)

Some years back I joined a committee formed to save our local Catholic elementary school. Our school suffered from declining enrollment, poor morale, and, most critically, from insufficient funds to finish the school year. The reasons justifying this abject state of affairs were many.  They ranged from the vague assertion that times have changed, to the broad justification that our Catholic communities simply could no longer afford Catholic schools, and, more narrowly,  to specific charges implying simple mismanagement.  I suspect this scenario is not unique but repeats itself with minor variations throughout many of our Catholic school systems.

The committee formed to save our school acknowledged these reasons, but looked deeper. Why did Catholic schools once thrive when people were actually poorer than they are today, when people didn’t have wide screen televisions, when entertainment piped into our homes through cable networks was not considered an essential utility, when our children did not each have personal phones they carried everywhere, and when even our cars, like our lives were much simpler?  Our community is a small city in a rural area with a population that is largely Catholic. At the time of my initial involvement there were four parishes within an easy driving distance of no more than three miles from our one regional school.  If even one quarter of the Catholic population put their children in our school it would have thrived.

What the committee saw was that the Catholic community, neither pastor nor parishioner, no longer took ownership of its schools. The churches reluctantly contributed what the diocese demanded. The pastors begged off further support, financial or moral, claiming that the school was just a private academy benefiting few. They pointed to many problems, problems that ranged from financial need, to administrative incompetence, and even to students who did not know how to behave in Mass. Parishioners shared these views and saw the school as something solely for the parents of the students enrolled.  Parishioners believed that the schools had nothing to do with them.  Both parishioners and pastors were correct in their assessments. When we no longer see our schools as integral to our faith, they become orphans lost in the wilderness of the secular world, taking direction from wherever they can find it.  Our school had a financial crisis compounded by poor business practices, but the real problem, and one I believe is endemic to many of our Catholic schools, was and is a crisis of faith.

In our attempts to find the best business model for our Catholic schools we have forgotten that our schools are a faith based business.  Our capital is the faith we put into them. When that capital dries up, our schools wither and become something other than what they should be.  Our student population declines, our funds dry up, and parishioners and pastors see little reason to support the schools.  Even more tragically, our schools lose their way in the morass of academic excellence at the expense of their evangelical mission. We should know we have reached a crisis of faith when we seek guidance from marketing experts singing a siren’s song assuring us that our faith belongs in them. We should know we have reached a crisis of faith when we see the salvation of our schools in the wealthy donor rather than in the body of faithful who comprise our church. We should know we have a crisis of faith when our eyes no longer focus on Jesus as the sole purpose for our schools.  But we don’t, because to do so will require us to change.

I believe that the beginning to the end of our problems with our Catholic schools begins when we see the problem as a crisis of faith and we respond to it as a community of faith.  Our response will not only change our schools.  It will change us.  It will change both parishioner and pastor. It will require our pastors to see that God responds to their faith through their parishioners. It will require parishioners to see that their faith reveals resources previously unseen.  It will require all to see that our schools are an expression of our faith and a gift, both to our children and to ourselves as a community. And it requires all to see that it is the faith of the community that is the anchor that keeps our schools truly Catholic, where we see Jesus as “the truth, the way and the life.”

The call to faith in our communities must be mirrored with a call to faith in our schools. We must be able to answer the following questions; Why should we have Catholic schools? Why should Catholics support our Catholic schools? Why should our pastors justify our Catholic schools to their parishioners? Why should Catholic parents, or parents of any faith, send their children to Catholic schools? The answer to all of these questions is that our schools are integral to our Catholic faith. They are one of the tools the Church uses to bring Christ’s message of salvation to all.  Our schools are a simple reflection of the Church’s very reason to be. But we can only answer in this way if they are truly Christ centered and truly evangelical.

In a school so centered, academic excellence is necessarily correlative to the evangelical goal of the school, but it cannot be its guiding principle. The goal of the school is to lead students to Christ. To see their talents as given by God is to see that they must be returned to God fully developed.

This requires the highest academic standards.  To accept less than excellence would not be Catholic. But leading with academic excellence as our primary appeal pushes Christ aside. We will find ourselves conveying an ambivalent message to prospective parent and student, “Yes, we are Catholic.  But you don’t need to worry about that.”  Or as one marketing expert assured us, “You don’t need to mention Catholic in your marketing. People already know that.” The clear implication was that we don’t want to scare anybody away.  The pursuit of academic excellence, rather than the formation of saints, as the product we need in order to sell our schools in today’s marketplace will compel compromise. To think that we can bait with academics and then switch in Christ diminishes both the school and Christ.  Such an appeal is a reflection not on the faith of our potential clients but on our own faith. When we think our schools can be Christ-centered on the inside and worldly-wise on the outside, we will be serving two masters.  Jesus, himself, made it clear this was not possible. When we don’t lead with our faith we will find ourselves hiding Christ behind one door after another.  We will be serving the wrong master. Despite our best intentions, like the ever well-intended St. Peter, we will deny Christ.

When we fear an open proclamation of the message of Jesus Christ, we truly have entered a crisis of faith.  If the apostles had shown such reticence the church would have died with Jesus on the cross. Our faith is evident when we lead with Jesus Christ, not furtively, not stealthily, not even quietly but with the compelling confidence of a people who have been given the truth and understand that to spread that truth is to truly love your neighbor, whoever he or she may be and from whatever background they come. This is the mission of the church, to bring the message of salvation to all, not just those who won’t take offense. This should be the mission of our schools. When we try to hide this we become like Jonah, we run, we hide, or we board a ship going anywhere but where we have been called to go. We think that God couldn’t really have chosen us to spread his message.

We look on our neighbors as either undeserving of the truth or simply unready to receive the truth we hold. I believe we have become like Jonah with our Catholic schools. We won’t trumpet our faith because we believe it will turn people off. We think we need something slicker, something more comfortable, something that doesn’t call for real change. Like Jonah, we think others either don’t deserve the Word passed on to us or are simply not ready for it. When we hide our message, we hide our faith.  Faith hidden is no faith at all. We cannot rally our communities in faith to a message they cannot see.  Like pastor and parishioner, our schools must change in faith. They must become what we should be.

To see the problem is to realize that the solution is not an easy one. Where we are comfortable we must become uncomfortable. To see the problem as a crisis of faith is to see that the solution is a changed life. This is not an easy sell for either pastor, parishioner or our schools.  I believe the solution begins with an honest discussion within our Catholic communities of who we are as Catholics and how our schools must reflect that vision. We might begin those discussions with a book by Archbishop Miller, CSB, entitled The Holy See’s Teaching on Catholic Schools.  If our local schools are failing and we simply continue to point our fingers at them as responsible for their own fate, rather than at ourselves, then we have missed something important. If we don’t claim personal and communal responsibility our schools will continue to fail or they will become something no longer truly Catholic.

The mission statement guiding the schools of the Diocese of Wichita is unequivocal and provides an example that clearly leads the way:

“Together with the family, the parish and each other, we will FORM EACH STUDENT INTO A DISCIPLE OF JESUS CHRIST Who seeks the Truth, grows to love It, And learns to live It.” [Their caps, not mine.]

As an ethicist, I draw on a system of ethics known as ‘Natural Law theory’. The theory dates back to Aristotle, was developed by Thomas Aquinas, and has, in recent decades undergone a resurgence and reinterpretation. So I have an interest in the use of the words ‘natural’ and ‘nature’ with regard to ethical issues. Unfortunately the confusion over these words is such that many people find the whole concept of Natural Law theory preposterous. (I know I did.) How can there be ‘laws of nature’ with regard to ethics? Isn’t the whole point that the freedom of the human will defies any laws of nature? If there were laws of nature regarding ethics, then surely we wouldn’t have any choice but to obey them?

Naturally, I want to set the record straight. Now please hold still while I correct you:

How vast is God, the ruler of men below! How arrayed in terrors is God, with many things irregular in his ordinations! Heaven gave birth to the multitudes of the people, but the nature it confers is not to be depended on. All are [good] at first, but few prove themselves to be so at the last.

Can you guess the origins of this quotation? I’ll give you a hint: it’s not biblical, it’s not Jewish; it’s not from the Middle East, but from the Far one. The text comes from the ancient Chinese Book of Odes, a collection of 311 poems dating from 1000 BC to 476 BC. This passage conveys an impression of God (上帝 Shang Di: the supreme Emperor) which might seem familiar to a Western audience. But the use of the word ‘nature’ is probably less familiar. The German Sinologist Richard Wilhelm explained this Chinese perspective well:

‘Man has received from heaven a nature innately good, to guide him in all his movements. By devotion to this divine spirit within himself, he attains an unsullied innocence that leads him to do right with instinctive sureness and without any ulterior thought of reward and personal advantage. This instinctive certainty brings about supreme success and “furthers through perseverance”. However, not everything instinctive is nature in this higher sense of the word, but only that which is right and in accord with the will of heaven. Without this quality of rightness, an unreflecting, instinctive way of acting brings only misfortune. Confucius says about this: “He who departs from innocence, what does he come to? Heaven’s will and blessing do not go with his deeds. “’

This concept of nature is by no means peculiar to Chinese thought. As the etymology shows: ‘nature’ comes from ‘natus’ meaning ‘born’, as in ‘the characteristics a person or thing is born with’. In the era of medieval philosophy the word took on its more abstract and refined connotations such as “essential qualities, innate disposition”.

When we hear people claim that something is ‘unnatural’ they are (or ought to be) speaking in terms of the qualities or disposition that we are born with. But use of such terms as ‘natural’ and ‘unnatural’ in the present culture is often confused with a different philosophical notion of ‘nature’ as ‘the great outdoors’, ‘mother nature’, or ‘stuff animals do.’ This basic interpretation of nature simply defines it as everything that is not produced by human effort or ingenuity. A natural lake stands in contradistinction to a man-made lake. Natural light is distinguished from artificial light – the product of human artifice. This alternate meaning of ‘nature’ can also be embellished and romanticised such that the term ‘natural’ can even bestow a quasi-mystical form of approval; while describing something as ‘unnatural’ is to condemn it as somehow misbegotten, malformed, dangerous, or toxic.

So we have three closely related concepts, presented here in suspected order of development:

1. Nature as the essential qualities of a thing
2. Nature as distinct from human activity
3. Nature as a quasi-mystical force or principle

First, things have their own nature or essential qualities. Secondly, we observe that human beings have the ability to choose how they will act; our actions can either accord with, or conflict with our own essential qualities or nature. Humans have, for example, discovered that inhaling smoke into our lungs on a regular basis is not conducive to our health, even though it might feel good.

Not only can we act against our own nature, we can also subvert or alter other things against their own nature: thus we domesticate animals, make furniture from the wood of trees, cook food to make it more palatable, and so on. It is not, strictly speaking, in the nature of animals to behave domestically, nor of trees to act as tables, nor for various foods to be altered by the heat of cooking. Hence, we distinguish between ‘natural’ as the way things are without human interference, and ‘man-made’ or ‘artificial’ for those things whose properties are dependent upon human intervention.

Thirdly, this distinction between the world without human interference and the world with human interference has taken on a moral or quasi-mystical aspect. We have grown weary of our own artifice, and suspicious of the value of our interventions. A recent history of man-made disasters, the creation of toxic, radioactive, and otherwise dangerous substances, and even the aesthetic misery of many urban human environments have all contributed to the impression that the natural world is superior to that produced through human intervention. Natural wonders are achieving greater significance than man-made wonders. Natural processes from environmental management to childbirth are attributed an almost spiritual quality found lacking in more artificial processes. Rightly or wrongly, natural ingredients and products seem inherently favourable over synthetic or man-made ones. We feel nature can be trusted; human beings, not so much.

So what about human nature, the ‘essential qualities’ of a human being?

In the Chinese context, human nature puts us in a precarious position. Our own nature or ‘essential qualities’ are conferred by Heaven; even in modern Chinese the phrase for ‘nature’ with regard to innate human characteristics is 天性 where the first character stands for ‘heaven’ and the second stands more generically for ‘nature’, ‘character’ or ‘gender’. In fact the second character is itself composed of the character 心 for ‘heart’, and the character 生 for ‘birth’ or ‘to be born’, which, as we saw, correlates nicely with the Latin root of ‘nature’ being ‘natus’ meaning ‘born’. Human nature can be described as that which is in one’s heart 心 from birth 生 bestowed by heaven 天。

Nevertheless we read in the Book of Odes that “the nature it confers is not to be depended on [since] all are [good] at first, but few prove themselves to be so at the last.” In other words, despite the fact that our nature is good and is conferred by heaven, people still turn out bad in the end. This is because human beings have the freedom to choose: we can follow our nature for the good, or we can turn against it for ill.

As our German Sinologist elaborated: “not everything instinctive is nature in this higher sense of the word, but only that which is right and in accord with the will of heaven.” We find ourselves troubled by seemingly ‘natural’ desires that are in conflict with one another. Likewise we find ourselves desiring things that we know simply cannot be part of our nature. Hence the objective qualifier that we must act in accordance with the will of heaven, that which conferred our nature in the first place.

The theologically savvy may have noticed that these concepts rather neatly parallel the Judeo-Christian perspective in which human beings were created good by God, but have gone awry from the created order through disobedience to God’s will. But this particular interpretation of the human predicament is heavily laden with centuries of religious and cultural baggage. The apparent religious drama of clashing human and divine wills and personalities unfortunately lends itself to an indignant adolescent interpretation in which God is perceived to be a domineering father figure whom we loathe and fear; someone more powerful than us who implicitly demands our servility and stands in opposition to our individual desires. In the interests of avoiding such emotional trigger-words as ‘commandments’ ‘disobedience’ and ‘punishment’, let us instead examine the following analogy.

Imagine you are a skilled robotic engineer, who has created a fully functional humanoid robot. Since you are also a fictional engineer, you have found it easily within your power to grant your robot the ability to pick and choose its own courses of action.

You install a list of guidelines for all the important things: remember to recharge regularly, do not immerse in water, do not drop, do not use if seal is broken, and so on. Of course, you could have ‘hardwired’ these instructions, but that would obviate the sheer coolness of a robot that has to decide not to drop itself repeatedly on its head, rather than being directly programmed not to. So although the robot has the ability to choose its own course of action, it is theoretically constrained by the nuances of its own nature.

Despite these instructions, the robot is still entirely capable of choosing to stand outside in the rain, drop itself from a height, or fail to recharge itself. If it ignores the instructions, it will be damaged. No need to talk about commands, punishments, or obedience.

This analogy illustrates the common points of the Chinese and Judeo-Christian view of human nature regarding our freedom to choose our own course of action. We have free will; we can use it however we like. But we are constrained by the logical limits of our own essential qualities. Tall people like me are constrained by stupidly low kitchen benches. Short people are constrained by wall cabinets placed at a reasonable height. One person cannot be both short and tall at the same time in the same way. We should therefore choose things that are suited to our nature.

In ethics, choosing things in accordance with our nature is known as ‘natural law’. Unfortunately, whenever an ethicist uses the term ‘natural law’ a certain proportion of his audience pictures an apple falling on Sir Isaac Newton’s head. We are used to hearing of ‘natural laws’ or ‘laws of nature’ in regard to physics rather than ethics. Yet it should come as no surprise to hear that human beings are subject to both physical laws as well as ethical ones. It is in the nature of human beings that our bodies are subject to the force of gravity; and we call this a physical law of nature. It is likewise in the nature of human beings that to choose to subject oneself to the force of gravity from a great height is not good for one’s continued survival, let alone one’s further flourishing. We call this an ethical law of human nature.

At this point, some are liable to object: how can it be an ethical law of nature, if we are free to break it? We aren’t free to break the law of gravity, after all.

But this objection misunderstands what the law is about. The ethical law does not say “You cannot throw yourself off a building”, rather it says “suicide is incompatible with human flourishing” and leaves you to work out for yourself the implications with regard to falling from a great height.

This is why human beings come undone. We are free to choose our course of action, yet we ought to heed the constraints of our own nature, our essential qualities. Instead, we desire things that cut against the grain of our nature. We find ourselves adapting to habits, beliefs, cravings, yearnings, a whole way of life with no foundation in human nature or the way of heaven. This is the predicament identified by the Chinese philosophers.

Another ancient Chinese text, the Book of Rites, depicts the tragedy of human existence under the power of unregulated desire:

‘Now there is no end of the things by which man is affected; and when his likings and dislikings are not subject to regulation (from within), he is changed into the nature of things as they come before him; that is, he stifles the voice of Heavenly principle within, and gives the utmost indulgence to the desires by which men may be possessed. On this we have the rebellious and deceitful heart, with licentious and violent disorder. The strong press upon the weak; the many are cruel to the few; the knowing impose upon the dull; the bold make it bitter for the timid; the diseased are not nursed; the old and young, orphans and solitaries are neglected – such is the great disorder that ensues.’

The remedy, laid out in the very beginning of the Book of Rites, is a simple yet profound prescription:

‘Pride should not be allowed to grow; the desires should not be indulged; the will should not be gratified to the full; pleasure should not be carried to excess.’

Our culture has known this prescription for thousands of years; yet at certain times including our contemporary culture, its guidance has been ignored. Our modern culture conflates this guidance with the negative image of our religious history as a repressive, domineering force. We are now quietly encouraged to let our pride grow, to indulge our desires, to gratify our will to the full and carry pleasure to excess; all under the auspices of rebellion against false religious servility.

Zac Alstin works at the Southern Cross Bioethics Institute in Adelaide, South Australia.

The news broke on Wednesday, April 18, that the Vatican Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith appointed Archbishop J. Peter Sartain of Seattle to lead the review of the LCWR when the findings of a Church assessment of the women’s religious group were made public.  One of the main points made by the Church was that serious theological and doctrinal errors occurred during the LCWR’s recent conferences.

Yesterday, April 19, Fordham theologian Jeannie Hill Fletcher noted, during PBS Newshour, that the nuns under scrutiny are in colleges and universities, among other places.  Fletcher said that a problem she has with the document issued by the Vatican is that it “seems to be trying to tell Women Religious to stop exploring the dynamics of the faith and simply take the tradition as it’s been handed to them.”

Fletcher said during the interview: “Let me just say, as a scholar — as a scholar of religion and a theologian, Church teaching does change.”

Fortunately, there was a representative of a faithful Catholic college also present on air to stand up for Church teachings.  The chairman of the board of Christendom College, Donna Bethell, went head to head with Fletcher during the segment and defended the Vatican’s decision regarding the LCWR.

Bethell was quick to point out that there are some doctrines of the church which are definitely not open to debate.

She explained the reason behind the Vatican’s assessment of the nuns.  She pointed out that the document issued by the Church underscores the importance for consecrated persons to be faithful to the teachings of the Church.

Bethell observed:

…[I]t’s one thing to actually contradict the Church, but it wasn’t just their job to avoid contradicting their Church. It’s their job to present the fullness of the Catholic faith and to help their members to understand it and to live it. And that’s where they had been found short.

The same might be said for some theology professors from Catholic universities.

You can go over to PBS and read the full transcript of the interview, or watch the video here.

Christendom College is promoted by The Cardinal Newman Society in The Newman Guide for its strong Catholic identity.

Before you click on the link, however, consider the following excerpts.

Eighty-four percent of students at a public research university believe students who cheat should be punished, yet two of every three admit to having cheated themselves. Most of the cheating students admit to involves homework, not tests, and they see academic misconduct applying differently to those two kinds of work.

The study takes place in Arizona, but evidence suggests the numbers would be roughly similar anywhere in America. And what are those numbers again? Two out of every three students admit to cheating!

The article goes on to concern itself with trying to locate blame for this among students, faculty and administration (resulting in an entertainingly bloody firefight in the combox).

The solution to cheating, as presented in the article, is frustratingly nebulous:

“It’s about communicating clearly in the classroom and spending time on the topic,” said Angela Baldasare, divisional manager of assessment and data analysis at the University of Arizona, about clarifying expectations and increasing the intrinsic values of assignments, “so that there’s something more to it than just a grade.”

The consensus among the experts is a similar haze of references to “better communication” and “setting clear goals,” as opposed to what ordinary, decent parents would say to their children: “Cheating is bad. It’s morally wrong. We’re supposed to be truthful and honest; do the best work you can and be happy in that.” I think the experts involved with the study would echo those sentiments if push came to shove, but more concern seems to lay with preserving students’ fragile egos then with instilling in them a love of virtue.

And that is what is really lurking behind all of this: an absence of virtue. Honesty, integrity, courage—these are not being raised to the status they deserve in our culture. Instead, merely succeeding is what we are driven and trained to do. As a result, the Arizona study…

…found the highest rates of cheating among fraternity and sorority members and international students, the latter of whom were most likely to use technology to cheat. Fewer than 10 percent of Arizona students said they’ve used technology to get answers during an exam, but more international than American students admitted to obtaining test answers online (21 versus 11 percent), having copied material from the Internet for a writing assignment without citing the source (23 versus 13 percent), and sending or receiving text messages during an exam (12 versus 3 percent). Cheating was reported least among students receiving need-based aid, and non-degree seeking and first-generation students. (The more education a student’s parents had, the more likely he or she was to have cheated.)

This is nauseating, of course. Can it really be remedied by an increase in stated expectations about plagiarism and not cheating?

Sure, a little. I actually like the idea, stated in the article, of a college planning light-hearted orientation workshops for students on what constitutes cheating and what the repercussions are. But, at the same time, doesn’t a college instructor have a right to expect that the roughly 18-25 year old adults who walk into their classroom already possess moral and ethical training and a sense of integrity?

One thing the study confirms: the modern college environment is such that the personal moral and ethical behavior of the student going into it will often decline. Measures can be taken to combat this, but the success of those measures depends on what kind of behavioral standards the students are used to, doesn’t it? Nobody’s perfect, of course: all college students need regular instruction and reminders about how to behave virtuously, and that is something in which a professor, ideally, should participate. Before any real change can happen, however, our entire culture needs a nearly one hundred eighty degree re-orientation towards what the purpose of a college education really is all about…and what makes for a truly successful human life.

Dawkins is in Sydney for the 2012 Global Atheist Convention, which is like Sydney’s World Youth Day in 2008, but much, much smaller. And much older. He was jet-lagged and a bit tetchy, like a new teacher in front of a class laughing at a joke he doesn’t understand. “Why is that funny?” he asked his audience several times in genuine perplexity. He was beautifully coiffed and coutured but he was not in peak form.

Pell, a massive, imposing man, looked weary. But he had eaten his spinach and landed a few jabs to the solar plexus. At one point Dawkins denied vehemently that Darwin was a theist, but Pell was able to jab his finger at his notes and say, “It’s on page 92 of his autobiography.” Hell is a reality, said Pell in response to a question from the audience, but I hope nobody’s in it – a compassionate position for which Dawkins appeared to have no riposte.

On the other hand Pell’s grasp of evolution appeared sketchy. He said that its engine was random natural selection, whereupon Dawkins triumphantly trumpeted non-random natural selection as his own “life’s work”. Dawkins then gave Pell a lecture on Australopithecines and Neanderthals.

Neither landed a KO, but I would have awarded the belt, on points, to Pell. A clash of the Titans it was not.

It was a pity that the debate was too short to draw little more than shop-worn jests and caustic platitudes out of Dawkins. There were no surprises in what Pell had to say. After all, the Catholic Church’s stand on fundamentals has not changed in 2,000 years. But Dawkins, to my surprise, seemed brittle and vulnerable. After the debate I was left scratching my head: is this man really the world’s leading propagandist for atheism? At 71, is it time for a golden parachute? Perhaps they can pass the hat at the Convention.

First of all, to everyone’s astonishment, Dawkins admitted that he is not an atheist. This was jaw-dropping, at least for those who know him only by reputation. Dawkins has become famous for scoffing at God, mocking believers and comparing religious education to child abuse. Only the other day he addressed a “Reason Rally” in Washington DC at which he urged the cheering faithful to “ridicule and show contempt” for the Catholic Eucharist.

Yet he now says, with some hemming and hawing, that he is not a simon-pure unbeliever. On a scale of 1 to 7 of belief in God, he ranks himself at about 6 — because a scientist cannot prove the non-existence of anything, from the Easter Bunny to God.

So hasn’t he been invited to the Global Atheist Convention under false pretences? He’s only another mushy spread-your-bets agnostic, for heaven’s sake. If I had purchased a A$310 ticket to the convention (plus a $150 dinner), I would be as dismayed as a Christian who learns that Mother Teresa had a very large Swiss bank account, six kids, and a taste for Johnnie Walker Black Label.

Another revelation is that he is not a simon-pure Darwinian either. He believes “passionately” that natural selection explains the existence of life. But the struggle to move up the evolutionary tree involves unbearable, unacceptable, suffering and it would be unthinkable to take The Origin of the Species as his Bible. “Survival of the fittest” is no guide to politics and morality. “Very unpleasant” indeed, he said, even Thatcher-ite. So the source of his morality is something other than evolution.

Finally, Dawkins is literally a killjoy. Perhaps his central message was the morose assertion that life has no purpose whatsoever. None at all. Zero. Purposes are done and dusted after Darwin. “Why? is a silly question. What is the purpose of the universe? is a silly question,” he said in a moment of exasperation.

Whatever the truth of this, meaninglessness is not a meme which has survival value. Thousands of years of human culture show that man is the only animal who has ever asked Why? The key to a culture’s survival is how successfully it can answer that question. The joy for which we all long comes when we discover meaning, even in the midst of suffering. But Dawkins’s vision is one of unrelieved bleakness. It would come as no surprise if his car sports the famous bumpersticker, “Life’s a bitch and then you die”.

What the rather rambling conversation between the two tired men suggested to me was that Dawkins may be a gifted demagogue but he is a mediocre philosopher. “It’s a cop-out to say that anything exists outside of time and space,” he said testily. In this assumption are summarised all of his arguments and mockery. But it is no more than an unproved assumption. If only what can be touched and measured is true, there may be no God, but neither is there justice, or beauty, or love, or consciousness, or mathematics. As Cardinal Pell said, with great insight:

“If I get a chance to say to ask a question when I die I think I will ask the good God why is there so much suffering. That’s a problem for us… [But] I think it’s a much greater problem for the atheist to explain why there is goodness and truth and beauty. Our problem is to cope with suffering. One of the unique… features of Christian teaching is the value of redemptive suffering and that is the significance of Christ suffering with us and dying on the cross. That helps people.”

People fret more about coping with suffering than with how to make ever-more-vicious sneers at God. After last night’s debate, my chips are on Christianity rather than atheism as the philosophy most fit to bring humanity through the challenges of the 21st century.

Michael Cook is editor of MercatorNet. 

Reform in America’s public schools occurs with seemingly glacial slowness. In the private sector, businesses (including schools) that provide a lousy product quickly lose customers. They either correct their deficiencies or they eventually close. Similarly, if the problem is poor performance by a private enterprise’s workers, then either the employees start doing a better job or management replaces them to save the company.

Ave Maria President Jim Towey, former head of the Bush administration’s Office of Faith-Based & Community Initiatives, said, “As an American Catholic, I am in disbelief that I have to choose between being a good Catholic and a good citizen. I will not, and the University will not, accept this false choice.”

Towey said that the university will not allow any President “to force conformance to his or her religious or secular orthodoxy through executive action.”

The Becket Fund for Religious Liberty filed the suit in federal court in Florida.

“The federal mandate puts Ave Maria in a terrible bind,” said Kyle Duncan, General Counsel for the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, which filed suit this morning on behalf of the University.  “Either it betrays its faith and covers the drugs, or else it ends employee health benefits and pays hundreds of thousands in annual fines.”

Towey said, he is prepared to discontinue the university’s health plan and pay the $2,000 per employee, per year fine rather than comply with an “unjust, immoral” mandate.

You can read President Towey’s entire statement by clicking here.

The school released a statement announcing that Tim Miller, a pro-abortion rights and pro-gay marriage performance artist who often appears nude on stage, would not be hosting a week-long workshop on campus in April.

“Villanova University embraces intellectual freedom and academic discourse. Indeed, it is at the very heart of our University and our Augustinian Catholic intellectual tradition. With regard to the forthcoming residency and performance workshops by Tim Miller, we had concerns that his performances were not in keeping with our Catholic and Augustinian values and mission.

“Therefore, Villanova has decided not to host Mr. Miller on our campus. Villanova University is an open and inclusive community and in no way does this singular decision change that.”

As The Cardinal Newman Society reported, Miller, according to Facebook, sued the National Endowment for the Arts for pulling a grant due to his obscene “art,” he’s been arrested dozens of times, is a very public advocate of gay marriage and abortion rights, and is a member of the anti-Catholic group ACT UP which once sent protesters to interrupt Sunday mass at St. Patrick’s Cathedral in New York and desecrated the Eucharist, according to The New York Times.

Far from renouncing his membership in ACT UP after that 1989 incident, Miller remains a member of ACT UP, according to Facebook, and even called the group’s confrontational tactics, “the single most influential thing in my life.“

Miller’s “art” has reportedly included simulating intercourse and lewdly exposing his naked body.  Has has criticized the “hideous religious baggage” that Americans have and said laws defending traditional marriage are “right out of the Third Reich.”

Miller responded to the cancelled invitation from Villanova in news reports by blaming Catholic blogs, saying that they were spreading “this bizarre lie that I’m anti-Catholic … People tell these lies and it gets people who read these blogs worked up.”

“Times have changed,” he reportedly said. “We’re in a much more coercive, censorious time.”

The school had billed the performance workshop as “an intimate process of self-discovery and exploration, focusing on identity and culture, questions of diversity and difference, knowledge of self and others, etc.”

To read the original report from The Cardinal Newman Society please click here.

Holy Father, Cardinal Sodano, my brothers in Christ:

Sia lodato Gesu Cristo! [Praised be, Jesus Christ!]

It is as old as the final mandate of Jesus, “Go, teach all nations!,” yet as fresh as God’s Holy Word proclaimed at our own Mass this morning . . .

I speak of the sacred duty of evangelization. It is “ever ancient, ever new.” The how of it, the when of it, the where of it, may change, but the charge remains constant, as does the message and inspiration, “Jesus Christ, the same yesterday, today, and tomorrow.”

We gather in the caput mundi, evangelized by Peter and Paul themselves, in the city from where the successors of St. Peter “sent out” evangelizers to present the saving Person, message, and invitation that is at the heart of evangelization: throughout Europe, to the “new world” in the “era of discovery,” to Africa and Asia in recent centuries.

We gather near the basilica where the evangelical fervor of the Church was expanded during the Second Vatican Council, and near the tomb of the Blessed Pontiff who made the New Evangelization a household word.

We gather grateful for the fraternal company of a pastor who has made the challenge of the new evangelization almost a daily message.

Yes, we gather as missionaries, as evangelizers.

We hail the teaching of the Second Vatican Council, especially found in Lumen Gentium, Gaudium et Spes, and Ad Gentes, that refines the Church’s understanding of her evangelical duty, defining the entire Church as missionary, that all Christians, by reason of baptism, confirmation, and Eucharist, are evangelizers.

Yes, the Council reaffirmed, especially in Ad Gentes, there are explicit missionaries, sent to lands and peoples who have never heard the very Name by which all are saved, but also that no Christian is exempt from the duty of witnessing to Jesus and offering His invitation to others in his own day-to-day life.

Thus, mission became central to the life of every local church, to every believer. The context of mission shifted not only in a geographical sense, but in a theological sense, as mission applied not only to unbelievers but to believers, and some thoughtful people began to wonder if such a providential expansion of the concept of evangelization unintentionally diluted the emphasis of missio ad gentes ["mission to the Gentiles," broadly interpreted as "all peoples."]

Blessed John Paul II developed this fresh understanding, speaking of evangelizing cultures, since the engagement between faith and culture supplanted the relationship between church and state dominant prior to the Council, and included in this task the re-evangelizing of cultures that had once been the very engine of gospel values. The New Evangelization became the dare to apply the invitation of Jesus to conversion of heart not only ad extra but ad intra, to believers and cultures where the salt of the gospel had lost its tang. Thus, the missio is not only to New Guinea but to New York.

In Redemptoris Missio, #33, he elaborated upon this, noting primary evangelization –the preaching of Jesus to lands and people unaware of His saving message — the New Evangelization — the rekindling of faith in persons and cultures where it has grown lackluster — and the pastoral care of those daily living as believers.

We of course acknowledge that there can be no opposition between the missio ad gentes and the New Evangelization. It is not an “either-or” but a “both-and” proposition. The New Evangelization generates enthusiastic missionaries; those in the apostolate of the missio ad gentes require themselves to be constantly evangelized anew.

Even in the New Testament, to the very generation who had the missio ad gentes given by the Master at His ascension still ringing in their ears, Paul had to remind them to “stir into flame” the gift of faith given them, certainly an early instance of the New Evangelization.