Editor's Column, The Scholastic, Vol. 1

(Volume 1 of The Scholastic was originally published 29 April, 2019.)

We have dedicated this our first edition of The Scholastic to the newly canonised St. John Henry Newman in light of his work as an educator, a philosopher of education, and a rebuilder of the Catholic Church. In the wake of the long suppression of Catholic voices in the United Kingdom, one of St. Newman’s great concerns was the maintenance of intellectual freedom.

Newman knew firsthand the social pressure which constrained non-conforming voices like his own. And so when he was called as the first rector of the new Catholic University of Ireland, later renamed University College, he delivered a series of lectures which would eventually become The Idea of a University, stressing the importance of complete intellectual freedom, even in a university with such an explicit connection to the Church and doctrinal orthodoxy.

For Newman, the University was a place where the most challenging problems could be discussed openly without fear of violent suppression. Where the goal was to train students to “reason well in all matters.” Not to hand them a set of doctrines or even of facts, but a single, fine-edged tool: the reasoning mind.

Today we find ourselves precariously perched on the brink of abandoning anything that resembles Newman’s vision. Free debate is beset not only by an increasingly puritanical ascendant orthodoxy which does not believe that bad ideas are best opposed by good ideas in open combat, but also by fiscal constraints which pressure the academics to teach a jobs-oriented curriculum of “bare facts” and technique, rather than training the mind to reason or, as Plato prefers, to love what it ought.

We may take comfort in the memory that none of this resistance was unfamiliar to Newman, who was recalled after only seven years as rector in response to the objections of the Irish Catholic establishment. Newman then retreated from the University, but did not give up educating, both in the Oratories of Birmingham and Oxford, and in the establishment of Oratory Schools. But beyond that, his lectures and his philosophy of education went on to be enormously influential at the end of his century and the beginning of the next.

“We happy few” that call ourselves The Fellowship of St Columbanus have taken as our primary means of reform another kind of retreat to the Oratory. We have taken as our guiding vision the establishment of a teaching community in the style of the early Irish monasteries in which our patron, and one of the patrons of Europe, St Columbanus, was formed. Our desire is not to be another modern university with a monastic flavor, but a community of teachers, like the mediaeval teachers guilds which became the first Universities. To create a sustainable culture in which humans can thrive and resources can be respected.

It is important to point out that our particular work is not simply an academic work. We formed in response to the Neoliberal society at large, the idea that everything is a market, that belief is a private matter, and that affairs are best run by technocrats. Because we are teachers and scholars we specifically respond to this social crisis as it appears in the university, not because it is unique to it. Our goals reach beyond the classroom because we do not believe that education can be sequestered into its own system or market, that it must be incorporated into a whole way of life, a way of being human. And so it must not be governed either by market principles or by bureaucracy, but by humans, for the sake of humanity.

In these trying times, such radical re-imagining of academia may be necessary as a reminder of what the University was and can be. But if we are going to recover some of what is lost, or at least threatened, a variety of works in an array of settings will be needed. Not only in the universities themselves, but in primary and secondary schools, in the governmental and church hierarchies, as well as among philanthropists.

With this goal in mind, our lead piece is an interview with Msgr. Shea, president of the University of Mary. He is presiding over a Catholic university which continues to grow while other such institutions, most recently Wheeling Jesuit University, struggle to get enough students and funds to continue operating at their historic levels. This interview is followed by the first part of a biographical sketch of Father Jerome, whose work creating a curriculum for Benedictine novices has gone widely underappreciated. Our publication ends with short comments on recent news stories in academia, including adjunct poverty and the opioid crisis.

It is imperative that we jointly make our case for the reform of academia before the public. We must make it clear, as loudly as possible, why the humanities and the Great Conversation are important, and why our culture will be poorer for their loss. It is our hope that this modest enterprise can grow into an organ for making that argument. We hope further that it will serve as a means of communication between you, the readers. This is meant to be your voice, dear reader, not only ours. In every issue we will be reaching out to individuals and communities we know who are making a difference in culture and education. And we would like you to reach out to us with articles, letters, news, and suggestions. Help us to be a voice for academic reform.

The articles of The Scholastic, vol. 1 will be uploaded individually over the coming weeks. If you would like to see the entire volume, with additional cover art, please email us at fellowshipstcolumbanus@gmail.com, or like our Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/ColumbanHouse/

Pax,             Nicholas Bede             Editor, The Scholastic