USD and Catholicism

Every canonization process has a devil’s advocate. Of this, both the Los Angeles Times and writer David Smollar are obviously unaware.

The paean to President Author Hughes (“USD President Provides Lesson in Excellence,” April 14), whose many accomplishments are undeniable, contains not one dissenting voice. That is certainly not customary in personal profiles in The Times. So, I shall compensate the deficiency. The excellence of the University of San Diego does not include excellence in Catholicism.

It must be admitted that USD does fund the campus ministry program, and not stingily. On the other hand, a comparison of the budget lines of campus ministry and of the varsity basketball program would hardly enthuse the hearts of those interested in the Catholicity. Please do not mistake this example as academic faculty envy. I am a native Hoosier. I have grown up in a state religion of basketball. But, then, at USD the basketball program is not self-supporting and can hardly ever expect to be so. It must consume general funds in order to survive. That is an entirely different story.

In any case, many universities have extensive Catholic campus ministry programs, although these may not be funded by the university. Mere funding of the campus ministry program is not sufficient to warrant for a university the title of Catholic.

Such warranting could come only in conjunction with many other Catholic factors.

Since these factors are not present at USD, its alleged Catholicity remains only that, alleged.

A survey of the course offerings in the College of Arts and Sciences reveals little if anything in the way of courses that might not also be found in any state or secular university. In some departments this would be of no significance, but in departments like philosophy, English, history, political science (and others), it certainly is of significance. In the other units of USD, the situation would be no different.

Of late we have been renaming buildings. This I take to be a matter of major symbolic importance. Of course, one can understand that St. Thomas More was not too upset when the Law School was renamed. After all, he had been personally excised by a previous monarch who found him no longer useful.

Admittedly, St. Francis DeSales never has been a heavyweight among the doctors or teachers of the church. Nonetheless, he has been associated in a special way with the educational enterprise of the Catholic church. There is a certain irony in renaming the building in honor of Bishop Leo T. Maher, whose resignation as president of the board of trustees was so desired so recently. Nonetheless, a certain serendipitous statuary symbolism has prevailed--the statue of Bishop Maher has turned its back to the building renamed in his honor and looks outward, away from the university campus. Is he perhaps searching for Jesus and Mary who were unfortunately exiled from that courtyard, but, even more unfortunately, not only from that courtyard?

Traditional exercises of Catholic piety such as feast days, patronal feasts, special seasons, and the like are absent from USD. As for the surfeit of crosses, I have not seen them.

Further recitation of USD’s Catholic insufficiencies is possible, but superfluous. It is already abundantly clear that the fluffy and flaccid Catholicism of USD is insufficient to be the guiding light of any seriously Catholic institution, certainly not of a Catholic university.

No, at USD the dominant philosophy or ideology is clearly not Catholicism, but that fad that is currently dominant throughout academia, namely “Political Correctness.”

A final confirmation may be provided by what Pat Buchanan has recently written, “The Media and Catholic Bashing,” but what many of us have known for a long time. In especially the liberal media, that which is identified as Catholic is positively evaluated and lauded only insofar as its correlation with traditional church theory and practice is as thin and loose as possible.

ROBERT KRESS, Department of Theological and Religious Studies, University of San Diego