The Gardener’s Tale of Conflict Within

Didn’t it look like the University was giving the finger to the Hierarchy in  

Ateneo vs. CBCP?[1]

 In what could have been perfect timing for the voting on the controversial RH (Reproductive Health) Bill, had the opposition to it not succeeded in getting the vote postponed (which it did), a good number of the Catholic Jesuit -owned Ateneo de Manila came out for the second time  – some 192 faculty signatories in all – against the CBCP’s clear and strong opposition to the proposed law. 

The act aimed to give pro-RH Catholic legislators intellectual ammunition for their anti-CBCP stance and to embolden others who might be afraid of Episcopal wrath and non-stop fulminations from the pulpit. 

The Gardener looked more closely at the arguments and saw how the debate was again generating more heat than light. 

Jesuits take a fourth vow of obedience:  to the Pope  (in addition to the traditional three of poverty, chastity, and obedience). The CBCP is not the Pope but would Jesuits dare openly go against it? Or would they do the expected: openly profess obedience while giving the faculty the ‘academic freedom’ to dissent and be heard – in sum, be “Suitic” (legalistically deceptive) about it.

In walking the tight rope the Jesuits may now be well-advised to go a couple hundred years back and seek support from the Idea of a University as articulated with utter lucidity by non-Jesuit John Cardinal Newman of English literary fame. 

Who was Cardinal Newman and what’s he doing in the Philippines today?

Cardinal Newman

John Henry Cardinal Newman, philosopher and theologian, is considered by many as one of the greatest writers in English over the past two hundred years. He was easily “the perfect embodiment of Oxford, deriving from Cicero the lucid and leisurely art of exposition, from the Greek tragedians a thoughtful refinement, from the Fathers a preference for personal above scientific teaching, from Shakespeare, Hooker, and that older school the use of idiom at its best.”[2]

A convert to Catholicism following his scholarly examination of the the39 Articles of the Church of England and painfully concluding that the ecclesiological identity of the Church of England was Catholic rather than Protestant  – a controversial scholarly treatise that became famous in publication as Tract 90 – Newman was appointed in 1851by the Irish bishops, led by Archbishop Paul Cullen of Dublin, as the founding rector of the Catholic University of Ireland.

The next year Newman published The Idea of a University, which, characteristically beautiful and bold was also lucid enough to become both controversial and an immediate classic. Not long after, on November 12, 1858, exasperated by the bishops and especially by Archbishop Cullen, Newman resigned as rector of the Catholic University of Ireland. But his classic work on the idea of a University seems to have found no equal to this very day.

Prolific all his long life in beautiful prose and poetry, Newman at one time became editor of a Catholic paper, The Rambler, and published his essay “On Consulting the Faithful in Matters of Doctrine” prompting several bishops to react negatively and to call for Newman’s resignation as editor. He may not have known it yet, but he was already preparing for Vatican II before Vatican I was even a thought.

He did resign. Years later he published his much-read Apologia Pro Vita Sua and An Essay in Aid of a Grammar of Assent. Still much later in life, to the great surprise of many, on May 15, 1879, the highest authority of his Church, Pope Leo XIII, elevated Newman to the status of Cardinal although he was neither an Archbishop nor even a Bishop.

One never knows with the Roman Catholic Church. Here was Newman, the great dissenter, recognized and honored as such. He lived long enough to participate in the First Vatican Council where he again so eloquently dissented from the majority vote regarding the infallibility of the Pope. He of course did not live long enough to be part of the Second Vatican Council but his ideas did – especially on the development of doctrine, the primacy of the laity and the freedom in thought, in word and deed of the children of God. Only lately, he became Blessed John Cardinal Newman – yes, beatified by the Church with the infallibility that he was not eager to celebrate, and may soon, before long, become at last Saint John Cardinal Newman.

In the wake of today’s Ateneo-CBCP conflict what nuggets of wisdom can we gather now from the Newman treasury for our edification and guidance?

Here are some major ideas and themes from Newman’s reflections on the University[3]

The primary purpose of a University is intellectual and pedagogical, not moral or religious.

“It is a place of teaching universal knowledge.  This implies that its object is, on the one hand, intellectual, not moral; and, on the other, that it is the diffusion and extension of knowledge rather than the advancement.  If its object were scientific and philosophical discovery, I do not see why a University should have students; if religious training, I do not see how it can be the seat of literature and science.”[4]

“The University is a direct preparation for this world. It is not a Convent, it is not a Seminary; it is a place to fit men of the world for the world.  We cannot possibly keep them from plunging into the world, with all its ways and principles and maxims, when their time comes; but we can prepare them against what is inevitable; and it is not the way to learn to swim in troubled waters, never to have gone into them.”[5]

The Idea of a University is to be determined without recourse to the authority of the Church, or any authority at all.

“Observe then, Gentlemen, I have no intention, in any thing I shall say, of bringing into the argument the authority of the Church, or any authority at all; but I shall consider the question simply on the grounds of human reason and human wisdom.”[6]

The range of a teaching within the University is universal; it encompasses all branches of knowledge, including Theology, and is inconsistent with restrictions of any kind. 

“A University, I should lay down, by its very name professes to teach universal knowledge: Theology is surely a branch of knowledge: how then is it possible for it to profess all branches of knowledge, and yet to exclude from the subjects of its teaching one which, to say the least, is as important and as large as any of them?  I do not see that either premiss of this argument is open to exception.

As to the range of University teaching, certainly the very name of University is inconsistent with restrictions of any kind.”[7]

 Often, the more narrow a person’s knowledge is, the more immodest and obstinate he is in adhering to his beliefs and making generalizations on the basis of such beliefs. 

“Men, whose life lies in the cultivation of one science, or the exercise of one method of thought, have no more right, though they have often more ambition, to generalize upon the basis of their own pursuit but beyond its range, than the schoolboy or the ploughman to judge of a Prime Minister.

But they must have something to say on every subject; habit, fashion, the public requires it of them: and, if so, they can only give sentence according to their knowledge.  

You might think this ought to make such a person modest in his enunciations; not so: too often it happens that, in proportion to the narrowness of his knowledge, is, not his distrust of it, but the deep hold it has upon him, his absolute conviction of his own conclusions, and his positiveness in maintaining them.  He has the obstinacy of the bigot, whom he scorns, without the bigot’s apology, that he has been taught, as he thinks, his doctrine is from heaven.“[8]

University Education cannot restrict itself to “Christian Literature” alone. 

“Some one will say to me perhaps: ‘Our youth shall not be corrupted.  We will dispense with all general or national Literature whatever, if it be so exceptionable; we will have a Christian Literature of our own, as pure, as true, as the Jewish.’  

You cannot have it: — I do not say you cannot form a select literature for the young, nay, even for the middle or lower classes; this is another matter altogether: I am speaking of University Education, which implies an extended range of reading, which has to deal with standard works of genius, or what are called the classics of a language: and I say, from the nature of the case, if Literature is to be made a study of human nature, you cannot have a Christian Literature.  It is a contradiction in terms to attempt a sinless Literature of a sinful man.”[9]

The discussion of controversial topics, free from the interference of Church authorities, aids in the discernment of truth, and has been the normal mode of proceeding throughout Church history.

“There was never a time when the intellect of the educated class was more active, or rather more restless, than in the middle ages.  And then again all through Church history from the first, how slow is authority in interfering!

Perhaps a local teacher, or a doctor in some local school, hazards a proposition, and a controversy ensues.  It smoulders or burns in one place, no one interposing; Rome simply lets it alone.  Then it comes before a Bishop; or some priest, or some professor in some other seat of learning takes it up; and then there is a second stage of it.  Then it comes before a University, and it may be condemned by the theological faculty.  

So the controversy proceeds year after year, and Rome is still silent.  An appeal perhaps is next made to a seat of authority inferior to Rome; and then at last after a long while it comes before the supreme power.  Meanwhile, the question has been ventilated and turned over and over again, and viewed on every side of it, and authority is called upon to pronounce a decision, which has already been arrived at by reason.  But even then, perhaps the supreme authority hesitates to do so, and nothing is determined on the point for years: or so generally and vaguely, that the whole controversy has to be gone through again, before it is ultimately determined.  

It is manifest how a mode of proceeding, such as this, tends not only to the liberty, but to the courage, of the individual theologian or controversialist.  Many a man has ideas, which he hopes are true, and useful for his day, but he is not confident about them, and wishes to have them discussed.  He is willing, or rather would be thankful, to give them up, if they can be proved to be erroneous or dangerous, and by means of controversy he obtains his end.  He is answered, and he yields; or on the contrary he finds that he is considered safe.  He would not dare do this, if he knew an authority, which was supreme and final, was watching every word he said, and made signs of assent or dissent to each sentence, as he uttered it.  Then indeed he would be fighting, as the Persian soldiers, under the lash, and the freedom of his intellect might truly be said to be beaten out of him.”[10]

No single human mind can fully understand any one truth, for apprehending any one proposition requires the apprehension of a large multitude of other propositions. 

“No mind, however large, however penetrating, can directly and fully by one act understand any one truth, however simple.  What can be more intelligible than that ‘Alexander conquered Asia’, or that ‘Veracity is a duty’? but what a multitude of propositions is included under either of these theses! still, if we profess either, we profess all that it includes.”[11]

There can be no general criterion for determining the accuracy of inferences in concrete matters. 

“Every one who reasons, is his own centre; and no expedient for attaining a common measure of minds can reverse this truth; — but then the question follows, is there any criterion of the accuracy of an inference, such as may be our warrant that certitude is rightly elicited in favour of the proposition inferred, since our warrant cannot, as I have said, be scientific?  I have already said that the sole and final judgment on the validity of an inference in concrete matter is committed to the personal action of the ratiocinative faculty, the perfection or virtue of which I have called the Illative Sense, a use of the word ‘sense’ parallel to our use of it in ‘good sense’, ‘common sense’, a ‘sense of beauty’, &c.; and I own I do not see any way to go farther than this in answer to the question.”[12]

In matters of duty, social intercourse, and taste, the individual must rely on his or her own judgment, or on what Aristotle called phronesis.

“… how does the mind fulfill its function of supreme direction and control, in matters of duty, social intercourse, and taste?  In all of these separate actions of the intellect, the individual is supreme, and responsible to himself, nay, under circumstances, may be justified in opposing himself to the judgment of the whole world; though he uses rules to his great advantage, as far as they go, and is in consequence bound to use them.   

As regards moral duty, the subject is fully considered in the well-known ethical treatises of Aristotle.  He calls the faculty, which guides the mind in matters of conduct, by the name of phronesis, or judgment.  This is the directing, controlling, and determining principle in such matters, personal and social.  What it is to be virtuous, how we are to gain the just idea and standard of virtue, how we are to approximate in practice to our own standard, what is right and wrong in a particular case, for the answers in fullness and accuracy to these and similar questions, the philosopher refers us to no code of laws, to no moral treatise, because no science of life, applicable to the case of an individual, has been or can be written.  Such is Aristotle’s doctrine, and it is undoubtedly true.”[13]

Even if general moral codes are available to us, it remains necessary for individuals to apply such general codes, and thus to make their own judgments in matters of personal duty.

“An ethical system may supply laws, general rules, guiding principles, a number of examples, suggestions, landmarks, limitations, cautions, distinctions, solutions of critical or anxious difficulties; but who is to apply them to a particular case? whither can we go, except to the living intellect, our own, or another’s?  What is written is too vague, too negative for our need. It bids us avoid extremes; but it cannot ascertain for us, according to our personal need, the golden mean.  The authoritative oracle, which is to decide our path, is something more searching and manifold than such jejune generalizations as treatises can give, which are most distinct and clear when we least need them.  It is seated in the mind of the individual, who is thus his own law, his own teacher, and his own judge in those special cases of duty which are personal to him.”[14]

Blessed JPII the Great

The Pope who started the beatification process of Cardinal Newman was one who is himself now a “Blessed” – John Paul II “the Great.” He was all over the earth plane not too long ago. He wrote the encyclical, Ex Corde Ecclesiae (On Catholic Universities). What did he say?

Article 2, “Catholic teaching and discipline are to influence all university activities, while the freedom of conscience of each person is to be fully respected (46). Any official action or commitment of the University is to be in accord with its Catholic identity.”

Article 4, “The responsibility for maintaining and strengthening the Catholic identity of the University rests primarily with the University itself. While this responsibility is entrusted principally to university authorities (including, when the positions exist, the Chancellor and/ or a Board of Trustees or equivalent body), it is shared in varying degrees by all members of the university community, and therefore calls for the recruitment of adequate university personnel, especially teachers and administrators, who are both willing and able to promote that identity. The identity of a Catholic University is essentially linked to the quality of its teachers and to respect for Catholic doctrine.”

Philippine Items

ITEM: According to a group of Ateneo Professors, the RH bill is “a vital piece of legislation that needs to be passed urgently.” It “upholds the constitutional right of couples to found a family in accordance with their religious convictions; honors our commitments to international covenants and conventions; and promotes the reproductive health and reproductive rights of Filipinos, especially of those who are most marginalized on this issue—our women, poor families and young people.”

ITEM: The group wants to make it clear that they are not speaking for Ateneo de Manila University, the Society of Jesus, or the rest of their colleagues, but only in their “individual capacities as educators, researchers, medical doctors, lawyers, and citizens.”

ITEM: Catholic schools that do not toe the line on the reproductive health (RH) bill may be stripped of their affiliation with the Church, the head of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines recently declared. CBCP president and Cebu Archbishop Jose Palma said such a sanction awaits Catholic schools and institutions that violate the Church’s ethical and religious directives. “If we are a Catholic school, we should not teach anything contrary to the official teaching of the church.”

ITEM: Father Jose Ramon T. Villarin, S.J., President of the Ateneo de Manila University, issued a memo to the University Community, reminding everyone that, “together with our leaders in the Catholic Church, the Ateneo de Manila University does not support the passage of House Bill 4244 (The Responsible Parenthood, Reproductive Health and Population and Development Bill).”  He assured the professors, however, that he “appreciate(s) their social compassion and intellectual efforts, and urge(d) them to continue in their discernment of the common good.” He then asked “all those who are engaged in the Christian formation of our students to ensure that the Catholic position on this matter continues to be taught in our classes, as we have always done.”  Did this indicate that not all of the pro-RH professors were engaged in the Christian formation of students?

In sum, the bill is not likely to become law very soon, if ever; the Bishops scared the daylights out of the Ateneo University administration; the Jesuit Administration confessed their Catholicity while assuring their faculty that academic freedom was there to stay.  The larger liberal democratic society had greater influence on the University. Were the debates fruit of profound wells of thought and the rational process or merely of repetitive sound bytes in the digital world? What difference did it make to be either a secular or a Catholic University?  FINIS.

Charles Avila – The Gardener