"To Take the Risks of Love": an Interview with R. R. Reno

Dr. Reno is the editor of First Things, America’s largest journal of Religion and public life. He holds a Doctorate in Religious Ethics from Yale University, and was for 20 years a professor of Theology and Ethics at Creighton University.  This interview was conducted on September 21st, in connection with Dr. Reno’s lecture, “A Christian Interpretation of the Age of Trump.”  It has been edited for length.

Claude Hanley: What would be, in your estimation, the place of the university in American life now, and what should its task be?

R.R. Reno: Well, the purpose of the university is to provide a community of learning, it’s a place for the formation of a secular society that is committed to the life of the mind, and then obviously most students go on to professional work.  Most don’t become professors, but the educational experience serves as a leaven in society at large. I think especially on Josef Pieper’s wonderful short book Leisure, The Basis of Culture.  The American idea of the four-year liberal arts degree is of a time in your life when you’re not actually pursuing professional activities, but leaves you with something that’s closer to contemplative. Pieper argued that is actually necessary to have culture.

Now our view about the role of the university in the public square is shaped by the fact that after World War II, with the GI Bill, there was a big upsurge in college enrollments. And for the men that were coming back from World War II, the university became a kind of place where they looked at questions about what kind of society they were going to have. Consequently, we have this false view that the university is this kind of crucial place where the future of our society is debated and formed and shaped. I think that that’s distorted. It’s obviously true for some of our universities, but we overemphasize that because of the 50’s and 60’s, when we saw this sort of new, emerging middle class, different people from ethnic backgrounds being integrated into America’s leadership. Universities were the focal point for that process.  So universities would ideally be more nourishing, and less political than they are today.

CH: How do the humanities disciplines contribute to that mission?

RRR: Well, I’d put it more broadly, as the liberal arts. I mean, studying astrophysics doesn’t serve any practical purpose. It’s not clear studying evolutionary biology serves a practical purpose either.  Fossil records, all these sorts of things, contribute to our knowledge of the natural world, which we can perhaps use technically at some point.  Mathematicians also, they’re famous for coming up with things that have no relevance whatsoever, and then a hundred years later, people discover practical uses for their mathematical models. But it’s the wonder and joy of knowing that precedes their practical usefulness. And that’s a liberal education; it’s for its own sake, and not for some other end. That strikes me as what is so important about a liberal arts education.  We are made to know, and it is an intrinsic good to know truth.  Not every project can offer that; the liberal arts humanize us, and they make use more fully human.

CH: How does that humanization translate to society and to politics?

RRR: Whether it’s Shakespeare or astrophysics, you go out into the public square, if you’re liberally educated, and you’re less likely to be swept up in a thousand ideologies of the time. It gives you a kind of independence of mind.  I think it’s important, in any society, that you have people who have this independence of mind. John Henry Newman referred to education leads to an enlargement of mind.  You become more capacious…capable of grappling with a full range of experience. I don’t want to privilege the humanities in this regard.  I started out in physics as an undergraduate. My sister’s a physics professor at the University of Iowa. You have to specialize, you can’t know everything. It’s not like you’re swallowing all this food until your gut gets full and distended. It’s not just the amount of facts.  Instead, it’s developing a kind of mental plasticity, and flexibility, and a capacity that prompts you to think about things in such ways.

CH: It’s said that there is a lack of intellectual diversity, of that independence of thought in universities today. The same people are promoting the same kinds of ideas that are getting preeminence. Do you think that’s a valid criticism of the American university?

RRR: I don’t like to use this new term diversity here. We should have diversity of some things and we should have unity of other things. So, I think it’s not a cure-all. But there is a problem, it seems, where there isn’t independence of thought, there’s too much group think. And I don’t think it’s a matter of, as people often say, “Well, it’s because all the professors are liberals.” Now, I went to a small liberal arts college, not unlike Holy Cross.  The professors were ninety percent registered Democrats, they were certainly liberals.  But it didn’t feel like an environment that was closed or limited. To be capacious, to encourage adventure, to have the security as a faculty member to accept the fact that sometimes your students will go in a different direction -- These are qualities that I think that one hopes for in a faculty, but I see less of them today. It could be that the problem is not lack of diversity, but a kind of careerism on the part of faculty.  Or perhaps people want a cheap emotional payoff of feeling that their work has a great moral and political significance.  As a result, there’s a kind of works-righteousness around our salvation, at least our secular salvation by making sure that our  classes teach the right political lessons. I think we need to dig more deeply.  It’s not just a lack of diversity. That’s a symptom, not a cause.

CH: So, to continue this theme, one of the main challenges now is academic freedom and freedom of speech. I think of the events at Middlebury last year, and similar controversies.  What do you think at least some of the underlying issues are that cause this sort of tension?

RRR: Our society is very divided. Grownups don’t tell young people what life is for, and they’ve rebelled.   Everything is open, you choose your own values, et cetera et cetera.  I think it’s quite natural that students want to find some consensus and stability. The radical schools that want to shut down who they perceive to be bad people, I think are misguided.  But that may not be an altogether unhealthy desire, that they need right and wrong. So, I think we’re seeing these perverse dysfunctions in education because we the grownups have created that need.  It’s being filled by some sort of ideological, imposed consensus, rather than a real, genuine consensus.

CH: And this critique reaches back to the same idea, that we’ve lost the ability to pursue the human good?

RRR: Right. If we’re concerned about academic freedom and free speech (and we should be concerned about these things), we need to be clear about what the education at the institution is for, and why shouting people down harms the proper end of education. We’re a community of inquiry.  In a community of inquiry, if people can’t speak, in that sense there’s an imposed consensus, and there’s not a lot of inquiry any more. I’ve talked with young people, and they’ve told me that they find more and more, that it’s just wise not to say what’s on their minds. It’s too dangerous. Well, how can you make progress in the pursuit of truth if you can’t articulate what you think the truth is, and hear what others have to say in response? The problem with shutting down speakers is that it impedes us in achieving the end of education, which is to refine our ideas and make them more in accord with the truth. So I don’t think that academic freedom is an end in itself, it needs to be the means to the end -- having a healthy medium of inquiry. I don’t think that Holy Cross should invite a creationist to give lectures. It just doesn’t help advance the pursuit of truth.  You and I can come up with examples where “no, that’s not going to help.” The problem again is that then the sort of ideological frame of mind comes into play.  It’s a crazy view that the political opinions of half the country are taboo. How could any reasonable person think that? It’s irrational.

CH:  So we have to balance academic freedom with a duty to truth.  What duty to truth does a Catholic university in particular have, and how should it be balanced against academic freedom?

RRR: I think that a Catholic university has an absolute duty to teach what the Catholic Church teaches. A Catholic university that does not teach that which the Church teaches is not betraying its Catholic identity; it’s betraying its identity as a University. The purpose of a university is to encourage people to pursue the truth, and also to transmit the truth. And we believe, as Catholics, that what the Church teaches truths that are indispensable, not just for our salvation but also for our fuller understanding of the human condition. There’s a question of priorities. It’s not the job of the Catholic university to represent all possible views of what it means to be human; It is absolutely the responsibility to propose to students, and to the world, that the Church teaches what it means to be human. That entails defining priorities: hiring priorities, what kind of courses to acquire, etc. It’s not a violation of academic freedom to say that Catholic theology is required, but a Jewish Studies professor’s course is not required. It’s not a violation of academic freedom; that’s the institution establishing its priorities.   Nor is it a violation of academic freedom for the university not to invite speakers who hold positions contrary to what the Church teaches. Now there could be student groups or others who want to invite those people.  Then the university has to make a judgement about whether it harms the mission of the university, which is to transmit and encourage students to pursue the truth. In many cases, Catholic universities have confidence in their own students. If it is doing what it should be, which is to ensure Catholic teaching is clearly taught, it can tolerate dissent quite easily.

CH: How does that concern influence the other disciplines, outside of philosophy and theology?

RRR: It applies across the board. For instance, one problem we have is that in the sciences, there’s often a materialistic metaphysics that’s operating very close to the surface: that our brains are our minds, and we’re just neurons firing. A university should guard against teaching this. It’s scientism, it’s not science. The same goes for economics.  Economics is a powerful and important discipline that teaches us to think in a critical way about markets.  It models the human behavior in terms of maximizing authority, where that’s understood as maximizing one’s material interest. That’s fine for modelling, but it easily can lead to a generalization that humans are nothing more than utility maximizing achievements. That’s not true for the human person either. So in many different disciplines, there needs to be reflection on how we as an institution can present our view of the human person. Pope Benedict’s Regensburg speech dealt with that.

CH: Are there any particular reforms you think should be made, or is it more a change in attitude toward the project of the University?

RRR: I think Catholic universities really need to get a grip on the hiring of faculty. We’ve spent too many decades now trying to imitate secular higher education. We need to return to the wisdom of our own tradition, and recognize that the metaphysical poverty of our time is quite acute, and we need to focus on hiring people, not the people who all agree, that’s absurd, you’re never going to find that [laughs], that’s the whole idea. You can’t even find Thomists who agree. It’s not a question of agreement, it’s a question of whether or not there are faculty members who believe that there’s truth, and that truth transcends a particular discipline. In Pope Benedict’s Regensburg speech, he looked back with nostalgia on his years at Regensburg, when faculty members often would gather together and try to talk about the big questions, transcending the specialized knowledge that they had in philosophy or theology or science or literature or history. One has to grope towards these larger theories together, and we have to hire professors who are committed to try to do that together. That’s what it means to be liberal, not having a collection of specialists.  And I think because the Catholic Church opposes a compromise of truth about the human person, both as to our manifold destiny in God, as well as to our natural duties and responsibilities, and because it presents a comprehensive vision of the human person, we in particular have an inheritance that allows us to recognize the poverty of our present age. We should address that poverty by building institutions that pursue a larger vision.

FR: But that would entail first recognizing our inheritance.

RRR: Right.  Catholic universities have a natural excellence of the life of the mind. Most of what goes on at Catholic universities functions in the area of the natural virtues -- intellectual integrity, intellectual honesty and intellectual zeal. This is encouraged and elevated by the supernatural virtue of faith, but these are natural virtues. It’s possible that we can draw upon educational models and experiences at secular universities. It’s not that we only have to hire people with degrees from Catholic universities, etc., etc. But it does require a kind of recognition that higher education in the United States is not in good shape. We see this from this dysfunctional campus environments. And because it’s not in good shape, consequently we should not just be imitating what other, elite, universities are doing.  We should be returning to our sources and asking ourselves, “What is it that the Catholic tradition proposes as a vision of the Truth?”

FR: In conclusion, what piece of advice would you give undergraduates about how to take their four years of undergraduate education?

RRR: Don’t worry about what comes next. Bill Deresiewicz, who wrote a book called Excellent Sheep about today’s college students, said that there are two religions that dominate higher education today. One is a religion of political correctness, and the other is a religion of success. Both of those religions actually feed on each other, because political correctness is a way of baptizing a person to success. So I would say that success is a far more powerful god than political correctness. So beware of that idol. Study the things you love.  One of the great poverties of our age is that it really is a loveless age. People don’t feel that they even have permission to take the risks of love. If you love physics, study physics. If you love theology, study theology. Don’t worry about what you’re going to do for a living right now.  In the United States, we have society set up for people to do well. We don’t have a society set up for people to cultivate the life of the mind. Cultivate it now, and it will carry you through many of life’s difficulties and setbacks, which are inevitable even if you are successful.

Letter to the Editors: November 2017

To the Editors of The Fenwick Review, 

Here are a few thoughts on Father Mulledy, the mascot change, and Catholicism at the College. 

I would think that the Lord’s advice still applies: He who is without sin, let him cast the first stone.” Father Mulledy was a good man, true to his Faith, untiring worker in the field of Catholic education and, by all accounts, successful in what he tried. Look at the many priestly vocations he helped inspire among graduates. Look at the institution he helped found. Was he sinless? Did he make the right decisions in all cases? No. He was a man of his times as today’s Jesuits are men of their times. Slavery was accepted in the environment in which he worked, accepted by many of his contemporary bishops, priests and parishioners and an evil over which he certainly had no control. He was mistaken but he did what he thought he had to do at the time. 

As for retaining the “Crusader” name and mascot, perhaps today’s Holy Cross College should drop both. It certainly would be consistent with the recent discussion regarding the elimination of the “cross” symbol from the Holy Cross logo. And, too, it would be consistent with that “mission statement” we are so concerned about; There’s no mention of Christ or His Cross in that either. A “Crusader”, after all, is one concerned about the cross of Christ, concerned to the extent of being willing to fight and die for that cross. The current college is ashamed to show it in print. The whole issue is a dramatic reflection of the state to which the Jesuit administration and the Holy Cross board have brought the college—a politically correct, semi-Catholic institution that frequently weakens the faith of its graduates. New building galore, a rich man’s tuition and plenty of money in the bank but woefully inept at accomplishing the real mission of the college: graduating well educated men and women who are strong in their faith and who are dedicated to promoting the love of Christ and His Church throughout their lives. 

Daniel J. Gorman ‘54

Some Discernment on Spirits

When people from back home (I’m from the Midwest) find out I go to a school named Holy Cross, they assume that here on the Hill, we all like to spend our Friday nights praying the Rosary. They think that since it’s a Catholic school, there isn’t a lot of partying. That’s perpetuated when they hear that (allegedly) 40% of students say they don’t drink. Now I haven’t been on campus that long, but I know that number is either false or the other 60% drink enough to make up for the abstainers. So yes, here at Holy Cross, contrary to what many Midwesterners assume, we enjoy our drink. But this line of thought exposes a very real misconception: that there’s a contradiction between Church teaching and drinking alcohol. There isn’t. 

Take the word of G.K. Chesterton, apologist, poet, and Catholic literary giant, who once said, “In Catholicism, the pint, the pipe, and the Cross can all fit together.” He compared the Catholic Church to a thick steak, a cigar, and a glass of red wine. Then there’s St. Thomas Aquinas, a Doctor of the Church, who not only supported drinking, but believed alcohol should be used to “cheer men’s souls” and that we should “drink to the point of hilarity.” The Catechism of the Catholic Church has no opposition to the use of alcohol, tobacco, or gambling in moderation. Jesus’s first miracle was turning water into wine -- and he didn’t use grape juice at the Last Supper. And last but not least, the Trappist monks make the best beer in the world -- or so I’m told. 

But before you grab the keg, it’s also important to note that Aquinas--the one who recommended drinking to cope with sadness--also said that being drunk is a mortal sin. As a Catholic College, where we embrace the cross and the pint, it’s critical to discuss the intersection of morality and mischief that comes with drinking. At first glance, Aquinas’s classification of drunkenness as a mortal sin may seem a little extreme. But then Aquinas, in all his wisdom, points out that when we drink, we occasionally do stupid things. And to think - Thomas Aquinas figured that out even though he had no idea what a darty was. 

But it’s true. So many people say that alcohol can get rid of your inhibitions, but is that honestly a good thing?

If my inhibitions keep me from doing something stupid - like streaking, for example - then I think society should be all the more grateful that I’m inhibited. To top it off, we also live in a society where people post random and inappropriate things online while sober. Spend five minutes on Tumblr and you’ll agree that inhibition is not society’s greatest threat. But even then, Aquinas says, drunkenness may be a reason for sin, but it’s not an excuse. Coming back to the streaking example, the real issue isn’t me being drunk, it’s that I’m running naked across the Hoval. 

So if we just don’t do anything stupid while drunk… we should be good, right? No. The real danger, according to Aquinas, is the “drinking to get drunk” mentality that permeates American college campuses. He says it’s a mortal sin if a man drinks with the conviction that “he would rather be drunk than abstain from drink.” Now -- Aquinas isn’t arguing that wanting to be drunk is a sin. If that were the case, everyone who’d ever sat through Freshman Convocation should go to confession. Drunkenness gets sinful when we knowingly and happily choose inebriation over sobriety. There are a couple good reasons for this. For one, it’s gluttony. If you sit down and eat three pizzas, you may have a problem. If you sit down and drink a fifth of Svedka, same goes. On top of that, you destroy your body. But it gets seriously problematic when is when we drink to get sloppy drunk, because in doing so, we knowingly give up human reason, and in turn, reject our God-given human dignity. 

It loops back to the inhibition thing, but in a deeper way. When we drink so much we can’t make a rational decision or walk in a straight line, we’ve essentially become toddlers or very, very large squirrels. Human reason is a gift from God. It’s part of the mystery of salvation history -- that we can use reason as a way to discover and choose the things that lead us closer to -- or further away from -- God. When we drink to get drunk, we essentially decide to “turn off” the rational brains that God gave us. We are no longer in a position to love, reverence and serve God. It’s not just about avoiding stupidity, it’s about safeguarding and reverencing our God-given dignity. 

The issue is not that we drink on Friday night. Or Saturday night. Or maybe even Saturday during the day. Or Wednesday. Or Thursday. (As a classic Irish folk song says, “I only drink on the days that end in y.”) The issue is that when we drink, we pee on lawns. We dehumanize ourselves. Drinking to loosen up isn’t problematic- it’s a foreshadow of heaven and it can help us be the person God calls us to be. But when we get drunk, we’re not the best, most loving version of ourselves. Instead of “Men and Women for and With Others,” we become “Men and Women Puking on Others.” We can’t focus on God- we can barely walk straight. And when we choose to get obliterated, hammered, sloshed, schmizzed, totally tuckered or absolutely blitzed, we choose that over God. We say, “Tonight’s about me.” 

So with Aquinas, Augustine (a patron saint of beer), the Trappists, Chesterton, and even Jesus, let’s raise our cups (in moderation) for the love and the glory of God. Hillaire Belloc might have put it best -- “Wherever the Catholic sun doth shine, there’s always laughter and good red wine. At least, I’ve always found it so -- Benedicamus Domino!”

Safe Spaces

In an age of expanding liberal ideology, the idea of a “safe space” has become a major topic of conversation at our college. In the recent past, in the face of conservative political victories, the administration of our institution has felt the need to offer “safe spaces,” defined by Merriam-Webster Dictionary as being areas where students can escape “potentially threatening actions, ideas, or conversations,” such as opposing values, to students who may feel uncomfortable or distressed with the current political situation. A perfect example of this was when President Donald Trump’s decision to potentially overturn DACA was publicly announced. The college quickly responded to the situation by sending out an email to the student body, offering a “safe space” for students that were upset about the decision and sending a message of supporting the “Dreamers” against our country’s President. The school immediately took a political stance on the issue and had no qualms about making its position clear to the whole of the student body, while deciding to provide services to “help” people of the same viewpoint. 

However, these “safe spaces” for liberal-leaning students are not doing anything to strengthen equality and diversity at Holy Cross. Instead, the College is simply giving these students an escape from having to interact with people of different viewpoints. By allowing one group to completely ignore and escape conversation with the other, the institution has effectively split the student body based on political ideology. If Holy Cross truly wants to have the diverse and united student body it claims to have, then it needs to seriously think about the results of the actions the administration has taken regarding recent political events. Instead of allowing one group to run away and stop any discourse with those who may not agree with them, the institution should instead sponsor discussions between the two groups to start respectful conversations. Perhaps then, people on both sides would better understand why each person thinks the way that they do.

Especially at such a tense time in politics, when people have even begun to see people of the other political party as being less than human, it is more important than ever to try and appeal to both sides and start cordial discussions. As we’ve seen following recent events, people have started to become more and more hostile to the opposing political side. One example of this is when former CBS executive Hayley Geftman-Gold took to Facebook after the deadliest mass shooting in United States history took place at a country music festival in Las Vegas, saying: “I’m actually not even sympathetic [because] country music fans often are Republican gun toters." Ideas like this one stem not only from a complete disregard for people who have different views, but also from a lack of understanding of what others truly believe in. Democrats often see Republicans as being racists and white supremacists who care nothing for the poor, while Republicans often look at Democrats as being corrupt, adverse to personal rights, and focused too much on tearing hardworking people down. These views of the political sides have held fast over time as a result of a failure to communicate effectively between members of the two parties, even though these two perceptions are both incorrect. 

This is especially apparent here at Holy Cross, as the contention between liberal and conservative students can clearly be seen, not to mention the professors that often try to preach their liberal ideals and make jokes or comments about the President to the class as a part of their course material. The divide among the members of the Holy Cross community is only growing stronger as time goes on, and it is up to the administration to try and stop its progression. If we want to have the strong, unified and loving community we were all promised before we applied here, we need to have a much better understanding of one another, as well as more opportunities to have positive discussions between members of all of the political groups on campus. 

If there was ever a time when “safe spaces” would tear apart the community the most, now is that time. We need to promote working together for a better understanding and having conversations, not advocating for these “safe spaces” to help liberal students escape discussions that they are afraid of having. Holy Cross needs to get rid of these “safe spaces,” try to foster stronger relationships between the students, and make the student body once again proud to stand united as the Holy Cross Crusaders. As a Catholic college, I would expect Holy Cross to try to bridge the gap between neighbors, and it is a shame that as of right now it is doing the opposite and pushing them further away from a mutual understanding.

Leave the Mascot Unmolested

"Do you want to aggravate alumni? Because this is how you aggravate alumni." So one of The Fenwick Review’s founders remarked when the College announced it was reconsidering the Crusader mascot. It’s a good point; the tangible benefits of deep-sixing the mascot are negligible. Changing the mascot isn’t going to make "U.S. News and World Report: like us any more. Nor, indeed, was it ever going to attract more qualified students or faculty. Having the discussion at all was bound to divide the student body, cut into donations to the College, and generally make people mad. From the student’s perspective, it doesn’t seem all that significant: why on earth do most students care what our sports teams call themselves? Because it touches to realities that are crucially significant: the Catholic identity of the College, the meaning of our particular traditions, and what Holy Cross calls us to be. In light of those realities, the Board of Trustees ought to make the obvious decision: preserve the mascot unchanged, and then leave the issue buried. 

First, the Crusader is a visible sign of the College’s Catholic identity, one of the last ones remaining. “Crusade,” as many others have noted, derives from the medieval Latin cruciare, meaning “to mark with the Cross.” The mascot reminds us that we are a community distinguished by the Cross of Christ, and so affirms the religious identity of the place. The point holds even for the non-Catholics in the community: as students and instructors at a Catholic, Jesuit College, all of us are indelibly marked by the Cross. It clarifies the purpose of our studies, too. As it says over Dinand Library, “In order that they might know You, the One True God, and Jesus Christ, whom You have sent.” The mascot affirms the beliefs that lay behind this college’s founding. Without flinching, it endorses the faith which built, shaped, and guides this College. The mascot defines who we are, and why we do what we do. If we abandon it, we compromise our mission and identity as a Catholic College. 

Second, the Crusader is part of a long tradition of this College, even separate from its connection to our religious tradition. For nearly a century, the students of this College have called themselves Crusaders. It has grown into the life and image that Holy Cross projects. Speakers have addressed incoming classes and graduating seniors with this epithet. It has shaped the way we understand ourselves as students and graduates of the College of the Holy Cross. It is part of the glue that holds the students body and the alumni community together. It is literally the name we give ourselves. The Crusader gives voice to what we have in common, a symbol of the lives which we have lived on Mount Saint James. It is one of many things which makes Holy Cross a distinct community, not a bland, soul-sucking bastion of secular Academe. 

We have heard it said that the Crusader is not a model to imitate. It summons us to a life of interreligious violence (quoth the detractors, at least). The student body is not dense enough to believe that, and never has been. Our graduates do not take up the swords to reclaim the Holy Land. Instead, they leave here as men and women of principle, determined to combat injustice, raise up the poor, and spread their faith. While the vast majority of those alumni have been Catholics, the argument applies to people of all faiths and none. The mascot calls us to work tirelessly to transform the world, in spite of injustice and persecution. Holy Cross graduates can see in the mascot a call to live our lives for others. There can be few greater models. 

These are strong arguments; surely, the opposition has an equal case? No. Once we bypass the feigned hand-wringing of a short list of students and faculty, we find a single, patronisingly therapeutic argument. It takes two forms. First, current students (particularly Muslim and Jewish students) may be grievously discomforted by the mascot, to the point of being estranged from the community. Second, prospective students will be made to feel unwelcome, and so deny the College its desired diversity quotient. These are, in reality, a single argument: some hypothetical person might somehow be slightly upset, so shatter the icons. 

What utter drivel. First, in my four years here, I have not heard a student complain that the mascot made him or her feel uncomfortable. Nor have I read a single article in any campus publication making such a claim. This is to be expected. Look at two archetypal symbols that actually cause distress, the Nazi flag and the burning cross. First, each of them can be interpreted exactly one way in the modern imaginary; nobody imagines that “Nazi” means anything other than “perpetrator of ethnic cleansing.” Second, each of them symbolizes a horror so recent and dreadful that it towers over our cultural imagination. We don’t need to be told that Auschwitz was terrible; a shiver runs down our neck at the very word. 

Take those criteria and evaluate the Crusader. Can it mean something other than “Christian holy warrior of the Middle Ages” in our modern lexicon? Obviously; thumb through a newspaper on any given day. You’ll read about crusades against drunk driving, crusades against political correctness, and crusades against cancer. You won’t find medieval holy wars outside of the book reviews. Do the Crusades symbol a horror that towers over our cultural imagination? No; they were far too long ago, and far too historically complicated. Furthermore, it is both disgraceful and deceitful to compare the Crusades with Dachau; one was a war, the other a genocide. The Crusades are too far away, too historically contested, and already redefined. More than that, there is not a shred of evidence that the mascot encourages disdain for or violence toward Muslims. There is no reason that the symbol should distress anyone. 

So the problem is not discomfort, nor is it any kind of violence. If we objected to violent or aggressive mascots entirely, hardly any College’s mascot would be safe; they are intended to suggest dominance, aggression, and violence. No, the issue is the Faith. Behind the therapeutic argle-bargle lurks hardboiled academic secularism, which dreams of a day when the Crosses will come down and the chapel be bulldozed for a parking lot. It is a scorn for the faith that built this institution, and for the loyal alumni who still love it. 

The Crusader must remain. It testifies without fear to the Catholic faith and tradition that define this school, no less today than one hundred years ago. It has become its own tradition, an ineradicable part of the experience of Mount Saint James. It is remembered fondly by many alumni, who still call themselves Crusaders. It calls us to live for more than just ourselves -- ideally in the sign of the Cross, but in other fashions too. Against these arguments, we find a therapeutic mindset that treats students like glass, whose logic rapidly falls apart. In reality, though, the fight over the mascot is just another battle in a longer war. It is a war to strip the College of the Cross, to throw out its old traditions, and change its very nature. So leave the mascot unmolested, and restore the things that really matter.

Once a Crusader, Always a Crusader

In an email sent to the student body days before Homecoming weekend, Fr. Boroughs wrote that he has created a committee to discuss the College’s relationship with the Crusader mascot. For the second time in two years, Fr. Boroughs has created a committee to consider changing an aspect of campus life. In the fall of 2016, a committee was established to investigate the circumstances surrounding Fr. Mulledy’s, and the Jesuits of the Maryland Province, transactions of slaves. In that decision, the committee decided to renamed Mulledy Hall and call it BrooksMulledy while ending their final document with two sentences suggesting that the term “crusader” needed to be objectively examined as well. 

For many cheering the announcement of the committee to discuss the appropriateness of the Crusader moniker, the term conjures up the historical atrocities that need to condemned nearly a millennium after they occurred. In my opinion, the only people on campus calling for a change of the mascot’s name are a majority of administrators and staff who are supported by a small percentage of students. The arguments made against the mascot by this group include the invocation of the historical Crusades that committed very real atrocities against Jews and Muslims in the Holy Land centuries ago. However, the same group would do well to remember that wars have been fought by every major religion throughout history until the present day, with Islamic terrorists committing atrocities against followers of every major religion, including Islam. Another complaint about the mascot is that the term runs in direct opposition to the College’s emphasis and dedication to diversity. While diversity of persons, experiences, and thought is extremely important, so is the concept of tradition. The College adopted the “Crusader” as its mascot in the 1920s, at the time of the construction of Dinand Library, St. Joseph’s Memorial Chapel, and Kimball Hall. For many alumni and current students who competed and studied on Mount St. James, Holy Cross’s association with the term “crusader” means more to them than Dinand and Kimball. Take away the Crusader, and Holy Cross will be simply be a 174 acre hill with buildings on its campus. For most of the people who have spent time on the Hill, the term “crusader” is a fitting expression of what Holy Cross strives to instill into its students in four short years. Since a crusader is someone who campaigns energetically for their religious, political, or moral viewpoint, the College should keep it or abandon its dedication to proper education. Students who are encouraged by their professors to defend their opinions and points of view every day in class should be proud to crusade for what they believe in. Additionally, the concept of debating, holding true to one’s convictions, and campaigning for them is exactly what Fr. Boroughs wants to occur with the committee discussing, from every possible angle, the appropriateness of the moniker. The committee needs crusaders in order to fulfill its duty to conducting informed and passionate discussions about the mascot. In this respect, everyone involved, whether they want to be or not, is a crusader since they are campaigning for something they believe. 

In addition to the attachment current and former students of Holy Cross feel towards their mascot, the ramifications of changing it could be dire. It could affect the donations which the school needs for its survival, since many alumni are unhappy that the school is even considering changing the name. During the tailgate before the Holy Cross v. Lafayette football game on Homecoming Saturday, several recent alumni hoisted a large sign declaring “Keep the Crusader” on top of their car. Throughout the day, I had discussions with other recent alumni who expressed similar sentiments and proclaimed that if the mascot were changed, they would no longer donate to the school. I am sure this sentiment is not exclusive to recent alumni. The question of changes to mascots is not isolated to Holy Cross, or Colleges in general, as my high school considered changing it mascot. Canisius High School, also has a Crusader for its mascot and ended its consideration for a name change once they heard the Canisius alumni’s vehement opposition to the idea. Like the alumni of Holy Cross, Canisius alumni stated that they would no longer donate if the school changed the mascot. 

As the committee investigates the appropriateness of the Crusader, the campus still has time to speak. For the supporters of the Crusader, voice your opinion and make sure the committee hears you. Inform the members of the committee that the voices pushing for this change come from a small minority of the student body. Continue the spirit that has crusaded over several generations at Holy Cross and declare that the College’s mascot is the most accurate and most vivid representation of our school’s mission, values, and identity.

Why Holy Cross Needs a Monastery

As a Catholic and Jesuit school, Holy Cross has certain privileges. We are used to having Jesuits at the school say Mass and hear confessions, as well as teach classes, work in various departments, attend events, and generally act as a positive presence on campus. They participate in a legacy dating back to the school’s founding in 1843, and in one stretching far further into the past. Not all Catholic schools are so lucky; many, particularly those without an affiliation to a religious community, can only occasionally bring in visiting priests and lay missionaries.
 
The earliest universities were not necessarily Catholic, but there is a long history of affiliations between the Catholic Church and universities. This makes sense; from a practical standpoint during the medieval period when universities first began to appear, the Church had a variety of resources to offer a university, such as the power to grant degrees and legal protection. There is a deeper link, however: the rise of Christianity enabled the growth of science into what we have today. There is a cognitive dissonance in our culture today, where the Church is portrayed by secular entities as the enemy of science and progress. It is remarkable that such critics never question why the Church which is so dedicated to suppressing science has fostered scientific thinkers such as Copernicus, Lemaître, Mendel, Pascal, and Pasteur, as well as running the world-class Vatican Observatory.
 
We enjoy the inheritance of this religious and scientific collaboration today, usually unconsciously. Even at a small school such as Holy Cross, there is great emphasis placed on the natural sciences, mathematics, and the social sciences. Sometimes it seems that there is too much of this. As a senior about to graduate in the spring, I hear a lot about the importance of a liberal arts degree grounded in both the sciences and the humanities (and less than I would like about the Catholic history thereof). It is always implied that my degree will lead to a fulfilling career making money—after all, we’re regularly reminded that Holy Cross graduates are highly employable and have an above-average starting salary ($50,534 for the class of 2016, if you’re wondering). However, the focus on the material benefits of our education comes at a steep cost.
 
What is lost with the emphasis on money and success is any mention of what our most important heritage as a Catholic school is: prayer. I hear more about what companies are recruiting on campus than the fact that the body of Christ is present in our chapels day and night, and I get more reminders about meeting with potential employers than I do about going to Mass. It might sound silly, or archaic, but this is the belief of the Catholic Church and the focal point which enables our school’s rich study of science, mathematics, and humanities (and the post-graduate jobs in these fields). By not emphasizing the Eucharist or prayer enough, our school is missing out on a beautiful Catholic legacy, and on a lot of graces needed to lead souls to Christ (the actual mission of all Catholic schools). The solution can only come through prayer. The Jesuits are amazing, but their way of life is not conducive to constant intercession on behalf of the Church through formal prayer, though undoubtedly their prayer for the school benefits us all. What Holy Cross really needs, in addition to the prayer and witness of the Jesuits, is a cloistered monastery of nuns or monks on or around our campus.
 
The 1999 Church document Verbi Sponsa describes the importance of the contemplative life: “The ancient spiritual tradition of the Church, taken up by the Second Vatican Council, explicitly connects the contemplative life to the prayer of Jesus ‘on the mountain’… the cloister is especially well suited to life wholly directed to contemplation. Its totality signals absolute dedication to God...” Cloistered religious life is uniquely oriented toward prayer. It takes only a walk around Dinand, even this early in the academic year, to sense that there is already abundant stress and desperation, and probably not enough prayer (not that there ever can be enough prayer). Even beyond the schoolwork, a college or university cannot be a peaceful place; it is a battleground for the future of our world, whether we like to think about it in such dramatic terms or not. Here too, a monastery would act as a center of prayer for the campus. Verbi Sponsa states regarding this: “A contemplative monastery is a gift also for the local Church to which it belongs. Representing the prayerful face of the Church, a monastery makes the Church's presence more complete and meaningful in the local community. A monastic community may be compared to Moses who, in prayer, determined the fate of Israel's battles (cf. Ex 17:11), or to the guard who keeps the night watch awaiting the dawn.”
 
As well as praying for our souls and academics, a cloistered monastic community would serve as an inspiration and reminder of what is truly valuable in life, particularly as we grow ever closer to finals/graduation/our departure of this life. “As a reflection and radiation of their contemplative life, nuns offer to the Christian community and to the world of today, more than ever in need of true spiritual values, a silent proclamation of the mystery of God and a humble witness to it, thus keeping prophecy alive in the nuptial heart of the Church” (Verbi Sponsa). Verbi Sponsa speaks of nuns, and there is something to be said particularly for having an increased presence for women religious on campus. The Jesuits serve as spiritual
fathers to many students, faculty, and staff, and having a similar maternal presence could be nothing but beneficial.
 
The logistics, admittedly, could be difficult. The grass lots at the corner of College Street and Southbridge Street have been sitting vacant since the buildings previously there were demolished. Perhaps it is time for them to receive a new lease on life. Or maybe we can install a new cloistered wing off Ciampi. In the worst-case scenario, there are a lot of floors in Hogan that we don’t really need. As for the new community’s finances, I’d be more than happy to donate the part of my tuition that normally goes to the Spring Concert, and I’m sure many other students would be willing to as well. Many monastic communities sell cheese, beer, candy, or other food items so we could also benefit from having good, locally produced food on campus.
 
And since there is no contemplative branch of the Jesuits, we will have to invite a religious community of a different tradition. The Benedictines are probably our best option, as St. Benedict, their founder, is a patron saint of students, and St. Ignatius of Loyola had a beautiful experience of prayer and forgiveness at the Benedictine monastery at Montserrat. Holy Cross needs a monastery so that we can return to our Catholic roots. I do not suggest that we abandon altogether our career searching and grad-school applying, only that each of us re-evaluates our priorities. A monastery on campus or just outside the gates is a way to emphasize the importance of prayer and refocus the mission of the school on bringing souls to heaven and not just to Fulbrights. The spiritual and financial investments would be worth every bit.

Ignore Diversity: Think for Yourself

As has become customary, the start of the academic year brought another announcement of Holy Cross's commitment to "diversity." As currently used in the academic world and elsewhere, the term doesn't mean what it says. Especially in an academic institution the purpose of which, presumably, is the pursuit of learning, one would want students to be exposed to, and become literate in, the greatest possible diversity of serious intellectual viewpoints, particularly as these have been expressed in classic as well as contemporary works of philosophy, literature, theology, history, and the social sciences. They would thereby become best equipped to think through the most important questions of human and political life, and best able to conduct themselves as the sort of thoughtful citizens and family members that a self-governing republic requires. 

But that is not at all the sort of diversity that advocates have in mind. A statement from the College president boasts of the College's success in its "commitment to diversity in our faculty ranks" in that "one-third of our tenure-track hires in the past two years have been faculty of color." Additionally, all applicants for "exempt" (administrative) positions are now "require[d] to reflect on their commitment to mission and diversity in their application materials," while "trained Mission and Diversity ambassadors" will be placed "on every search committee" for higher administrative officials. The speaker of the faculty and Dean Taneja "recently wrote to faculty with concrete suggestions on how faculty can include issues of diversity and inclusion in the classroom." (The requirement to "reflect" on one's commitment to diversity in order to qualify for a position at Holy Cross raises problems of its own. How will administrators be able to tell whether an applicant is really, really committed to diversity - or is only faking it? What of applicants for tenure-track teaching positions - already required, assuming they aren't "diverse" themselves, to express their commitment to that goal - who might fake it for six years, get tenure, and then - in the memorable phrase of Harvard's Harvey Mansfield, "Hoist the Jolly Roger"? To avert these problems, might lie-detector tests have to be added? I cannot avoid recalling methods used in the dark past to test the sincerity of people's professions of faith though I don't want to give anyone ideas.) None of the foregoing policies have anything to do with the proper purpose of liberal education, defined by the 19th-century English critic Matthew Arnold as "the study of the best that has been thought and said in the world." Time that could be devoted to the study of such works is instead to be diverted in the College's unofficial ideology of "diversity and inclusion." Categorizing faculty hires on the basis of skin color means effectively reducing them to members of groups, defined by a purely arbitrary bodily characteristic rather than by their capacity for serious, independent thinking and scholarship. It demeans them by implying that they might not have qualified for their positions on the basis of academic merit alone. (And does anyone think that the discussion of "issues of diversity and inclusion" that professors are encouraged to include in their courses will allow for any dissent from that ideology?) The situation of faculty and students confronted with the demand to conform to the diversity doctrine does not differ, in some of its essentials, from the one that Socrates faced at his trial. He was condemned by the Athenian people for "corrupting the young," in that he inspired his pupils to question rather than passively accept the then-dominant ideology. Of course there were legitimate reasons for citizens to be concerned if Socrates' questioning, pursued too openly, tended to weaken the religious, moral, and political beliefs on which Athenian democracy depended. 

But the advocates of today's diversity ideology have no such excuse. I have no capacity to block the progress of the "diversity" movement at Holy Cross or elsewhere, other than refusing to defer to it in my own teaching and writing. But I urge students, whatever your ethnic background or skin color or disability status, whatever your gender or sexual orientation, whatever country you come from or religion you profess (or don't): don't let anyone tell you that any of those factors must determine how you think, what you read, or whom you associate with. Seek out courses in which the curriculum consists of serious books, particularly classics, taught by faculty who seem to be genuinely interested in what writers like Homer and Plato, Shakespeare and Machiavelli, Nietzsche and George Eliot, or the authors of the Federalist Papers and Frederick Douglass have to teach us rather than imposing the professors' own ideological or partisan beliefs on the works you will be studying. Do your best to understand what we can learn from such profound authors that we didn't already "know" (or rather, believe). If you disagree with what an author (or professor) says,
speak out (after thinking the text or issue through) and express your own point of view. Freely discuss the books you are reading outside of class with classmates who don't necessarily share your opinions, let alone your ethnic background etc. But never preface a statement or a question with "As a ---," with the blank filled in by one of the characteristics typically emphasized by the so-called diversity movement. 

Unlike all other animals, we human beings have the capacity to reason rather than be governed purely by instinct. But like the inhabitants of the cave depicted in Plato's Republic, we face considerable obstacles to exercising that capacity: the pressure to conform to the dominant prejudices imposed by those who shape our intellectual/ cultural/ political environment. Every nation needs to inculcate a patriotic and moral outlook ideally, supported by moderate religious beliefs - in its citizens. But there's no reason for colleges to engage in the indoctrination business.
 
Students, think for yourselves!