Efforts to found the College of the Holy Cross nearly two centuries ago were far from easy. Hurdled by political pushback and widespread anti-Catholic sentiment, Bishop Benedict Joseph Fenwick – the eventual founder of the College in whose honor this publication is named – was fighting a grimly uphill battle. Because Protestant leaders blocked his plan to establish a Catholic college in Boston, Bishop Fenwick was forced to move westward to Worcester. “Will not this be a bold undertaking?” he wrote as the project finally began to take shape. “Nevertheless I will try it. It will stand on a beautiful eminence & will command the view of the whole town of Worcester.”
The founding of the College of the Holy Cross represents an inspiring commitment to the timeless truths of the Catholic Church and a staunch resistance to the social and religious norms pervading nineteenth century New England: rather than caving to cultural pressures, tiptoeing away from ties to the Church, or forfeiting his own integrity for reasons of cultural or fiscal expediency, Bishop Fenwick stood firm in his ambition and held tight to his values. He was, fittingly, a crusader in the truest sense of the word. Situated atop the soaring Mount Saint James, the College of the Holy Cross symbolized a daring defiance against the prejudices of the surrounding region and wielded a resilient pride in its Catholic roots. Upon its founding, the College was truly, both in its physical placement and in its proud radiance of its Catholic heritage, a shining city on a hill.
Although the campus founded by Bishop Fenwick in 1843 still sits atop that same hill all these years later, the mountain of boldness on which it once stood has been almost entirely dislodged. No longer does the College of the Holy Cross stand as a beacon of resilience or as a radiant espousal of Catholic ideals. Instead of furthering its legacy of going against the societal grain and adhering to the truth rather than complying with the times, the College has become a mere absorber of the ideas and attitudes that surround it. Like far too many other religious and even nonreligious institutions, Holy Cross has sacrificed its institutional integrity and countercultural grit on the altar of secularization, fueled by a misplaced desire for acceptance from the masses.
Of course, no one can blame administrators for seeking to bolster the College’s national reputation beyond northeastern Catholic circles. But doing so should never have come at the cost of its Catholic standing. In attempting to broaden its appeal to a national secular audience, the College has stripped itself of its distinctiveness, and in doing so has reduced itself to just another alternative to the plethora of liberal arts colleges struggling to find ways to stand out. When Catholic education is deprived of Catholicism, it neglects to offer anything that secular education cannot.
Unfortunately, the style of “Catholicism” brandished by Holy Cross in recent decades can hardly be considered dependably “Catholic” at all. It merely reflects the progressive social activist ethos prevalent elsewhere in secular American society, permeated by contemporary sociopolitical norms and almost utterly devoid of the universal truths that serve as a foundation for the faith. Holy Cross in 2020 represents a neutered, wishy-washy Catholicism that elevates so-called “Jesuit” and “Ignatian” “values” over the more decisive Catholic ones — which it has achieved by extracting from the faith only what is culturally acceptable and throwing everything else by the wayside.
Examples of the College’s feeble approach to its faith are not difficult to find. Many student tour guides are outwardly ashamed of St. Joseph Memorial Chapel and the religious statues scattered across campus when speaking with prospective students. Some of the main functions of the Chaplains Office include holding “Ignatian Yoga” (or really “Ignatian” anything) retreats and obnoxiously pandering to special interest groups in ways that do not in any way align with Catholic Church teaching. The chaplains’ version of St. Ignatius’s Spiritual Exercises attempts to parallel Christ’s Passion with something as comparably insignificant as climate change, and presents the Stations of the Cross not via Scripture but through written accounts of refugees. In the two years the Chaplains Office office has been preoccupied with producing climate strike and DACA stickers and hanging rainbow flags anywhere it can, it has also cut the number of on-campus Catholic Masses in half.
Meanwhile, the College’s Religious Studies department directs almost more attention to Islam, Judaism, and other faiths than it does to Catholicism, and even the Catholic-centric offerings that remain have been largely taken over by liberation theology and “sexual justice” courses. The current administration has shown itself time and time again to timidly succumb to angry segments of students with lists of “demands,” leaving the impression that the inmates are running the asylum. Even our own Bishop has been effectively ousted from campus for professing the supposedly bizarre notion men are men and women are women. The on-campus diversity bureaucracy seemingly multiplies by the semester, leaving less and less room for Catholic thought or influence in important campus decisions.
Holy Cross is in crisis. It has allowed itself to be defined by its surroundings rather than even attempting to define itself. Its Catholic roots are seen as impediments rather than as unique and much-needed assets. At this point in time, other than its name and the Catholic symbols visible on campus, the College is essentially indistinguishable from the hundreds of other colleges across the country, many of which are in a similarly desperate search for an identity.
Of course, none of this is to say that there is no room for institutional evolution and growth: the small, all-male campus that existed on Mount Saint James in centuries past needed to take many of the steps it has to grow and succeed today. But by surrendering the philosophy of its founding and conceding its once dearly held values to the whims of an ever-changing society, the College has ceased to be the shining city on a hill it once was. Though it may still command the physical view of the city of Worcester as Bishop Fenwick predicted, the world no longer sees an institution of strength, of faith, or of willpower on that hill. It only sees a reflection of itself, albeit with a disingenuous “Ignatian” slant. Until Holy Cross can reassess its value as an institution and embrace Bishop Fenwick’s spirit of determination – even at the risk of unpopularity – it will never again be anything more than a small liberal arts college on top of a hill with nice-looking buildings in central Massachusetts.
Luckily for Holy Cross, it’s far from too late. At some point, perhaps even in the near future, the College will need to finally make a decision it seems to have been avoiding for so long. Going forward, will the College of the Holy Cross choose to embrace its Catholic history and operate as an authentically Catholic institution? Or will it continue bowing down to what it thinks is trendy and leave its Catholicism behind for good? We can’t keep trying to be everything to everyone. At some point, a decision has to be made: are we Catholic? Or will we allow the surrounding world to tell us who we are?
Restoring authentic Catholicism at Holy Cross should be nothing burdensome or out of reach. Summarizing Pope John Paul II’s Ex Corde Ecclesiae, Bishop Robert McManus of the Diocese of Worcester told The Fenwick Review last fall that “a university cannot be a university without academic freedom, but within certain parameters. In some instances, what academic freedom means at Harvard University, or Berkeley in California, that type of academic freedom cannot be exercised at a Catholic university, especially in the fields of theological education. Because we are a dogmatic Church, a Church with a whole doctrinal tradition.” He continued: “When you go to a Catholic college, or a college that claims to be Catholic and strives to be authentically Catholic, then you’re going to be introduced to the great Catholic intellectual tradition, which may be very contrary to some of the tenets of religion that a non-Catholic student may have.”
Should the College choose to heed our Bishop’s advice and once again harness the values, fortitude, and vigor that led to its creation, it would again become a force for meaningful change in the world and a leading voice among Catholic colleges and universities. In the summer of 2016, several weeks before fall orientation, the Class of 2020 voted to select a quote from former Holy Cross president Rev. John Brooks, S.J. as its class quote. The quote, printed on the back of class t-shirts, reads: “What we desperately want and strive to achieve at Holy Cross is an education that leads rather than follows.” When Bishop Fenwick overcame all the obstacles set before him to found Holy Cross, he was leading rather than following. And we should too. Though the Holy Cross community, and particularly the Class of 2020, is facing unprecedented alienation and tremendous uncertainty in the midst of the COVID-19 crisis, now is perhaps the best time to consider how we want to emerge from isolation and redefine ourselves in the wake of new life and new opportunity. For far too long, Holy Cross has subserviently followed other cultural and academic institutions while failing to confidently pave its own path. Now is the time to recognize the extraordinary advantages of our Catholic heritage and, once more, to become an institution that leads rather than follows.
Will not this be a bold undertaking? Nevertheless we should try it.
