Review: The future of Catholic theology departments in colleges and universities
(iStock)The problem with Massimo Faggioli’s Theology and Catholic Higher Education is not that his aspirations are too large. If anything, they may be too small. On numerous pages, I found myself agreeing vigorously with what Faggioli offered but also repeatedly thinking, “Go further!” and “Ask more!”
Part of that response emanates from my vantage point as an evangelical Protestant. By the 1960s, secularization had beset the majority of colleges and universities that once afforded their respective denominations with places to do their thinking. Secularization would come calling on Catholic campuses 10 years later, but initially for different reasons.
Contrary to what some pundits offer, neither the Second Vatican Council nor the Land O’Lakes Statement are to blame (if only Catholic colleges and universities incorporated half of what Land O’Lakes commends!). The real culprit resides in the details of a less sinister story about the inability of institutions to form lay leaders at a rate that kept pace with declines in men and women religious.
As a sympathetic outsider, I do not want to see Catholic colleges and universities make some of the same mistakes my Protestant predecessors made. Those mistakes resulted in evangelical colleges and universities being the only historically Protestant schools that offer some coherent rationale for why theology departments exist.
Catholic colleges and universities would find their missions well served if they addressed only half of the challenges Faggioli details in his book concerning theology, the role it plays on Catholic college and university campuses, and the role it plays in the church. Understanding what Faggioli shares in this important book, as well as where he could go further or ask more, may prove imperative.
Readers unfamiliar with Massimo Faggioli may find it interesting that he, in his own way, is a sympathetic outsider. Unlike most of his colleagues in theology departments at Catholic colleges and universities in the United States, Faggioli is Italian. He initially came to the United States to join the faculty at the University of St. Thomas and, since 2016, at Villanova University. As noted in the dedication, Faggioli has a deep appreciation for Catholic colleges and universities, his “adoptive alma mater.”
During his time at Villanova alone, Faggioli has provided commentary concerning the ramifications of the truths theology departments curate for academia and the church. The Oxford Handbook of Vatican II, for example, which he co-edited with Catherine Clifford, is a reference work that should find a place on the desks of insiders and sympathetic outsiders alike. His articles dot journals serving scholars as well as periodicals serving laypersons. Revised versions of articles that initially appeared in Commonweal and the National Catholic Reporter, for example, became chapters in this book.
Regardless of the outlet, Faggioli looks to answer the same question, “What is [theology’s] intrinsic value if it is not rooted somehow to the ongoing development of the life of the church as a community of disciples attempting to live Jesus-like lives?”
As Faggioli makes clear in the title, however, the future of theology “is very uncertain. Not only the discipline, but the future of the universitas as such is in doubt.” That uncertain future is driven by “Catholic colleges and universities that compete in a market-oriented system.” These “are cutting their theology programs in favor of more ‘professionalizing’ courses.” To many “in the new cohort of lay (non-clergy, non-religious) administrators running Catholic colleges and universities these days,” theology is “a luxury, a non-essential field among other, more practical ones.”
Faggioli then unpacks that argument concerning theology’s uncertain future in six chapters that follow a movement including confirmation of this crisis, what is at stake in the crisis and recommendations intended to alleviate the crisis. The most articulate of these is Chapter 5, “Catholic Theology vis-à-vis Ecclesia, Universitas, and Civitas.” In order to clear space for the recommendations Faggioli makes in Chapter 6, he strives to free theology from the captivity it presently experiences.
Faggioli argues that theologians on the left, driven by a reduction of theological debate to “a current cultural canon of social issues,” have reduced theology “to cultural anthropology and ethnography.” He then argues that theologians on the right have reduced theology to “off campus anti-university and anti-theological initiatives.” In contrast, Faggioli believes the courses theology departments offer on Catholic college and university campuses must “be Catholic.” In essence, such courses invest “in the sense of wonderment, in a voyage of exploration that the intellectual and theological tradition as a living, ecclesial corpus can arouse.” He argues that theologians on the right and the left have found themselves with few options for legitimacy other than what secular intellectual and anti-intellectual cultures offer.
This crisis of legitimacy becomes clear in the details concerning how Vatican II is received by theologians. On the left, many theologians view the council as freeing them to embrace the methods employed by the ranks of an intellectual establishment that, ironically, was grappling with its own legitimacy. On the right, many theologians view the council as abandoning the clerical institutionalism definitive of a golden ecclesial age at a level that never existed. Faggioli wisely cautions readers against the false allure afforded by these options, encouraging them to embrace fully what Vatican II offers.
As a result, Faggioli rightly asserts that the current crisis plaguing theology is one that poses a threat to both the church and the university. Faggioli notes that while the church would survive without efforts extended by theology departments, the church would also lose the service of a group upon whom it depended for almost a millennium. As the challenges the world brings to the church grow more complex, the relationship the church shares with faculties seeking to do its thinking should only grow.
Faggioli also rightly notes that envisioning a Catholic university apart from a group prepared to explore the language of the church proves, at best, difficult. As he indicates, some theology departments are indistinguishable in their methods from religious studies departments that house scholars who practice, for example, anthropological explorations of religious peoples. While of value in their own ways, such efforts contribute little to nothing to the ability of Catholic colleges or universities to differentiate themselves from secular universities.
My frustration with Faggioli’s work emerged only when I found myself wanting him to press more in terms of what theology departments offer the church and the university. One grouping of those frustrations emerged when I wanted Faggioli to go further when detailing challenges these departments are facing. In particular, his writing style is defined by prose more suitable for summing up the significance of a challenge, not detailing its concrete existence. On several occasions, for example, he notes that administrators are “selling out to technocracy.” Here, noting the number of theology courses and theology positions being eliminated would prove beneficial. This would allow readers to come to terms in tangible ways with the threats theology departments are facing.
Another grouping of those frustrations emerged when I found myself wanting Faggioli to say more. One quick example is in the brief Chapter 6, “Proposals for a Way Forward.” While the three proposals Faggioli offers merit serious consideration, they comprise a mere eight pages, focusing on efforts related to: “the relationship between academic theology and the church; a new coherent vision around Vatican II; and a new engagement with the tradition.”
The threats theology departments face merit far more detailed examination of what those efforts demand. I imagine that Faggioli has thought more about these threats than almost anyone—and I, for one, would be eager to consider what he has to offer.
I would also encourage the author to ask more of the responsibilities colleagues across the campus have for thinking through how faith and learning intersect in their respective programmatic areas. Along with campus ministry, theology departments play central roles in such efforts. The character of a Catholic college or university, however, is then also dependent upon the ways that voyage of exploration not only reverberates through other academic departments but also through programmatic efforts led by co-curricular educators leading residence life, student activities and, dare I even contend, intercollegiate athletics. Catholic colleges and universities can then fulfill their mission while also navigating the secularizing pressures prone to creep into almost any corner of a campus.
The ability of Catholic (as well as evangelical) colleges and universities to advance their missions is dependent upon fostering aspirations that run the risk of being too large. Massimo Faggioli’s Theology and Catholic Higher Education is a work to which all concerned with the advancement of those missions should give deep and abiding consideration. Hopefully, he will follow this effort with one that will ask all of us to go further and ask more.
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