Whose Catholic identity? Let's look to the future, not the past.

In his book Coming of Age in the Universe (Morrow, 1997), science writer Timothy Ferris describes how, in just the past three or four decades, we have come as human beings to some fundamental scientific understanding of the universe we inhabit. Yet our advances in knowledge have simultaneously, and perhaps more importantly, revealed how little we really know. "Our ignorance," he writes, "has always been with us, and always will be. What is new is our awareness of it, our awakening to its fathomless dimensions, and it is this, more than anything else, that marks the coming of age of our species." We have come this far only to realize that most of the work still lies ahead.

Catholic colleges and universities in the United States "came of age" in the decades following World War II, experiencing tremendous growth in numbers and size, and in complexity, independence, and aspirations. Today they are a key part of the fabric of U.S. higher education, with broad responsibilities to both the church and society. They also face questions of Catholic identity and ecclesial authority, and many struggle to find new ways to relate to their founding religious communities. Fifty years after the war, thirty years after the establishment of lay boards of trustees, the challenges of coming of age remain.

Since graduation from the University of Notre Dame in 1981, I have been a participant in many discussions about the identity and future direction of Catholic higher education. I have served as a mentor in Collegium, a summer institute on Catholic intellectual life for young faculty and graduate students, and participated in discussions groups, both local and national, sponsored by the Lilly Endowment. I serve on the board of trustees of two institutions where these questions are carefully considered, and I now teach at a Catholic university, though that has not always been the case.

Recently, my enthusiasm for the "identity" discussions has waned. Part of that may be due to the simultaneous parenting of a toddler and a teen-ager, whose own "coming of ages" are more demanding and more delightful than most meetings will ever be. There is another reason, however: I have come to the conclusion that these conversations have not been very effective in engaging the wider community, have often not moved productively beyond their points of initiation. There have been plenty of meetings, but little outcome; much spirited repartee, but little consensus.

A major limitation of the discussion to date, I believe, is that by and large it has failed to engage recent graduates from Catholic higher education and the many women professionals who now serve these institutions. Consider a brief (admittedly incomplete) list of authors whose articles and books have been most widely debated and discussed: David O'Brien, James Burtchaell, C.S.C., Ken Woodward, Joseph Komonchak, Alice Gallin, O.S.U., Philip Gleason, William Shea, Michael Buckley, S.J., James Heft, SM., George Marsden. All graduated from college between 1942 and 1965. Women's voices, with few exceptions, are almost nonexistent in the published debate. There have been several meetings of women in Catholic higher education, and Collegium, by most accounts, has been successful in engaging younger faculty and graduate students in substantive discussions of Catholic higher education. Yet younger graduates and women clearly constitute, in some overlapping combination, the majority of people who will soon be providing the leadership for Catholic higher education, so that their general absence from the formative dialogue should be a cause for concern.

Why have women and younger people shown little interest in publicly joining the debate?

One part is clear. For many recent graduates and for many women (it is useful to remember that women do presently and have for almost twenty years constituted the majority of graduates from Catholic colleges and universities), the clarion calls of alarm about loss of Catholic identity that have spurred at least parts of the discussion sound too much like the mourning of a past, privileged time. And it is probably not coincidental that the last of the "good times" was the era that formed most of those now raising the alarm.

The celebration of a time when education was integrated, when conversation was broad and interdisciplinary, when Catholic culture suffused the very existence at universities and colleges, is difficult to share, especially for women who were excluded from many Catholic universities during those times. One suspects that everything seemed so integrated and so clear because the ideas and the people that would have brought other experiences, definitions, and questions weren't present yet. The departure of what some mourn corresponds too closely to the arrival of women, predominantly lay faculty, and lay boards of trustees, for the connection to be conveniently dismissed.

The idea that authentic identity somehow has been lost assumes that it was once present. If, however, it is an ideal or goal toward which we still strive, then it is easier to see why so many women, for example, work hard and happily now in all areas of Catholic higher education, while joining little in the cries of concern. They are more likely to be, as Alice Gallin has suggested (quoting Canadian theologian Mary Malone), "faithful to the church that is to be" - faithful, indeed, to the Catholic university that has yet to be realized.

Much of the discussion, however, has not been restorationist in tone, and so one must look deeper to understand the silence (published silence, at least) of so many. Another factor, I sense, is that the starting points for these debates, implicitly or explicitly, have often been in response to one of two ecclesial issues: the negotiations over the implementation of Ex corde ecclesiae and/or the decline in the numbers of professed religious who are available and/or desire to serve in higher education. The implementation of Ex corde ecclesiae will be decided at a level far removed from most faculty members. It is a discussion among presidents, bishops, and Rome that individuals may try to follow and appreciate, but few are likely to see as their own. For the younger generations, ecclesial issues do not seem to be as important as they were to the generation that experienced Vatican II.

The decline in the number of priests and religious is certainly a more immediate phenomenon on many campuses. The Catholic character of the schools had, for many years, been largely defined by and identified with the members of the founding religious community. Despite Vatican II's emphasis on the "people of God," the experience of both laity and religious at the time of the transitions to lay boards of trustees was that Father or Sister was responsible for the Catholic identity of the institution. With the arrival of lay boards, as Gallin notes in her study Independence and a New Partnership in Catholic Higher Education (University of Notre Dame Press, 1996), a foremost question, was "Without control by religious communities, what would keep the colleges Catholic?" Now the question is not control, but presence.

Most commentators on the subject agree that without the full partnership of significant numbers of lay people - Catholic, those of other Christian traditions, and supportive people of all faiths and none - the Catholic character of the schools cannot be sustained. As a result, there have been various attempts on campuses to talk about the charisms of the founding orders, to try more effectively to share the vision that founded and sustained the school so that the laity have the opportunity to share and articulate it more fully. These efforts can be valuable, but they can also be seen as a last-minute effort to energize the laity to "fill in," as they are being called to "fill in" in parishes all around the country.

Lay people have gradually taken on the work of teaching and administration at Catholic schools over a long period of time. But in many schools religious have also played major roles in the lives of students outside the classroom, often living with them in dormitories and residence halls. They have served as counselors, confessors, and companions, often around the clock, in key formative years in people's lives. This unique presence may be difficult, if not impossible, to replace with lay people. In the case of priests, this is in part because of the role of the sacraments. It is also a practical reality of the demands that family and children make upon many lay people.

But the influence and the lasting importance of this type of nurturing presence, whether pastoral or intellectual, is evident in the stories people tell about their Catholic education. At institutions founded by male religious orders, these are often stories of compassionate, sometimes eccentric, often demanding, perhaps inspiring priests or brothers who were present in ways that others were not. At Notre Dame, to this day, similar stories are told of the "bachelor dons," professors who once lived in the dorms with students. As single men, living with other men, their story is as close to the priests' story as one can get.

This is not to suggest that lay faculty cannot be available to students in meaningful and formative ways. They are now and have been for years. It is important to recognize, however, that these are generally not the stories we tell at Catholic schools. The story of father and son, so central in Christianity, has been central on many Catholic campuses as well, reflected in the stories of priests and the young men they nurture. If we expect the lay faculty to take more ownership of the spiritual as well as the academic future of the schools, we must allow them to lay claim to their own styles and their own stories. These stories may, at times, sound radically different from those we have known. Despite all good intentions, our history and our church make it difficult at times to fully recognize the Catholic identity in newer guise.

At the same time, it is hard to envision a vibrant Catholic environment without a rich sacramental life, and it is through renewed interest in its sacramental world view that Catholic intellectual life is currently hoping to revitalize itself. Worship, specifically celebration of the Eucharist, is without debate part of Catholic identity. Male religious communities confront these needs daily as they struggle to place fewer people in increasingly demanding positions of leadership, while at the same time maintaining pastoral presence for a growing Catholic community. In this sense, the future of Catholic higher education is deeply tied to the future of ordained ministry in the Catholic church, and it is difficult at times, particularly for those who are not Catholic, that this topic is often under the table rather than on it.

It is not coincidental, I believe, that it is at the universities and colleges founded by men's religious orders that the "identity question" is now engaged most vociferously. Most colleges founded by women religious have already been through a significant, sometimes painful, transition, as the numbers of both the schools and the professed religious have shrunk. Many institutions have reestablished and recommitted themselves in a variety of creative ways, often with lay presidents, while maintaining their ties to the founding community. Not all will agree that these efforts have succeeded. But the transition, I suspect, was eased (though not easy) because the religious leadership was not ordained, not tied in the same way to leadership in the church. And women have always stood apart, in some way, from the stories of father and son that continue to hold such a mystique.

Are there ways to start the conversation at a different place, to remove from center stage the parts of our history and the internal church issues that too often limit rather than inform the broader debate? First, any reflection on the past should flow naturally from an honest discussion about the present and the future. I have yet to encounter a faculty member, lay or religious, male or female, old or young, Catholic or not, who is not interested in talking about the future of his or her institution. They are likely to withdraw, however, if they find that their own experience is suspect (how often have we been told how little younger people "know about their faith"?) or discover that certain issues, like the role of women and the future of ordained ministry, are germane to the topic but discouraged in the discussion.

We should also dispel the notion that these discussions are important primarily in response to the decline in religious or the implementation of Ex corde ecclesiae. These issues too often restrict us from seeing the work that we do from a larger perspective. The future of Catholic colleges and universities is important because of our belief in education and scholarship and in the gospel - with the conviction that all three can flourish together. Perhaps coming of age is simply the realization of how far we have yet to go.

Nancy Haegel is an associate professor of physics at Fairfield University.