Where Is Knowing Going? »

Catholic institutions of higher learning are at a crossroads: How can they remain true to their roots while recognizing that many of their administrations and faculties and student bodies have little connection with the tradition? How can these institutions remain competitive while maintaining a relationship to the church? Haughey, a Catholic theologian working out of Woodstock Theological Center, has conducted rigorous research on these questions, visiting dozens of Catholic schools and seminaries, meeting with administrators and faculty members and students, while leading a working group of Catholic scholars to find solutions. The book represents his findings, and here is his description: The book addresses the question about what constitutes the Catholic identity of Catholic colleges and universities. It is needed because at present these institutions are an an impasse created by Pope John Paul II's 1990 Apostolic Constitution, Ex Corde Ecclesiae ("From the Heart of the Church"). The book gets readers beyond the impasse by: examining the genesis of the ecclesiological meaning of the word "catholic" as well as the practical import of its emerging eschatological horizon; going beyond a doctrinal understanding of Catholic identity to one that engages and is engaged by the intellectual tradition of Catholicism; denying the issue of Catholic identity is solved by marketing the distinctive identities of the institutions in terms of their founding religious orders or saints; providing a process whereby the mission being pursued by individual faculty can be aligned with the formal mission of the university.