logos in the humanities, sciences, social sciences, and professions. This intersection of faith and reason is where we discover the deepest wisdom for living. For the incarnate Logos is the highest expression
reason to find expression in fruitful dialogue. Yet this crucial principle can easily get lost or muted in the modern university. Universities are critiqued for reducing their purpose either to utilitarian careerism or to ideological activism. THE FORMATION OF THE HEART AND SOULS Whereas the university principle is the essence of higher education, the collegiate principle provides for the university’s integrity . The life of a student is never confined simply to the classroom, lab and library. Students live, play sports, and worship and pray together; they participate in clubs and internships; and above all, they create friendships. They are called not only to gain an intellectual habit
of seeing things whole, but also fashion lives of integrity.
through which the spiritual and moral lives of students are integrated with their intellectual work. This principle is particularly expressed in our front room in Sitzmann Hall. There hangs the painting by the Renaissance artist Caravaggio, "The Calling of Saint Matthew." It depicts the moment when Christ is calling Matthew to follow him. In one form or another it is a call that comes to each of us. College years are of crucial importance for attentiveness to this call. Students are discerning their majors, assessing their gifts and talents, and looking toward the profession they hope to pursue. It is also a time for every serious Catholic student to look at the three main states of life: lay, religious and priestly. To facilitate such discernment, we collaborate with Campus Ministry where Masses, adoration, retreats, and spiritual direction are offered.
As every parent who sends a child to college knows,
roommates, friendships, and the student community have serious implications for their child’s moral and spiritual health. In addition to developing intellectual virtues, students need to grow in moral and religious virtues as well. Without such virtue, the intellectual virtues are prone to weaken, leaving the student vulnerable and likely to capitulate to one of the most dangerous temptations of the academy: intellectual pride. This collegiate principle, as a formation of the soul and heart, has informed our work at Catholic Studies. We create conditions, opportunities, and programs
"The Calling of Saint Matthew" by Caravaggio.
These decisions of vocation, profession, and marriage need to be planted in the deepest soil of wisdom possible. This is why we see Catholic Studies as more than an academic project; it is also an ecclesial one. We aim to help our students embed their moral and spiritual lives in the life of the Church — her prayer, sacraments, and teachings. Apart from this ecclesial context, the intellectual work of the university will go awry, and the education that was meant
to bring a young mind and spirit into the order of the Logos instead will tend to corrupt and misshape it. This is why Newman maintained that “practically speaking, the university cannot fulfill its object duly without the Church’s assistance, i.e., the Church is necessary for its integrity . . . the Church steadies it in the performance of that office,” a truth as relevant today as it was in Newman’s time.
of order and intelligibility, the privileged place where truth meets love. The university was originally an outgrowth of the Catholic mind founded to allow the complementarity of faith and
“
This intersection of faith and reason is where we discover the deepest wisdom for living.”
1999
The Master of Arts in Catholic Studies program is approved by the university. Dr. Mary Reichardt serves as its first director. 2000
Through a gift from the Bernardi family, a residence is purchased and renovated in central
The Latino Leadership Program is established, making a four-year degree at a Catholic university possible for local Latino students. The program is later renamed Latino Scholars Program.
Catholic Studies makes the recently renovated residence in Rome its permanent home. The Bernardi Campus becomes a
Rome. The villa, which had once been a convent, has a chapel, dining area, student rooms, a faculty apartment, and a rooftop terrace.
beloved place in Rome for Catholic Studies students and faculty.
Page 10 stthomas.edu/catholicstudies
St. Thomas Lumen Summer 2023 Page 11
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