Catholic University

* I regret your choice to feature The Catholic University of America in your special insert on Catholic Colleges and Universities (NCR, Nov. 3). Catholic University's approach to identity is the immersion model and is not representative of where the majority of Catholic colleges and universities are at on Catholic "identity."

The majority are struggling to be authentic both as "university" and as "Catholic." Catholic University is determined to be orthodox at the expense of not being fully "university." When President O'Connell says "dissent is not a valid option or an equal comparable alternative to what the church presents as truth," he positions Catholic University as afraid to take the risk of being a "university"-where by definition all ideas are in play in search for truth. Certainly, what the church teaches needs to be articulated, but it should be dialogical and respectful of all the good faculty who also value and seek truth. If this is to be dismissed as relativistic, the immersion model risks dismissal as anti-intellectual. A Catholic university should be the one place where the church is in creative dialogue with the larger society as part of the process of evangelization. The Catholic University is afraid to engage in that fashion and understandably its board of trustees will not tolerate it because the retention of the orthodox is the board's principal interest. Next time perhaps a more thoughtful comparison of the models of Catholic colleges and universities would be in order.

DONALD C. CARROLL

Menlo Park, Calif.

[Donald C. Carroll is a member of the board of trustees of Notre Dame de Namur University, Belmont, Calif.]

COPYRIGHT 2006 National Catholic Reporter
COPYRIGHT 2008 Gale, Cengage Learning