By Michael Sean Winters
National Catholic Reporter
Massimo Faggioli's new book, Theology & Catholic Higher Education: Beyond Our Identity Crisis, comes not a moment too soon. The nation's premier ecclesiologist, Faggioli identifies the dangers facing theological faculties in their struggle for existence as a problem for the church, not just the university. What is more, he sees that solving the problem will require the attention and good faith of both the academic and the ecclesial establishments.
This is a short book, but not a thin one.
Faggioli begins by examining the identity crisis afflicting theology in the country's schools of higher education. Some of the problems are self-inflicted wounds, and others represent external threats. The wave of young neo-traditionalists who reject Vatican II can turn to niche schools like Christendom College or to non-academic, pseudo-experts who populate the internet. They will not turn to theology at a mainstream Catholic university because "the growing polarization in the United States between left and right in theology … relegated Catholic theology in universities to being the handmaiden of political progressivism."
A related problem followed upon, not to say caused by, the loss of ecclesial control over Catholic higher education. "At the very moment many Catholic colleges and universities were freed from episcopal interference, they happily surrendered to the influence of corporate donors eager to fund conservative projects on Catholic campuses — projects that often combined theological traditionalism with neo-liberal or libertarian economic ideology," he writes.
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