We are gathered in the month which marks the 225th anniversary of the birth of St. John Henry Cardinal Newman, which I take to be a felicitous, if not providential, coincidence.
Let me begin by stating that I am a proud product of Catholic schools from kindergarten through two doctorates. From 1954 to 1968, I attended three Catholic elementary and secondary schools, operated by three different religious communities in two dioceses. In that entire time, I received a superb education at every level, never saw a single child brutalized, and genuinely looked forward to every day of school. From high school, I immediately entered the seminary. With the stellar education I had received—human, spiritual, and academic—I walked into Seton Hall University ready for any challenge and actually completed my bachelor’s degree in three years with a double major—Classical Languages and French.
Read more on CWR for part one
John Paul II would seem to think so, and it is what we might call “the humanum.” Sounding an awful lot like the old pagan Roman poet Terence, with his “nihil humanum mihi alienum est,” the Holy Father argues that “there is only one culture: that of man, by man and for man.” He goes on: “And thanks to her Catholic universities and their humanistic and scientific inheritance, the Church, expert in humanity, . . . explores the mysteries of humanity and of the world, clarifying them in the light of Revelation” (n. 3).
Read more on CWR for part two
