Joy in the Truth: The Catholic University in the New Millenium

To many of those who identify with the mission of the Center, there is no set of issues closer to the heart than the challenges presently facing Catholic higher education. Thus we deemed it most fitting to devote our sixth annual Fall flagship conference to the theme: “Joy in the Truth: The Catholic University in the New Millennium.” The result was an enormously successful conference which took place September 29- October 1, 2005 in McKenna Hall at the University of Notre Dame.

As a mission statement for the conference we turned to Pope John Paul II’s words from the opening of his 1990 apostolic constitution on Catholic universities, Ex Corde Ecclesiae (From the Heart of the Church): “Without in any way neglecting the acquisition of useful knowledge, a Catholic University is distinguished by its free search for the whole truth about nature, man and God. The present age is in urgent need of this kind of disinterested service, namely of proclaiming the meaning of truth, that fundamental value without which freedom, justice and human dignity are extinguished.” So, our aim with this conference was to bring together scholars representing all the main academic fields to discuss a broad range of issues relating to the way in which the Catholic university can best perform the service of proclaiming to the present age the truth about nature, man and God. We also sought to benefit from the insight and experience of our friends from non-Catholic Christian colleges and universities, as well as from our friends at secular institutions.

The conference keynote address was delivered before a large audience on Thursday evening, September 29, by Philip Gleason, Professor Emeritus of History at the University of Notre Dame and author of the seminal Contending with Modernity: Catholic Higher Education in the Twentieth Century. Professor Gleason’s keynote address was entitled, “Through Dangers, Toils and Snares: An Historical Perspective on Catholic Higher Education.” In this lecture, Professor Gleason provided a guided tour of Catholic higher education from the founding of Georgetown University in 1789 to the present day. In regard to this history Professor Gleason distinguished four stages: the initial founding stage (1789-1889); a period of crisis and reorganization (1889-1920); a period of synthesis inspired by the neo-Scholastic revival, a synthesis that served to make Catholic higher education intellectually distinctive (1930-1965); and finally a fourth period, when the synthesis which characterized Catholic higher education throughout most of the 20th century was exploded by what Gleason called “the perfect storm” of academic, social and ecclesial factors that converged in the mid-1960s.

As for the present, Professor Gleason observed that social and academic influences continue to push Catholic colleges and universities in the direction of assimilation to prevailing secular norms. Yet he did not give up the hope that Catholic institutions could still avoid the thoroughgoing process of secularization that characterizes the history of so many of their prestigious Protestant counterparts. The influence upon Catholic institutions of ecclesial authority, Gleason claimed, as exemplified perhaps most of all by Ex Corde Ecclesiae, has done much to stem what might have become an unintended
slide ever deeper into secularization.

After a full day of invited and colloquium sessions on Friday, September 30, the conference participants convened again in plenary session that evening to hear a talk by good Center friend and advisory board member, Helen Alvaré, associate professor of law at the Columbus School of Law at The Catholic University of America. Professor Alvaré’s talk was entitled, “The Catholic University: Mediator of Grace and Truth.” While not denying there is much to take issue with in regard to the inroads that secularization has made in the Catholic academy, Professor Alvaré argued that it is crucial not to lose the trust that we should have in what then Cardinal Ratzinger, now Pope Benedict XVI, called “the shape of grace in history.” For even in weak human beings and in weak institutions, grace can find a way to embolden and to renew. And there are many signs that such grace is operative in Catholic academia, Professor Alvaré contended, for example in the rise of a new crop of Catholic colleges and universities, in the impressive confidence of many Catholic intellectuals to speak the truth to our culture, in the abiding presence of the sacraments, in the pride of place still often given to the disciplines of theology and philosophy, and in the presence at many Catholic institutions of devoted clergy and religious.

The topics discussed by the conference participants over the weekend ranged widely—from academic freedom to new curricular initiatives; from spiritual aspects of the intellectual life to what Catholic universities can learn from non-Catholic. Issues involving women, families and the Christian university were discussed along with issues affecting the formation of professionals. But if one had to choose a dominant theme that characterized the entire conference, one would have to say that it was the theme of unity, unity in the truth and unity in the curriculum. Time and again throughout the presentations criticism was made of the fragmentation and compartmentalization of the disciplines in the modern academy. Our hope is that our sixth annual Fall conference helped make manifest the way toward a resolution of this problem, a resolution founded upon what St. Augustine called gaudium de veritate: joy in the truth!

The Center would like especially to thank George Maas of Edina, Minnesota, as well as the entire Maas family, whose Maas Family Endowment for Excellence played such a large part in supporting this conference.

Seeking Another City: Beyond Liberal and Conservative Catholicism in the United States

The Center’s 2005 Myser Fellow, Prof. Michael J. Baxter of Notre Dame’s Department of Theology, delivered the spring semester Schmitt Lecture on April 13, 2005. His talk was entitled “Seeking Another City: Beyond Liberal and Conservative Catholicism in the United States.” Prof. Baxter began by reflecting briefly on the voting habits of U.S. Catholics in the 20th century. The Catholic vote, which the Democrats could once count on, has been split since 1968, when divisions arose among American Catholics over Humanae Vitae and the Vietnam War. Baxter went on to assert that “this division between liberal and conservative Catholicism is the result of absorption of the Church into the political culture of the United States.”

He then gave a narrative history of Americanism, that is, the belief that the American government and its principles were benign to and even supportive of the aims of the Catholic Church, and that the United States was a providential instrument to aid the Church in bringing salvation to the world. Though Americanism was condemned by Pope Leo XIII in his 1899 apostolic letter Testem Benevolentiae, it has continued to be propagated as a sort of civil theology. Baxter traced this belief through the 20th century to the present day, noting that “both liberal and conservative Catholics have different conceptions of Catholicism, and different conceptions of America, but they both believe there exists a fundamental harmony between the two.” Baxter warned that the danger of Americanism is not the threat of dividing the American Church into liberals and conservatives so much as it is the threat of dividing the American Church from the universal Church.

He concluded that American Catholics would do well to follow the admonition of Pope John Paul II in Evangelium Vitae, in which he affirms the goodness of the democratic ideals of peace, freedom and justice, but cautions that democracies themselves must constantly be reassessed to ensure that they actually adhere to these ideals in practice.

Hearing the Call

On Wednesday evening, April 6, 2005, the Center hosted its second Breaking Bread dinner. Breaking Bread is an occasion for Notre Dame students to gather for a meal with their peers and professors in order to discuss a topic of central concern to the spiritual life of Christians. The participants, who are selected on a first-come, first-served basis, gather for the meal in the
press box at Notre Dame Stadium. Approximately eight students are seated at each table, along with one Notre Dame faculty member, who serves to facilitate the discussion.

The theme of each Breaking Bread dinner is sounded by remarks given by a speaker during the early portion of the dinner. This spring’s speaker was Dr. Os Guinness, one of the country’s most popular Christian writers and speakers. Dr. Guinness, the author or editor of more than twenty books, received his D.Phil from Oxford. Since 1984 he has lived in Washington, D.C., where he has been a visiting fellow of the Woodrow Wilson Center for International Studies and the Brookings Institution. From 1986-89 he was the executive director of the Williamsburg Charter Foundation. He is also the co-founder of the Trinity Forum and served as senior fellow and vice chairman of its board from its inception in 1991 until 2004. His energies are now principally devoted to writing and lecturing.

Dr. Guinness’s topic at this spring’s Breaking Bread dinner was “calling,” the special mission that God gives, not simply to professed religious, but to every Christian person. The discussion at the tables centered on how one is to discern and live out God’s call in one’s own life. Copies of Dr. Guinness’s book, The Call, were presented as a gift to each participant at the dinner. Many students lined up after the dinner to have their books autographed by Dr. Guinness. This year’s dinner was declared by many to be even better than last year’s. After the event, many students and faculty emailed the Center with rave reviews of Dr. Guinness’s talk and the conversation at their tables, and they promised to recommend it to their friends next year. The event was made possible by a generous gift from Mr. Fran McGowen, who honored us with his presence at this year’s dinner.

The Facts and the Fairytales about Stem Cell Research

On Thursday evening, January 13, 2005, the Center co-sponsored, in conjunction with the Diocese of Fort Wayne-South Bend, a marvelous talk by Rev. Dr. Tadeusz Pacholczyk, a talk which separated the facts from the fairy tales when it comes to the ethics of stem cell research. Fr. Tad is a staff ethicist and director of education at the National Catholic Bioethics Center in Philadelphia, and a priest of the Fall River Diocese in Massachusettes. He has his PhD in neuroscience from Yale University, and he also worked for several years as a molecular biologist at Massachusettes General Hospital/Harvard Medical School.

Fr. Tad spoke to a crowd of about 200 Notre Dame students and faculty, as well as many members of the community. The most striking aspect of his presentation was the large number of amazing, documented success stories that can already be attributed to adult stem cell research, as compared to the zero successes achieved by embryonic stem cell research. The Center would especially like to thank Fred Everett, director of the Office of Family Life at the diocese, for bringing Fr. Tad to our attention and for doing so much to make his talk such a great success.

What Can Philosophers Learn from the Tradition?

On April 30, 2005, the Center co-sponsored a one-day conference entitled “What Can Philosophers Learn from the Tradition?” The event, which took place at the University of Chicago, was organized by the Lumen Christi Institute and co-sponsored by the Committee on Social Thought of the University of Chicago and the University of Chicago Divinity School. The main speakers for the day were the Center’s Senior Research Fellow Alasdair MacIntyre, Charles Taylor of Northwestern and McGill Universities and Jean-Luc Marion of the University of Chicago and the University of Paris.

The day began with Mass in Rockefeller Chapel celebrated by Cardinal Francis George. In his homily, Cardinal George began the day’s discussion of tradition by reminding those at the Mass that they are never alone, because their participation in the Catholic and more broadly Christian tradition puts them into contact not only with ideas but more importantly with people through the Communion of Saints.

Prof. MacIntyre gave the first lecture, entitled “Rediscovering Tradition from within Modernity,” in which he gave a semi-autobiographical reflection on academia and the place of tradition in philosophical enquiry. MacIntyre recalled that he became an atheist after coming to believe, through his contact with academic philosophy, that there are no arguments that are logically compelling to all rational persons, anytime, anywhere. Thus, arguments such as those for the existence of God need not be believed by every reasonable person. As this realization was contrary to the claims of Thomism as MacIntyre understood them (and as some Thomists presented them) at the time, he rejected Th omism. Eventually, though, he returned both to theism and Th omism as he came to understand the nature of goal-oriented philosophical enquiry, that is, that it presupposes certain types of answers and excludes others. To enquire about the nature of things presupposes that things have a nature, and to enquire at all about the causes of things is to commit oneself to the possibility of a Cause of all things, i.e., God. MacIntyre observed that one particularly attractive feature of Th omistic Aristoteleanism is its ability not only to explain the world but to identify its challengers’ errors and account for them on their own terms.

This lecture was followed by Prof. Taylor, who spoke on “Modern Imaginaries and the Uses of Tradition.” Taylor explored how the social imaginary (that is, how members of a society imagine that society) applies to modernity. Many understand modern society as a system of individuals who are looking to achieve individual goods, and the hope is that we can all find a way to do this without disturbing others, and even in some cases advancing them towards their goals as we pursue our own. This model, Taylor pointed out, tends to rely on an economically centered worldview. He then went on to explore how one can make the Christian tradition, or even the concept of any tradition, available to those in this modern mindset. He suggested that there are two alternatives: bringing back a literal translation of past ideas and practices, or seeing modernity as an altogether diff erent civilization from those of past ages and expressing the truths and ideas of the tradition in a new way in an effort to relate it to modernity. Taylor favored the latter alternative, arguing that tradition must be adapted in order to thrive, and he noted that this adaptation serves as a catalyst for fruitful discussion and self-understanding within the tradition.

After lunch, the conference picked up again with another brief reflection by Cardinal George in which he continued his earlier theme about the Communion of Saints, elucidating it with anecdotes of the papal conclave. He recalled the palpable sense that the cardinals were attended by all the saints and angels as they worked to discern the will of the Holy Spirit in choosing the successor of Peter. He predicted that Pope Benedict XVI’s papacy would likely focus on renewing the Church in Western Europe, going back to the Treaty of Versailles to abrogate secularism as John Paul II went back to Yalta to abrogate communism in Eastern Europe.

After the cardinal’s address, Prof. Marion gave a lecture entitled “On the Edge of Tradition.” One of his central theses was the inescapability of tradition. Even modern philosophers who claim to reject tradition have established a tradition of denying tradition. All ideas are built upon what others have done before, and if one were to try to begin anew, ignoring the work of his predecessors, he would end up only rearticulating their theses, most likely in a less cogent manner. Rather than attempting to work in a vacuum, Marion claimed, “the living should understand what the dead have made of them and for them.” He stressed the importance of understanding tradition as living; it is not simply a restatement of ideas but a practice, a task to transform the world which is passed on. Marion noted that in the Christian tradition, this passing on is most clearly seen in the celebration of the Eucharist.

The day closed with a panel discussion among the three main speakers, chaired by the University of Chicago’s Jean Elshtain. Th e panelists responded to each other’s papers and discussed a wide range of themes, from language to politics, and then took several questions from the audience. The conference was, as expected, a day of scintillating discussion, attended by over 400 participants. Students and scholars came from all over the United States to attend this remarkable scholarly event.

The Center is grateful to the speakers and to the Lumen Christi Institute for their work in organizing the event.

New One-Credit Medical Ethics Course

Last fall, the Center organized a one-day medical ethics course designed to give undergraduates considering a vocation in health care the opportunity to engage in conversation with physicians, philosophers and theologians familiar with medical ethics. Using the small-group discussion format of our Medical Ethics Conference, over ninety students looked at real case studies and real situations they might encounter in practicing medicine in the future, from physician malpractice to end-of-life issues. The course was also an opportunity for students to form an on-going mentoring relationship with practicing alumni physicians.

Four alumni physicians who regularly attend the Philip and Doris Clarke Family Medical Ethics Conference and four other resource people gave their time and energy to make the course a huge success. Th e physicians were Dr. Paul Wright of Youngstown, Ohio, who initiated and generously funded the course, Dr. Paul McCauley, who runs a free clinic in Maryland, Dr. Mark Lindenmeyer, who currently practices law and works in an administrative capacity for three hospitals in the Cincinnati area, and Rev. Dr. Jim Foster, CSC, MD, who serves as an adviser to pre-med students at Notre Dame. In addition to these physicians, Prof. Rebecca Stangl of Notre Dame’s Philosophy Department, Prof. Kevin McDonnell, research fellow at the Center and professor of philosophy at St. Mary’s College, Prof. John Robinson of Notre Dame’s Law School and Center Director David Solomon served as resource people for the course.

The course, which took place on a Saturday, included a lunch at which Dr. Wright spoke about his experience as Blessed Mother Teresa’s personal physician. He encouraged the students to see Christ in their patients, and quoted Mother Teresa, who once told him that when working with patients, doctors must “remember Who it is they are touching.” The course filled to capacity within a matter of minutes during registration, and the students who signed up were not disappointed. “The course was amazing,” one student later wrote, “and … being surrounded by other pre-meds and by people who ‘made it’ was a huge boost for me.” Another student commented that “[the doctors’] sense of passion for medicine was easily noticed, as well as their faith. It was nice to bring past and present members of the Notre Dame family together.” One student even commented that it was “one of the most valuable classes [she had] taken at Notre Dame.”

We are grateful to all the resource people and physicians who attended, and especially to Dr. Wright for his generosity in funding the course. The Center hopes to make this course available every semester, starting this fall.

Epiphanies of Beauty: The Arts in a Post-Christian Culture

Since its inception, the Notre Dame Center for Ethics and Culture has sought to include within its influence not only those working within the academy, but also those who do work in other areas important to culture. As there are few areas of culture more important than that of the arts, the Center devoted its fifth annual fall conference on November 18-20, 2004, to the theme: “Epiphanies of Beauty: The Arts in a Post-Christian Culture.”

The phrase “Epiphanies of Beauty” comes from an open letter to artists written in 1999 by Pope John Paul II. The Letter to Artists is dedicated “[t]o all those who are passionately dedicated to the search for new ‘epiphanies’ of beauty so that through their creative work as artists they may offer these as gifts to the world.” In the letter, John Paul II celebrates the arts as capable of generating epiphanies or manifestations of God’s glory. Indeed, the pope notes that part of what it means to be made in the image of God is to imitate God in being a craftsman of beauty. Of crucial moment to the Center’s mission and to the aims of the conference, the letter states, in a phrase the conference took as a kind of motto, that “[e]ven beyond its typically religious expressions, true art has a close affinity with the world of faith, so that, even in situations where culture and the Church are far apart, art remains a kind of bridge to religious experience.” To identify ways in which such a “bridge” ought best to be constructed was the central goal of “Epiphanies of Beauty.”

But why “The Arts in a Post-Christian Culture”? Not because Christianity in general, and Christian artists in particular, have ceased to maintain a voice in our culture. But rather because a secular outlook predominates in those areas — in business, politics, academia, the media, the entertainment industry — that exert the most infl uence upon culture. So the conference addressed itself to the issue of how the arts, and Christian artists most especially, can help build a bridge to religious experience in a predominantly secular world.

This fall, we were again honored by the presence of many distinguished speakers at the conference. The conference keynote, delivered as usual on the first evening of the conference, Thursday, November 18, was given by Gregory Wolfe, founder, publisher and editor of IMAGE, a journal of the arts and religion. Prof. Wolfe is also director of the Center for Religious Humanism in Seattle, as well as writer in residence and director of the MFA program in creative writing at Seattle Pacific University. Prof. Wolfe’s address was entitled “Shouts or Whispers? Faith and Doubt in Contemporary American Literature.”

His remarks depicted a contrast between, on the one hand, those writers who made up what has come to be called the Catholic literary revival in the mid-20th century (such as Graham Greene and Flannery O’Connor), and on the other hand, present-day Christian writers who wish to explore questions of faith in the midst of an increasingly fragmented, postmodern world. The earlier set of writers, Wolfe argued, chose to create characters who make what Wolfe called “the grand gesture” as a response to drastic secularization — such as the martyrdom of the whisky priest in Greene’s The Power and the Glory. But given “the form and pressure” of the present age, Wolfe contended, it is more suitable for writers interested in exploring questions of faith to prefer “the quiet gesture.” For in our fragmented world, the intimate is the only place where communication can occur. The writers Wolfe discussed portray “grapplers,” characters either not perfectly situated in faith, or who live it out in fear and trembling.

Among the other invited speakers was Barbara Nicolosi, founder and executive director of Act One, a non-profit organization located in Hollywood, Calif., founded to train people of faith for careers in mainstream fi lm and television. Her talk, entitled, “Isolation, Community and the Artistic Life,” was an attempt to delineate a spirituality of the artist’s life, specifically in regard to its essential loneliness and consequent need for a supporting community.

Leo Linbeck III, president and CEO of Linbeck Construction in Houston, Tex., delivered a provocative and very humorous talk called “First, Kill All the Lawyers: Intellectual Property and the Re-Feudalization of Culture.” David Lyle Jeffrey, provost of Baylor University, spoke on “Epiphanies, Beauty and a Father’s Love,” and H. Tristram Engelhardt, Jr. of Rice University reflected on beauty and liturgy. The Center’s Senior Research Fellow Alasdair MacIntyre gave a lecture on the question “What Makes a Painting a Religious Painting?”, in which he compared and contrasted the work of El Greco and Mark Rothko. The conference also featured talks on architecture from Notre Dame architecture professors Philip Bess, Thomas Gordon Smith and Duncan Stroik, and a panel on fi lm with Thomas Hibbs of Baylor University and Jorge Garcia, professor of philosophy
at Boston College.

Yet one of the chief aims of the conference was not just to present academic discussions of the arts, but to put academics into conversation with working artists who would be present to showcase and discuss their work. And indeed throughout the weekend approximately 25 artists displayed their works around the conference venue, Notre Dame’s McKenna Hall, for all to enjoy between sessions. This goal also inspired a wonderful session in which Notre Dame alumnus and artist William Schickel, whose painting “Spring Morning” was used as the conference logo, talked about hisown work and the influence of his background in T omist philosophy. He was joined in the session by Gregory Wolfe, who had written a biography of Schickel and who helped to elucidate further his artistic style and influences.

As usual, the conference culminated on Saturday evening with a festive banquet in McKenna Hall, with Center Director David Solomon providing the after-dinner remarks.

St. Augustine, Harry Potter, and the Confrontation with Evil

This fall, on November 3, 2004, Prof. Jean Bethke Elshtain, Laura Spelman Rockefeller Professor of Social and Political Ethics at the University of Chicago, delivered a talk entitled “St. Augustine, Harry Potter and the Confrontation with Evil.” She began by speaking about St. Augustine’s notion of evil as the absence of good. Evil, according to Augustine, is not an active principle; rather, it is parasitic, feeding off of good. Only goodness can have depth, whereas evil is shallow, flattening out the world and making it ever more one-dimensional. Evil-doing is not glamorous but hollow, and it prevents a person from achieving his potential, making him like a shell of himself.

Elshtain then compared this Augustinian notion of evil and that presented in J.K. Rowling’s popular Harry Potter books. Elshtain explained that she was introduced to these books through her young grandson, and despite the controversy they have created in many Christian communities, she believes that they are eminently suitable for children. The Harry Potter books, Elsthain contended, present a serious picture of a moral universe where bad things really do happen, but one is never left without the tools to fight evil. This is important in a children’s story, because if stories present an overly sanitized world, then there is no contrast by which to understand good and evil and the struggle between the two that children will confront in real life.

Elshtain’s talk was well-attended by the Schmitt fellows and many in the Notre Dame community, and we were honored by the presence of several members of the board of the Schmitt Foundation.

The Disturbing Light of Reality: Sin and Redemption in the Writing of Graham Greene and Evelyn Waugh

Every fall since 2002, the Center has sponsored a week of evening lectures for undergraduates by experts on various aspects of the lives and works of particular Catholic writers. In the past two years, this series has spotlighted G.K. Chesterton, Flannery O’Connor and Walker Percy. This fall, the Center’s undergraduate assistants, Kate Wilson and Chas Tyler, put together a set of lectures entitled “The Disturbing Light of Reality: Sin and Redemption in the Writing of Graham Greene and Evelyn Waugh.” These lectures, which took place from October 4-8 in DeBartolo Hall, examined the frailty of the human condition and the depths of God’s mercy in relieving us from that condition, as portrayed in the works of British Catholic authors Graham Greene and Evelyn Waugh.

In planning the conference it seemed natural to pair Greene and Waugh, since both are British Catholic writers of the same era who were friends as well as admirers of each other’s work. In fact, the title of the series is taken from Greene’s remark in a 1978 interview with Th e New York Times Magazine that he wanted to make his prose as clear and plain as Waugh’s, in order better to let the “disturbing light of reality” shine through. The series opened with a lecture by Fr. Ian Ker, a member of the theology faculty at Oxford University. Fr. Ker’s most recent book, The Catholic Revival in English Literature, 1845-1961, was published by University of Notre Dame Press in 2003 to great critical acclaim. He offered the audience an introduction to Evelyn Waugh entitled “Evelyn Waugh: The Priest as Craftsman.” His lecture highlighted the role of professional work, particularly craftsmanship, in Waugh’s novels, noting that Waugh believed that “where there is a craft well done, there is order and serenity, which were very important in Waugh’s world.” Waugh saw the work of the priest as a craft, in which the ritual of the sacraments is of central importance, regardless of who the priest is or who is present to witness it. Consequently, the priests in Waugh’s novels tend to be unintrusive, simple men who arrive on the scene to perform the rituals of the sacraments and then leave, having done their job.

The following evening, Ralph McInerny of the Philosophy Department at the University of Notre Dame gave a lecture entitled, “It Should Rhyme with ‘Laugh’: Humor in Waugh.” Prof. McInerny remarked that “humor, one sometimes thinks, is the best medium for seriousness. [In reading Waugh], the reader finds, as the laughter dies, a residue of usually unstated or understated gravitas.” Thus, Waugh’s humor does not merely entertain, but in fact changes the reader’s perspective on reality. Prof. McInerny also remarked on Greene’s dark sense of humor, recalling that Greene once said, “Whenever I hear people speak of the brotherhood of
man, I think of Cain and Abel.”

On Wednesday evening, the Center arranged a screening of the film The Third Man, a dramatization of the novel by Graham Greene. Th is classic film noir, directed by Carol Reed, stars Orson Welles in one of his most memorable roles as Harry Lime, whose mysterious death prompts his friend Holly Martins, played by Joseph Cotten, to begin an investigation of Lime’s sordid life that takes viewers on wild chases through the dark streets of Vienna. The next night, Thomas Hibbs, dean of the Honors Program at Baylor University, lectured on “Graham Greene and Film Noir,” discussing some of the themes of Th e Third Man and other
films written by Greene. Hibbs observed that Greene’s literary work and his fi lm scripts are well-suited to the genre of film noir, as they tend to be dark, featuring unsavory characters in sleazy settings. Th is darkness, Hibbs argued, is not amoral, but rather requires that the audience distinguish good and evil in order to appreciate the gray areas explored in the film.

The series was again well-attended this year. The Center is grateful to Clarence and Frieda Bayer for their generous support of the Catholic Culture Series.

Fifth Anniversary

On September 28, 2004, the Center celebrated its fifth anniversary with a lecture and panel discussion. The lecture, given by Cardinal Avery Dulles of Fordham University, focused on “Some Challenges of Contemporary Culture to the Catholic Church.” Before an auditorium packed with undergraduates and others in the university community, Cardinal Dulles reflected on some of the cultural values in contemporary American society that at times confl ict with Christ’s teachings in the Gospel. He cautioned that overemphasis on liberty and equality can distort these values. Th e popular conception of “liberty” often sets God as an enemy from whom one must escape in order to do whatever one feels. Th e Cardinal reiterated that “the Church has a mission to explain how "the truth and grace of Jesus Christ serve to set us free.”

He also remarked on recent technological advances which have led to new ethical issues, not only in areas such as biology and medicine, but also in the way we view everyday life. American emphasis on utility and pragmatism contributes to the desire for profits, pleasure, health and convenience, leaving no place for suff ering, whereas for Christians, suffering is valuable and redemptive when united to the suffering of Christ. He then called on Christians to educate themselves about new technologies and make use of them where appropriate, particularly in the media and entertainment industries which reach a wide audience. Catholics, he said, could be a positive force in making media outlets less concerned with their bottom line and more concerned with serving others, especially the poor.

Later that evening, the celebration continued with a panel discussion considering the day’s theme: “Looking Back, Looking Forward: Ethical Refl ection in a Changing Cultural Landscape.” Th e panel featured Cardinal Dulles, Prof. Ralph McInerny of Notre Dame’s philosophy department, and Dr. Edmund Pellegrino, MD, professor emeritus of medicine and medical ethics at Georgetown University. Prof. McInerny began the discussion by speaking about the family. He observed that though the cultural landscape is always changing, it is important to recognize that it is shared with others, rather than being defined relative to each individual. Therefore, he highlighted the importance of building up families, since “the way to a civic common good passes through the family.” Dr. Pellegrino picked up on this point in his remarks, criticizing the overemphasis on autonomy in modern American culture. He focused mainly on bioethics, noting that it is a place where our culture often must make decisions and distinctions about its own values. Th e language used in bioethics is often indicative of a larger problem; for instance, people talk about “confl ict resolution” rather than “moral analysis” of a problem. Dr. Pellegrino closed by urging Catholics in universities to devote their resources to research in the biological sciences, particularly in such areas as adult stem-cell research that could help off set the need for morally compromised embryonic stem-cell research. When he had concluded, Dr. Pellegrino and the other two panelists fi elded questions from the audience for about half an hour. It was a fruitful and festive day, and we thank the speakers and all who attended for coming out to mark the Center’s anniversary.