Post by td128 on Dec 7, 2019 16:17:50 GMT -5
I have to admit that I am surprised that this interview with Bishop McManus from the November issue of The Fenwick Review has not already been posted here. In any event, this interview crossed my desk earlier today. I might imagine that this interview will generate a fair bit of reaction. As well it should given the increasingly secular narrative and agenda that is propagated atop Mt. St. James. I applaud The Fenwick Review for engaging Bishop McManus and addressing issues that I think the administration having swept them under the rug would have preferred to have kept them there. I applaud Bishop McManus for defending our Catholic faith. He leaves little to interpretation as to where he stands on things. I would think the Board might be convening in short order to address these topics. As well they should.
IHS
www.thefenwickreview.com/archive/2019/11/16/an-interview-with-bishop-robert-mcmanus
A few weeks ago, Co-Editor-in-Chief Jack Rosenwinkel ’21 interviewed Bishop Robert McManus, the Catholic Bishop of the Diocese of Worcester. They discussed everything from McManus’s own background to what it means for Holy Cross to be an authentically Catholic school. The interview has been edited for length and clarity. Questions are in bold; everything else is Bishop McManus.
Bishop McManus was born and raised in Providence, Rhode Island. He entered high school seminary at the age of 14, studied philosophy as a Basselin Scholar at the Catholic University of America, and was ordained a priest in 1978. He has a Doctorate in Sacred Theology from the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome. In 1998, he became the rector of Providence’s seminary, and later that year, he was ordained a bishop. He has led the Diocese of Worcester since 2004.
Do you like being a bishop?
I accepted the role of bishop because that’s what the Church wanted me to do. I’d never thought about being a bishop. Unfortunately, it’s been a very difficult time in the life of the Church. I’ve been a bishop for 20 years, and for 17 of those, I’ve been dealing with the sexual abuse situation, which is absolutely a scourge. So, there’s many joys. Many, many joys, and I thank God for the gift and the responsibility of being a bishop, but the present context, in the last 17 years, it’s been a cross. But I think that’s God’s providence, because he chose me to be a Bishop and he gives me the graces I need everyday. It’s just amazing the source of strength one gets from meeting people throughout the diocese who are praying for me. If I didn’t have the prayers, I’d be in a mental institution. So it’s been a gift, it’s been a joy, but I’ll be frank in saying that there have been many moments of great suffering.
Going off that… with the abuse crisis and increasing animosity towards Catholicism, your job has probably gotten a lot harder.
The greatest hurt for a bishop and a parish priest is two-fold. It’s secularism, and then a lot of the mistakes we made in the renewal of the Church after the Second Vatican Council… those two things have decimated the population in terms of practice of the faith.
But I would say it’s a big church and there’s room for everybody as long as you want to be authentically Catholic. That’s what it’s all about. And that’s another difficulty I have. You see it so often with Catholics in public life, especially among Catholic public officials. What’s going on here in Massachusetts is a prime example of this. The mayors of Massachusetts just stood up at a press conference in front of the State House and publicly proclaimed their support for this Roe Act, which promotes abortion. Those Catholic politicians have to realize that by taking a public, pro-abortion stance, they jeopardize their relationship to the Catholic Church. They are, in some level, involved with a very, very grave evil. It’s a type of apostasy.
It’s also very upsetting when Catholic institutions claim to be Catholic but have squandered their Catholic identity. Those are some of the biggest hurts. To see the beauty of the faith either being watered down, or set aside, or actually being repudiated by people who still claim they want to be Catholics. But they can’t have it both ways.
What does it mean for a college to call itself Catholic?
Well, first of all, any Catholic institution can only be called Catholic by the endorsement of the local bishop. The local bishop grants the title of Catholic identity to a local institution, and for very, very serious reasons, could withdraw that Catholic label.
What fundamentally makes Catholic colleges Catholic is that they have to be completely and unambiguously supportive of promoting, fostering, and furthering the great Catholic intellectual tradition, which spans from Jerusalem right to the present moment. Just look at the 13th century. you had St. Francis, St. Dominic, St. Bonaventure, St. Thomas Aquinas, St. Albert the Great—these great intellectuals.
We had two magnificent pontificates with John Paul II and Pope Benedict, which I think was a great moment in the Church’s intellectual tradition. With then with Cardinal Newman’s canonization, we have to stand back and realize that this man—hopefully, someday a Doctor of the Church—has so articulately contributed to the Catholic intellectual tradition. These are the things that a Catholic college or university has to be rooted in.
I think fundamentally, you do that by hiring for mission. You only hire people—even if they’re not Catholic—that thoroughly and authentically commit themselves to supporting the mission. The Catholic identity of a college is completely tied up with the mission, and if we don’t get the mission straight, the identity is going to be undercut. When you don’t hire for mission, you get off the track. Once you get off the track, it’s hard to get off the track, because of tenure. Once you have a tenured professor who’s off the tracks, you have a big problem. There’s very little you can do administratively in that situation.
How do we balance the belief in objective truth and the Catholic intellectual tradition with academic freedom?
Well, it’s very well established in Ex Corde Ecclesiae, by John Paul II. He’s very clear in that document. In 2008, Pope Benedict came to the United States and gave a talk at Catholic University to Catholic educators—from university presidents to elementary school teachers. He talked about academic freedom the way Ex Corde speaks about it, which is to say that a university cannot be a university without academic freedom, but within certain parameters. In some instances, what academic freedom means at Harvard University, or Berkley in California, that type of academic freedom cannot be exercised at a Catholic university, especially in the fields of theological education. Because we are a dogmatic Church, a Church with a whole doctrinal tradition.
As a result, theology is faith seeking understanding. The theological tradition moves forward, but always within the confines of the dogmatic tradition of the Church. There certainly can be a development—Newman makes that clear, and we see it in the Second Vatican Council—but there cannot be theological rupture in the tradition, what Benedict XVI called “a hermeneutic of discontinuity.” We saw this after Vatican II. The mandate of the Council was to bring the tradition forward, but we saw some theologians—and I don’t say it was done with any ill will—actually get off the Catholic rails.
What advice would you give to a student who is in a class, particularly a religious studies class, where they feel like the professor has gotten a little off the rails?
If a student hears something in class that he or she knows is not the teaching of the Church, and if it’s being propagated in a... theological… what do they call it?
Religious studies.
I know, they try to make the distinction between theology and religious studies. Well, fine, make the distinction, but the reality is, it’s a Catholic college, and if you hear something that is contrary to the faith, I think students have a right to put their hand up and respectfully challenge that particular position. Then, they should ask to see the professor—again, in a very respectful and civil way—and raise their objections.
You don’t have to be Catholic to go to a Catholic college, but I think when you go to a Catholic college, or a college that claims to be Catholic and strives to be authentically Catholic, then you’re going to be introduced to the great Catholic intellectual tradition, which may be very contrary to some of the tenets of religion that a non-Catholic student may have.
That is why Ex Corde Ecclesiae says very clearly that a majority of the professors at a Catholic college should be Roman Catholic. I would go a little bit further and say they don’t just need to be Roman Catholics; they have to be Roman Catholics who are committed to the Catholic intellectual tradition. A college is a place where intellectual conversations go on all the time, but what I am finding is, in some quarters, some people who argue in the name of diversity, or argue for tolerance, are unfortunately very intolerant of positions that do not square with them. And if you disagree with them, it’s hate speech. I just find it very intellectually unsettling that this plea for diversity and tolerance often does not play out from their point of view.
Over the years, there have been moments when Holy Cross has been at the center of this debate about what defines a school’s Catholic identity. How do you feel like the school has handled some of these incidents?
I’ve been here 15 years, and I think the college has sometimes handled things very appropriately, and sometimes less so. A couple years ago, when had this controversy over Benny Liew, I was just completely disappointed in the reaction of the College. He shouldn’t have been hired. He shouldn’t still be hired. I don’t think he should be teaching in a Catholic college. He’s still there though.
And then last May, I was upset too. I happened to give a talk up at the Cross for a group of physicians and nurses who are very attached to the Divine Mercy spirituality. I gave on a talk on the Church’s moral concerns about transgenderism. I was very forthright. I never named anyone, never named any colleges, never named faculties… well, there’s an article done in the paper, and I’m being criticized by the chief administrators at the college, saying that my speech was hate speech.
That’s ridiculous! It’s just crazy. These days, I’m less than certain that the Catholic identity of Holy Cross is strong. I’m very concerned.
Does that put Holy Cross’s official Catholic status in jeopardy?
Well, a bishop can remove the Catholic title, but I would rather dialogue with the school. But when it’s cut off by saying, “We don’t want you here on campus,” well, give me a break.
So what do you do? How do you have dialogue if the other side refuses or just says it’s hate speech?
You just have to pray for some type of conversion. It seems to me that when people want to cut off dialogue with these subjective arguments, basically they’re saying, “Well, you’ve hurt my feelings.” And that’s the end of an intellectual conversation, because it’s not about feelings. It’s about truth. It’s difficult.
My concern is, and I’ve said this to Fr. Boroughs, every Catholic kid and Catholic faculty member on that campus is part of my pastoral responsibility, and if I think something is being said or taught that I find dangerous to the faith, then before God I have a responsibility to speak up, and not only at Holy Cross. When people are on campus, they are part of the Church here in Worcester. And I take that seriously.
When young people are at Catholic institutions, they have absolutely every right to be introduced to authentic Catholicism, not a watered-down version of it.
Do you have any final parting words for Holy Cross Students?
Don’t settle for what George Weigel calls, “Lite Catholicism.” Young people want the real McCoy. By your example, your enthusiasm, your practice of the faith… it catches on. When my younger brother graduated college, we moved to Grand Rapids, and he had a roommate. One of the first weekends they were together, my brother gets up and gets dressed to go out. And the roommate goes, “Where are you going?”
My brother says, “Mass.”
“You’re going to Mass?”
My brother goes. Three weeks later, the guy gets up and goes, “I think I’m gonna go to Mass with you.” And he came back to practicing the faith.
You people have a lot of responsibility. But it’s all about prayer. Prayer and living an authentically Catholic life, praying for the conversion of souls. But I ask you all to pray for me, and I pray for the College every day.
AMDG
IHS
www.thefenwickreview.com/archive/2019/11/16/an-interview-with-bishop-robert-mcmanus
A few weeks ago, Co-Editor-in-Chief Jack Rosenwinkel ’21 interviewed Bishop Robert McManus, the Catholic Bishop of the Diocese of Worcester. They discussed everything from McManus’s own background to what it means for Holy Cross to be an authentically Catholic school. The interview has been edited for length and clarity. Questions are in bold; everything else is Bishop McManus.
Bishop McManus was born and raised in Providence, Rhode Island. He entered high school seminary at the age of 14, studied philosophy as a Basselin Scholar at the Catholic University of America, and was ordained a priest in 1978. He has a Doctorate in Sacred Theology from the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome. In 1998, he became the rector of Providence’s seminary, and later that year, he was ordained a bishop. He has led the Diocese of Worcester since 2004.
Do you like being a bishop?
I accepted the role of bishop because that’s what the Church wanted me to do. I’d never thought about being a bishop. Unfortunately, it’s been a very difficult time in the life of the Church. I’ve been a bishop for 20 years, and for 17 of those, I’ve been dealing with the sexual abuse situation, which is absolutely a scourge. So, there’s many joys. Many, many joys, and I thank God for the gift and the responsibility of being a bishop, but the present context, in the last 17 years, it’s been a cross. But I think that’s God’s providence, because he chose me to be a Bishop and he gives me the graces I need everyday. It’s just amazing the source of strength one gets from meeting people throughout the diocese who are praying for me. If I didn’t have the prayers, I’d be in a mental institution. So it’s been a gift, it’s been a joy, but I’ll be frank in saying that there have been many moments of great suffering.
Going off that… with the abuse crisis and increasing animosity towards Catholicism, your job has probably gotten a lot harder.
The greatest hurt for a bishop and a parish priest is two-fold. It’s secularism, and then a lot of the mistakes we made in the renewal of the Church after the Second Vatican Council… those two things have decimated the population in terms of practice of the faith.
But I would say it’s a big church and there’s room for everybody as long as you want to be authentically Catholic. That’s what it’s all about. And that’s another difficulty I have. You see it so often with Catholics in public life, especially among Catholic public officials. What’s going on here in Massachusetts is a prime example of this. The mayors of Massachusetts just stood up at a press conference in front of the State House and publicly proclaimed their support for this Roe Act, which promotes abortion. Those Catholic politicians have to realize that by taking a public, pro-abortion stance, they jeopardize their relationship to the Catholic Church. They are, in some level, involved with a very, very grave evil. It’s a type of apostasy.
It’s also very upsetting when Catholic institutions claim to be Catholic but have squandered their Catholic identity. Those are some of the biggest hurts. To see the beauty of the faith either being watered down, or set aside, or actually being repudiated by people who still claim they want to be Catholics. But they can’t have it both ways.
What does it mean for a college to call itself Catholic?
Well, first of all, any Catholic institution can only be called Catholic by the endorsement of the local bishop. The local bishop grants the title of Catholic identity to a local institution, and for very, very serious reasons, could withdraw that Catholic label.
What fundamentally makes Catholic colleges Catholic is that they have to be completely and unambiguously supportive of promoting, fostering, and furthering the great Catholic intellectual tradition, which spans from Jerusalem right to the present moment. Just look at the 13th century. you had St. Francis, St. Dominic, St. Bonaventure, St. Thomas Aquinas, St. Albert the Great—these great intellectuals.
We had two magnificent pontificates with John Paul II and Pope Benedict, which I think was a great moment in the Church’s intellectual tradition. With then with Cardinal Newman’s canonization, we have to stand back and realize that this man—hopefully, someday a Doctor of the Church—has so articulately contributed to the Catholic intellectual tradition. These are the things that a Catholic college or university has to be rooted in.
I think fundamentally, you do that by hiring for mission. You only hire people—even if they’re not Catholic—that thoroughly and authentically commit themselves to supporting the mission. The Catholic identity of a college is completely tied up with the mission, and if we don’t get the mission straight, the identity is going to be undercut. When you don’t hire for mission, you get off the track. Once you get off the track, it’s hard to get off the track, because of tenure. Once you have a tenured professor who’s off the tracks, you have a big problem. There’s very little you can do administratively in that situation.
How do we balance the belief in objective truth and the Catholic intellectual tradition with academic freedom?
Well, it’s very well established in Ex Corde Ecclesiae, by John Paul II. He’s very clear in that document. In 2008, Pope Benedict came to the United States and gave a talk at Catholic University to Catholic educators—from university presidents to elementary school teachers. He talked about academic freedom the way Ex Corde speaks about it, which is to say that a university cannot be a university without academic freedom, but within certain parameters. In some instances, what academic freedom means at Harvard University, or Berkley in California, that type of academic freedom cannot be exercised at a Catholic university, especially in the fields of theological education. Because we are a dogmatic Church, a Church with a whole doctrinal tradition.
As a result, theology is faith seeking understanding. The theological tradition moves forward, but always within the confines of the dogmatic tradition of the Church. There certainly can be a development—Newman makes that clear, and we see it in the Second Vatican Council—but there cannot be theological rupture in the tradition, what Benedict XVI called “a hermeneutic of discontinuity.” We saw this after Vatican II. The mandate of the Council was to bring the tradition forward, but we saw some theologians—and I don’t say it was done with any ill will—actually get off the Catholic rails.
What advice would you give to a student who is in a class, particularly a religious studies class, where they feel like the professor has gotten a little off the rails?
If a student hears something in class that he or she knows is not the teaching of the Church, and if it’s being propagated in a... theological… what do they call it?
Religious studies.
I know, they try to make the distinction between theology and religious studies. Well, fine, make the distinction, but the reality is, it’s a Catholic college, and if you hear something that is contrary to the faith, I think students have a right to put their hand up and respectfully challenge that particular position. Then, they should ask to see the professor—again, in a very respectful and civil way—and raise their objections.
You don’t have to be Catholic to go to a Catholic college, but I think when you go to a Catholic college, or a college that claims to be Catholic and strives to be authentically Catholic, then you’re going to be introduced to the great Catholic intellectual tradition, which may be very contrary to some of the tenets of religion that a non-Catholic student may have.
That is why Ex Corde Ecclesiae says very clearly that a majority of the professors at a Catholic college should be Roman Catholic. I would go a little bit further and say they don’t just need to be Roman Catholics; they have to be Roman Catholics who are committed to the Catholic intellectual tradition. A college is a place where intellectual conversations go on all the time, but what I am finding is, in some quarters, some people who argue in the name of diversity, or argue for tolerance, are unfortunately very intolerant of positions that do not square with them. And if you disagree with them, it’s hate speech. I just find it very intellectually unsettling that this plea for diversity and tolerance often does not play out from their point of view.
Over the years, there have been moments when Holy Cross has been at the center of this debate about what defines a school’s Catholic identity. How do you feel like the school has handled some of these incidents?
I’ve been here 15 years, and I think the college has sometimes handled things very appropriately, and sometimes less so. A couple years ago, when had this controversy over Benny Liew, I was just completely disappointed in the reaction of the College. He shouldn’t have been hired. He shouldn’t still be hired. I don’t think he should be teaching in a Catholic college. He’s still there though.
And then last May, I was upset too. I happened to give a talk up at the Cross for a group of physicians and nurses who are very attached to the Divine Mercy spirituality. I gave on a talk on the Church’s moral concerns about transgenderism. I was very forthright. I never named anyone, never named any colleges, never named faculties… well, there’s an article done in the paper, and I’m being criticized by the chief administrators at the college, saying that my speech was hate speech.
That’s ridiculous! It’s just crazy. These days, I’m less than certain that the Catholic identity of Holy Cross is strong. I’m very concerned.
Does that put Holy Cross’s official Catholic status in jeopardy?
Well, a bishop can remove the Catholic title, but I would rather dialogue with the school. But when it’s cut off by saying, “We don’t want you here on campus,” well, give me a break.
So what do you do? How do you have dialogue if the other side refuses or just says it’s hate speech?
You just have to pray for some type of conversion. It seems to me that when people want to cut off dialogue with these subjective arguments, basically they’re saying, “Well, you’ve hurt my feelings.” And that’s the end of an intellectual conversation, because it’s not about feelings. It’s about truth. It’s difficult.
My concern is, and I’ve said this to Fr. Boroughs, every Catholic kid and Catholic faculty member on that campus is part of my pastoral responsibility, and if I think something is being said or taught that I find dangerous to the faith, then before God I have a responsibility to speak up, and not only at Holy Cross. When people are on campus, they are part of the Church here in Worcester. And I take that seriously.
When young people are at Catholic institutions, they have absolutely every right to be introduced to authentic Catholicism, not a watered-down version of it.
Do you have any final parting words for Holy Cross Students?
Don’t settle for what George Weigel calls, “Lite Catholicism.” Young people want the real McCoy. By your example, your enthusiasm, your practice of the faith… it catches on. When my younger brother graduated college, we moved to Grand Rapids, and he had a roommate. One of the first weekends they were together, my brother gets up and gets dressed to go out. And the roommate goes, “Where are you going?”
My brother says, “Mass.”
“You’re going to Mass?”
My brother goes. Three weeks later, the guy gets up and goes, “I think I’m gonna go to Mass with you.” And he came back to practicing the faith.
You people have a lot of responsibility. But it’s all about prayer. Prayer and living an authentically Catholic life, praying for the conversion of souls. But I ask you all to pray for me, and I pray for the College every day.
AMDG
