COMMENTARY: What does it mean to be Catholic?

c. 1996 Religion News Service (Andrew M. Greeley is a Roman Catholic priest, best-selling novelist and sociologist at the University of Chicago’s National Opinion Research Center. His home page on the World Wide Web: http://www.greeley.com. Or contact him at his e-mail address: agreel(at sign)aol.com.) CHICAGO (RNS)-We are currently witnessing in this city a somewhat unedifying […]

c. 1996 Religion News Service

(Andrew M. Greeley is a Roman Catholic priest, best-selling novelist and sociologist at the University of Chicago’s National Opinion Research Center. His home page on the World Wide Web: http://www.greeley.com. Or contact him at his e-mail address: agreel(at sign)aol.com.)

CHICAGO (RNS)-We are currently witnessing in this city a somewhat unedifying conflict between the Archdiocese of Chicago and an order of Catholic nuns known as the Poor Handmaids, who operate St. Elizabeth Hospital. The dispute centers on the nuns’ decision, for economic reasons, to link their hospital with the University of Chicago instead of with a new Catholic hospital consortium.


Concerned that this relationship would put other Catholic hospitals at a competitive disadvantage, the archdiocese has ruled that St. Elizabeth’s can no longer claim to be a Catholic hospital. That strikes me as a lot like saying that dissident theologian Hans Kung is no longer a Catholic theologian.

In the practical world, the title of an”official”Catholic hospital and the regular fare will get you a ride on Mayor Daley’s subway. And despite hints to the contrary, I don’t think anyone from the chancery is going over to St. Elizabeth’s to take down the crucifixes.

For sentimental reasons, I must confess my sympathies are with the Poor Handmaids. Their now-closed St. Anne’s Hospital was our family hospital for many years. My sisters were born there; we all had our tonsils out there; my father died there. My mother and my sisters worked there after my father’s death. We often spent Christmas Day with the nuns, and I said my first low Mass in the hospital chapel. But I also deeply understand why Chicago Cardinal Joseph Bernardin considers the issue of Catholic identity important.

Now that the ghetto walls of Catholic immigrant identity have collapsed, questions of how Catholic institutions join the mainstream, yet remain true to their traditions, are being raised all over the United States.

In”Domers,”an excellent look at Notre Dame University published by Viking Press, Kevin Coyne recounts the battle between the faculty and the administration over the latter’s contention that 60 percent of the faculty should be Catholic to preserve the Catholic identity of the school. The faculty insists such a quota violates academic freedom, while Notre Dame President Edward A. Malloy contends it’s not too high a norm to keep the school Catholic.

My inclination is to side with Father Malloy. Any reader of”Domers”will be unable to escape the conclusion that Notre Dame is a profoundly, if imperfectly, Catholic institution.

If Notre Dame becomes indistinguishable from Princeton, what good is it? If this school cannot eventually make a special Catholic contribution to the larger university enterprise, has not something terribly important been lost, not only to the church but to the larger society? Similarly, if St. Elizabeth’s Hospital becomes indistinguishable from the University of Chicago Hospital, might there not be an enormous loss to both the church and the health care profession?


My cautious response to these knotty issues is that perhaps the wrong questions are being asked. Quotas and affiliations may be important, but by themselves they won’t sustain a Catholic ethos. The real question, which no one seems to be asking, is what is a Catholic ethos? I’m reminded of Saul Bellow’s famous cautionary verse,”Where’er the Catholic sun does shine/ there’s music and laughter and good red wine/ At least I’ve found it so/Benedictus Domino.” University of Chicago Professor Anthony Byrk, in his wonderful book”Catholic Schools and the Common Good,”argues with powerful evidence that two critical assets Catholic high schools possess are a strong sense of community and deep concern for each individual. Catholic educators have always claimed that’s what they were doing. Now, just as evidence appears that the claim is valid, they seem to have lost faith in it.

These two dimensions of the Catholic heritage, based on the church’s sacramental imagination, are what make an institution Catholic. The issue for administrators and staff and all institutions ought to be how such characteristics can be sustained and enhanced. That means that they must begin to study very carefully the religious attributes that are taken as much for granted as the air one breathes.

MJP END GREELEY

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