Theology and Catholic Higher Education: Beyond Our Identity Crisis

By: Massimo Faggioli

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Overview

“As Massimo Faggioli argues, only a theology that is at once critical, engaged, and unambiguously ecclesial will have the capacity to nourish the present renewal of the Church and its mission. A must read.”—Catherine E. Clifford, professor, systematic and historical theology, Saint Paul University, Ottawa

“Reading this book excited me: it made plain the urgency and magnitude of the situation, but its vision for a concrete way forward also projects hope.”—Kristin Colberg, professor, theology, College of Saint Benedict, Saint John’s University, MN

“Traditionalists attack them. Bishops ignore them. Think-tanks rise up to displace them. Technocratic administrators dismantle their departments. Beyond the besiegement, Faggioli's call is to his fellow theologians: continue to be critical but dare to do theology for the Church.” —Gerald W. Schlabach, professor emeritus, theology, University of St. Thomas, MN

“Faggioli’s deeply researched discussion will help Catholic theologians and administrators alike understand the place of academic theology in Catholic institutions of higher learning.”—Phyllis Zagano, Hofstra University; author, Just Church: Catholic Social Teaching, Synodality, and Women

“Our problem in Catholic higher education is bigger than the collapse of

ecclesial credibility, bigger than the behavior of the bishops,

bigger than the waning interest in theological

studies, and bigger than politics.”

—Massimo Faggioli

Many Catholic universities in the United States have put their Catholic mission at risk—by either ceding to secular neoliberal values or by doubling down on reactionary Catholic tribalism. Student enrollment declines as some schools market themselves no differently than secular colleges. Other, conversely, neo-traditionalist Catholic colleges ally themselves with regressive elements of the Church. Both trends, Faggioli says, reflect a dismantling of Vatican II’s vision for Catholic education.

Scrutinizing this crisis in detail, Massimo Faggioli reviews the snowballing changes in Catholic higher education, advocating for a renewed incarnational and sacramental Catholic educational philosophy that rejects accommodation to secular technocracy as well as Catholic tribalism in order to embody the inclusive, socially conscious values of the Catholic tradition as expressed in the theology of Vatican II.

Massimo Faggioli is professor of theology and religious studies at Villanova University and a contributing writer to Commonweal magazine and La Croix International. He was co-founder of the unit “Vatican II Studies” at the American Academy of Religion and is on the board of editors of the journal Concilium. His recent publications include The Oxford Handbook of Vatican II (co-edited with Catherine Clifford, 2023) and, for Orbis Books, The Liminal Papacy of Pope Francis. Moving Toward Global Catholicity (2020).

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Click Here For The Table Of Contents

Click Here For The Book Introduction