God & Man at Princeton

Like a dean beset by a hornet at Commencement, Princeton University has grimly done its dignified best during the past three years to ignore the tormenting attacks on its policies and faculty by the Rev. Dr. Hugh Halton, 44, a witty, articulate Dominican priest who is the chaplain for the university's Roman Catholic students. Halton's general charge: Princeton is a center of "moral and political subversion."

Last week Princeton swatted back. In what amounted to his first public action since taking over the presidency, earnest, energetic Dr. Robert Goheen, 38, withdrew "recognition" of Father Halton and denied him any claim to "official standing in Princeton University."

The action left Halton as director of the Aquinas Foundation, a Roman Catholic student organization, but canceled his privileges to use university facilities. The university's decision, insisted Goheen, "was not an issue of academic freedom." Said he: "Under claims of advancing the pursuit of truth, [Father Halton] has resorted to irresponsible attacks upon the intellectual integrity of faculty members. For tactics of this sort, no university devoted to freedom of rational inquiry and debate need make a home."

"Darkest Hour." Father Halton first ruffled the campus of Presbyterian-founded Princeton (motto: "Under God she flourishes") in 1954, with a sharp-tongued attack on the fitness of famed Philosopher Dr. Walter T. Stace to teach a freshman class in his subject, since he once admitted: "I believe in no religion at all." Father Halton then charged that Princeton's department of religion was incompetent to instruct students in Roman Catholicism because not one member was as well trained in the subject as "an eighth-grader in St. Paul's" (a local Catholic school).

As time went on, Halton found error all about him. In 1956, when a group of students asked Convicted Perjurer Alger Hiss to make a speech, Halton huffed that this was "Princeton's darkest hour," brought in a reporter from the Chicago Tribune to tell the students about Hiss and his Communist connections. The American Association of University Professors, charged Halton, "has abuses more serious than have been found in the inquiries of the Teamsters Union." He blasted a book called Morals and Medicine used as a text in some religion courses, saying that it misrepresented Roman Catholic teaching. Later he accused Author Joseph Fletcher, an Episcopalian minister, of once being connected with a flock of "Communist-front organizations." He noted that the book was published by the university press, and asked darkly: "Why was Princeton willing to lend its name to this thing?"

"Fuzzy Sportsmanship." Such attacks, often made in sermons published the next day as full-page ads in the student newspaper, led last year's whimsically sardonic senior class to name Halton as their favorite comedian, and the man "least likely to send his son to Princeton." But the administration was not amused, asked the Diocese of Trenton to recall its chastising chaplain. The request was denied.

When he learned a fortnight ago that his university privileges were to be withdrawn, Halton, who holds doctorates in philosophy and civil law from Oxford, took to his pulpit to defend his stands. "It simply isn't polite to have convictions in academic circles today," he said, "sweet reasonableness and a curious kind of fuzzy sportsmanship have conditioned us to believe that truth necessarily lies in the middle. I shall continue to speak in defense of the central issues of Catholic doctrine and discipline, the central postulates of faith and reason in an academic context."

After Goheen's action, quick support for Halton came from Trenton Bishop George W. Ahr, who said he will leave the chaplain at Princeton "for the present," declared that the key issue in the dispute is "the right of a priest charged with the spiritual care of Catholic students in a secular university to speak out in defense of the faith and morals of those committed to his care." Added Halton: "The teaching of some Princeton professors has done and is doing graver disservice to the religious and moral traditions of American democracy than all the writings of Karl Marx taken together."

Princeton's decision was backed by a large majority of the students and faculty, including many Catholics who disapprove of their chaplain's tactics. Said one anti-Halton Catholic student: "The Holy Mass is not the place to make these attacks. I go to church to learn about the Catholic faith and not about a lot of academic arguments."

At week's end President Goheen emphasized that the university has not broken with Roman Catholicism, that it still recognizes the Aquinas Foundation. Presbyterian Goheen (who is married to a Catholic, and whose six children are being raised as Catholics) used an analogy from international diplomacy to explain Princeton's stand: "The university has withdrawn only the recognition of an individual. In the international field, this compares with a government declaring an individual persona non grata, but continuing to recognize the embassy."

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.