Recapture the Tradition

Until a couple of years ago, says former President John J. Cavanaugh of Notre Dame University, U.S. Catholics sincerely believed that their schools, colleges and universities were generally as good as almost any in the land. Then Monsignor John Tracy Ellis, professor of church history at Catholic University of America, delivered his now famous lecture on "American Catholics and the Intellectual Life." Last week, taking off from Ellis' lecture. Father Cavanaugh sounded the alarm again. For 30 years, he said, evidence has been accumulating that "the intellectual prestige of American Catholics seems to be lower than the intellectual prestige of Catholics in any other country in the whole Western world."

In 1927, said Cavanaugh, a study conducted by the American Mercury found that "for every 100,000 Jews in this country, there are 20 listed in Who's Who; for every 100,000 Seventh-day Adventists, there are eleven in Who's Who; and that, however, for every 100,000 Catholics there are only seven in Who's Who--hardly more than one-third of the proportion of the Jews."

Three Out of 303. A study made by the Scientific Monthly was equally unsettling. "Out of 303 names chosen for their eminence in science, only three were found to be Catholics." A 1952 study of American Men of Science showed that of 50 institutions turning out the most scientists, not one was Catholic. "I certainly take no delight in disturbing your minds with such humiliating evidence. We could, however, reflect upon many other facts to show that the 35 million Catholics of this country and our Catholic educational system are not producing anywhere near their proportion of leaders. Of the 96 U.S. Senators, there are, for example, only ten Catholics; of the 50 so-called business leaders announced by Forbes magazine last month, only two are Catholics, and one of these two, Henry Ford II, is a convert. Even casual observation of the daily newspapers and the weekly news magazines leads a Catholic to ask, where are the Catholic Salks, Oppenheimers, Einsteins?"

U.S. Catholics, said Cavanaugh, cannot take much comfort in rationalizing that they are a minority group, an immigrant people, usually from modest homes. "At once, we reflect that the Jews are an immigrant people, very often from modest homes. They must fight bigotry, but the Jews are producing leaders far out of proportion to their numbers."

$0 Out of $29 Million. What the Catholics need to do, said Cavanaugh, is not only strengthen their schools and colleges, but recapture their tradition as intellectual leaders. Unfortunately, the 2,500,000 alumni of Catholic colleges and universities do not seem to be doing much of anything. "I am a member of the board of the Fund for Adult Education of the Ford Foundation. In the last six years we have given away $29 million . . . Not a single Catholic program of liberal adult education has, so far as I can remember, received a dime. This has been due, not to bigotry, but to the fact that there has not been one request made which meets the reasonable conditions that the Fund lays down.

"Many of our Catholic alumni scoff at the program of the Great Books Foundation, of the Foundation for Political Education, of any organized adult group. What do they know about these programs? Are they participating in better programs of liberal education, or are they simply doing nothing at all?"

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