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| Mission Statement Christendom College is a Catholic coeducational college institutionally committed to the Magisterium of the Roman Catholic Church. The particular mission
of Christendom College, both at the undergraduate and graduate levels,
is “to restore all things in Christ,” by forming men and women
to contribute to the Christian renovation of the temporal order. This
mission gives Christendom College its name. Vision Statement Foreward On
the foundation of this principle of immutable fidelity to the truth of
the Catholic Faith, Christendom College was founded in 1977 by lay Catholic
educators. Christendom College seeks to form its students using a challenging
curriculum centered on faith and reason, on the truths of Divine Revelation
as taught by the Roman Catholic Church and the truths of natural reason
as derived from natural law and human experience in fidelity to the Magisterium.
The curriculum undertakes to integrate harmoniously the knowledge acquired
from these sources. The College desires to foster in its students a commitment
to the lay apostolate, that is, the task of transforming the social order
in Christ. THE CRISIS IN CATHOLIC HIGHER EDUCATION The cultural revolution which swept across the United States in the late 1960s struck a devastating blow to Catholic higher education. The damage became evident with the Land O'Lakes statement in 1967, in which Catholic universities formally broke their ties with the teaching Church and repudiated their duty of obedience to her. There followed a wholesale loss of Catholic identity in these institutions. Not only were crucifixes stripped from classrooms, but the foundations of Western civilization were stripped from the curricula. The very existence of objective truth and absolute moral principles was denied, explicitly or implicitly. There was no longer a place in these transformed universities for what had always been the primary purpose of Catholic education: to lead young minds out of narrow perspectives into the world of known truth under the guiding light of the Catholic Faith. Most especially, there was no longer a place for the sacred discipline that had the task of ordering and illuminating all other disciplines. This abandonment of the Queen of Sciences was defended in the name of intellectual "emancipation." But the goal of Catholic education had never been to produce unthinking assent, nor to send students on an intellectual journey which would never reach a destination. The goal was, and should always be, to communicate a knowledge that furnishes reasons why and thus imparts to students a wisdom, both natural and supernatural, that enables them to make discerning critical judgments. Grace does not destroy, but perfects nature; the teaching Church has always defended man's ability to reason correctly about both the material and spiritual worlds, recognizing for both faith and reason a common source in Almighty God. Jesus Christ said: "I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life." Divine Revelation gives order and purpose to teaching and to the learning process. Genuine liberal education begins in wonder and ends in wisdom, flowing from the knowledge and certitude of truth attained and possessed. When guided by the Catholic Faith, it liberates man from ignorance, error and the forces of darkness which surround him in the post-modern secularized West. Bereft of this vision, scornful of this tradition, and consumed by the desire to conform to contemporary society despite its intellectual chaos and spiritual apostasy, most "Catholic" universities today have abandoned or drastically cut back their core curricula. Theology has been replaced by "religious studies," often with the Catholic Faith treated less fully than other religions, or presented by dissidents who reject essential doctrines. Often, no more than two courses in "religious studies" and/or two in philosophy are now required of the undergraduate. Other subjects are taught almost exactly as in the secular universities, even when their subject matter cries out for a Catholic orientation, as is the case with history, psychology, and the humanities in general. To fill the void left by the abandonment of strong core requirements in philosophy and theology, Catholic universities have substituted courses in disciplines that tend to study human needs and behaviors without reference to higher truths or morality. They feed the dominant relativism and skepticism which, like cancers, devour and eventually destroy intellectual life. Pope John Paul II, in his Apostolic Constitution Ex corde ecclesiae, called on the Catholic university to "consecrate itself without reserve to the cause of truth," to distinguish itself by the "free search for the whole truth about nature, man and God." Only the Catholic university, the Holy Father declared, can give us a "universal humanism which is completely dedicated to the research of all aspects of truth in their essential connection with the Supreme Truth who is God." Tragically, this great and beautiful document of guidance from the Vicar of Christ has been almost totally ignored by today's Catholic universities in America. With no God-centered core of humane studies to focus the university's mission, today's colleges have turned to senseless "diversification" and mindless growth. In the name of diversification, the genuine liberal arts have been replaced largely by mere vocational and professional training. There has been an endless proliferation of courses and majors, among which students are allowed to choose without guidance or purpose, with the inevitable result that most of them never even deal with the fundamental questions about God, man, and reality; never even encounter the most challenging works of Western civilization. All these problems are exacerbated by the size of the modern university, which Russell Kirk, conservative man of letters, happily named "Behemoth U." The lack of personal guidance for the student, already distressingly evident in the abandonment of sensible parietal rules, becomes still more disastrous in the stultifying impersonality of a campus of thousands, where students are left to wallow in the worst of the "youth culture." Furthermore, the deep wellsprings of Christian virtue, which should animate common courtesy between men and women and civil decency between individuals of diverse background, have been replaced on most college campuses by the oppressive atmosphere of "political correctness"-the power politics of gender, race and "lifestyle." To meet the challenge of this crisis and to offer a solution in keeping with the thousand-year-old tradition of the Church as university educator, Christendom College was established in 1977. The goal set for the College from the beginning was to provide a truly Catholic liberal education in fidelity to the Magisterium of the Catholic Church and thereby to prepare students for their role, as laity in Christ's Church, of restoring all things in Christ. The best way to develop the students' intellectual gifts is through a liberal education, and the best way to prepare them to restore all things in Christ is to provide them with a Catholic liberal education by which they may learn to know and love the Truth. In this way both the mind and the soul may be ordered toward the Way, the Truth and the Life who is Christ, our Lord and our God, our beginning and our end. Ever since its founding, the College has been unwaveringly loyal to its founding purpose and actively responsive to the repeated calls of Pope Paul VI and John Paul II for authentically Catholic colleges and universities. The Holy Father himself, speaking personally to its founder, called Christendom College "a great work for the Church." As the world moves into a new millennium, Christendom College is committed to maintaining its mission and preserving its fully Catholic identity, not only for the upcoming generation, but, God willing, for many more generations to come. TOWARD A SOLUTION: CHARACTERISTICS OF CHRISTENDOM COLLEGE AS A TRULY CATHOLIC LIBERAL ARTS COLLEGE 1) Institutional commitment of faculty and administration to the Magisterium of the Roman Catholic Church in their spiritual, moral and intellectual life. (Cp. Ex Corde Ecclesiae, para. 13.) 2) Commitment to undergraduate liberal education devoted to the discovery and appropriation of the True, the Good, and the Beautiful for their own sakes (cp. Ven. John Henry Newman, The Idea of a University), in contradistinction to career, technical or vocational training. 3) A strong undergraduate core curriculum of History, Literature, Classical and Modern Languages, Political Philosophy, Mathematics and Science, in which Catholic Theology and Thomistic Philosophy hold a central place and exercise a sapiential role for the whole curriculum, so that all the disciplines are informed and illuminated by Catholic Truth. 4) Development and maintenance of a Catholic spiritual life, including daily sacramental practice, a sound moral climate, and abundant opportunities for liturgical and personal prayer. 5) Development and maintenance of a Catholic social and cultural life, including parietal discipline conducive to good manners and morals, a high liturgical culture with musica sacra, and a wide range of collegiate activities involving the fine arts. 6) Commitment to a humane scale in the academic community, in which every faculty member and student may be personally known to one another, on the model of integral Catholic communities such as the medieval academic collegium. WHAT IS LIBERAL EDUCATION? From its beginning Christendom College has been committed to Catholic liberal education, but few in our time understand what liberal education is. Our explanation must begin with freedom: a liberal education is the education of a free man. It prepares a man for true freedom and fosters that freedom within him. The most obvious characteristic of the free man is that he is not a slave, that he is able to choose for himself, but the modern mind stops here. It understands freedom only as a lack of repression. But true freedom is not just a lack, it is something positive, an ability to direct one's actions rationally. No one can direct himself rationally without a goal, without understanding the true purpose of human existence, the achievement of the good. The truly free man, then, lives a good life; he pursues what is truly good, both for himself and for society. Because the free man pursues what is good for society, true freedom presumes a knowledge of how to be a good citizen in a wise political order. The free man thus must be a man of virtue, justice and prudence. But it would be unfitting if, pursuing what is good for others, he failed to achieve what was good for himself. The free man, then, also pursues his own perfection, especially the perfection of that part of himself which is best. Since the soul transcends the body, the free man cultivates his soul and pursues for its own sake the soul's proper object: wisdom, the knowledge and understanding of the whole of reality. But man is born with neither a strong inclination to the good nor even a knowledge of it. Even as a man matures, he does not spontaneously become wise and virtuous. He must acquire wisdom, both practical and speculative, through learning, and the beginning of that learning process beyond childhood is called liberal education. Liberal education, then, pursues two ends: a knowledge of virtue and justice, and a knowledge of the whole of reality, its ultimate cause and purpose. These two ends, each good in itself, are united in one order: the practice of virtue and justice serves to bring about the acquisition of wisdom. Liberal education is thus an education of the whole man, an education in wisdom and in the virtues which serve wisdom. Even now, our account of liberal education is not complete; justice and virtue are not the only requirements for wisdom. Just as a craftsman before he even begins to make anything, must learn what his tools are, and then how to use them, so the man who would be wise first must find and learn to use the tools of learning, which since medieval times are called the liberal arts. Each of the liberal arts contributes in a unique way to the formation of the mind, enabling it to understand every aspect of reality. For instance, grammar equips a man to express his thoughts with clarity and accuracy, and to understand the expression of others; logic enables him to test the validity of a line of reasoning; and rhetoric teaches him how to frame beautiful and persuasive discourses. Again, literature and history reflect the experience necessary to understand realities of the moral and political life. Also, mathematics fosters a love for rigor and precision. In general, the liberal arts provide the skills and habits necessary for the pursuit of wisdom and so are an integral part of liberal education. Liberal education, then, must have at least these three parts: first, it must include training in ethics and politics; second, it must include the liberal arts, the indispensable tools of learning; finally, it must include the pursuit of wisdom itself, which is called "philosophy." An education, however, which simply combines these disciplines in a shapeless whole is not complete. Cardinal Newman teaches that the philosophy which liberal education seeks "consists in a comprehensive view of the truth in all of its branches, of the relation of science to science, of their mutual bearings, and their respective values." That is, the parts of a liberal education fall into a determinate order. Each part is good in itself, perfecting the mind in a fundamental way, but the first two parts of liberal education are also servants of the third part. That is, ethics, politics, and the liberal arts, while enjoying a legitimate autonomy, have an intrinsic ordering to philosophy. Liberal education becomes a coherent and fulfilling education for the truly free man through this ordering. Faith Seeking Understanding. An education that came to an end with philosophy, however, could never properly be called a Catholic education. Our Lord Jesus Christ, the Divine Word of God, came to earth as a man to teach us the Truth, so that the Truth might make us free. The Truth which He taught was a Truth beyond the power of the unaided human mind to discover, but instead was revealed to the Apostles, handed down to us in Holy Scripture and Tradition, and preserved and proclaimed by the Magisterium of the Catholic Church. No Catholic would believe that he received a true liberal education, an education which makes him truly free, unless he were educated in the redeeming Truth of Christ. Theology, then, becomes the principal part and crown of a Catholic liberal education. Perhaps the best way to describe theology is in the words of St. Anselm of Canterbury: Theology is "faith seeking understanding" (fides quaerens intellectum). Even in the present life, the highest perfection of our minds consists in an understanding of God as He is revealed to us through faith. Thus, the ultimate goal of a Catholic liberal education is the acquisition of theological wisdom, and that wisdom has an illuminating effect on all parts of liberal education. The Catholic studies the liberal arts and uses those tools in the service of theology. He studies ethics and politics, but adds to that study a knowledge of Catholic moral principles. Finally, he studies philosophy, not just for the sake of a knowledge of reality, but also because philosophy serves to increase his understanding of the Creator of all things. He studies each of these disciplines for its own sake, but also uses them in the service of something higher. The Catholic tradition, then, does not destroy or diminish liberal education, but rather perfects it. The Catholic free man studies all of the disciplines both for their own sake and in the service of Theology, the "Queen of the Sciences." The essence of liberal education may be eternal, but its concrete manifestations are not; they vary according to the times and circumstances. At Christendom College, liberal education has taken shape according to the needs of the modern world. First, the College testifies to the importance of a complete education by its commitment to a strong core curriculum that includes a full three years of both philosophy and theology. That core also includes the liberal arts necessary for the study of higher things, and courses in politics which introduce the student to the Catholic social order. At the same time, the College testifies to the intrinsic worth of the lower disciplines by a variety of major programs in the liberal arts and political science, as well as philosophy and theology. It harmonizes and orders the disciplines, bringing them all to the service of Christ and His Church. THE UNDERGRADUATE CORE CURRICULUM An 84-hour core curriculum of carefully selected subjects required for all students is Christendom College’s fundamental response to the crisis in higher education explained above. It is a response deeply rooted in perennial truth and long centuries of Catholic learning. This extensive core curriculum is constituted from seven discipline areas: three years of study in Theology, three years in Philosophy, two years of study in English Language and Literature, two years of study in Classical or Modern Language, two years in History, one year in Political Science and Economics, and one year in Mathematics and Natural Science. It is a curriculum worthy of any young mind. It is an arduous good requiring sacrifice and courage from any student wishing to attain it and from any faculty member wishing to impart it. As such, it is the kind of good that no consumer survey is likely to affirm or endorse amidst the futile but seemingly pressing hyperactivity of our culture. Yet this kind of education is urgently needed by the future citizens and leaders of our nation, by the fathers and mothers of our children, and by the priests and religious of our Church, if we are not to slip blindly into the dark and chaotic night of a dying West. By the adoption of its core curriculum, Christendom College has rejected the proliferation of majors and the consequent perceived equality between all disciplines so characteristic of the modern multiversity. The College sees that the speculative credentials of many modern disciplines are problematic, either in their very principles or in their actual practice. Yet the growing numbers and academic demands of these disciplines have been primarily responsible for the destruction of core curricula in American universities of the past century. For Christendom to multiply majors and new academic departments would be to invite a reliving of this often tragic academic history. It is Christendom’s 84-credit-hour core curriculum, ordered by Thomistic wisdom within a historical matrix, that makes it unique in American higher education. UNDERGRADUATE FACULTY AND PEDAGOGY If the curriculum
of the College is aimed at knowledge of God, man and nature in and through
a liberal education, and at serving God through the restoration of all
things in Christ, the rest of the College must be compatible with this
goal. Not only what teachers teach but also how they teach and act should
manifest this goal. The professoriate at Christendom College consists of men and women learned in their disciplines, each faculty member has earned an advanced or terminal degree in his field. Nevertheless, they resist overspecialization and compartmentalization by striving to be conversant with the nature, purpose, general content and interrelatedness of the core curriculum as a whole. Christendom faculty members do not rest content with the current fragmentation of intellectual life, but foster the development of Christian wisdom in their own lives as in those of their students. The pedagogical methods employed vary according to the material being examined, the level of preparation of the students, and the disposition of the professor. What is being taught also affects the method of teaching. Even though the mind is naturally inquisitive, some material naturally raises more questions than others. In material that is philosophical in nature, many questions arise, so that a continuation of the Socratic method of interrogating students along with lecturing is more appropriate than simple lecturing. Lecture, at its highest form, is the communication of truth with explanatory reasons. What is communicated is thus not mere information, but a critical knowledge derived from personally achieved wisdom, towards which the student in turn must aspire. The seminar format, on the other hand, has the advantage of forcing the student to formulate and articulate ideas, problems and solutions and to present them orally to his professor and peers. In introductory classes, lecture is used primarily, though often with an element of Socratic dialogue to engage the student personally. Occasionally seminars also are used to develop a habitus of critical reflection and close reading. In a seminar, students, led by the professor, will discuss a classic work and take up a difficulty found in it. The seminar aims to understand the intention of the author, and so to discover the truth that he conveys. In advanced classes there may be a greater or even exclusive use of the seminar method. In any case, classes are characterized by tripartite interaction between professor and students and among students, for which there is no adequate substitute. Thus, while there is always an emphasis on student participation throughout the curriculum, the faculty try to strike a balance between lecture and seminar, utilizing the best aspects of each within the dynamics of the class, without mandating the one or the other. Professors are urged to use, wherever practical, primary works rather than secondary treatments, so that the student may be introduced directly to the great authors of Western civilization. For example, our freshmen read Plato's Republic, Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics, and Plutarch's Lives as they read Newman's The Idea of a University and Chesterton's The Everlasting Man. Our students are introduced to the Summa Theologiae of St. Thomas Aquinas as well as to complete texts by Homer, Aeschylus, Sophocles, Dante, Chaucer, Shakespeare, and others. By these the students are exposed to varieties of literary genres, styles, and modes of thought, as well as to the great questions about human life and existence that have driven intellectual discourse in the West for over two millennia. SIZE: A RESIDENTIAL COLLEGE ON A HUMANE SCALE One of the features of the majority of American colleges and universities is their large, even immense, size. Today, students at "Behemoth U." number in the tens of thousands, and the individual student is lost in a sea of anonymity. However, whether with one thousand or forty thousand students, the reigning ambiance on such campuses is that of the general, "mass" culture. In earlier years, when the prevailing culture supported moral virtue and the "common decencies," the fact that the student body differed little from the surrounding culture presented no problem. In today's world, however, there is little cultural support for virtue of any kind; indeed, our secular, relativistic, neo-pagan culture is increasingly hostile to the morally good, the intellectually true, and the aesthetically beautiful. We are in the midst of a culture war of vast proportions, and the battlefield is the heart and soul of our youth. Christendom College's commitment to a humane scale in the undergraduate academic community, in which every faculty member and student may be known personally to one another, is therefore imperative. At the founding, the upper limit was set at about 450 students. The reasons for this limitation are several. First of all, the model for Christendom's residential college is more the society of the extended family than the "multiversity." Christendom College is a residential community where virtually the entire student body lives on campus in residence halls, where each student is immersed in a vibrant, living Catholic counter-culture twenty-four hours a day. Women's and men's residence halls are located on opposite sides of the campus, with the chapel, refectory, and classrooms located in the center. The residence halls are conducive to social and intellectual interaction in a home-like atmosphere, as is the common dining area. Thus, in our resident academic community there are no "nameless faces." Each person is known as an individual, not as a mere statistic, and is valued as an immortal soul redeemed by Christ. With smaller overall size, classes more easily may be kept at an optimum size, where classroom interaction between students and professor is both encouraged and practiced. Faculty members take meals with students in the dining hall and often meet informally with students. Furthermore, Christendom College is actively engaged in the culture wars to reclaim the hearts and souls of its students to Christ and His Church. We are able to reclaim their hearts and souls by maintaining a manageable student population and by integrating each new entering class intellectually, spiritually, morally and socially into the Christendom community. Our task is aided by the physical environment of the campus. The College's hundred acres, situated northeast of historic Front Royal, Virginia, include lovely grassy fields and serene woods overlooking the Shenandoah River. The grounds will comfortably accommodate facilities for up to approximately 450 students while retaining a pastoral character. All campus facilities have been built to complement this natural setting and to be conducive to study and reflection. Lastly, the goal of 450 will produce an economy of scale that would be relatively easy to maintain, without the constant need to expend great energies in fund raising and recruiting. The energies of the College administration, from the President on down, then might be devoted more single-mindedly to the educational mission of the College. CATHOLIC CULTURE AND THE FINE ARTS The "Catholic thing," the res catholica which the College strives to make real for its students, implies an organically Catholic way of life which needs to be nurtured and protected by the community in which Catholic culture thrives and grows. Ample provision must be made for the spiritual life of both students and faculty. Following the directives of Vatican II (Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy, articles 112-122, and the Instruction Musicam sacram, article 19) in the Chapel of Christ the King, as an ecclesia major or larger church outstanding by reason of its artistic and historical importance, the College strives to carry out the Divine Liturgy with all due splendor. Part of this effort naturally includes the cultivation, in performance by volunteer student groups such as the College Choir and the Schola Gregoriana, of the "treasury of sacred music" whose integral parts include Gregorian chant and the sacred vocal polyphony of great Catholic masters such as Palestrina, Victoria, and Josquin des Prez. In this way, the Christendom student is able to experience Catholic culture at its best, indeed, to "breathe Catholic air" when the community gathers for worship. No other Catholic college in America offers a program even remotely approaching this unique initiative. The pursuit of what is true, beautiful and worthy of praise is not limited to the spiritual or intellectual spheres. God in His Goodness can also be found in the beauty of the arts. Since works of art, especially music, influence man tremendously, these should generally aim students as well as faculty toward God. The point here must not be misunderstood; just as all truth leads to God, so all beauty leads to God. Just as teachers are not always talking specifically about things Catholic, but must always be concerned to teach the truth, so we must be concerned to make what we see and hear beautiful. This is accomplished especially in the Liturgy and in sacred music. It is done also in the paintings that are displayed in the halls. It is fitting that some should be religious in subject matter, but all must be beautiful. It is also good that the grounds and buildings of the campus be pleasing to the eye, reflecting the order and beauty of the students' intellectual and spiritual formation. No less than in the spiritual and intellectual spheres, the social life of the student body is governed by the principles of Christian morals found in the Gospels for the development of charity, civility and modesty in daily living. For example, rules governing dress code and non-intervisitation of the opposite sex in residence halls further support a healthy Christian way of life. Key aspects of student life likewise reflect the joy found in Catholic culture and festivity, such as the annual celebrations of Oktoberfest, St. Cecilia's Musical Evening, St. Patrick's Eve, the Feast of St. Joseph, as well as Rosary processions on feasts of Our Lady, and the annual consecration of the entire Christendom community to the Sacred Heart of Jesus and Immaculate Heart of Mary. In their activities students learn to distinguish those elements within contemporary culture which are conducive to good morals from those that are not. Beyond the daily experience of a college centered on the Good, the True, and the Beautiful, the Beato Fra Angelico Fine Arts Program offers our students a further opportunity to experience directly the higher and more aesthetically praiseworthy aspects of Western civilization and our contemporary culture through live performances, lectures, art exhibitions and other on-campus events throughout the academic year. The Christendom
College Vision Statement was prepared at the direction of Dr. Timothy
T. O'Donnell, KC*HS, President, by Dr. Robert C. Rice, Vice President
for Academic Affairs, with the valuable assistance and support of Founding
President Dr. Warren H. Carroll and the Faculty Senate. |
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The
College provides a Catholic liberal arts education, including an integrated
core curriculum grounded in natural and revealed truth, the purpose of
which at both the undergraduate and graduate levels is to form the whole
person for a life spent in the pursuit of truth and wisdom. Intrinsic
to such an education is the formation of moral character and the fostering
of the spiritual life. This education prepares students for their role
as faithful, informed, and articulate members of Christ’s Church
and society.
