The University and the Church: Don Briel's Essays on Education ed. by R. Jared Staudt

Abstract

Reviewed by: The University and the Church: Don Briel's Essays on Education ed. by R. Jared Staudt Philip Rolnick The University and the Church: Don Briel's Essays on Education edited by R. Jared Staudt, (Providence, RI: Cluny Media, 2019), xxxvi + 250 pp. Almost all academics have thoughts about the nature of the university, its flaws and its possibilities. But Don Briel (1947–2018) was unique: he looked deeply at the best of what had been written about Catholic education, perspicaciously analyzed its current state, and then, with astonishing effectiveness, implemented his visionary plan. The University and the Church: Don Briel's Essays on Education lays out Briel's "Foundational Principles" (part 1) and his understanding of "The Church's Vision of Higher Education" (part 2), and concludes with "Catholic Studies and the Renewal of the University," his personal account of and reflections on the university programs he actually initiated (part 3). George Weigel notes in his foreword: "The essays in this volume are more than a memorial to a great educator, a good man, and a faithful disciple. They are a template for the ongoing reform and development of Catholic higher education" (iii). In chapter 1, "Wanted: A Ground for the Imagination," Briel juxtaposes two moral responses to the experience of the world: Martha Nussbaum's call for tolerance in light of "the radical individuality of all concrete experience," and by contrast, his own view that "the fundamental mystery of all experience of the world evoked by the religious imagination is humility" (6). Briel then applauds authors (Flannery O'Connor, Walker Percy, [End Page 676] and others), who, with the humility to let God be God, can then see the world in a clearer light. Briel's foundational principles of education are in large part drawn from John Henry Newman and Christopher Dawson. From Newman, Briel learned that the non-Christian bent of modernity is not primarily a matter of rationality. With Newman, Briel considered "the rejection of Christianity to arise from a fault of the heart, not of the intellect; that unbelief arises, not from mere error of reasoning, but either from pride or from sensuality" (15, citing Newman, Letters and Diaries). Briel would later apply this insight in the specific ways that he formed his seminal programs in Catholic Studies, first at the University of St. Thomas (St. Paul, MN), and later in programs across the country and internationally. He clearly grasped that students, faculty, and administrators needed something that addressed the whole person. A superior argument would not be sufficient. Briel found a way forward in Newman's distinction between a university and a college. For Newman, "the university is committed to the exploration and disputation of various theories and thus embodies … 'the element of advance,' or progress, whereas the college, focused on the formation of mind and character of the student, promotes a certain 'stability,' thus situating students in a living tradition" (200). In the preface, David Deavel nicely summarizes this crucial distinction: "The university principle, found particularly in the lecture hall, promotes the unity of knowledge and the relationship between faith and reason, while the college principle involves both personal formation and an attention to study. Both principles require the presence of the Church to survive" (x). Briel's great accomplishment was to take Newman's nineteenth-century ruminations, readjust them for our own time and problems, and bring them to life. Briel's vision was bold, but it was also doable. Prudently, he recognized that, while a large or even a mid-size Catholic university could not adopt Newman's ideas whole cloth, "a creative minority"—a program or department within the university—could do so (224). And so, in cooperation with colleagues from several departments, Briel initiated the Catholic Studies program at the University of St. Thomas in St. Paul, Minnesota, in 1993. The practical beauty of Briel's endeavor is that it can be achieved within existing Catholic universities as well as secular state universities. Briel's chapter "Renewing the University in a Tragic Culture" reports on important instances of programs in both kind of settings, programs that have taken root in the United States and elsewhere in North...