The Identity of a Catholic University in Post-Christian European Societies: Four Models

Abstract

— This article reflects on four possible strategies for responding to the growing secularization that is threatening Catholic universities both from without and within. These include the abandonment of all claims to Catholic identity; the reassertion of a distinctively confessional identity; the promotion of the university as a place where so-called Christian values, and humanitarianism in particular, are promoted; and the option to promote Catholic identity in all its particularity by means of an ongoing dialogue with the contemporary pluralistic context. Each of these options say something about both the university’s self-understanding and its perception of its relationship to the culture in which it finds itself. The fourth would seem to do more justice to the tradition, and offer more hope for the future of, Catholic universities in an increasingly pluralistic and post-secular context.