Catholic Culture

I really liked this article and thought it really hit the nail on the head in talking about the importance of Catholic Culture at a Catholic University.

The Pro-Life Center of Catholic Culture

We should never take politics all by itself, however, just as we should never interpret human interaction solely in terms of power. Politics is a power-inflected function of culture, and at the root of culture lies the deepest commitments to what people hold to be true. The role of culture—American Catholic culture, in particular—is what Fr. Jenkins at Notre Dame, and John DeGioia at Georgetown, and many other presidents of Catholic colleges seem not to understand. Indeed, their lack of Catholic culture is what makes them seem so un-Catholic to those they antagonize, and it is what so befuddles those college presidents when the charge is made. They know they are Catholics: They go to Mass, and they pray, and their faith is real, and their theology is sophisticated, and what right has a bunch of other Catholics to run around accusing them of failing to be Catholic?

But they live in a different world, attenuated and alone. Opposition to abortion doesn’t belong at the absolute center of Catholic theology. It doesn’t belong at the perfect center of Catholic faith. It exists, however, at the center of Catholic culture in this country (albeit a much thinner culture than Catholics knew before). Opposition to abortion is the signpost at the intersection of Catholicism and American public life.

http://www.firstthings.com/onthesquare/?p=1434