The new papal encyclical, Fides et Ratio, has lots to say to Franciscan University. All that matters, these earnest readers wanted to stress, is that we love Jesus and our neighbor.
Arguments have no place.
The encyclical reminds us that it took the Church some generations before she fully grasped the indispensable importance of the intellectual life for the Faith. This expresses exactly the position of many of our students and staff members. So, recognizing that it comes out of an authentic religious experience, we should try hard to respond to those laboring under this misconception with patience and understanding. But, at the same time, we should carefully and constantly teach them that, all its resemblance to the enthusiasm of the first Christians notwithstanding, this way of thinking does not represent the mind of the Church today. So far from shifting emphasis away from academics in favor of preaching and mercy works, the whole encyclical could be summarized as an urgent call on the Church to foster a deeper, more rigorous and more reflective intellectual life in her members, and a warning against the danger of thinking that faith can dispense with right reason.