Newman’s university vision ‘still inspires’
THE founder of the Catholic University of Ireland, the precursor of today’s University College Dublin, John Henry Newman, had a “vision for education that continues to inspire”, said Archbishop of Dublin Diarmuid Martin.
Dr Martin was speaking last night at the Pontifical Irish College in Rome to mark tomorrow’s canonisation by Pope Francis of Cardinal Newman. Dr Martin suggested that a reflection on Cardinal Newman’s “wide” vision of university education would itself ask pertinent questions about the Irish Church today.
Dr Martin pointed out that for Cardinal Newman, a university was “a place of universal learning”, adding: “Newman’s university was not to be a theological college or a glorified seminary. His was to be a true university with schools of arts and sciences, as well as medicine, engineering, classics, theology and philosophy. For Newman, a university environment was one in which intellectual training, moral discipline and religious commitment would come together.”
The archbishop said that the development of university education in Ireland had “lost this dream of Newman”.
“The main universities proclaim themselves to be by definition exclusively secular and thus they shun any real place for religion in their culture,” he said. “On the other hand, adult faith formation suffers because it is deprived of the interdisciplinary nature of a university.”
Cardinal Newman will be canonised in the Vatican tomorrow by Pope Francis at a ceremony attended by many British and Irish churchmen, Prince Charles and Education Minister Joe McHugh.