The Intellectual Age
1889 & 2024
I don’t normally write on consecutive days but, on the heels of my post about the College of St. Joseph the Worker and in light of it, here is a window into another time and a way to think about our own.
Set aside the fact that in 1889 higher education was directed exclusively to men - as is this excerpt of Archbishop Ireland’s address at the dedication of Catholic University of America - instead, appreciate his central theme and relevance today, 135 years on.
This is the intellectual age. It worships intellect. It tries all things by the touchstone of intellect. By intellect, public opinion, the ruling power of the age is formed. The Church itself will be judged by the standard of intellect.
Catholics must excel in religious knowledge; they must be ready to give reasons for the faith that is in them, meeting objections from whatever source, abreast of the times in their method of argument.
They must be in the foreground of intellectual movements of all kinds. The age will not take kindly to religious knowledge sedated from secular knowledge.
The Church must regain the scepter of science, which is to her honor and benefit of the world, she wielded for ages in the past.
An important work for Catholics in the coming century will be the building of schools, colleges, and seminaries; and a work more important still will be the lifting up of present and future institutions to the highest degree of intellectual excellence.
Only the best schools will give the Church the men she needs.
Modern, too, must they be in curriculum and method, so that pupils going forth from their halls will be men for the twentieth century and men for America.
John Ireland (1838-1918) was arguably the most influential American bishop of his time; a dominant figure in religious, social and political spheres for over half a century; his charismatic personality shaped both religious and civil movements of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.
He was known for his interest in the development of education. He founded the College (now University) of Saint Thomas in 1885, including the preparatory school now known as Saint Thomas Academy, and the Saint Paul Seminary. In addition, he was instrumental in the establishment of the Catholic University of America in Washington D.C., one of four bishops who served on the founding committee.