Anti-Catholicism is rife in American intellectual circles, even more so, I think, than in the general culture. It is not the old-fashioned Protestant kind, in which the Church is the Whore of Babylon, but the "enlightened" kind in which the Church is the enemy of progress. Much of it stems from the issues of abortion and homosexuality, and if the Church would change its positions on those issues most of the hostility would cease.

Catholics as such are not necessarily discriminated against in academia. My impression is that graduates of Catholic colleges (although not Catholic graduate schools) do about as well as anyone in finding jobs. However, my impression is also that such people probably fall away from the Church in greater numbers than do Catholics in general, and those who still practice their faith are likely to be closer in theology to Hans Kung than to Pope John Paul II. Sometimes they weigh in with criticisms of the Church which reinforce the hostility of their secular colleagues.

All this having been said, it is a pleasure to recognize a major exception to the pattern, which is the recent appointment of Robert George to the McCormick Chair of Jurisprudence at Princeton University, one of the most prestigious professorships in the country in the area of political thought. Its first occupant was Woodrow Wilson.

Robbie George happens to be a friend of mine, and I am not unbiased. But he is indeed one of the nation's premier political thinkers, and his achievements are attested to not only by the fact of this recent honor but especially in the way he defied all the stereotypes in achieving it.

His specialty is the relationship of law and morality, which of course relates directly to some of our most "neuralgic" public issues, such as abortion and euthanasia. But rather than hiding his light under a bushel, Robbie is perhaps the country’s leading pro-life intellectual, in the very forefront of our continuing culture wars. In the process he has inevitably offended a good number of people in academic life for whom the secular world-view is simply taken for granted.

Last year Princeton achieved fame (notoriety?) by appointing to its faculty a philosopher named Peter Singer, who aggressively argues that certain categories of human beings, including babies, have less moral standing than do certain categories of animals. He is a fanatical advocate of abortion, euthanasia, and other things. Robbie George has been on the Princeton faculty for a number of years, and he perhaps knew that he was under consideration for the McCormick Chair. No one would have been surprised if he had lain low on the Singer appointment. Instead he was outspoken in his criticism, raising fundamental moral questions about the limits of civilized discourse.

Princeton happens to be my alma mater, and while I deplore Singer's appointment the university should still be honored for its genuine open-mindedness in promoting Robbie George to a distinguished chair. Such genuine liberalism is rare in today's academic world, just as Robbies’ kind of moral courage is rare.

If academic life were really what liberals always claim it should be, there would be a Robbie George on every faculty in the country, and universities would go out of their way to recruit them. I fear that day will never come, but his appointment give us a rare glimpse of what our intellectual life could and should be like.

Dr. Hitchcock is professor of history at St. Louis University.
 

Copyright ©1999 Arlington Catholic Herald, Inc. All rights reserved.

This article was published in the Arlington Catholic Herald,
200 N. Glebe Rd., Suite 607, Arlington, VA 22203; Vol 24, No 42,
page 5, dated October 21, 1999.
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It is noteworthy and honorable that some folks are willing to stand up for a ban on Partial-Birth Abortion.  Let us not forget that ordinary everyday run of the mill abortion is also murder.  We must understand that aborting the life of a baby is murder no matter the method.  Because one method of abortion seems to be horrible does not make the other methods less so.  We should be horrified and sickened by any abortion regardless of the method.  The Fifth Commandment spells it out clearly:

"Thou shalt not kill."

A fetus is a person, a human being with a God given soul.  Imagine the pain the Lord must feel when any abortion occurs.  Please contact both of your Senators and Representative, via letter or phone,  to let them know how horrified you are that abortions are legal and to stop, once and for all, Partial-Birth abortions and all other abortions as soon as possible.