… putting photographs of, say, the governor, in every public university classroom would be a bad idea.
But putting, say, crucifixes in every Catholic university classroom doesn’t seem strange. Private schools, founded on and still devoted to a certain creed … Why not?
Yet Boston College, the Jesuit school which produced Harry Markopolos, has run into a bit of trouble along these lines lately.
… [S]uddenly, in all 151 classrooms, there is a Catholic icon, in most cases, a crucifix above the lintel.
Students and faculty returned to campus after winter break to find that Boston College had quietly completed, without announcement or fanfare, an eight-year project to dramatically increase the presence of Roman Catholic religious symbols on campus. The additions are subtle but significant, as the university joins other Catholic institutions around the nation in visibly reclaiming its Catholic identity.
… A meeting last month of arts and sciences department chairs turned into a heated argument over the classroom icons; a handful of faculty have written to the administration to protest, and some unsuccessfully circulated a petition asking to have crucifixes removed.
“I believe that the display of religious signs and symbols, such as the crucifix, in the classroom is contrary to the letter and spirt of open intellectual discourse that makes education worthwhile and distinguishes first-rate universities from mediocre and provincial ones,” Maxim D. Shrayer, chairman of the department of Slavic and Eastern languages and literatures, said in an interview.
“Christian iconography and symbols permeate this place and always have,” said the Rev. John Paris, a Jesuit priest who teaches bioethics at BC. Paris said he finds “offensive” the notion that a crucifix impedes the ability of students or faculty to think critically in a classroom and called the criticism “the narrow and bizarre musings of a few disgruntled folks.”
“This is a small problem for those with small minds,” Paris added. “This is not a serious controversy.”
Paris is wrong. It’s not a small problem. Big minds can profitably think about the extent to which a religious university visually presents itself as such. Is there, for instance, a kind of tipping point, in which reasonable people, religious or not, might find too many icons on campus?
How many icons is too much? UD would suggest that you’re in an over-rich iconic environment when your mind is directed too insistently, too often, to a particular doctrine…. When, as you enter a particular university’s gates, and as you walk through its interior and exterior spaces, you feel a bit mentally constrained in terms of thought that has to do with something other than a particular religious tradition.
If it feels, that is, as though the campus is designed to enforce, rather than prompt, spiritual reflection, there’s a problem.
I’d also say there’s an aesthetic issue here. Jam-packing your setting with anything is simply ugly, and it probably has an effect quite different from the one you want: It turns people off because it makes them feel manipulated.
These are subtle matters – theologically, aesthetically, institutionally.
February 12th, 2009 at 2:06PM
The vampire community is likely to suffer an especially chilling effect. Maxim D. Shrayer…Slavic and Eastern Languages, eh? If you come out against mirrors next, Prof. Shrayer, we’re on to you.
My Catholic schools had these icons of oppression in every room, along with the fiendish porcelain statues of Mary standing on a globe and pitilessly crushing the serpent under one foot. What would PETA say about those?
You will be relieved to know, UD, that despite this, hair was pulled, fellow students tripped, rubber bands shot, eggs tossed, and eventually, maidens willingly defiled–the latter, I hasten to say, not in the classroom.
Very few Catholic universities have much to worry about these days with icon overload. It is finding any evidence at all that they are Catholic that is usually the problem.
February 12th, 2009 at 2:23PM
Funny, tp.
February 12th, 2009 at 3:07PM
I actually think this issue has more to do with BC’s own schizophrenia than anything else. It’s no secret that it wants to be secular like all of the colleges and univesities–Columbia, Princeton, freakin’ Harvard–that it so desperately wishes that it was. But it also has to recognize that it’s a Catholic school, albeit Jesuit. So it’s always trying to strike a balance between the two because, God forbid, it wouldn’t want to be as Catholic as that darned St. Michael’s College or that strange College of the Holy Cross or that St. Anselm College up there in Manchester. (I went to the latter, BTW, and the campus has all manner of icons everywhere. Those icons, though, are not the source of the intellectual oppression that runs rampant there.)
That said, as a product of many Catholic schools, in addition to GW, I’d have to say that I’ve always been slightly irritated by these complaints. For instance, when pursuing my M.A. over at Catholic U, I’d always run into people tearing their garments on the quad because, gasp, the Catholic University of America–yes, the same institution endorsed by The Vatican–doesn’t–gasp!–can you believe this?–gasp!–huff, huff, allow pro-choice speakers on campus. Abortion issues aside, I could always only ask: What did you expect? You’re enrolled at THE Catholic University of America? The answer was usually something like, "Well I wouldn’t even be here if I got into Georgetown."
These are private institutions, and they can do what they want. If you don’t like it, don’t write out that tuition check.
February 12th, 2009 at 3:23PM
Hmmm…
It is not the iconography that is the problem. It is the intellectual oppression. Some religious (not just Catholic) institutions realize that if they are open and tolerant, they have nothing to be ashamed of.
And some don’t.
I say this as someone who taught at a religious institution that was not repressive…
February 12th, 2009 at 5:20PM
I think the bigger question is being ignored:
Why now?
Why, suddenly, was a crucifix placed in EVERY single classroom?
And, as others have suggested, is the timing and placement emblematic of a more sinister motive?
February 12th, 2009 at 10:57PM
As a Catholic, I often wonder what non-Catholics think when they see a crucifix. It really is a discomfiting image, compared with, say, Ganesh. As theprofessor suggests above, when you’re around these images all the time, you get a bit desensitized to them. On the back wall of a classroom at my all-boys Catholic prep school in suburban Philadelphia was a life-sized picture of Christ conversing with disciples, with one arm outstretched, palm vertical. One day some of the more spirited lads brought in an empty Budweiser can and some sticky stuff, and pretty soon Jesus was having a beer with the disciples. All was well until our geometry teacher, normally a very calm priest, came in and went ballistic.
February 12th, 2009 at 11:13PM
Jesus changing the water into beer…
Funny, Polish Peter, and you make what I think is an important point. For non-Catholics in particular, the crucifix may indeed be not just discomfiting, but harrowing.
As a non-Catholic married to a (Polish!) Catholic, I’ve said little here about my particular perspective on such matters. As I say in the post, it’s a very delicate matter, and I’m not sure how much my particular experiences count. But maybe when the time seems right, I’ll chime in with some personal responses.
Joe Fisher: You also make an important point. Especially THE Catholic University should not be expected to look like a conventional liberal arts school.
October 14th, 2009 at 12:08PM
[…] always be disputes about how overt the religious character of a religious campus should be (recall the controversy at Boston College, which recently put Catholic icons — mainly crucifixes — in every classroom). But they can be particularly difficult in […]