Light & Truth Conversations: Fr. Peter Stravinskas

In this Light & Truth Conversation, the first in a new video podcast series exploring themes in liberal education and the role of education in culture formation, University of Dallas President Jonathan J. Sanford and Fr. Peter Stravinskas dive into Newman, his Idea of a University, and his approach to an education that humanizes while fostering friendships oriented to wisdom, truth, and virtue.

00:00 Introduction to Cardinal Newman
01:42 Pope Leo XIV and Cardinal Newman
04:14 The Influence of  Carbolic Education Around the World
08:30 The University Project of Newman
20:28 Revival of Catholic Culture

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:03

I'm so grateful that you've joined me for a conversation today about St. John Henry Newman. And for those who are watching and listening, this is Father Peter Stravinskis, who has been reading and learning about St. John Henry Cardinal Newman since he was in about the third grade when his father used to read passages to him. And he's the founder and superior for the Priestly Society of St. John Henry Cardinal Newman. He's been involved in Catholic education pretty much his entire life, as far as I can tell. He's got a BA in classics in French from Seton Hall University, a PhD from Form University in school administration, and SDD from the Marion Institute at the Marianum in Rome and University of Dayton. And so thank you for being part of this conversation. Thank you for joining us at the University of Dallas and nurturing our students.

SPEAKER_00 1:01

It's my pleasure and always heard good things. I hate to tell you, but I have my Satan hall cufflinks on board.

SPEAKER_01 1:07

Wow. I should have brought over some unique couplings for you. Yeah. You know, we we were talking earlier, and and it might be good to revisit this. Um Pope Leo XIV has done something enormous. And he's he's named um St. John Henry Carnel Newman, not just doctor of the church, our newest doctor of the church, but co-patron of Catholic education. And what what do you see behind this? What do you see in front of this? What's the tellos that uh our Holy Father is directing us for the R.

SPEAKER_00 1:42

Well, I think there are a few things converging here. Uh first of all, we have to remember that uh Pope Leo is an Augustinian. Uh he made a point when he was speaking to university students uh last week in Rome, that he has fond memories of being a young friar, seminarian and priest, teaching math and physics.

SPEAKER_01 2:04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 2:04

So he is a and he comes from a Catholic education family. The father, the mother, one of the brothers, all involved in Catholic education in one way or another. I said I think that's number one. Number two, I think uh the disposition of Newman is very similar to his own. It's kind of a a calmness to him. Uh I always say, since uh Leo became Pope, that he exudes confidence but not arrogance. Yes. And he makes people feel comfortable in his presence. And and and Newman had that quality as well. Newman always talked about the importance of personal influence.

SPEAKER_01 2:44

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 2:45

Um and uh thirdly, um that this happens to be the 60th anniversary of Provision Medicacionis, the Vatican II decree on Catholic education. Yeah. Which shocks people when I say to them, this is the first time that document is the first ecclesiastical document on Catholic education in the history of the church. Right. We were doing education for 19th centuries, but had never put as a document on it. And I think Pope Leo probably sees or hears echoes of Newman in that document. Yeah. And finally, I think he wants to put Newman front and center to try to recapture a good sense of what Catholic education is all about. Trevor Burrus, Jr.

SPEAKER_01 3:31

Yes. Well, I I'd like to talk um about what Catholic education is all about. And I'd also like to explore a little bit the um the importance of Catholic education across our nation, across the world, right? It it matters for the state of our culture to have thriving Catholic schools. In many respects, we we we're spotty on whether or not Catholic schools are are thriving. So what what can what can Newman bring to us anew if if we're to really implement uh his principles in Catholic education today?

SPEAKER_00 4:11

Aaron Ross Powell Well, uh you're you're hitting a number of bases at the same time. I I traveled rather extensively through the Middle East and I discovered uh two things. Uh that probably the Catholic schools of the Middle East are the greatest source of potential peace there. Uh and secondly, anytime I encountered a Muslim who was intelligent, open-minded, culturally open, and so forth, they all have one thing in common. They had all gone to Catholic schools. Uh and uh at one point I had spent a week in Morocco speaking at a Muslim university. And everywhere I went, the older men Bonjour Montpère, bonjour Montpère, because they're all products of the French uh colonization or whatever whatever you think of it, but uh they brought Catholic education to Morocco. And there's still a very strong appreciation for that. In Egypt, it's the same thing, uh uh in the Holy Land itself. Uh so I I I think that's one thing in terms of what when Pope Leo excuse me, Pope Benedict came to the States uh in what, 2008 and his wonderful talk at Catholic U about Catholic education, he struck a chord similar to what you just said, that a Catholic school uh forms uh nurtures the soul of a nation. Yes. And and I in fact one of the things I'm going to say to the education department today is uh we do our schools do great things for the church, but we also do great things for the culture at large. That's right. And uh I believe, for example, uh the reason Roe v. Wade really got overturned was because of the existence of the Catholic school system. Uh if it hadn't been for that, it never would have been a youth-based uh movement whatsoever.

SPEAKER_01 6:04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 6:04

And six of the nine justices on the Supreme Court are the products of Catholic education. Right. One of them not too good, and one of the most product of Catholic education, but not Catholic. Uh but you see that influence that's been there. And uh when we do it right, it works. And uh you know, we have others that you know are not uh a credit to us. But uh and then just in terms of uh I had a uh a sister who ran the uh business department of one of the high schools that that I had, and uh she would go around to local businesses in a very non-Catholic and even hostile area and ask them to make contributions to her business department. And they would say, Well, why should I contribute to the Catholic Church? And she said, because you're gonna want my girls working for you.

SPEAKER_01 6:54

Yeah. There we go. You know, Newman's got a wonderful reflection. I think it's in the seventh discourse on um in the idea of a university. And it begins something like this, but but um the uh the a university education is the ordinary means to an extraordinary end. And and Newman goes on to list the way in which being well educated, such as within um a Catholic university, Catholic uh K-12 school, um, or other schools that that bear the stamp of that approach to education, you you know how to engage with another individual of whatever class, you're able to engage in in those practices that Chesterton describes as arguing without quarreling. You're you're at peace with yourself, you're you're at peace with others, you're able to get right to the bottom of a particular argument. I'm I'm always I've always been struck at the beginning of Parts of Animals when Aristotle describes the goal of education is to be able to identify the truth value of any argument from whatever discipline, right? So that that rich approach to education is something we we need to make sure that we maintain and strengthen within our Catholic schools and communicate out to schools that are looking to Catholic schools as as a paradigm, and it has a profound effect on forming the citizens of our of our country. Trevor Burrus, Jr.

SPEAKER_00 8:31

Well, it's you know, as you know, the university project of of uh Newman didn't go too well ultimately. But when he got back to England, uh in short order, he decided to open the oratory school. And he came to the understanding, and not having grown up as a Catholic, he wouldn't have had this kind of natural intuition for this. But if you want a Catholic university, you need a feeder for it. So a Catholic high school needs a feeder from a Catholic grade school, and so on. So this is one consistent, seamless system. And uh and so, you know, an institution like yours that, you know, has such a strong Catholic identity and and good academics and everything else that goes with it, you also need to be concerned about what can you do to strengthen the high schools. Right. And then the high schools in turn, you know, what can they do? And sometimes there's this tendency toward uh a very unhealthy uh autonomy of institutions and a disconnectedness which uh doesn't help anybody in the process. But I think that and his oratory school is still thriving, you know. Trevor Burrus, Jr.

SPEAKER_01 9:40

You know, uh thank you for that compliment about the University of Dallas. We were founded with a uh uh Bishop Gorman had a vision of greatness. He wanted the University of Dallas to um uh certainly serve the local population, but not just that. He wanted us to be a great university. And the original idea was to have a uh graduate school that offered PhD programs, master's programs. And the model for our brand of graduate school of liberal arts is the educator of the educators. We do produce a lot of teachers, um both on the university level, also on the high school level, also on the K-8 level. And and that that um uh concern for education at every level is, I think, that something that any Catholic university needs to be engaged in. I I wonder if could you explain a little bit um what an oratory is, right? So people may be familiar with St. Philip Neary and the Oratorians and but why why why did Newman found an oratory?

SPEAKER_00 10:43

Well what what what's distinctive about that approach? Trevor Burrus, Jr. Well, not for the noblest reasons. Uh when it was you know clear that he was going to swim the Tiber, it was equally clear to him that he wanted to be a priest. Uh and he was kind of while still in England before going to Rome for that year uh before ordination, uh he was you know throwing around different ideas. And uh you know, he said that he did not want to be a diocesan priest in England because it was highly populated by Irish clergy. And uh and he didn't think they had the exact level of class that uh that he was was interested in. And then uh his bishop said, Well, when you go to Rome, you'll have ample opportunity to look at various orders. Uh interestingly, he discounted the Jesuits immediately, but I think for different reasons. And then the Franciscans and the Dominicans, he wasn't into the mendicant lifestyle. Right. And so he stumbled on the oratory. I guess Pius IX probably said, take a look at them. Yeah. And I always joke that, you know, uh the oratorian vocation is religious life light. So there are no promises, there are no vows, it's a gentleman's agreement. Uh you know, um it's really the life of a secular well, it is the secular clergy. And unfortunately, in the past fifty years, we've lost that term about secular clergy, and now it seems to be it's always diocesan. But there are you know, the the Slopetians are secular clergy, the oratorians are. And uh and so uh he fell in love with the person of Philip Neary. And uh uh and he always talks about the joy of Philip. I find it ironic, though. You never find a picture of Newman smiling.

SPEAKER_01 12:32

He he is described as joyful, but you know I his most certainly I do find um like in my favorite prayer of uh Newman, the mission of my life, right? There's um one one one hears um a lifetime of of struggle and of loneliness. And and and yet um uh there were many people who did count him as as a friend.

SPEAKER_00 13:00

Oh yeah.

SPEAKER_01 13:01

And and and I think that that friendship is something that um we as educators ought to give more thought to. I mean, there's it seems to me uh several levels of friendship that ought to be fostered within a um any Catholic school. But um it's yeah, C.S. Lewis, Aristotle first, um, articulate friends as as umified through a uh a common desire for the good, right? And and the best form of friendship. And unlike in romantic love where you're you're gazing into another's eyes, you're you're you're standing shoulder to shoulder in pursuit of some good. If you've got a common curriculum, that gives you goods to be explored.

SPEAKER_00 13:45

You know, you you're talking about this idea of friendship. For decades, I've been suggesting to young priests who are pursuing a graduate degree, what should I write about? And I say, write about friendship. And one priest said to me, with all of the problems in moral theology You want to talk about friendship. I said, think about this. If you had a good understanding of friendship, there'd be no dis no problems with artificial contraception, abortion, same-sex relations, IVF. I said, all of those things that you're concerned about, and rightly so. The root cause is a misunderstanding or an untotal um lack of understanding of the nature of friendship. Right. And I'm happy to say that two years ago a seminarian was starting on his STL thesis, and I said, do and he said yes, and he did a wonderful job on it. But he traced it from Aristotle and and and Cicero and uh, you know, all through the medieval period and uh and it's it's it's it's critical. And that's again, that's Newman is uh I mean his famous his last homily as an Anglican, the parting of friends. Right. And uh, you know, if you want a tearjerker, I mean he hears Newman preaching, and of course that is they say he was not a very elegant preacher, a kind of monotone, but he takes off the Anglican preaching stall and f puts it on the altar, and and he talks about, and this is the last time you will see or hear from me. And uh and uh but and he says that the thing that kept him out of the Catholic Church the longest was not to betray friends. Right.

SPEAKER_01 15:24

Right. Trevor Burrus, Jr. Which is a noble, uh, a noble reason. Um and you know it's it's really the case that that friendship is is um what? It's it's one of the sweetest things in life, but um it's it's also friendship that is in the very definition of of what charity, right? So in in in the Secunda Secunde Question 23, Article 1, Aquinas defines charity as God's friendship with man. And our our friendship with others is a in a a participation of that friendship um with a God who has deigned to call us friends.

SPEAKER_00 16:05

One of the first books I remember reading in grammar school was called The Saints, God's Friends and Mine Too. Yeah. Uh and that that's uh that's what the commune of saints is. It's and that's that that great was it is it the Giotto fresco, yeah. The meeting of the blessed in heaven. And as people have this strange idea about heaven, we're all just sort of sitting there and mute and you know, looking into angelic uh wings or something. And that's no, that's that's not our understanding of that.

SPEAKER_01 16:34

So how how do we foster you know, in a in an age where I think young people are often um thinking of what they're learning as information mediated through screens, people are more isolated than they ever have been. Um what what can Catholic schools on whatever level do to be places of of fostering genuine friendship?

SPEAKER_00 17:00

Well, I think in that horrible tragedy in Minneapolis uh a couple of months ago now, uh with the you know mass shooting at the the Catholic school mass, we saw that in action.

SPEAKER_01 17:13

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 17:13

With children covering the bodies of other children. Yeah. You know? This is this is nobility, huh? Right. And uh, you know, where did they learn that? Well, they had all been introduced to the Dominican Sisters from Wine, however, that virtue education program that they have, which is a wonderful, wonderful thing. It really is a great program. And uh and then also the buddy system, you know, where an eighth grader is teamed up with a first or second grader to keep them b well behaved during masks. But also there's a also a sense of responsibility that's there, and a friendship develops. And uh and you gotta think that the eighth grader is thinking, this is like my little brother.

SPEAKER_01 17:54

Exactly.

SPEAKER_00 17:54

And uh and that's how they behaved. Uh so you can see it. And uh uh and again it's uh it's it's part of the whole Catholic ethos. Right. And uh uh and I think that's uh what got so lost in the shuffle in the immediate aftermath of Vatican II. Uh you know, we were told that we were too inward-looking, and the nasty word, it was a ghetto mentality. Right. Uh and I find it interesting because now we lived in in Newark, New Jersey, until I was in fifth grade, where I never knew a non-Catholic.

SPEAKER_01 18:27

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 18:28

Except for my father's two Jewish business partners, right? And then we moved 40 miles south, uh, and uh the town had the KKK operative there until the 1950s, and they weren't there against blacks or Jews, they were against Catholics. And uh and uh but you know, was able to through the Catholic culture, uh not only survive but thrive. And then interestingly enough, what we've discovered over the years, uh Father Andrew Greeley, whenever you think of his novels, he was a good sociologist. Yeah. And he maintained that uh people who had gone to ten years or more of Catholic school were more ecumenically inclined than those who had never gone to Catholic school. And why? Because if you're comfortable in your own skin, you can engage in an intelligent conversation with someone. You don't have to be defensive or offensive, all right, in the process. And and people are surprised when they hear that for a period of time in one of the dioceses I worked, I was the director of ecumenism. And they say, you? I say, yeah. And uh and when I worked for the Catholic League, uh when I left the the position, uh the three major Jewish organizations in New York gave me awards. And uh but again, because that's uh creating a Catholic culture is is critically important.

SPEAKER_01 19:50

I I agree. I do I do see a shift, particularly maybe in the last 10 years, a kind of recovery of um the recognition that that beauty needs to be at the heart of um uh a Catholic revival, uh, which can lead to a revitalization of our broader culture. Um Catholic schools have a role, it seems to me, in introducing their students to beauty. Certainly you can do that through art history courses or or visits, but what about making beautiful things? What's the role of of of the the studio arts within Catholic education?

SPEAKER_00 20:31

Well, the grammar school I went to in Newark, we're talking about the Sisters of Charity of Convent Station, New Jersey, Mother Seton's second foundation. And of course, the university is called that because her nephew was the bishop of Newark. He named the school after his aunt. Uh but the Sisters of Charity had a very interesting art education program when I was a kid. Every Friday after lunch was art. And these little postcards of famous works of art, and we had to have a binder of some kind. You had to paste this famous work of art into the side, and on the flip side you had to, over the weekend, uh find out, which by going to a library, the the biography of the artist, and then you had to write what you see in the art. And then this is the part that always caused me trouble was then try to reproduce it. And uh but it was a wonderful process, you so and uh and I think it was you know attuning us to to the artistic and uh and you know and and God the creator. Uh and and we co-creators uh of of beauty. And uh I mean some of John Paul's writings about you know beauty and art and so forth are just you know they're they're extraordinary.

SPEAKER_01 21:50

And and you know, I'm I'm I'm um um that that's a great art program. Um the Newman doesn't say a whole lot. About the fine arts within Idea B university.

SPEAKER_00 22:05

I think he took that for granted.

SPEAKER_01 22:06

Trevor Burrus Yes.

SPEAKER_00 22:07

You know the culture at that time?

SPEAKER_01 22:09

That's right. People sang, people played instruments, people painted. And I think we we have to be quite deliberate now. A contemporary philosopher from whom I've I've learned quite a bit, Matthew Crawford, has a book, Shop Classes Soulcraft, and then another one, The World Outside Your Head. And he's thinking particularly of the way in which there's a kind of deep knowing when we are fixing things, making things with our hands. But I think the same applies to making art. And it's it's um more important than ever to get young people and and older people outside of their heads, away from computers, um, where yeah, you can manipulate digital things and and make uh visualizations that are beautiful. AI, right? You can just order it up. That's that's uh that's stepping over something that's deeply human. And and and you get to that through the actual fabrication of uh works yourself. And in a way, it seems to me that what Newman is calling us to achieve, and and what Pope Leo is through invoking Newman calling us to achieve, is an approach to education that humanizes us in in ways that that other approaches to education just fail to do so.

unknown 23:37

Trevor Burrus, Jr.

SPEAKER_00 23:37

Well, you you use the adjective intentional. I want to do something going a little bit different direction with that. In terms of uh Catholic schools, um I have no problem with any Catholic school having a completely lay faculty. Uh Mother Singon was a laywoman when she started this adventure, and Bishop Carroll kind of pushed her to become a nun and start an order, uh which is all good. And I I would, you know, give my you know I teeth to have sisters on a faculty. Yeah. Uh and they they really do something there that's unique. Uh that having been said, uh we have to have a very intentional approach to the formation of lay faculty. Now, when I was a boy, we had lay teachers in the school. But you know, the school I went to, we had five sections of every grade, and we had, you know, three sisters and two lay teachers generally. Yeah. But so the three sisters had a formation within their own community. But the two lay teachers were then being formed by the three sisters. Right. And so but then that all evaporated in the sixties with you know the grand exodus of nuns and all that whole sad history that happened there. And so now I'm you know, I I do teacher workshops constantly uh around the country. I'm saying essentially the same stuff today that I did 40 years ago. When I said it 40 years ago, who sneers? You know? I say that stuff today. And it's if they're not doing it, it's not because uh they're ideologically opposed, it's just ignorance in the Latin sense of the word, you know. Uh when I do a a Catholic identity workshop for faculty, I have one section I call breathing Catholic Air. And I say, you know, it's not a checklist. Now there's a crucifix in the room, there's a statue of our lady. There's much more than that. It's an atmosphere and so forth. And I said, for example, if you're teaching uh history and an ambulance goes by, you say, boys and girls, put this down, let's pray for the sick person, pray for the medical personnel. Or you're in the middle of a math class and the church bell tolls for a funeral mass, let's pray for the repose of the soul. And this young woman in the front row starts weeping inconsolably, and I thought, what did I say? She said, Yeah, and I said, Well, what she said, Father, that's so beautiful. Now, she wasn't doing it, not because she thought it was a stupid thing to do. She's never heard of it, never heard of it. Yeah. Never heard of it. And so I think that's also part of you know recapturing the Catholic culture as well. And I think that's a real sign of hope, right?

SPEAKER_01 26:06

I mean without a doubt, um I had I I had many, many teachers um in grade school and then at university who really wanted to you know sneer at this sorts of things um that that you're describing. And um the things are very different now. Yeah. People are hungry. They're looking for deep roots. And and thanks be to God, we still have a lot of people who want to teach within Catholic schools. They want the formation. Sure. They're hungry for it. And and that that I think is uh Well I think too, um sometimes things have to hit rock bottom before a change can be effected.

SPEAKER_00 26:46

Uh Cardinal Aborelius in uh Scandinavia, I thought he was actually a contender to be wearing white. Yes. And he and he he would have been good. He's a convert from Lutheranism, he's a Carmelite. But I I saw a conversation with him recently, well, about a year ago, in which he said, I mean, everybody knows the sexuality in Scandinavia has been out of control for decades. And he said, it's at a point now where young people are constantly going to Catholic rectories and saying, can you tell us about the Catholic vision of sexuality? They realize whatever it is that they've been fed is not good. And so let's let's try something else. Trevor Burrus, Jr.

SPEAKER_01 27:24

Chaos isn't working. How about some order? Yeah. Well, uh thank you for joining me in conversation. Thank you for for this is your first visit to the University of Dallas. We're we're blessed to have you. And thank you for a lifetime devoted to reviving and strengthening Catholic education.

SPEAKER_00 27:42

That's my pleasure. And God bless you for the wonderful work you do here. Well, thank you. May your tribe increase. Yeah, thank you.

SPEAKER_01 27:48

We're working on that.