Richard Rorty once called religion a conversation-stopper. Reflecting on Allan Bloom’s The Closing of the American Mind, R. R. Reno argues that the real conversation stopper is the relativism cultivated in all to many educational institutions, secondary and higher. He focuses on Roman Catholic universities, but they’re clearly not the only culprits, though, as he notes, they have the resources, as do other religious institutions of higher learning, to challenge students to think, speak, and argue.
If universities like Villanova, Georgetown, Notre Dame, Loyola succumb to the fad of cultural and moral relativism, then what hope does the Ivy League have. There’s no intrinsic brake in the Ivy League against error, they’re vulnerable to the prejudices of the times, UNIQUELY vulnerable.
But Catholic schools, ESPECIALLY universities, have a 2,000 year old Church that should preserve and inoculate them from error. If they’re swept up too in the ruling fashion statements of the age, ..................... "Apres moi, cest deluge....."