Word: faithfulness
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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Catholicism is different from most of the religions represented at Harvard--different in its stress on tradition and dogma, and also in its claim to catholicity. There is an undeniable fascination for the agnostic of a positive faith--an attraction which may be disliked but cannot be denied. Skepticism may pose a threat to the Catholic's faith, but Catholicism, on the other hand, is an open threat to the skeptic, because it holds forth hope...
Thus the Catholic will find religion a constantly recurring topic of conversation, his friends getting the feel of his faith as they might test the temperature of the ocean in early June. But they are not prepared to swim. Their first position is the easy one of attack. They know all the old arguments and most of the new ones; the Catholic has to know more. His defense has to be alive, the natural corollary to a living faith; it must be forceful and impressive, stemming from all that his commitment means to him. His defense will not convince others...
There is a place for the Catholic at Harvard if he can prove himself intellectually and prove that his Catholicism is an examined faith. He has to break the shell. It's easy to isolate oneself, but in isolation one can learn nothing about others or about oneself. Catholics are not unlike other students. On certain moral and theological questions there is more unity, but often this unity is a purely verbal affair and is splintered by diversity in personality...
There is a place for the Catholic at Harvard, and there are many Catholics trying to find it. But not without risks. The basic mathematics concerning loss of faith scares some, shocks others, but we mentioned the lack of finality in our figures--and especially in this particular set--due to the small numbers and also to the uncertain effect of time. If asked by some Catholic we didn't know whether he should come to Harvard we would have no ready reply--it's too individual a matter
...people believe sighed happily at Newsweek's discovery two years ago that the College was undergoing a "religious renascence." Since President Pusey arrived, resolved to prevent the Divinity School from going under, it has been generally conceded that "atheistic" Harvard was returning to the Established Way either through traditional faith or intense intellectual inquiry, and that the future of American religious groups, with Harvard men among their leading lay enthusiasts, was indeed bright...