It was from the bosom of medieval Christendom, at Paris, Bologna, Oxford, Salamanca, that the first universities of Europe sprang into being; and it was virtue of the protection and patronage extended to them by the papacy that they won the right to an autonomous existence independent of local or state control.
The first universities of Spanish America, those of Lima, Mexico and Santo Domingo, were likewise founded by the Catholic Church; while those of English America arose under the sponsorship of the various Christian denominations into which the original Thirteen Colonies were divided.
Thus, Harvard and Yale are Puritan foundations; Columbia and William and Mary, Anglican; Princeton, Presbyterian; Rutgers, Dutch Reformed; Dartmouth, Congregationalist; Georgetown, Catholic.
This fact suggests that the aims of religion, or at any rate the Christian religion, are not incompatible with the aims of the university as such; indeed, it suggests that these two institutions may be mutually complementary.
However, there are those who do not accept this conclusion, claiming that organized religion ― or rather, one organized religion, the Catholic Church ― is by its very nature opposed to the basic purposes for which universities are established.
They make this claim in the face of the historical fact, with which one must presume they are familiar, that the Church was founding universities long before state universities were even thought of.
This contention is not new. It is at least two hundred years old, having been first proposed by certain philosophers a number of times since then, notably by the Oxford scholar John Henry Newman, who was also, incidentally, a cardinal of the Roman Catholic Church.
However, since it has been recently restated in order to apply to this university, not a few of whose students and professors are Catholics, it may not be amiss to consider it briefly here.
The Catholic Church, then, is and cannot help but be an obstacle to the proper functioning of a university, particularly if it be a state university. Such is the contention. What is the argument advanced in support of it? As far as I am able to understand it, the argument runs as follows.
A university is a community of teachers and students dedicated to the preservation, dissemination and advancement of learning. Learning in this context means the entire range of truths attainable by the human mind, as well as the methods or procedures by which they are attained.
Now in order that the university may function towards this objective, there is one absolutely indispensable requirement: freedom. Since no limits can be set as to where truth may lie, or how it may be apprehended, neither can any limitations be imposed on the search for it, other than those inherent in the seeker and the instruments and materials at his command.
The university community, both teachers and students alike, must be completely free to seek the truth wherever it may be found, and completely free to express, exchange, discuss and criticize the results of their free enquiry. These two freedoms, the freedom of enquiry and the freedom of expression, together constitute what is termed academic freedom.
The only acceptable limitation to this freedom, as has been stated, is that internal to the activity itself, namely, the competence of the scholar, thee established discipline of his field of enquiry, the accuracy of his tools, and the availability of his materials.
To impose any other limitation from without is to imperil the search for truth, to falsify the truth already gained, and to prevent its communication to others; in short, to render the university incapable of attaining the end for which it exists.
Now it is precisely in this vital area of academic freedom, the argument continues, that the university feels itself threatened by the Catholic Church. For the Catholic Church claims to be the sole depository and authoritative interpreter of a unique revelation which has God himself for author.
The essential content of this revelation is held to be beyond the power of reason to discover or even adequately to comprehend; it must therefore be accepted on faith, that is solely on the testimony of God revealing.
Hence, whatever the Church may declare as part of the revelation or essentially related to it, is by that very fact removed from the sphere of free enquiry and rational discussion; it can only be taken on faith.
Thus, an external limitation is imposed on the freedom of enquiry and of teaching; and that not only in theology, but in every other discipline which may impinge in any way on revelation and endanger the integrity of its content.
Such is the argument in favor of the assertion that the Catholic Church is by nature destructive of academic freedom, and hence of the essential requirement without which the state university ― or any university, for that matter ― can neither function nor exist. It is derived from the contemporary writing on the subject which I have been able to consult. I have tried to state it as fairly as I can. Let us now examine it as objectively as we are able.
It will be noted at once that the entire argument hinges on how the object and the act of faith are understood. For in order that it may validly conclude, it is necessary to assume that both the revelation which is the object of faith, and the act or assent of faith itself, are irrational.
If the doctrine proposed as having been revealed by God is contrary to reason or altogether impervious to it, and if the assent to such doctrine is simply demanded without any rational justification being offered for it, there would indeed be grounds for saying that a purely arbitrary and external restraint is being placed on the human mind.
The point is, that this is precisely how the Catholic Church does not understand the object and the act of faith.
What is faith, to the Catholic? It is the free assent which he gives to the truths revealed by God because it is God who reveals them. Preceding and conditioning this free assent is a whole train of reasoning whereby its reasonableness is made manifest: that God exists; that he has actually made a revelation; that, being God, he can neither deceive nor be deceived; and that this revelation, unchanged, undiminished, is that which is now proposed by the Catholic Church.
This train of reasoning is largely implicit in simple and uneducated persons; but in those capable of sustained and systematic thought it must conform to the most rigorous demands of logic and evidence. The Church herself demands this. This is why the convert must undergo a catechumenate, more or less exacting according to his capacity, before he is formally admitted into the body of faithful.
And that is also why the Church insists that those born within her fold must learn the rational grounds for their faith, not only in childhood, but at every major stage of their intellectual development: in high school, and again in college, and once again in the university, conformably to the increasing maturity and penetration of their critical faculty.
Faith, then, is a rational assent; and being such, it is of necessity a rational acceptance of the consequences that flow from that assent. The data of revelation are accepted as all truth must be accepted once it is seen to be truth.
If there is any restraint in this, any limitation on the freedom of the mind, it is exactly the same restraint, exactly the same limitation, as that which the acquisition of any truth imposes on any thinker in any rational discipline whatever.
Moreover, this assent is not only rational; it is free. Not only is there no external compulsion on the Catholic to believe, but even the objective evidence in favor of belief, overwhelming though it is, does not force the assent of faith itself. Free on the part of man, it is also free on the part of God; a gift freely offered and received. Such is the teaching of the Church. One may readily gather from it what value this supposedly tyrannical institution places on human freedom.
Thus, faith as we Catholics understand it, is not a limitation but a liberation. Far from reducing the scope of human knowledge, faith vastly enlarges it; and this in three ways.
First, by putting within the mind's reach truths which it could never attain by its own efforts; second, by strengthening its natural feebleness even in the areas within its competence; and third, by throwing the entire range of knowledge into a new light, and thus enabling the mind to see it (though darkly, as in a glass) as God himself sees the universe which he has made.
Faith, then, far form contradicting reason, presupposes it; far from diminishing the range of reason, it extends that range; and any limits which it may seem to impose on the exercise of the reasoning faculty are only those which truth itself, the object of knowledge, imposes on the act and process of knowing.
In the light of this analysis, let us now reexamine the argument stated earlier to the effect that the Catholic Church is destructive of academic freedom.
It is said, for instance, that the Catholic is compelled by his Church to assent to certain propositions called "dogmas" or "mysteries" ― such as, that God is one nature but three persons; or, that the second Person of the Blessed Trinity possesses both a human nature and a divine ― propositions which are by definition beyond the ability of reason to discover, and hence incapable of rational proof.
There are here two ambiguities, one in the use of the word "compelled," the other in the sense given to the phrase "incapable of rational proof." The implication in the word "compelled" is that the believer assents against his will, or against his better judgment. But this is not the case; the act of faith, as we have seen, is an act both rational and free.
As for certain revealed truths being "incapable of rational proof," this is true in the sense that the nexus between the terms of such proposition cannot be humanly perceived by an examination of the terms themselves; but it is not true if taken to mean that the nexus cannot be affirmed, and rationally affirmed, on the testimony of God revealing.
In other words, the proposition "God is three persons in one nature" is incapable of proof, if the only kind of proof you will accept is an analysis of the terms of the proposition.
But this is not to proceed rationally, for there are other ways, equally valid, of arriving at a firm apprehension of the truth, and one of these is to accept, from motives clearly and rationally perceived, the testimony of God himself.
Again, it is said that the Catholic scholar may not affirm anything contrary to the data of revelation, even though what is affirmed lies within the limits of his competence and is supported by rational proof.
To state the case thus is to prejudge it, for the statement assumes that it is possible for a rationally demonstrated proposition to contradict the data of revelation rightly interpreted. But this is precisely what we claim to be impossible, for truth cannot contradict itself.
If therefore the Catholic scholar in the course of his researches, comes upon a seeming contradiction between fact rationally perceived and truth divinely revealed, he proceeds exactly as he would if a similar seeming contradiction arose between two rationally perceived facts within the same system.
That is to say, knowing that there can be no real contradiction between two facts, he goes back over the data supporting the two terms of the apparent contradiction, to see wherein his reasoning has been at fault or a conclusion has been extended beyond the evidence.
In the same manner, the Catholic scholar examines the evidence for the fact which appears to be at variance with revelation, to see whether it is indeed a fact or merely the semblance of one; and by the same token he analyzes the alleged datum of revelation to discover whether it is indeed such, and not merely an erroneous construction placed upon the revelation itself.
Surely no one can see in the procedure anything that violates either the conscience or the freedom of the scholar. Non-Catholics may indeed reject the data of revelation as being founded on insufficient evidence; that is their privilege.
But they ought at least to recognize that Catholic scholars do affirm revelation on what they claim to be sufficient evidence, and not merely because they tremble in mortal terror of some Grand Inquisitor. I should think this is the minimum courtesy which one member of the academic community can extend to another.
Since, then, it is on the sufficiency of the evidence for revelation that we differ, let our dispute be on that: Has there been a revelation? Has this revelation come down to us? Has it come down to us intact, and in recognizable form?
Or alternatively, if they imagine this to be the easier course, let those who differ from us produce one single, solitary, indisputable fact which clearly contradicts an established datum of revelation. Then we shall be joined on a real issue.
But to accuse Catholics of intellectual dishonesty and lack of moral courage, and the Catholic Church of abridging the proper freedom of the mind, simply because Catholics accept as truth not only what reason demonstrates but what God reveals ― this seems to me to be a singularly inept way of avoiding an intellectual problem by falsifying it. It does not even have the merit of being clever. It is, in fact, an admission of defeat.
But to resume. The difficulty has been urged that if the Catholic Church does not abridge the rational freedom of the scholar in theory, it certainly does so in practice. It forbids, for instance, the reading of certain books, and from time to time directs that certain doctrines are not to be taught or publicly professed by Catholics. Do not these prohibitions impair the progress of science by striking at two of its most important prerequisites, free access to relevant material, and free discussion of the results of research?
This difficulty proceeds from not taking into account a very simple and obvious fact, namely, that the Catholic Church is not a church exclusively for university students and professors. It is a church for all men, and actually includes all kinds and conditions of men, in addition to women and little children. Since we are so many, there are bound to be among us a few persons of some intelligence, and even learning.
Indeed, if one searched very hard through our present and past membership, one might conceivably find a name or two, an Augustine, a Mendel, a Dante, a Copernicus, an Aquinas, a Pasteur, a Palestrina, a Raphael, a Bellarmine, a Cervantes, a Maritain ― a name here and there that has escaped oblivion because of some modest contribution which its professor happened to make to the sum of human knowledge and enlightenment.
But the vast majority of Catholics are admittedly very simple people who have not had the advantages of a university education, and never will.
And yet, the Church is a mother to them also; or rather, to them especially, for they have the greater need. And so, like a wise and careful mother, she takes what precautions she can lest they expose their faith and virtue to dangers which they have neither the equipment nor the training to repel.
One such danger is that of reading books which either attack religion or morals, or present them in a way that is likely to be misunderstood by the uninstructed.
It is in order to ward off this danger that the Church forbids the reading of such books to Catholics; and since the danger is a general one, the prohibition takes the form of a general regulation.
This does not mean, of course, that those who have a good reason for reading such books, and who are competent to handle them, may not readily obtain permission to do so from the proper authorities. Nor does it mean that the Church is afraid of these books, in the sense of being afraid that there is no real answer to the attacks, misrepresentations and ambiguities that they contain.
There is no real difficulty in disposing of these difficulties, but it does require a certain fund of information and a development of the critical faculty which are ordinarily acquired only by advanced formal education.
The same principle applies to the directives which the central authority of the Church sometimes issues to those who teach in her schools. These directives usually pertain to disputed matter, closely related to revelation, which are still in the stage of hypothesis.
The intention is not to prevent such matters from being studied or discussed by those who are competent to do so, but to prevent their being prematurely taught to students who have not yet developed the ability to distinguish hypothesis from fact, especially in a problem of some complexity.
Is this a limitation on the teacher's freedom of expression? It is; but, I believe, a reasonable one. To hold one's opinion privately is one thing; for that, one is responsible only to one's conscience and to God.
But to teach an opinion to others is quite another thing; for by teaching one contracts a responsibility with respect to those whom one teaches, who are still in their formative stage, and also with respect to the common good, whether of the academic community or the larger society of which it is a part, whose stability and good order may be endangered by the dissemination of rash or ill-considered opinions.
Even the most resolute advocates of academic freedom readily admit that this freedom can and ought to be limited in the interests of the common good. Well, then, the Church appeals to no different principle when she moderates the teaching of opinions which fall short of truth, and of hypotheses whose validity are still in doubt, whenever such teaching is likely to loosen the hold of ordinary Catholics on the truths upon which their eternal salvation depends.
Briefly, then, I do not believe that the autonomy of this university is in any danger from the presence in it of Catholic students and professors, even if they were here in much greater numbers than they are.
The Church to which they are proud to belong has never in the long course of her history abridged the rightful freedoms of the human person made to the image and likeness of God, whether it be the freedom of conscience, the freedom to seek the truth, or the freedom to speak it.
On the contrary, her heroes of every age and clime have gladly shed their blood to uphold these freedoms; and we, their unworthy successors, daily pray at the holy sacrifice of the Mass for the strength to follow their example.
Nor do we claim these freedoms merely for ourselves, but for all those who may hold a different belief, but who sincerely seek to serve God in their own fashion, even as we do in ours.
We are bound to disagree among ourselves on many points of doctrine and practice, but surely we can work together to create within the confines of this university, now approaching its fiftieth year, a clear, clean atmosphere of mutual respect and trust, where all may pursue to the best of their ability that one infinite, inexhaustible, supremely lovable Truth whom all men seek, albeit in different ways.
To impose any other limitation from without is to imperil the search for truth, to falsify the truth already gained, and to prevent its communication to others; in short, to render the university incapable of attaining the end for which it exists.
Now it is precisely in this vital area of academic freedom, the argument continues, that the university feels itself threatened by the Catholic Church. For the Catholic Church claims to be the sole depository and authoritative interpreter of a unique revelation which has God himself for author.
The essential content of this revelation is held to be beyond the power of reason to discover or even adequately to comprehend; it must therefore be accepted on faith, that is solely on the testimony of God revealing.
Hence, whatever the Church may declare as part of the revelation or essentially related to it, is by that very fact removed from the sphere of free enquiry and rational discussion; it can only be taken on faith.
Thus, an external limitation is imposed on the freedom of enquiry and of teaching; and that not only in theology, but in every other discipline which may impinge in any way on revelation and endanger the integrity of its content.
Such is the argument in favor of the assertion that the Catholic Church is by nature destructive of academic freedom, and hence of the essential requirement without which the state university ― or any university, for that matter ― can neither function nor exist. It is derived from the contemporary writing on the subject which I have been able to consult. I have tried to state it as fairly as I can. Let us now examine it as objectively as we are able.
It will be noted at once that the entire argument hinges on how the object and the act of faith are understood. For in order that it may validly conclude, it is necessary to assume that both the revelation which is the object of faith, and the act or assent of faith itself, are irrational.
If the doctrine proposed as having been revealed by God is contrary to reason or altogether impervious to it, and if the assent to such doctrine is simply demanded without any rational justification being offered for it, there would indeed be grounds for saying that a purely arbitrary and external restraint is being placed on the human mind.
The point is, that this is precisely how the Catholic Church does not understand the object and the act of faith.
What is faith, to the Catholic? It is the free assent which he gives to the truths revealed by God because it is God who reveals them. Preceding and conditioning this free assent is a whole train of reasoning whereby its reasonableness is made manifest: that God exists; that he has actually made a revelation; that, being God, he can neither deceive nor be deceived; and that this revelation, unchanged, undiminished, is that which is now proposed by the Catholic Church.
This train of reasoning is largely implicit in simple and uneducated persons; but in those capable of sustained and systematic thought it must conform to the most rigorous demands of logic and evidence. The Church herself demands this. This is why the convert must undergo a catechumenate, more or less exacting according to his capacity, before he is formally admitted into the body of faithful.
And that is also why the Church insists that those born within her fold must learn the rational grounds for their faith, not only in childhood, but at every major stage of their intellectual development: in high school, and again in college, and once again in the university, conformably to the increasing maturity and penetration of their critical faculty.
Faith, then, is a rational assent; and being such, it is of necessity a rational acceptance of the consequences that flow from that assent. The data of revelation are accepted as all truth must be accepted once it is seen to be truth.
If there is any restraint in this, any limitation on the freedom of the mind, it is exactly the same restraint, exactly the same limitation, as that which the acquisition of any truth imposes on any thinker in any rational discipline whatever.
Moreover, this assent is not only rational; it is free. Not only is there no external compulsion on the Catholic to believe, but even the objective evidence in favor of belief, overwhelming though it is, does not force the assent of faith itself. Free on the part of man, it is also free on the part of God; a gift freely offered and received. Such is the teaching of the Church. One may readily gather from it what value this supposedly tyrannical institution places on human freedom.
Thus, faith as we Catholics understand it, is not a limitation but a liberation. Far from reducing the scope of human knowledge, faith vastly enlarges it; and this in three ways.
First, by putting within the mind's reach truths which it could never attain by its own efforts; second, by strengthening its natural feebleness even in the areas within its competence; and third, by throwing the entire range of knowledge into a new light, and thus enabling the mind to see it (though darkly, as in a glass) as God himself sees the universe which he has made.
Faith, then, far form contradicting reason, presupposes it; far from diminishing the range of reason, it extends that range; and any limits which it may seem to impose on the exercise of the reasoning faculty are only those which truth itself, the object of knowledge, imposes on the act and process of knowing.
In the light of this analysis, let us now reexamine the argument stated earlier to the effect that the Catholic Church is destructive of academic freedom.
It is said, for instance, that the Catholic is compelled by his Church to assent to certain propositions called "dogmas" or "mysteries" ― such as, that God is one nature but three persons; or, that the second Person of the Blessed Trinity possesses both a human nature and a divine ― propositions which are by definition beyond the ability of reason to discover, and hence incapable of rational proof.
There are here two ambiguities, one in the use of the word "compelled," the other in the sense given to the phrase "incapable of rational proof." The implication in the word "compelled" is that the believer assents against his will, or against his better judgment. But this is not the case; the act of faith, as we have seen, is an act both rational and free.
As for certain revealed truths being "incapable of rational proof," this is true in the sense that the nexus between the terms of such proposition cannot be humanly perceived by an examination of the terms themselves; but it is not true if taken to mean that the nexus cannot be affirmed, and rationally affirmed, on the testimony of God revealing.
In other words, the proposition "God is three persons in one nature" is incapable of proof, if the only kind of proof you will accept is an analysis of the terms of the proposition.
But this is not to proceed rationally, for there are other ways, equally valid, of arriving at a firm apprehension of the truth, and one of these is to accept, from motives clearly and rationally perceived, the testimony of God himself.
Again, it is said that the Catholic scholar may not affirm anything contrary to the data of revelation, even though what is affirmed lies within the limits of his competence and is supported by rational proof.
To state the case thus is to prejudge it, for the statement assumes that it is possible for a rationally demonstrated proposition to contradict the data of revelation rightly interpreted. But this is precisely what we claim to be impossible, for truth cannot contradict itself.
If therefore the Catholic scholar in the course of his researches, comes upon a seeming contradiction between fact rationally perceived and truth divinely revealed, he proceeds exactly as he would if a similar seeming contradiction arose between two rationally perceived facts within the same system.
That is to say, knowing that there can be no real contradiction between two facts, he goes back over the data supporting the two terms of the apparent contradiction, to see wherein his reasoning has been at fault or a conclusion has been extended beyond the evidence.
In the same manner, the Catholic scholar examines the evidence for the fact which appears to be at variance with revelation, to see whether it is indeed a fact or merely the semblance of one; and by the same token he analyzes the alleged datum of revelation to discover whether it is indeed such, and not merely an erroneous construction placed upon the revelation itself.
Surely no one can see in the procedure anything that violates either the conscience or the freedom of the scholar. Non-Catholics may indeed reject the data of revelation as being founded on insufficient evidence; that is their privilege.
But they ought at least to recognize that Catholic scholars do affirm revelation on what they claim to be sufficient evidence, and not merely because they tremble in mortal terror of some Grand Inquisitor. I should think this is the minimum courtesy which one member of the academic community can extend to another.
Since, then, it is on the sufficiency of the evidence for revelation that we differ, let our dispute be on that: Has there been a revelation? Has this revelation come down to us? Has it come down to us intact, and in recognizable form?
Or alternatively, if they imagine this to be the easier course, let those who differ from us produce one single, solitary, indisputable fact which clearly contradicts an established datum of revelation. Then we shall be joined on a real issue.
But to accuse Catholics of intellectual dishonesty and lack of moral courage, and the Catholic Church of abridging the proper freedom of the mind, simply because Catholics accept as truth not only what reason demonstrates but what God reveals ― this seems to me to be a singularly inept way of avoiding an intellectual problem by falsifying it. It does not even have the merit of being clever. It is, in fact, an admission of defeat.
But to resume. The difficulty has been urged that if the Catholic Church does not abridge the rational freedom of the scholar in theory, it certainly does so in practice. It forbids, for instance, the reading of certain books, and from time to time directs that certain doctrines are not to be taught or publicly professed by Catholics. Do not these prohibitions impair the progress of science by striking at two of its most important prerequisites, free access to relevant material, and free discussion of the results of research?
This difficulty proceeds from not taking into account a very simple and obvious fact, namely, that the Catholic Church is not a church exclusively for university students and professors. It is a church for all men, and actually includes all kinds and conditions of men, in addition to women and little children. Since we are so many, there are bound to be among us a few persons of some intelligence, and even learning.
Indeed, if one searched very hard through our present and past membership, one might conceivably find a name or two, an Augustine, a Mendel, a Dante, a Copernicus, an Aquinas, a Pasteur, a Palestrina, a Raphael, a Bellarmine, a Cervantes, a Maritain ― a name here and there that has escaped oblivion because of some modest contribution which its professor happened to make to the sum of human knowledge and enlightenment.
But the vast majority of Catholics are admittedly very simple people who have not had the advantages of a university education, and never will.
And yet, the Church is a mother to them also; or rather, to them especially, for they have the greater need. And so, like a wise and careful mother, she takes what precautions she can lest they expose their faith and virtue to dangers which they have neither the equipment nor the training to repel.
One such danger is that of reading books which either attack religion or morals, or present them in a way that is likely to be misunderstood by the uninstructed.
It is in order to ward off this danger that the Church forbids the reading of such books to Catholics; and since the danger is a general one, the prohibition takes the form of a general regulation.
This does not mean, of course, that those who have a good reason for reading such books, and who are competent to handle them, may not readily obtain permission to do so from the proper authorities. Nor does it mean that the Church is afraid of these books, in the sense of being afraid that there is no real answer to the attacks, misrepresentations and ambiguities that they contain.
There is no real difficulty in disposing of these difficulties, but it does require a certain fund of information and a development of the critical faculty which are ordinarily acquired only by advanced formal education.
The same principle applies to the directives which the central authority of the Church sometimes issues to those who teach in her schools. These directives usually pertain to disputed matter, closely related to revelation, which are still in the stage of hypothesis.
The intention is not to prevent such matters from being studied or discussed by those who are competent to do so, but to prevent their being prematurely taught to students who have not yet developed the ability to distinguish hypothesis from fact, especially in a problem of some complexity.
Is this a limitation on the teacher's freedom of expression? It is; but, I believe, a reasonable one. To hold one's opinion privately is one thing; for that, one is responsible only to one's conscience and to God.
But to teach an opinion to others is quite another thing; for by teaching one contracts a responsibility with respect to those whom one teaches, who are still in their formative stage, and also with respect to the common good, whether of the academic community or the larger society of which it is a part, whose stability and good order may be endangered by the dissemination of rash or ill-considered opinions.
Even the most resolute advocates of academic freedom readily admit that this freedom can and ought to be limited in the interests of the common good. Well, then, the Church appeals to no different principle when she moderates the teaching of opinions which fall short of truth, and of hypotheses whose validity are still in doubt, whenever such teaching is likely to loosen the hold of ordinary Catholics on the truths upon which their eternal salvation depends.
Briefly, then, I do not believe that the autonomy of this university is in any danger from the presence in it of Catholic students and professors, even if they were here in much greater numbers than they are.
The Church to which they are proud to belong has never in the long course of her history abridged the rightful freedoms of the human person made to the image and likeness of God, whether it be the freedom of conscience, the freedom to seek the truth, or the freedom to speak it.
On the contrary, her heroes of every age and clime have gladly shed their blood to uphold these freedoms; and we, their unworthy successors, daily pray at the holy sacrifice of the Mass for the strength to follow their example.
Nor do we claim these freedoms merely for ourselves, but for all those who may hold a different belief, but who sincerely seek to serve God in their own fashion, even as we do in ours.
We are bound to disagree among ourselves on many points of doctrine and practice, but surely we can work together to create within the confines of this university, now approaching its fiftieth year, a clear, clean atmosphere of mutual respect and trust, where all may pursue to the best of their ability that one infinite, inexhaustible, supremely lovable Truth whom all men seek, albeit in different ways.
― Fr. Horacio Luis de la Costa y Villamayor, S.J.
Originally delivered at a symposium at the U.P. on the theme:
"The Autonomy of the State University"
Published in the Philippine Collegian
Quezon City, September 1957
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| Quezon Hall, The University of the Philippines Diliman, Quezon City. c. 1950s. |
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