THE CATHOLIC UNIVERSITIES AFTER THE WAR

BY REV. STEPHEN J. BROWN, S.J.

It is not, I think, too much to say that among the assets of the Catholic Church in the world the Catholic universities rank high. How have they fared in the world war? No complete answer can yet be given, but we may even now assess to some extent at least the material losses they have suffered—or escaped. It goes without saying that in all the belligerent countries through-out the war the work of the Catholic universities, as of all other institutions of learning, was severely hampered. Students and even professors were drafted into the armies, courses were interrupted, classes broken up, academic interests were at a discount.

This happens to some extent during all modern wars, but to a much greater extent in the two world wars, for in them the entire man-power and much of what I suppose we may call the womanpower was called upon for war service of one kind or another.

In the first world war, however, the material destruction was comparatively slight. Not so in the second. Let us just glance at its results in Europe. The great University of Louvain suffered a second and equally complete destruction. Its great library, painfully built up after the last war to upwards of 900,000 volumes, perished utterly. And now the Rector, H. Van Waeyenbergh, has issued an appeal. Of Ireland, in particular, he asks sets of the publications of our learned societies, the journals of our archaeological societies, Royal Irish Academy, Royal Society of Antiquaries, etc. etc. Of course many of his treasures are irreplaceable. But I have no doubt that once more there will be a generous response. Despite this heavy loss of its library we can feel confident that this great university, to which the Church in Belgium owes such an incalculable debt and which before the war had 3,860 students, will resume its work and flourish as in the past.

Unlike Louvain, which has five centuries of work to its credit, the Catholic University of the neighbouring country, Holland, is comparatively new (1922) and as yet only partially developed. Situated in Nijmegen, which for a time was in the very front of the fighting, it could hardly escape. And in fact it did not, for all its buildings, including the library, were destroyed. But the stalwart Dutch Catholics are certain to raise it from its ashes.

The fate of the newly-founded (1928) Catholic University of Lublin is far more tragic. Here there is question not so much of material destruction as of the impossiblity of any such institution functioning in what we must call Soviet Poland. The Germans first made Lublin a Jewish centre and later proceeded to liquidate its Jewish inhabitants. They took over all the university buildings and carried off its library of 140,000 volumes to Germany. The Catholic University of Fordham, New York, has symbolically adopted Lublin and will, no doubt, sponsor its restoration when the time comes. Of course Lublin is not the only Polish seat of learning which will have to be restored. To judge from an enthusiastic, almost lyrical, article contributed to America (13th January, 1945), by Eric P. Kelly, Cracow was the very ideal of a university, a seat of learning where learning was pursued for its own sake and where the cultural traditions of the Middle Ages were still living and inspiring the most advanced and modern studies. The loss suffered by the Polish universities is far heavier than that of buildings and equipment. For a large proportion of their personnel was either transported or died in concentration camps.

In Switzerland, that great centre of Catholic life and thought, the University of Fribourg could, thanks to the neutrality of the country, continue its work unhampered and uninterrupted. It is fortunate that Fribourg is the headquarters of Pax Romana and of the Catholic Union of International Studies. These were thus enabled to renew their activities immediately after the war and the veteran secretary of both, the Abbé Grimaud, was in London for a very successful conference last August. There the present writer met him for the first time.

On the other side of the Alps is that wonderful institution, the University of the Sacred Heart, Milan. The adjective I have used is not merely ornamental; it expresses a fact, for the work accomplished by the university since its foundation in 1921 is truly astonishing. For an easily available account of it I refer the reader to an article by Professor Mary Ryan which appeared in Studies in December, 1934, or to any recent Annuario of the university. In that of 1938—9 the list of the scientific publications of the professors and lecturers during the year runs to thirty-three pages. Six learned reviews were being published. 1 cannot say whether the magnificent new buildings, opened in 1935, have suffered damage from air raids; I can only say that I have come across no mention of such. In any case, as long as that extraordinary man, Padre Agostino Gemelli, O.F.M., is spared to it, the future of the university is secure. The year before the war there were 3,402 students.

The Sacro Cuore is essentially an Italian University; the Roman universities are international. The Gregorian university had its beginnings in 1551, when St. Ignatius Loyola founded the College which in 1582 became the Roman College. The present writer was fortunate enough to live for a fortnight in 1936 in its new buildings in the Piazza Pilotta at the foot of the Quirinal, and also to hear the present Holy Father, then Cardinal Pacelli, address in seven languages an international gathering in another great institute, the Angelicum. Still another, the Biblical Institute, stands opposite the Gregorian. All these institutions have emerged unscathed from the war. Not long ago, by the way, the Rector Magnificus of the Gregorian was named McCormick and the Rector of the Biblical Institute, O’Rourke. Other ecclesiastical universities in Rome are the Lateraii and Propaganda.

In Italy there are State universities, such as the new Roman University, inaugurated in 1935 and blessed by Cardinal Marchetti Selvaggiani, Vicar of Rome. But they have no monopoly. When, however, we cross the Alps into France, we find a single State University which claims and exercises an absolute monopoly of the conferring of degrees. This, however, has not deterred the Catholics from founding their own schools of higher learning, the five University Colleges (in all but the name) which they are obliged to call Instituts Catholiques—Paris, Lille, Lyons, Toulouse, and Angers. They took the first step just one hundred years ago when they opened the Ecole des Cannes. Accordingly, the Institut Catholique of Paris celebrated its centenary last January. From very humble beginnings it has grown into a great institution, fully equipped with faculties of letters, science, theology, and law, first-class laboratories, a library of 225,000 volumes, and, most important of all, 3,240 students this year. The other four Instituts are likewise flourishing.

In Germany there have been since the Middle Ages a large number of universities, some of them famous. In the days before National Socialism, each had its own traditions, its particular spirit and atmosphere. In Protestant regions it tended to be Protestant, in Catholic regions Catholic. In a number of the universities, for instance, Bonn, Munich, Münster, Wurzburg, Frankfurt, there were important Catholic faculties of theology. It is, of course, well known that several German university buildings were totally destroyed and others heavily damaged. Even prior to National Socialism there was no university formally known as Catholic.

In Austria, on the oither hand, there was that of Innsbruck, which was practically done away with by the Nazis. In 1937 the Austrian hierarchy issued a pastoral letter inviting the support of the faithful for the foundation of a Catholic University at Salzburg. Had it been founded then, its life would have been short and its end sudden; for the Anschluss came about in 1938. As for England, it cannot be said that definite steps have been taken towards the foundation of a Catholic University. But some minds are moving in that direction. Last August the author was fortunate enough to be present at a most interesting, if impromptu, debate on the subject. It arose at one of the sessions of the Newman Centenary Conference at Beaumont College and out of a paper on the great Cardinal’s Idea of a University. The prestige of Oxford and Cambridge is still almost overwhelming even among Catholics. It is admitted that, though wholly Catholic in their origins, their atmosphere to-day is on the whole no longer even Christian. It is true that, to counteract this, there are the Catholic hostels. But is that enough? The idea of a Catholic University for England found powerful advocates in Father Philip Hughes, an alumnus of Louvain, and Mr. T. S. Gregory, editor of the Dublin Review. Their main line was that, as the university ought to be the crown of a liberal education, a Catholic University is needed to crown a Catholic education. But other speakers thought that a Catholic University might have the effect of cutting off Catholics from the general thought and culture of their country and that, moreover, such an institution would stand little chance in competition with the immense prestige and resources of its rivals. This is not the whole of the matter, but we must leave it at that.

The Spanish and Portuguese universities were once renowned throughout Christendom and were wholly Catholic. Before 1938 they could hardly be said to be either one or the other. There were, of course, Catholic professors and many Catholic students, yet the name of Catholic universities could scarcely be accorded them. No Catholic university had yet been founded in the Peninsula. But the present government is taking important and far-reaching measures for the reform of the universities and the restoration of their Catholic traditions.

Of the rest of Europe—the greater part of it in fact—we can say nothing, for no Catholic university is to be found in its vast extent. So we may turn to the other continents. Africa saw the opening of the first institution calling itself a Catholic University actually during the war, no further back, indeed, than the summer of last year. It was opened not at Capetown nor at Cairo, not in Algiers nor in Lourenço Marques, but in Basutoland! It is the Pius XII Catholic University College of Roma. May it live long and flourish!

In our present connexion it is scarcely necessary to speak at all of the universities of North and South America, since the war caused them no material damage. In Brazil, indeed, as in Basutoland, a new Catholic University was opened during the war. But in any case the Catholic universities of the two Americas constitute a subject too big for the present article and may, perhaps, be reserved for another.

In all the vast extent of Asia and Australasia there are only six Catholic universities, namely, one in the Near East— Beirut—and five in the Far East, viz., two each in China and the Phillipines and one in Japan. India has a number of fine colleges of all but university status, but no expressly Catholic university. Nor, I should think, is it at all likely to possess one in the near future, whatever comes of the present negotiations. The position of the University of St. Joseph, Beirut, has definitely changed as a result of the war. For France has withdrawn from Syria, and her institutions there are no longer under her protection. Whether this will prove loss or gain only the future can show. The student body there is a motley collection of Greeks, Syrians, Egyptians, Turks, Jews, and Catholics. Its graduates—doctors, lawyers, engineers and clergy— are scattered throughout the Near East. So are the productions of its printing press.

How have the universities of the Far East fared? All of them were within the war zone and three of them in partibus infideliurn. Strange to say, these three latter were spared and the two in the Catholic land of the Philippines were destroyed. One might well have expected that, after the terrible bombings of Japanese cities, nothing would remain of the buildings of Yochi Daigaku, as the Catholic University of Tokyo is called. Yet a letter dated 3rd September 1945, from one of the German Jesuit Fathers who conduct it, says: ‘By a special grace of God none of our Fathers here has been killed and the university as a whole has been spared destruction, although one of the class-room buildings was burned down cornpletely and another one was partly damaged. . . . The entire neighbourhood of the university is one large field of ruins.’ This is good news indeed, for the ,university, founded in 1912, had, after many vicissitudes, attained at last a legal status and full recognition, and it seems certain that it has a role of the very greatest importance to play in Japan.

Of the two Catholic Universities in China that of Peking (known in Chinese as Fu-Yen) was founded in 1925 by the American Benedictines, but subsequently passed into the hands of the Society of the Divine Word. It possesses very handsome buildings and just before the war had reached a student enrollment of nearly 1,000, of whom, however, only about 200 were Catholics. L’Aurore is a good deal older than Fu Yen, for it was founded, in a very small and humble way, in 1903. It is situated in Shanghai and is conducted by the French Jesuits. Before the Chino-Japanese war it was in full prosperity. Students came to its medical school not only from China but from the Philippines, Japan, Korea and Russia. Its doctors are in thirty Chinese hospitals, and to its past students in general the following tribute was paid nearly fifteen years ago by Monsignor de Guébriant of the Paris Foreign Missions, who had visited every part of China: ‘Throughout the length and breadth of China, when you come across young men who are an honour to the Church and to their country, you invariably learn that they are past students of Aurora University.’ In the closing stages of the war Shanghai was subjected to persistent and heavy bombing by the Americans. The best buildings of l'Aurora were taken over by the Japanese but escaped destruction.

Besides these two universities there is the celebrated observatory of Zikawei near Shanghai and a Higher Institute of Industry and Commerce at Tientsin. Moreover, in default of a Catholic university, a very valuable institution, especially in countries where the atmosphere is pagan, is a university hostel. Such a hostel, Ricci Hall, the Irish Jesuits have for many years past been conducting in Hong Kong with marked success. All these institutions of higher learning contribute toward the ideal of the seventeenth- and eighteenth-century Jesuit missionaries in China, namely, to raise the status of the Church through cultural prestige. But what are they among the fifty-nine universities of China?

The Philippine Islands have for centuries been Catholic land, with a people, excepting the Moslem Moros, entirely christianized by the Spaniards. Since the American conquest and the resulting invasion of Protestantism, the Church has had to fight a difficult fight for the preservation of the Faith. In this fight the two already ancient universities of Santo Tomas and the Atenco have played a foremost part. The former was founded in 1611 by the Dominicans in Manila, the latter also in Manila by the Jesuits after their return to the Philippines in 1859. It would seem that the buildings of both these universities were destroyed during the final stand of the Japanese against the assault of the American army. They were both in full activity before the war. Santo Tomas published Unitas as an organ of the Faculty and a general bulletin (in English), the copy I have seen (August, 1936) running to 463 pages. The Ateneo had just been rebuilt after its partial destruction by fire some years before. Please God they will rise from their ruins and resume their great work. But that is going to be hard.

The work of all these universities is excellent so far as it goes. But it is not much more than a beginning. And surely there must yet be Catholic universities in Siberia, in Indo-China, in Indonesia, and in Australia. As for India, I have said above that a foundation may be difficult, but, in an article contributed to La Vie Intelleetuelle of Paris, in 1933, H. C. E. Zacharias, a distinguished convert from Judaism living in India, pointed out that Catholics possess twenty- three colleges in India and eight in Ceylon, but that all these colleges are affiliated to one or other of eighteen non-Catholic universities, all of which, consciously or unconsciously, draw their ideas from Protestant sources. Catholics may not even teach religion directly in their own colleges and they must follow the courses and use the books prescribed for them by the universities to which they are affiliated. Surely such a state of things is injurious to the Catholic cause in India.

STEPHEN J. BROWN, S.J.