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In effect, seminaries are becoming more and more like Catholic colleges, which, in turn, are becoming more and more like secular universities—institutions in which an adherence to church doctrine is no barrier to free intellectual inquiry. Last week this new ideal of the church was summed up by the Very Rev. Pedro Arrupe, Father General of the Society of Jesus, who spoke at a convocation honoring the 125th anniversary of the Jesuits' Fordham University, during a 17-day visit to the U.S. "The university must be free to analyze not only ungrounded attacks upon the faith, but formulations, defenses and practical orientations which only bring the faith into derision," said Arrupe, whose own worldwide seminary system has shared in the aggiornamento. "Where such freedom fails to flower, invaluable sectors of human experience are inevitably cut away, and the dialogue the Church must continually carry on with the changing world of human culture is seriously crippled."
* No academic kin to troubled St. John's University in New York City.