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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 09 September 2014
An important dimension of the changing character of Roman Catholic theological education is the growing numbers of Catholic lay women and men in all degree programs at non-Catholic, university related divinity schools, theologates, and departments of religious studies. This year-long study focused on Roman Catholic students and graduates of five schools across the country, in a first attempt to analyze the phenomenon and to suggest implications of the trend both for “ecumenical” theological education and for ministry in the Roman Catholic Church.
1 The Study Report, available from the Office of Associate Dean of Academic Affairs, Yale Divinity School, New Haven, CT, is entitled Partners in the Conversation: The Role of Ecumenical Divinity Schools in Catholic Theological Education, A Report on a Study Sponsored by the Catholic Task Force of Yale Divinity School and funded by the Lilly Endowment, Henry Charles, Dean R. Hoge, Francine Cardman, January 1992. “Ecumenical” in the title of the report is used in a nontechnical, descriptive sense. In this article, to avoid misleading assumptions, I have used “non-Catholic” instead, as the simplest, most factually accurate term. The study's working definition of “ecumenical” was Hough's, John description in “Ecumenical Seminaries and Constituencies,” Christianity and Crisis, 04 9, 1990, 111.Google Scholar With some qualifications, the schools in the study conform to Hough's definition. Chicago, Harvard, and Yale Divinity Schools are classic models of the “ecumenical” theological school. Candler School of Theology is related to the United Methodist Church; Emory University, however, is not controlled by the UMC. The Pacific School of Religion is classified by the Association of Theological Schools as “interdenominational,” though it formerly identified itself as related to the United Church of Christ. Strictly speaking, it is not associated with a university, but with the Graduate Theological Union at Berkeley, a consortium of theological schools which corporately grants graduate degrees.
2 Some further observations are in order about the genesis of the study. It was and remains an exploratory study. The constraints of time in preparation and design meant that it significantly reflects the Catholic student/graduate experience at Yale especially in terms of the number and extensiveness of contacts and interviews. The data, however, reflect the responses of students/graduates at all the faculties, without any numerical Yale predomination. Secondly, other faculties were considered at the outset, e.g., the Toronto School of Theology and Notre Dame, as part of a broader, comparative Catholic/non-Catholic proposal, but the Task Force finally settled on a more limited non-Catholic, noncomparative study, with geographical representation across the U.S. Finally, the study was envisaged primarily for students and graduates in ministerial programs, and the Report was geared significantly along those lines. Ph.D. and Th.D. students/graduates were incorporated in later discussion and included in the questionnaires. For technical reasons stemming from the late incorporation, as noted above, only Yale Ph.D. students were surveyed. The Study's statistics contain (with these qualifications) some breakdown of data for Ph.D./Th.D. students and graduates.
3 Interview conducted at Yale, 1991.
4 Hoge, Dean R., The Future of Catholic Leadership: Responses to the Priest Shortage (Kansas City: Sheed & Ward, 1987), chap. 1.Google Scholar
5 Ibid., 215.
6 According to Jay P. Dolan, “the best estimates conclude that about two of every three Catholic college students attend non-Catholic institutions” (The American Catholic Experience: A History from Colonial Times to the Present [New York: Doubleday, 1985], 443Google Scholar). For a related sociological summary of the relative status of Catholic colleges as research institutions, see Greeley, Andrew, American Catholics since the Council: An Unauthorized Report (Chicago: Thomas More, 1985), 145–46.Google Scholar A parallel post-conciliar development in theological education needs, of course, to be noted, viz., the increase in Protestant students—and the breadth this brings—in graduate programs at Catholic institutions. The Report does not presume the absence of this development. See also page 322 (this article).
7 Wuthnow, Robert, The Restructuring of American Religion (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1988), 96–97.Google Scholar
8 Baumgaertner, William L., ed., Fact Book on Theological Education 1986-1987 (Vandalia, OH: Association of Theological Schools, 1987), 1–2.Google Scholar
9 King, Gail Buchwalter, ed., Fact Book on Theological Education 1991-1992 (Pittsburgh, PA: Association of Theological Schools, 1992), 36–37.Google Scholar
10 See Dolan, , The American Catholic Experience, 9, 437–38.Google Scholar
11 Yale interview, 1991.
12 Ibid.
13 These statistics were pulled by Hoge from the questionnaire responses (see Partners in the Conversation, 16, 43).
14 While it may be true that many women students may have converted to Protestantism prior to entering divinity schools, thus increasing the percentage of those planning to be or actually ordained in denominations other than they were born in, the survey had no way of checking or verifying this. The student questionnaire went out to those who specified “Roman Catholic upon application to divinity school. The relevant question of the graduate questionnaire was therefore: Are you ordained clergy in another denomination? Are you preparing for ordination in another denomination?
15 Schuth, Katarina, Reasons for the Hope: The Futures of Roman Catholic Theologates (Wilmington, DE: Michael Glazier, 1989), 117.Google Scholar Citing a national NCEA survey (Potvin, Raymond H., Seminarians of the Eighties [Washington, 1985]Google Scholar), Schuth notes that in 1966, for instance, 70 to 80 percent of the seminarians had attended Catholic elementary and high school, and 95 percent had attended Catholic colleges (ibid.).
16 Lamb, Matthew L., “Will There Be Catholic Theology in the United States?” America 162/20 (05 26, 1990): 523–25; 531–34.Google Scholar
17 Theological Education, the journal of the ATS, has carried over the years many reports of these meetings and projects. See, for example, “Voyage, Vision, Venture: Report of the Task Force on Spiritual Development of the American Association of Theological Schools” 8 (Spring 1972): 155–97;Google ScholarEdwards, Tilden, “Spiritual Formation in Theological Schools: Ferment and Challenge. A Report of the ATS-Shalem Institute on Spirituality” 17 (Autumn 1980): 7–52;Google Scholar and, more recently, a series of articles in vols. 24 (1987-88) and 25 (1988-89).
18 Tracy, David, “Can Virtue Be Taught? Education, Character and the Soul,” Theological Education 24 (1988), Supplement I: 80–85.Google Scholar