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Our Rich History: The Catholic identity of a Diocesan College — a historical perspective


By Tom Ward
Special to NKyTribune

Part 76 of our series, “Retrospect and Vista II”: Thomas More College/University, 1971-2021

At one time, it might have seemed unnecessary to attempt to define Catholicity for a Catholic institution of higher education. It was Catholic by its very nature – in what it taught, in the values it projected, in its intellectual and social atmosphere, and in its stance toward the secular world. Villa Madonna College in downtown Covington would have been no exception.

One sure sign of VMC’s Catholic nature was the fact that almost the entire faculty was composed of clergy, mostly priests of the Diocese of Covington, and sisters from the three religious congregations (Sisters of St. Benedict, Sisters of Notre Dame and Sisters of Divine Providence) who supported it. Although the Benedictine Sisters had established the college in 1921, by 1929 they were joined by the other two congregations, and in 1929 they jointly requested of Bishop Francis W. Howard that he make VMC a diocesan school. He acceded to their wishes.

As a diocesan college almost from the beginning, VMC was headed by the Bishop of Covington rather than operated under the auspices of a religious order, as were most other Catholic colleges and universities in the United States. For a long time, the Board of the Trustees was comprised of the mother superiors of the three congregations and the Bishop of Covington. Lay persons were not admitted to the board until the ground-breaking changes for Catholicism in the 1960s were well underway.

Villa Madonna College had an extra affinity with Catholicism in that its primary purpose in the beginning was to prepare women religious to teach in Catholic schools, where they would impart knowledge of Catholicism to young students. Of course, Catholic colleges taught their students the many other classes all schools taught, and VMC would stand out as a liberal arts institution. VMC taught its sister students well so they were ready to go into the many diocesan schools to raise up generations of young people who would meet the expectations for Catholic laity during those times.

Father John Wordeman (TMU Archives)

Of course, ground-breaking changes were initiated as a result of the Second Vatican Council (Vatican II) called by Pope John XXIII and held in Rome during four fall sessions during the span of 1962–1965. Many of the changes that resulted are at least somewhat familiar to most American Catholics, especially the use of English in the liturgy. But not all changes that occurred after the council’s culmination were necessarily called for by its official documents. Hence, there would be ongoing discussions over which changes were valid and which were not. Catholic institutions of higher education were obvious places in which discussions would take place, as both faculty and students would join in the debates.

By the 1960s, as secular American society was undergoing vast changes of its own, an exodus of Catholic priests and sisters from active ministry occurred. Meanwhile, fewer young people were entering seminaries and convents. This meant that fewer priests and sisters were available to teach in higher education, with the correlative factor that more lay professors, requiring higher salaries, were hired in their stead. This naturally exacerbated the tight financial situation in which many Catholic schools already found themselves, as they also struggled to maintain enrollments at sustainable levels.

While the entire world of Catholic higher education was experiencing varying degrees of tumult in the late 1960s, Villa Madonna College was undergoing its own unique changes: the opening in 1968 of its new campus in suburban Crestview Hills and a new name – “Thomas More College.”

One obvious sign of the times was a move away from the tradition of clerical presidents. Following the retirement of Msgr. John F. Murphy after twenty years of leadership, the re-constituted Board of Trustees–which included lay members beginning in 1968–chose Dr. Richard A. DeGraff as the first lay president. His 1971 appointment coincided with the completion of VMC’s/TMC’s first fifty years of history.

If prior to Vatican II the Catholic nature or character of VMC/TMC could have been taken for granted, this was certainly not the case afterward. “Catholicity” became a relevant topic for discussion and hopefully for definition. At one time, it may have been largely defined in terms of contrast to the secular world and non-Catholic faiths, but now a new definition would be needed that expanded outward to regard Catholicism as a part of the world, as well as a newly recognized dimension of ecumenism.

Courses in Catholic Theology had always been one of the hallmarks of Catholic higher education. However, after the council, the ways in which courses might be taught were being scrutinized and revised. Instead of advancing a standard set of answers, theology was now often regarded as not “set in stone,” but was seen more as an ongoing endeavor to better understand and explain the Catholic faith for the current times. Students in Catholic colleges – like their counterparts in secular schools – were primed to “question authority” so that they no longer simply accepted what they were taught in their classes. It seemed that being able to deal with such questioning would require a new breed of teachers, some of whom would be troubling in the eyes of their more traditionally minded colleagues, not to mention conservative bishops.

The Bishop of Covington during this time of transitions was Richard H. Ackerman (bishop, 1960–1978), who had himself attended all four sessions of the council in Rome. Another development following Vatican II was an indefinite distinction between “liberals,” who favored the advancement of progress in what they often deemed “the spirit of Vatican II,” and “conservatives,” who usually thought things were going beyond the bounds of changes legitimately inspired by the council. Bishop Ackerman was soon identified as one of the latter.

Certain issues or controversies involving questions of how academic freedom, student rights and free speech, etc., should be manifested in a Catholic college arose during Dr. DeGraff’s tenure, especially in the early 1970s. Among these controversies were: the presence of the journal Evergreen – deemed obscene by some alumni and others – in the TMC library; Dr. DeGraff’s refusal of student government’s request to allow a pro-abortion speaker on campus to express the other side of the issue following the presentation of the pro-life view; and the inclusion of nude art in a student art exhibition.

Bishop Richard Ackerman (TMU Archives)

These controversies would clearly illuminate the difficulty of reconciling Catholicity with those larger, more secular, issues concerning academia. Rather than elaborate on these specific controversies, however, I will concentrate on another matter–the Task Force on Catholicity (TFC) and its lengthy process in trying to write a broad Catholicity policy statement virtually at the same time during which these other controversies had arisen. What exactly such a policy would address was one of the main points to be settled, though in terms of these controversies, one expected outcome might have been to determine what was acceptable at a Catholic college and what was not. This would prove to be a very challenging and time-consuming task.

From the beginning of this process, it was clear that it would be difficult to define what Catholicity was for the college, though it would seem essential to the task at hand. It seemed easier to describe the things that were done at TMC for which it could call itself Catholic, which would obviously include making the Catholic liturgy and sacraments available, plus retreats and other spiritual events. It would not be a simple matter to describe how TMC had a Catholic environment – academically, socially and spiritually – in a way that would be acceptable to the entire community.

The genesis of this task force was part of TMC’s response to the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools’ (SACS) appraisal of its curriculum for its 1969 reaccreditation. The Educational Policies Task Force (EPTF) was established to explore possibilities, and this EPTF had several sub-committees or task forces. The most important was “Committee One,” which included three task forces, one of which was the TFC to examine the place of Catholicity in the college’s life and curriculum.

Committee One held a two-day meeting, August 28 and 29, 1970, at which TMC’s Catholicity was discussed. The participants came to the consensus that Catholicity was “a distinct expression of Christianity and not simply synonymous with it, but open to all human concern for the ultimate ground of human life and values.” “Catholicity, in this sense, is identifiable in terms of the Church and its tradition of interpreting Christian revelation.” They favored a metaphor for the Church used by Vatican II, the “Pilgrim Church,” as also apt for an academic community so that both individuals and the community were considered pilgrims on a journey, rather than having arrived at a destination. This would “provide a framework within which the student seeks his identity, the meaning of his life.” The TFC was formally constituted as a result of this meeting, with Fr. Paul Tenhundfeld, a TMC history professor, as its leader (Committee I meeting, Aug. 28–29, 1970, TMU Archives).

At a meeting of the TFC on October 29, the committee stressed the importance of maintaining TMC’s Catholicity to retain its “viability.” To achieve this, Catholicity “must be all pervasive, the whole college community must be involved.” But members also asked, “Are we having any Christian impact on students?” Answering this question was important because it was assumed that a large part of TMC’s viability was being able to offer a desirable alternative to the secular Northern Kentucky State College (now Northern Kentucky University) in Highland Heights that had opened in 1968, with a vast potential to draw enrollees who might otherwise have registered at TMC (TFC meeting, Oct. 29, 1970, TMU Archives). Yet some survey data indicated that a mere 17% of students had chosen TMC because it was Catholic (Report on Self-Study data conducted by Academic Dean James Ebben, no date, TMU Archives), which could be interpreted as meaning that much more was needed to keep students at TMC than a policy statement defining or describing its Catholicity.

As discussions on Catholicity carried over into 1971, differences of opinion remained hard to reconcile. While virtually everyone wanted to maintain TMC’s Catholic-Christian character, questions on how this should be done and who would be most responsible for ensuring it, were difficult to answer to everyone’s satisfaction.

Obviously, the nature of Theology courses was a crucial question. As the TFC attempted to set the parameters, they asserted that some courses “must be distinctly Roman Catholic and aimed at giving the students a mature understanding of the essentials of our faith.” At the same time, they implicitly recognized some room for the ongoing theological endeavor to explicate the doctrines of the faith when they stated that “Theological speculation in these courses should not detract from orthodox belief.” A majority on the TFC also felt that Theology courses “should be obligatory for every student,” while some courses “should be ecumenical, i.e., acceptable to any form of Christian faith” (TFC Tentative Conclusions, Jan. 27, 1971, TMU Archives).

But fostering and preserving TMC’s Catholic nature was not to be solely the concern of the Theology faculty. The task force also concluded that this responsibility “must be shared by the entire college community.” New faculty were to be made aware of this and everyone should make the effort “to show the superiority of Christian humanism over secular humanism” (TFC Tentative Conclusions, Jan. 27, 1971, TMU Archives).

At its next meeting in March, the TFC examined how the college might implement its statement regarding Catholicity as the responsibility of all. One suggestion was sure to raise some hackles: there should be a “genuine concern of the administration in its hiring policy,” which could possibly mean “giving precedence to a Christian applicant over a non-Christian one, other things being equal.” The issue was even broached–and there were differences of opinion on the task force–on whether questions such as “ ‘Are you a Christian’ or ‘do you practice your Christian faith?’ ” should be asked of applicants (TFC Report, March 17, 1971, TMU Archives). This discussion, of course, long predated later American hiring practices whereby asking such personal questions of job applicants became regarded as highly inappropriate and problematic.

One member of the Theology Department, Fr. John Wordeman, disagreed with some of the conclusions drawn by the TFC, and he did so from what would be called the “liberal” perspective. He approached the matter from the position that established teachings were not necessarily definitive – he expressed the conviction that “A Catholic College is catholic in that it seeks more of truth, beauty and goodness with a conviction that no answer is a final one . . . “ and that “. . . there should be no privileged orthodoxy on our campus, for to favor any is always to weaken and impoverish it.” With this stance, it was not surprising that he would claim that “It would be odious if the college ran some kind of orthodoxy test . . . ” and “I do not think we should ask of them that they bear a responsibility for the Catholic character of the college.” Such statements could have aroused antipathy from those who believed in the authoritative nature of Church pronouncements, especially when it sounded as though Fr. Wordeman viewed them as essentially relative by stating that, although Jesus had “‘the words of life,’” so did Karl Marx, Herbert Marcuse and Buddha. “A wise man stands on the shoulders of every man that preceded him . . . ” (“Catholicity, A Response”, Fr. Wordeman, ca. spring 1971, TMU Archives). It seems there is no record of how the TFC responded to Fr. Wordeman’s critique.

The formulation of a policy statement was still ongoing as 1973 began. The TFC, now headed by Fr. Alfred Pooler, attempted to delineate two functions for an adequate statement: “descriptive,” to describe the situation as it actually existed among students, faculty and the board, and “prescriptive,” to recommend what needed to be done. They described the situation for students by stating that students “cannot comfortably find themselves in agreement with the kind of Catholicity which is defined in the policy statement” (apparently referring to a preliminary statement being discussed in the review process). Changes had brought a “new kind of student.” Especially with more non-Catholics enrolling, “great numbers of the existing student body . . . feel uncomfortable with any whole-hearted commitment to the institutional church” (Review of Policy Statement on Catholicity, Jan. 16, 1973, pp. 2-3, TMU Archives).

As for the faculty, it seemed that many believed that the Catholicity statement was not “a comfortable way of describing their relationship to the college.” Yet the task force was also convinced that the faculty were committed to Catholicity at TMC–even non-Catholic and non-Christian faculty “are dedicated to working in an institution which espouses Christian principles,” even if they did not subscribe to all those principles themselves. All faculty, though, “would welcome the search for ways of describing that commitment” (Review of Policy Statement on Catholicity, Jan. 16, 1973, p. 4, TMU Archives).

The TFC at this point concluded that “Since the Catholicity statement is weak in its descriptive function, there is little likelihood that it will be effective in accomplishing its prescriptive function. It will not generate the kind of whole-hearted acceptance” on the part of the stakeholders “who are expected to carry it out in so many aspects of their academic life.” What the prescriptive function would be was still not clear when they admitted that “ ‘Christian’ is primarily a designation of a person and only of an institution in a ‘derived’ sense. Even when speaking of the institutional church, we must see it as including personal faith-relation of persons with Christ and mutual relationship between believers.” So, at least at this point, “the Catholicity statement gives little guidance in helping the college chart its course into the future” (Review of Policy Statement on Catholicity, Jan. 16, 1973, pp. 6-7, TMU Archives).

At a follow-up meeting on January 22, the TFC made explicit for the first time the central place of Christ in its formulation–“Regardless of how the new policy is arrived at, there is more to the task than finding the right words . . . “It is, in fact, part of the task of finding the risen Lord Jesus Himself”; “How shall He live among us? How shall we go about seeking Him?” (Review of Policy Statement on Catholicity, Jan. 22, 1973, p. 11, TMU Archives).

They also expressed concern that the earlier formulation using the image of the “pilgrim church” might “conjure up images of narrow-minded Puritanism, though the image properly understood designates people on a journey, who are seeking, who are on various stages toward an ideal.” There was some fear that TMC could even shy away from confirming its Catholicity just so it would not seem Puritanical. Yet they ended by asking the incisive question, “Is it possible to be intensively Catholic without being narrowly Catholic?” The task force believed it was and called for “a full re-investigation of the whole question,” with the hope that it will be “one element in producing a re-birth of the spirit.” (Review of Policy Statement on Catholicity, Jan. 22, 1973, p. 11, TMU Archives). If this was not yet a definitive statement, it nevertheless evinced a more hopeful attitude.

The college hosted a Seminar on Catholicity that included students, faculty and board members on Saturday, April 14, 1973. Following group discussions, the participants concluded that the 1971 statements had been unsuccessful because they had not adequately accounted for the motives and beliefs of those on whom the policy would rely for implementation. Therefore, “. . . the only realistic policy that can be written at this time has to be a pluralistic policy statement which recognizes the divergent reasons for which different groups are involved in the college. Ours is in fact not a homogenous community.” Not surprisingly, they adamantly rejected for TMC the perception that it should “exist to ‘sell’ Christianity, and some ways in which it appeared that Catholic viewpoints were being imposed and other viewpoints were not permitted to be heard,” a view that sounded too much like Puritanism (Conclusions from Seminar on Catholicity, April 14, 1973, TMU Archives).

A draft for a final statement issued in June noted that the TMC community was “proud of the college’s Christian tradition of concern for the individual and its unhampered ability to consider religious questions along with all the other questions that ought to be asked during one’s college education.” The statement recognized that each student (Catholic or non-Catholic) “will have his own questions to ask and his own way of expressing his religious life-concerns,” and the college would provide “many opportunities for each of the students, without requiring that he or she make use of any of them in the same way another student might. For the student coming to terms with himself and his world, the college offers the opportunity to study religious issues, in an academic, scholarly atmosphere.” Further, if the task force had ever read Fr. Wordeman’s objections, they ignored them as they still called for all faculty and staff to be made aware of the Christian atmosphere and to cooperate “in fostering this spirit, for which all members of the college share responsibility” (Task Force on Catholicity – Policy Draft TMC as Catholic College, June 1973, TMU Archives).

The TFC conclusions in the proposed statement, however, seemed to be at odds with the views of Bishop Ackerman that he presented in an undated paper, “The Relationship of the Bishop to a Diocesan College.” Unfortunately, it is not apparent when or for whom the bishop wrote this paper; it could just as well have been written in regard to an earlier conflict with the Theology Department as it could have been in response to the 1973 policy statement. But if Fr. Wordeman reflected a more liberal view of what Catholicity should mean, Bishop Ackerman was on the conservative side of the spectrum.

Although the bishop states near the beginning, “nor should the question of academic freedom be overlooked,” there is little else in the statement that reflects that opinion. His position is based on the fact that he was the diocesan bishop of a diocesan college, and as such, he had “rights over the educational institutions of his diocese, including those of higher education. These rights derive from his responsibility for the faith and morals of his people, and they are, in their way, inalienable.”

His authority as bishop was vested in his office and “it does not depend on the consensus of his people or other mediating agencies for its lawful possession or legitimate use” (“The Relationship of the Bishop to a Diocesan College”, Bishop Ackerman, no date, pp. 1-2, TMU Archives).

Ackerman spoke in general terms, rather than specifically about TMC, but he clearly regarded much that was going on in Catholic higher education as deleterious to the teaching authority of the Church. He perceived some institutions as deviating from sound doctrine and placing too much emphasis on academic freedom, to the point that many Catholic institutions were becoming “secularized”; in his view, such schools were only “euphemistically” called Catholic (“The Relationship of the Bishop to a Diocesan College,” Bishop Ackerman, no date, p. 3, TMU Archives).

Bishop Ackerman believed that it was the bishop who had the final say in what was accepted as truly Catholic at a diocesan college. It is likely that many of the faculty at TMC in the late 1960s and 1970s, especially in the Theology Department, found such language to be “pre-Vatican II.” Such differences of opinion regarding Catholic identity could not be easily resolved, no matter what kind of policy statements were developed, though much would be determined by who created them.

Tom Ward is the newly retired Archivist of Thomas More University. He holds an MA in History from Xavier University, Cincinnati.

We want to learn more about the history of your business, church, school, or organization in our region (Cincinnati, Northern Kentucky, and along the Ohio River). If you would like to share your rich history with others, please contact the editor of “Our Rich History,” Paul A. Tenkotte, at tenkottep@nku.edu. Paul A. Tenkotte, PhD is Professor of History and Gender Studies at Northern Kentucky University (NKU) and the author of many books and articles.


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