Ratzinger, Bavaria and Higher Education

By Dr. Brennan Pursell

Joseph Ratzinger has been a prominent name in Bavarian higher education for about four decades. When the 42-year-old professor of theology came to Regensburg in 1969, he had behind him 17 years of teaching experience, a track record for excellence at the universities of Bonn, Münster, and Tübingen, and an international reputation due to his best-selling books and his service as an official theological expert at the Second Vatican Council. The university at Regensburg was new, first chartered in 1962, offering courses in three faculties from 1967. Leaving venerable Tübingen for that fledgling institution was a definite step down the ladder of academic prestige.

But Ratzinger did not care. He wanted to return to his native Bavaria after a 10-year sojourn in other parts of Germany, and his brother was well-established as the music director of the famous Regensburg boys choir. In a write-up for the local press, Professor Ratzinger publicly stated that his goal was to contribute to the new university’s theological department through teamwork and dialogue, both for the sake of encouraging a genuine integration of the various disciplines of Catholic theology, and for the good of the students, so that they would improve their theological knowledge, and thereby come closer to truth.

After five years, his intellectual brilliance and complete sanity propelled him to the forefront of the university’s leadership. In 1974, he was named Dean of his department, and two years later, the Bavarian Ministry of Culture appointed him Prorektor (Vice-President) of the University. As a result of his famous publications–dozens of his books and articles had been translated into at least a dozen languages–and his appointment to the Holy See’s International Theological Commission, he soon gathered a cohort of graduate students from all over Europe, China, Korea, Chile, Benin, Canada, and the United States–by far the most international student academic group on campus. In contemporary lingo, we might say that he was leading the way toward globalization in academe, long before Regensburg had a program. Pope Paul VI, however, diverted Ratzinger’s career path in 1977. Even after he became the Archbishop of Freising and Munich, Ratzinger remained an honorary member of the university faculty.

What does this mean for us in higher education in the United States? On the face of it, not much. Higher education in all Germany is a branch of the state and ruled by government bureaucrats in the states’ ministries of culture. German universities, especially in Ratzinger’s day, did no fundraising and had next to no interest in dorms, sports, student social and spiritual life, or really anything else apart from teaching and research. The state paid for tuition and subsidized the mess halls. Most students arranged for their own accommodations like normal adults. On the whole, it still is that way.

Pope Benedict XVI, however, has had much to say to the higher education establishment in Bavaria, Germany, and the rest of the world. In 2006, he exhorted the German bishops to support actively and financially the little university at Eichstätt in Bavaria, which is the only Catholic university in Germany. Eichstätt, he said, needs to become a larger, more prominent, elite university, where generations of future leaders learn to address the issues of the day from a firm grounding in Catholic learning, tradition and truth. Eichstätt is already one of the best rated universities in Germany, in terms of student approval of their professors and the institution’s commitment to dedicated, attentive education of the whole person. But with 4,500 students it is quite small, relative to the weighty populations of the German state universities. All Catholic dioceses in Germany, the Pope added, should make firm contributions to the effort.

In the now famous Regensburg Address (September 12, 2006), Benedict XVI appealed to university scholars everywhere not to truncate their definition of reason by confining all knowledge to the material, the empirical, and the readily quantifiable. Human reason, which derives from God’s, the logos, is capable of reaching toward greater heights. He did not say that all faculties should submit to the declarations of the theologians, but he stated unequivocally that theology and philosophy should not be excluded from the essential human dialogue about truth, or be dismissed as irrelevant or merely “meta”. Everyone with an interest in truth should read the Regensburg Address, and especially political figures, such as Barack Obama, who declared in his best-selling political biography, The Audacity of Hope, “Almost by definition, faith and reason operate in different domains and involve different paths to discerning truth” (p. 219). The Pope differs.

The Regensburg Address is already producing fruit in the United States. At DeSales University, in an effort to bring the diverse faculties and disciplines together in dialogue, we have instituted a Dies Academicus each semester, as described by the Pope. The Dies is an open forum of, by, and for the faculty, where the rostrum is open for any and all to contribute to a discussion about a topic of general interest, such as the definition of globalization or the fundamental elements of a Catholic, liberal arts education. The response among the faculty and administration at DeSales has been extremely positive. I cannot recommend it enough for every college or university, Catholic and otherwise, where academic specialization tends to inhibit dialogue.

On April 17, when the Holy Father speaks at Catholic University in Washington, D.C., I expect him to reiterate some of the points he made in Regensburg, but I would not be surprised if he explicitly links American Catholic universities to his predecessor’s “new evangelization,” something which is almost impossible in the German socialist system. He will also probably cite Ex corde Ecclesiae, and might urge the American bishops to take a more active, assertive role as shepherds in the Catholic universities in their dioceses. But this is speculation.

Whatever Benedict XVI says to us this April, it will be clear, poignant, and eminently worth listening to. For those who do not know, the man is a bona fide genius. He speaks in flawless paragraphs, lectures in publishable chapters off the top of his head, and writes his books in a single draft. Is there any leader on the world stage today who is more educated and with greater raw intelligence than he? Those who are skeptical should read his books and decide for themselves.

Dr. Brennan Pursell is an Associate Professor of History at DeSales University and a Newman Fellow of The Center for the Study of Catholic Higher Education. His book, Benedict of Bavaria: An Intimate Portrait of the Pope and His Homeland was published in March 2008.