NCR: Benedict’s Vision and Benedictine Spirituality Boost Thomas More BY Joseph Pronechen

(Is the fate of the newspaper tied to that of the Legionaries?)

I'll have to look at the curriculum again --

Benedictine Influence

Pointing out a neo-Benedictine revival of lectio divina (prayerful reading of the Bible) and Scripture studies in Benedict’s other speeches, Fahey said the college’s new sequence for theology is scriptural and Benedictine.

Another plus: All students learn to sing the Divine Office and pray lauds and vespers together. In the yearlong “Way of Beauty” tutorial, freshmen learn not only about sacred art, but also hands-on icon “writing.”

There is also a significant change in the required eight semesters of humanities. Zmirak points out the new curriculum is carefully designed to teach the history of the West chronologically, starting with the epic of Gilgamesh and going through Vatican II and Spe Salvi (Saved in Hope).

Fahey likened the previous approach to a merry-go-round. “A freshman got on wherever the college was at that point,” he said. “He might start in the Renaissance and end in the Middle Ages. A student had to grapple with Luther when he hadn’t yet read Augustine or St. Paul.”

Jonathan Reyes, president of Catholic Charities in Denver and founding president of the Augustine Institute there, is familiar with Thomas More’s readjusted and revised curriculum and considers it “superb.” He says the college is ready to rebuild Catholic culture through education and formation.

“It’s exactly what we need at this moment to recover Western civilization, fully understanding the debt of the Catholic tradition,” Reyes said. “Precisely in our cultural crisis we need to recover that tradition. In a strange way, it’s cutting-edge tradition.”

The part about the internship program is interesting -- perhaps there is a growing awareness that liberal arts colleges need to be able to justify the expense of the education and their own existence by helping their students to secure appropriate jobs after graduation. The internships are usually with Catholic organizations. I wonder if this doesn't run the risk of "ghettoization" for the students, though. Some would say that the students need to be prepared to deal with people who do not share their faith, or to participate in the new evangelization. I just think that it will not be possible for all of the graduates of the decent Catholic colleges in this country to get employment with a Catholic organization, and they must be willing to consider other sources of employment. Given the state of the economy and the reliance of many Catholic organizations on donations, the number of jobs may even decrease.