If you haven't read anything about Georgetown covering up the IHS (Jesus monogram) symbol for President Obama's policy speech there recently, here is an excerpt from the end of Fr. Barron's commentary explaining why it was unacceptable for the University to do so, considering the Church's historical relationship with Universities and our Catholic tradition that puts Jesus the Logos not at the periphery of learning, but at the center of any serious search for truth! Enjoy!
In point of fact, understanding Jesus is the key to this particular controversy and to the wider question of the church and the public square. The peculiar claim of the church is that Jesus is not one religious figure among many, not one more in a long line of prophets and inspired teachers. Jesus is the Son of God, the incarnation of the Logos, which is to say, the very word by which God created the universe. The great theologians of our tradition clearly grasped the implication of this doctrine: Jesus, precisely as the Logos made flesh, is related to any and every expression of logos (mind or reason) in the culture.
Every truth discovered by science or philosophy, every design apparent in
nature, every instance of artistic beauty, every arrangement of justice is a
reflection of what appears fully in Jesus. And this is why the church, at its
best, has always been the friend of the arts, of philosophy, of science, and
literature.
And this is furthermore why the first universities—Bologna,
Paris, Oxford, Cambridge—emerged precisely out of the milieu of the church. In
the thirteenth century, St. Bonaventure, professor at the University of Paris,
composed an extraordinary text called Christ the Center, the gravamen of whose
argument is that Jesus the Logos is at the heart of physics, mathematics,
history, and metaphysics. In the mid-nineteenth century, John Henry Newman, in a series of lectures entitled The Idea of a University made much the same
assertion. The Jesus reverenced by the great tradition belongs therefore very
much in the public sphere and around the table of intellectual conversation. In
that context, he poses no threat to legitimate expressions of reason and he
serves as a trump to the unreason that can surface easily enough in the
sciences, in politics, or in philosophy. A Catholic university worthy of the
name is a place where Jesus the Logos has this essential regulating role.
What is particularly interesting (and troubling) about the Georgetown
decision to cover up the name of Jesus is that it symbolizes something much
broader, viz. the tendency of too many Catholic institutions to consider Jesus
something of an embarrassment, a hindrance to the full immersion of Catholics in the secular society. The Christ who is the embodiment of Reason itself does not hinder, and should never embarrass, those who are seeking truth in any form.
In point of fact, understanding Jesus is the key to this particular controversy and to the wider question of the church and the public square. The peculiar claim of the church is that Jesus is not one religious figure among many, not one more in a long line of prophets and inspired teachers. Jesus is the Son of God, the incarnation of the Logos, which is to say, the very word by which God created the universe. The great theologians of our tradition clearly grasped the implication of this doctrine: Jesus, precisely as the Logos made flesh, is related to any and every expression of logos (mind or reason) in the culture.
Every truth discovered by science or philosophy, every design apparent in
nature, every instance of artistic beauty, every arrangement of justice is a
reflection of what appears fully in Jesus. And this is why the church, at its
best, has always been the friend of the arts, of philosophy, of science, and
literature.
And this is furthermore why the first universities—Bologna,
Paris, Oxford, Cambridge—emerged precisely out of the milieu of the church. In
the thirteenth century, St. Bonaventure, professor at the University of Paris,
composed an extraordinary text called Christ the Center, the gravamen of whose
argument is that Jesus the Logos is at the heart of physics, mathematics,
history, and metaphysics. In the mid-nineteenth century, John Henry Newman, in a series of lectures entitled The Idea of a University made much the same
assertion. The Jesus reverenced by the great tradition belongs therefore very
much in the public sphere and around the table of intellectual conversation. In
that context, he poses no threat to legitimate expressions of reason and he
serves as a trump to the unreason that can surface easily enough in the
sciences, in politics, or in philosophy. A Catholic university worthy of the
name is a place where Jesus the Logos has this essential regulating role.
What is particularly interesting (and troubling) about the Georgetown
decision to cover up the name of Jesus is that it symbolizes something much
broader, viz. the tendency of too many Catholic institutions to consider Jesus
something of an embarrassment, a hindrance to the full immersion of Catholics in the secular society. The Christ who is the embodiment of Reason itself does not hinder, and should never embarrass, those who are seeking truth in any form.
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