The Idea of a Catholic University

"George Bernard Shaw thought that a Catholic university was a contradiction in terms - "university" represents intellectual freedom and "Catholic" represents dogmatic belief. Scholars, university administrators, and even the pope have staked out positions about the accuracy of Shaw's comment. In this book, George Dennis O'Brien argues that this contradiction arises both from the secular university's limited concept of academic freedom and the church's defective notion of dogma." "Truth is a central concept for both university and church, and O'Brien's book is built on the idea that there are different areas of truth - scientific, artistic, and religious - each with its own proper warrant and "method." With such a distinction in hand, he argues that one can reverse Shaw's comparison and uncover academic dogma and Christian freedom, university "infallibility" and dogmatic "fallibility.""--Jacket.

Beyond its central premise, the book can be read through the connected lenses of Philosophy. Those themes offer useful points of attention as the characters, ideas, or world develop, especially where the book complicates the expectations of its primary category.