The Geert Grote University in Deventer, a small private academic institution named after the founder of the Devotio Moderna in the Middle Ages, announced today that it is going to establish a trust fund to encourage the development of a ‘Dutch Catholic intellectual elite’. The trust fund will be named for 16th century noblewoman Anna of Twickelo who willed a major part of her inheritance to be used for the establishment of a Catholic university in Deventer. That never happened for various reasons, until the Geert Grote University was established in 2006.
University chairman Jeroen Buve says, “The Geert Grote University wants to achieve the rise of Catholic academics that can make a difference. The enormous silence of the Dutch Catholics must come to an end. This trust can help.” Buve emphasises the importance of intellectual leadership that does not hide its Catholic identity. “Catholic leadership could have prevented the credit crunch. That is not a matter of intelligence, but of intellect. An intellectual does not fly a plane into the Twin Towers, an act that intelligent people were capable of.”
As a part of a general trend among Catholics, I am all for a Catholic elite which is truly Catholic. A well-educated social group, which can defend and explain the teachings of the Church to a signifcantly secular audience, both within and without the Church. And is the latter, the audience outside the Church, that is hardest to reach. In recent years, Catholics may have been rediscovering the gift of speech, but it has almost exclusively been speech among themselves. In order for the Church to do more than simply maintain herself, she must be a visible and audible presence in society as a whole. Can an elite help in that? Perhaps, as long as it does not remain limited to itself, to study and publication for a small audience. That too has its merits, certainly, but not when it coems to reaching out. The people must step forward, capable, knowledgeable and comfortable in their faith. A tall order, perhaps, but not as ultimately tall as sitting back and doing nothing except for talking amongst ourselves.
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In Caelo et in Terra 