The University and the Catholic Church
The modern university as we know it today evolved, in part, from the Roman Catholic Church in medieval Europe. Universities were first developed in Italy at Bologna and Padua, in Spain at Salamanca and Alcal‡, in France at Paris, and in England at Oxford and Cambridge. One of the few medieval institutions to continue to the present day, the university adapts to new cultures and places, influencing significant thought and initiating social and political reform in the spirit of Christian humanism.
In the New World, the first institutions of higher learning were founded by Spanish Catholics in Mexico and Peru in the mid-sixteenth century. In the thirteen English colonies, early universities were Protestant, beginning with Harvard College in 1636 and Yale University in 1701. Like Harvard and Yale, Catholic universities also have a history coterminous with the nation itself. In 1789, the first bishop in the new United States, John Carroll, founded Georgetown College. This educational venture blossomed in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries with the establishment of many Catholic colleges and universities by religious congregations and dioceses.
As a Catholic university, USD takes seriously the inter-faith theme of the Second Vatican Council (1962-1965) and welcomes students, faculty and staff of every faith tradition. In this religiously diverse environment, members of the USD community mutually share their differing beliefs, both intellectually and spiritually, to the benefit of all, believing that a person's faith intensifies and deepens when enriched by understanding other religious traditions. This solidarity with others and their faith commitments grounds USD in its Catholic mission of education.
According to Ex Corde Ecclesiae (From the Heart of the Church), a document issued by Pope John Paul II in 1990, the Catholic university is recognized as "an incomparable center of creativity and dissemination of knowledge for the good of humanity." The Catholic university is an academic community which, in rigorous and critical fashion, promotes the protection and advancement of human dignity and cultural traditions through research, teaching and outreach locally, nationally and internationally. Further, it possesses the institutional autonomy necessary to fulfill its mission and guarantees its members academic freedom, which preserves the rights of both the individual and the community in the spirit of truth and the common good. Ex Corde Ecclesiae emphasizes the role of the Catholic university as "a community of scholars representing various branches of human knowledge and an academic institution in which Catholicism is vitally present and operative."
Ex Corde's emphasis on the university's identity as Catholic has significant implications for its academic and communal environment. The university pursues its goals through the formation of an authentic human community whose unity springs from its dedication to the truth, its common vision of the dignity of the human person, and its institutional witness to Christ and the gospel message. Its academic efforts include the search for truth, the integration of knowledge, and the dialogue between faith and reason, which contribute to the student's development through the consideration of moral and ethical implications within each branch of study. In particular, USD students pursue an education that combines academic excellence with growth in the capacity to ask questions; to understand; to make personal judgments; to develop a spiritual, moral and social sense; and to promote social justice.
