The task of catholic universities in scientific research and technological development

Gonzalo Herranz, Departamento de Bioética, Universidad de Navarra
Roma, 1994.

Note: Some issues are merely stated or outlined, which does not prevent understanding of the overall content.

The Holy Father, in several passages of the Apostolic Constitution Ex corde Ecclesiae, in describing the nature and purposes of the Catholic university, emphasizes as its more essential character that of being above all a university. Such an affirmation could sound like a tautology, but, far from it, it expresses in a simple and direct language a calling to assume and respect all the human values and academic traditions of the university as a social institution. Very appropriately, when in point 12 describes its nature and purposes, John Paul II, before quoting some Vatican Council II solemn documents, uses words and borrows concepts from the Magna Charta of European Universities, signed at Bologna in 1988. I surmise that the Pope wished in this way to underline that the first and more essential feature of a Catholic university is to be an ordinary university, which shares with all the other universities in the world a common set of functions, purposes and ideals.

In consequence, anything belonging to the genuine essence of an university, as is the case with research, must be present in an university worth the title of Catholic. Because scientific research is one essential element in the life of every university, it is necessarily an inescapable duty of each unit in a Catholic university. The same as each Catholic university is a serious and original experiment to make an genuine university in a Catholic clue, research done in a Catholic university –its areas and goals, its priorities and limits– is the result of hard work of men and women deeply committed with the methods of the sciences and the demands of a sincere faith.

This said, it what follows I will try to highlight some of the consequences that, in the area of scientific research and technological development, implies for a university to be animated by a Catholic soul.

1. The first question: to do research, first class research

2. The question of priorities

Until now, the subject of setting priorities among disciplines or research areas was considered inappropriate to mention in a formal scientific setting. It could be a topic for discussion around a cafeteria table.

3. The question of limits

It is said frequently that being a Catholic means some important limitations to become a full-blown researcher, that being Catholic an university means that some shortcomings are imposed on research freedom.

There are financial limits to research. Nowadays, scientific research has become terribly expensive, a de luxe activity and more and more the privilege of the rich or politically pampered universities. The Matthew’s effect operates in such a way that money, persons and instruments concentrate in an ever smaller number of affluent “research Universities”, while the others are destined to struggle year after year for survival.

The same is true inside each university and inside each school: there are many minnows pushed to a corner, while a whale takes over the waters. There are imbalances between scientific and arts departments, as the universities seek to sustain those departments, which seem to bring in short term substantial and renewable grants, and neglect those financially weak. Catholic universities must maintain and

There are also other limits to research: the limits imposed by

To devise technological applications of Science

The internal environment: the prevention of fraud and the love for truth

The role of research ethics. The obdurate search for meaning and human concern

4. The educational duty

Nobody doubts of the prevalent role science and technology play in people’s way of living today. But, curiously, one of the most important issues facing science today, in the estimation of many scientists, is the lack of public understanding of science. Such a situation leads, on the one hand, to unrealistic hopes –but also fears– of the results of scientific inquiry, and, on the other, to an uncritical acceptance of its apparent advances without due consideration to the moral and social risks.

A great deal of public education is needed to overcome ignorance as well as that modern and extended type of superstition, which is blind confidence in science, in its innocence and redeeming power. In my view, Catholic universities must assume the exciting task of educating the public on the human, societal and ethical challenges of scientific progress and technological change. Frequently university teachers do not realize the importance of presenting and weighing scientific achievements before the public. They harbor some concern that divulging science is a dangerous simplistic and that their explanations shall not be well understood by citizens who are under the effect of sensationalistic news stories on triumphs or disasters.

As a scientist and a Christian, I know by experience that, when the ethical implications of science or technology are at issue and the catholic stance is publicly contested, a redressing letter to the editor or taking an active part in radio and television programmes are always worth the effort. For a wide sector of the public, a scientist acts as an oracle and his opinions are highly respected. It would be a disservice to science (and to religion alike) that a Catholic university teacher, knowledgeable about the question under discussion, did not offer his well-grounded opinion on the matter at issue: his dual responsibility as a scientist and a Christian does not allow him to stand aside. Accordingly, he can bear witness to the ambiguous and uncertain character of many research data, and to the fact that a believer can feel comfortably in the discussion of open scientific problems.

It has been said that people, included western advanced societies, show an appalling degree of scientific illiteracy, and that a prompt and intense education in scientific issues is badly needed. Catholic universities must contribute to the fulfilment of this important social obligation. It is a pity that the dominant attitudes toward in-vitro fertilization or embryo tissue transplantation are those preached by scientific reductionism, not those dictated by respect for early human life and the dignity of procreation.

5. The searching for a “catholic” accent in choosing and doing research in Catholic Universities

Do have the theological virtues of a scientist who is a Catholic –or the Catholic commitment of a higher teaching institution– any role to play on the scientific research they perform and on its technological applications? Do such virtues or such commitment represent inspiring and positive forces or, perhaps, are they not a foreign and potentially troubling factor? Many people think that religious convictions have no legitimate part to act in research or, at worst, they can be a hindrance to research freedom.

When asked on the relationships between religious convictions and research, many scientists answer with the stereotyped clich‚ that not only society or religion must abstain of imposing limits on the freedom of research, but that researchers themselves must prevent carefully any interference of their faith on their scientific judgement. In performing research, scientists must work free of internal or external constraints, the only acceptable and legitimate controls are those dictated by the correct application of methods and the required neutrality in face of results. In choosing their subject, scientists must guide themselves by curiosity and creativity, not by religious motivations. The conquest of new knowledge is justified in and by itself, so no further justification is needed. Either the consequentialist argument (that research is always potentially beneficial and we never can be sure on advance about the benefits of the findings or data revealed by any research protocol, unless we perform it); or the deontological one (we have a duty to expand knowledge for the sake of itself), lead to the same conclusion.

There is a danger, concealed under the idea of freedom of research: that of absolutizing the gaining of knowledge. Scientific knowledge and technology, as well as the whole process for its obtention and application, must be open to the critical analysis, first of science itself, to judge on its verifiability or falsability. But, at last, science and technology must stand also before the bar of ethics, and, in our case, of Christian ethics. And here is the heart of the matter: to decide if there must be some conditioning for science and technology springing up from the three theological virtues. In meetings to deal with ethical aspects of biomedical research policies, where the divergent directions of our pluralistic society were represented, I experienced in occasions the upsetting feeling that some Catholic colleagues, working at Catholic Universities, guided their choices of questions to investigate and of procedures to apply more by the currently accepted secularistic-utilitarian mentality about the social and ethical responsibilities of science and scientists, than by motivations and priorities born of charity and faith. This can be partly attributed to the common practice of punishing dissenters from scientistic conformism by giving them the tag of shortsightedness or intolerance.

But there are some criticisms to that prevailing “orthodoxy”. For example, to the absolute of scientific knowledge for its own sake, some humanists oppose another absolute: human well-being for its own sake.