About

A general reading tip for this blog: Don’t take me more seriously than I take myself. So don’t take me too seriously.

In the Fall of 2012, I was accepted as a columnist for the University of Notre Dame’s The Observer. I requested the title “The Idea of a University,” named after the classic text by Blessed John Henry Newman. However, my editor asked for a shorter title. I responded with “Idea of a University.” My first column published under the title “Ideas of a University.” Whether by miscommunication or mistake, I do not know. My second column published under the name “Idea of a University.” Regardless, I have titled this blog “Ideas of a University,” and in it I will post various writings on life, learning, the University, faith, reason, and everything in between.

Comment Policy

Please keep all comments thoughtful, respectful, and worthy of a dialogue among gentlemen. Please no profanity, slander, or unnecessary ad hominem attacks. This isn’t facebook.

When I Write

I write from my own rather limited experience. Although there is an eternal and unchanging objective Truth, I am only able to see this Truth through my own limited and subjective lens. Thus, I only write about those particular aspects of this Truth that I am able to see. Being only a man, I can only give a finite perspective on an infinite reality. Thus, I ask that you be patient with my musings and forgive me for the times when I will mistake one aspect of the Truth for another or when I fail to see an aspect in its proper light.

Because I am only a man with partial views, I hope that you can supplement, correct, and rearrange what you find to be lacking or mistaken. Comments are always welcome (see the comment policy above). At the very least, I hope that I can provide a perspective that may supplement your own and that, together, we may gain a more complete view of the Reality that awaits discovery and rediscovery, that sustains and fulfills us, that seeks our acknowledgment and devotion.

When I Write About Catholic Stuff

I do not claim to have a teaching authority within the Church. When I am writing on “Catholic issues”, I do so primarily as an amateur layman who is trying to understand and help articulate Church teaching, but my words are only binding insofar as they cohere with the Catholic Truth. I write neither as a theologian nor as a saint, and I claim the authority of neither.

If you are my Bishop and you have stumbled upon this blog by accident- In matters of dogma and doctrine, I defer to your apostolic judgment, and I humbly submit myself to your authority. Please contact me, should you find anything written on this blog to be objectionable or unnecessarily scandalous.

If you are a proponent of academic autonomy and scandalized by my proclaimed obedience to my bishop- I ask that you respect the authority that I submit myself to, as I respect the various authorities you submit yourself to. I offer myself to my bishop, and you offer yourself to your readers, your various academic communities, your publishers, and your profession.