ABSTRACT
The debate over the perceived absence of Catholic intellectualism dominated discussions among Catholic faculty and administrators on Catholic campuses for decades, and in some important ways the sentiments contained in the Ellis essay are disputed even today. Attempting to please a hostile faculty has become even more difficult since 1990 with the release of Ex Corde Ecclesiae, the papal document identifying the centrality of Catholic higher education. Monika Hellwig, President of the Association of Catholic Colleges and Universities said, "The real question is whether the task of higher education in our pluralistic, changing society is to lock students into rules, or to teach them critical thinking." The belief that Catholic doctrine is a "site of contested knowledge" emerged with the Second Vatican Council. Convened by a beloved Pope John XXIII, the council met between 1962 and 1965, caused a revolution in Catholic parish life and liturgy—and what some have called an "epoch-making act of liberalization" within the Church.
