Returning to the expected norm.
http://www.thesetonian.com/2017/04/27/seton-hall-confirms-next-president-will-be-ordained/
http://www.thesetonian.com/2017/04/27/seton-hall-confirms-next-president-will-be-ordained/
Confirmed that next President will be ordained
- Thread starter JCB11
- Start date
By-Laws can be changed and to eliminate lay persons from the search significantly reduces the pool of candidates and I personally think eliminating a lay person is a mistake.
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Lets see who they come up with although I would have preferred lay and ordained both as part of the pool.
Well they better do a hell of a better job then they did in the last search with the two ordained finalists they came up with.
It was a total shitshow the last time! We got very lucky with Dr. Esteban.
Major mistake to not look for the absolutely best qualified person for the job! God better be watching over us or we're majorly screwed.
Could he just be providing lip service until they provide the list of poor candidates and they " have" to open up to everyone?
It's interesting that SH would not include lay persons in its search when you realize that of the over 250 catholic colleges and universities only about 40% are run by an ordained person. In point of fact both Marquette and DePaul have or will have their first lay president a trend that continues . Even among the 40 Jesuit universities 12 have a lay person as their president. In the BE the four largest schools . DePaul , SJU, Marquette and GT all have lay presidents.
Then again, the most recent Seton Hall president left the job so that he and his wife could be closer to their daughter....
Last I knew, SHU was still a Roman Catholic higher educational institution. "Best candidate" is defined at least in part by status as a RC priest.
Having a priest provides a canonical means by which to keep the president faithful to Church teaching. It in effect keeps the school from becoming any more secularized than it already is. As a priest who loves the Church, I would be all right with a lay person who is a good son or daughter of the Church being president of Seton Hall. But I do believe that is riskier in terms of secularism.
It's important also to remember that an important part of the univetsity community is a pretty large major seminary.
It's important also to remember that an important part of the univetsity community is a pretty large major seminary.
I'm not opposed to an ordained person becoming the president, but I think it's counterproductive to limit the pool that way. Get the best person!
They will first look for a priest and if they don't find a suitable candidate they will go the lay route again, i think.
Catholicman
I think we all want our next president to be as successful as Gabe has been and to continue the work that he has started and to me that means finding the right person whether it be a member of the clergy or a lay person. The issue that a number of see is that if you limit the pool of candidates just to members of the clergy your search is not as comprehensive as it could.
Yes I get that. But who is going to keep the school faithful to its mission as a Catholic institution? That's my main concern and if a lay person can do that better then so be it. But whoever it is had better have some advanced training in moral theology, especially since the school is venturing into a joint venture with a health care institution that does not respect the dignity of every human person.
DePaul will have SHU's best President as their lay person President next year....
Catholicman- I completely agree with the need to be faithful to the Catholic mission, and especially in the context of bioethics (a rapidly mushrooming minefield these days).
Unfortunately, given the sad state of affairs in today's church, it can be argued that the laity can often be more faithful to the CCC than many priests and bishops.
We have seen this play out at SHU. Without addressing some of the dispositions of our previous presidents who wore the collar...President Esteban seemed to be much more comfortable in his reassertion of the Catholic identity and mission of SHU than his predecessors.
SHUMA04, I agree that in today's ecclesial environment you might be more likely to find a faithful laymam than priest. In regards to President Esteban, he liked the veneer of a Catholic expression but I am not so sure he understood or cared about the inner core of the Faith. In my opinion, he put the school in a very difficult position by partnering with a secular health care entity to run a medical school and placing a person in charge of our medical school who has exhibited a secular worldview. How possibly can this trainwreck be faithful to Catholic moral teaching. He left a messy situation for whoever takes over.
But God is omnipresent, so God kind of is on the committee...?
I wasn't close enough to the President to know what was window dressing and what wasn't regarding his faith. But I do share your trepidation around bioethics and the medical school.
New Jersey has been left out of the biotech boom despite its history as the world's medicine chest. It lacked the academic centers in CA and MA which have propelled huge innovation clusters (not to mention eye watering wealth generation).
Unfortunately, the new medical school - with its private sector ties - will carry the state's ambitions and may be hard pressed to resist the siren song of innovation at all costs: gene editing, chimerical biologics, human embryo testing, etc. There is little public awareness about what is going on given the blazing speed of innovation, and virtually zero public debate (in or out of the church).
I guess where I differ is that I'm not sure these days that the ordained (especially the ones with the polish and ambition to aspire to university presidencies) will necessarily be any better at avoiding the minefields.
Yes. But Esteban had incredibly good managerial skills and organizational principles, many of which he gained by studying in Japan, where teamwork and excellence are everything.
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Catholicman and others who are interested in bioethics:
Google Jennifer Lahl of the Center for Bioethics and Culture.
She's an accomplished medical professional and faithful Catholic who has done outstanding work of this subject, including award winning documentaries.
She has some good video interviews on YouTube as well.
Google Jennifer Lahl of the Center for Bioethics and Culture.
She's an accomplished medical professional and faithful Catholic who has done outstanding work of this subject, including award winning documentaries.
She has some good video interviews on YouTube as well.
Exactly right. They must go through the drill and see who's out there.
Certainly no Jesuits or they'd be running GT. No Franciscans or they'd be running St Bonaventure. Both have laymen at the helm.
The Catholic church has been constructing and administering schools at all levels, as well as medical facilities for centuries.
You're going to tell me that SHU cannot find a top notch, highly qualified priest who can continue the university's ascent?
You're going to tell me that SHU cannot find a top notch, highly qualified priest who can continue the university's ascent?
The trend toward lay persons holding the majority position as president in catholic colleges is a reflection that business acumen and fund-raising have become key skills required of college presidents today and those skills appear to be more readily found in the lay community.
I understand, 80.
However, all the successful CEOs at the top and most innovative companies have great VPs to run various departments of the organization.
A priest at SHU will no doubt hire a highly capable No. 2 man and a fundraising team.
A
anon_4htvdezyfe7k9
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Without reading this whole thread and going off the grid for 30 days, if this was a prerequisite, embarrassing at best,
Msgr Sheeran did too and it took a lay person years to get the University on the right track again. Under his lack of leadership every major category at SHU declined. He was a very nice guy and did a great job after the fire. But in every other category his leadership was lacking. Have to avoid that again
He was uneven in his approach for sure. OK on some level. Not a big thinker though.
400
You and I both know that just putting capable people in key positions in any organization, whether it be a Fortune 500 company or a catholic university , is no guarantee of success. It takes that CEO to have a vision, a strategic plan to turn that vision into reality and to allow your key people to do their job. That means allocating them the resources they need and to give them the authority to act within their own sphere of influence.
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