By Father Alvin Matthews, O.F.M.

“Newman, what’s that?” “Newman…isn’t that a retreat movement, or something?” “Newman, you’re out of your cotton picking head…me join it!” And so the comments go, and confusion reigns. Possibly the least understood (or most misunderstood) phase of the uprooted Church is the Newman Apostolate. Any chaplain can relate a bewildering variety of interpretations given by the people of God concerning the Newman effort. To one it represents the campus ping pong club; to another a non-computerized date bureau; to a third a sort of ghetto or refuge for the campus weakling who can’t make the grade in either a fraternity or dorm social life, and so on ad infinitum.

Old labels die hard, but eventually do die. And a few old labels that must die are that Newman is either a “club’ or an extension of the C.Y.O., C.C.D. or the Catholic Boy Scouts. True, it was a ‘club” at one time in the defensive days of the “Know-Nothing” era and the early days of this century. And at that time it was a refuge or ghetto for the out numbered and outwitted Catholic in the secular milieu. But times have changed, Newman has matured and Vatican II has had its say. So that the Newman mission of today and in the future bears little resemblance to the “good old days.”

The Newman of today is you, the whole people of God. It is the priesthoods of Aaron and Melchisidech working side by side in the secular academic city. Newman is the contemporary extension of Christ into the secular university or college. And it exists there with the definite goal of participating in the presentation of everything that is good and true and beautiful of the past, present and future so that the academic community can know and perfect itself as a “Sacrament to the world,” a vital and dynamic sign to all.

The “sign” value of the Newman Community is achieved first and foremost in the full, conscious and active participation in the Liturgy. For the liturgy is “the summit toward which the activity of the Church is directed” …and.. “at the same time it is the fount from which all her power flows.” It is the heart of any and all Newman communities.

In the intellectually fragmented and compartmentalized modern university, the Newman community exists as a “sign” of the whole person…a view in which the values of intellect, will, conscience of fraternity are preeminent as rooted in God and restored in Christ. The Catholic on campus must know that he is not there as a student only, or only to get a degree. He is there to grow as a person, an individual as well as a communal “sign” dedicated to the task of harmonizing the intellectual order of secular realities and directing them to God through Christ.

Pope Paul once asked for a bridge to the modern world, and a dialogue with all men. Newman echoes the challenge and provides the bridge by its very presence on campus. For it is uniquely situated to be the forum, the fount for responsible participation the ecumenical endeavors necessary to “understand the outlook of our separated brethren” and be a “sign” to them for the sanctification of the world.

To the inquiring student who asks about Newman, we reply: It is the individual Catholic who attends the secular university or college. Newman is all that he, as a product of his environment, training and motivation, brings to the campus. It is all that his Christian presence says. It is his personal “sign” value to the campus. It is not something that he “joins” but “is”. And Newman on any campus will only be as vital, dynamic an living as the ‘sign” is itself.

(Ed. Note: Father Matthews is Newman chaplain at Georgia Tech and is director of the Newman Apostolate for the Archdiocese of Atlanta. Other Newman chaplains are Father William Hoffman, Emory; Father Christian Malone, University of Georgia; Father Lorcan Graham O.F.M., Atlanta University.