The task of the scholar and the university is the creative appropriation of a tradition in a new context. The documents of the church and recent commentators use the image of “borderline” to indicate the place and role of Catholic higher education. That image indicates well enough that the task of Catholic higher education is the mediation of the Catholic tradition. But let me turn to another aspect of the image of the borderline. Modern culture, or, in its broadest sense, the Enlightenment, is not only to be pictured on the other side of a borderline, but as a “root.” Catholic higher education has two roots, both of which are its own, one the church and one the culture. The Enlightenment is also its heritage.
