EWTN News portal reports that Santiago Schnell, provost of Dartmouth College and former dean at the University of Notre Dame, addressed the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) at their plenary assembly in Orlando, Florida, on June 10, 2026. Schnell urged the bishops to be “more vocal” and “more pushy” in ensuring Catholic universities maintain their religious identity, marking the 25th anniversary of the implementation of Ex Corde Ecclesiae. He lamented that Catholic institutions have become “indifferent and indistinguishable” from secular universities, driven by college rankings and a reduction of education to job training rather than intellectual and moral formation. Schnell called for forming future “doctors of the Church” and emphasized that bishops should assert ownership over the word “Catholic.” Yet this entire discourse unfolds within the conciliar sect’s framework, where the very concept of “Catholic identity” has been hollowed out by decades of modernist apostasy, rendering such appeals spiritually sterile.
The Illusion of Catholic Identity Without the Catholic Faith
Santiago Schnell’s presentation to the USCCB assembly is a textbook example of the conciar sect’s perennial habit of diagnosing symptoms while refusing to name the disease. He correctly observes that Catholic universities have become “indifferent and indistinguishable” from their secular counterparts, that they prioritize credentials over formation, and that mission statements resemble those of non-governmental organizations. These are undeniable facts. But Schnell’s analysis, however well-intentioned it may appear, operates entirely within the epistemological framework of the post-conciliar revolution — a framework that has itself produced the very crisis he decries. To call for “Catholic identity” within institutions that have been governed by the modernist principles of Vatican II — religious liberty, ecumenism, the dialogue with the world — is to prescribe a bandage for a hemorrhage caused by the very system one refuses to dismantle.
The fundamental question Schnell never asks, because the conciliar framework forbids it, is this: Can there be Catholic identity where Catholic doctrine has been systematically undermined? The answer, from the perspective of integral Catholic theology, is an unequivocal no. Pius XI taught in Mortalium Animos (1928) that the unity of the Church is founded on the unity of faith, and that any attempt at union with those who profess error is a betrayal of the divine constitution of the Church. The conciliar sect’s Dignitatis Humanae declared that man has a right to religious freedom — a proposition directly condemned by Pope Gregory XVI in Mirari Vos (1832) and by Pius IX in the Syllabus of Errors (proposition 79: “it is false that the civil liberty of every form of worship… conduce more easily to corrupt the morals and minds of the people”). When Schnell speaks of “Catholic identity,” he is invoking a term that has been emptied of its supernatural content and refilled with the naturalistic humanism of the Council.
The Secularization of Catholic Education: Fruit of the Conciliar Tree
Schnell identifies college rankings as a major driver of convergence between Catholic and secular institutions. This is superficially true but profoundly incomplete. The deeper cause is theological. The 1965 Declaration on Christian Education (Gravissimum Educationis) marked the beginning of the capitulation of Catholic education to the spirit of the world. Its language of “integral human formation” detached from the explicit supernatural end of education — the salvation of souls and the glory of God — opened the floodgates. When the supernatural end is obscured, the natural end fills the vacuum. Pius XI, in Divini Illius Magistri (1929), was unequivocal: “the proper and immediate end of Christian education is to cooperate with divine grace in forming the true and perfect Christian… forming Christ Himself in those regenerated by Baptism.” The modernist reduction of education to “training for the first job,” which Schnell laments, is not an accident but the inevitable consequence of removing Christ the King from the center of the educational enterprise.
Consider the trajectory. The same conciliar sect that produced Gravissimum Educationis also produced Nostra Aetate, which revolutionized the Church’s relationship with non-Christian religions, and Gaudium et Spes, which embraced the “legitimate autonomy” of earthly affairs. Once the Church conceded that secular disciplines possess an autonomy independent of revealed truth, Catholic universities were doomed to become what Schnell now mourns: secular institutions with a Catholic veneer. The “Catholic paradox” he identifies — strong infrastructure paired with uneven outcomes — is not paradox but prophecy fulfilled. You cannot serve two masters. The attempt to be both Catholic and modernist produces exactly the “indifferent and indistinguishable” institutions Schnell describes.
The Phantom of Ex Corde Ecclesiae
Schnell’s address marked the 25th anniversary of the U.S. implementation of Ex Corde Ecclesiae, the 1990 apostolic constitution of John Paul II. He notes that the document affirms the bishop’s “right and duty to watch over the preservation and strengthening” of Catholic character in universities. Yet he fails — or is unable — to acknowledge that this document was itself a product of the conciliar framework and has been implemented within that framework. The bishops who are supposed to exercise this oversight are themselves, almost without exception, men formed in the post-conciliar seminary system, appointed by antipopes, and committed to the modernist agenda.
What does it mean for a “bishop” of the conciar sect to “watch over” Catholic identity? The USCCB as an institution has consistently supported the very policies that undermine Catholic identity: the acceptance of legal abortion as a matter of “prudential judgment,” the promotion of climate change activism as a Catholic cause, the embrace of immigration policies that disregard the common good of Catholic nations, and the systematic cover-up of clerical sexual abuse. Bishop Andrew Cozzens of Crookston, Minnesota, described Schnell’s presentation as a “sober moment” and expressed hope that it would motivate bishops to call universities back to their “ecclesial and evangelistic mission.” But the “ecclesial mission” of the conciliar sect is itself the problem. It is a mission defined not by the conversion of nations to the Catholic faith but by dialogue, inclusion, and social justice — the very naturalistic humanism Schnell claims to oppose.
Moreover, the requirement in Ex Corde Ecclesiae that Catholic theologians obtain a mandatum from the local bishop has been, in practice, a dead letter. Theologians who openly dissent from Catholic teaching — on the indissolubility of marriage, on the moral evil of contraception, on the existence of hell — continue to teach at Catholic universities with impunity. The “bishops” lack either the will or the authority to enforce orthodoxy, because the conciliar system has replaced the juridical authority of the pre-conciliar Church with a bureaucratic collegiality that is structurally incapable of decisive action.
The “Doctors of the Church” Fallacy
Perhaps the most revealing moment in Schnell’s presentation was his call for Catholic universities to form scholars who have the potential to be “doctors of the Church” — saints who have made significant contributions to theology or doctrine. On its face, this sounds admirable. But in the context of the conciar sect, it is a cruel irony. The conciliar sect has produced no saints, no doctors of the Church, no theologians of any enduring significance. Its canonizations are political acts designed to legitimize the Council’s reforms: John XXIII, architect of the conciliar revolution; Paul VI, who promulgated the Novus Ordo Missae; John Paul II, who embraced the world at Assisi and kissed the Koran.
The true doctors of the Church — St. Thomas Aquinas, St. Robert Bellarmine, St. Alphonsus Liguori, St. Pius X — were formed not in institutions that imitated their secular counterparts but in an intellectual culture saturated with scholastic philosophy and Thomistic theology. St. Pius X, in Pascendi Dominici Gregis (1907), identified Modernism as the “synthesis of all heresies” and prescribed the study of scholastic philosophy as the primary remedy. The conciliar sect has done the opposite: it has dismantled scholastic formation, embraced the historical-critical method condemned in Lamentabili Sane Exitu (propositions 11-19), and produced generations of clergy and laity who cannot articulate the faith because they have never been taught it. Schnell laments that Catholic universities do not produce intellectuals who can “articulate effectively their faith.” But the faith cannot be articulated by those who have been taught to doubt it.
The “genius loci” Schnell invokes — the spirit of place formed by daily conversations about faith — presupposes a community that actually possesses the faith. When 88% of the faculty at a Catholic university is non-Catholic, as in the case Schnell cited, the “spirit of place” is not Catholic but secular. The solution is not to add more Catholic programming to a fundamentally secular institution but to restore the Catholic university as it was envisioned by Pius XI: “a place where the student is formed not merely for earthly life but for eternal life, where all sciences are studied in the light of revealed truth, and where the supreme authority of the Church is recognized in all things pertaining to faith and morals” (Divini Illius Magistri).
The Linguistic Symptomatology of Conciliar Discourse
A careful analysis of Schnell’s language reveals the depth of the conciliar captivity. He speaks of “Catholic identity,” “distinctive mission,” “intellectual and moral formation,” and “evangelistic mission” — all terms that have been appropriated by the conciliar sect and stripped of their traditional Catholic content. “Catholic identity” in the conciar context does not mean fidelity to the unchanging deposit of faith; it means a vague sense of belonging to a community that happens to use the word “Catholic.” “Evangelistic mission” does not mean the conversion of non-Catholics to the true Church; it means dialogue, witness, and social action. “Formation” does not mean the cultivation of the supernatural virtues through prayer, sacraments, and mortification; it means psychological well-being and professional competence.
Schnell tells the bishops: “You own the word ‘Catholic.’ We academic administrators, we don’t.” This is a remarkable admission. It concedes that the academic administrators of Catholic universities have no authority over the Catholic character of their institutions — that they are, in effect, stewards of a brand they do not control. But the deeper truth Schnell does not grasp is that the bishops of the conciliar sect do not “own” the word “Catholic” either. They have no more authority to define Catholic identity than the academic administrators do, because they occupy seats that are canonically vacant. As St. Robert Bellarmine taught, a manifest heretic ceases to be Pope and head, just as he ceases to be a member of the Church (De Romano Pontifice, II, 30). The line of usurpers beginning with John XXIII has produced a hierarchy that is materially but not formally Catholic — a hierarchy that uses the language of the faith while systematically undermining its content.
The phrase “more pushy” is particularly revealing. Schnell is asking the conciliar bishops to be more assertive in enforcing a “Catholic identity” that the conciliar system makes it impossible to define, let alone enforce. It is a request for the impossible, dressed in the language of reform. The conciliar sect cannot restore Catholic identity because Catholic identity is the antithesis of everything the Council represents.
The Omission That Condemns
The most damning aspect of Schnell’s presentation is not what it says but what it does not say. There is no mention of the Novus Ordo Missae and its devastating impact on Catholic education. There is no mention of the post-conciliar catechetical crisis, which has left generations of Catholics unable to articulate even the most basic truths of the faith. There is no mention of the sexual revolution and its penetration of Catholic campuses. There is no mention of the systematic removal of Thomistic philosophy and theology from seminary and university curricula. There is no mention of the role of Freemasonry and modernist infiltration in the destruction of Catholic education — a destruction foreseen and warned against by Pius IX in the Syllabus of Errors (propositions 45-48, on the exclusive right of the Church to educate youth).
Above all, there is no mention of the supernatural end of education. Schnell speaks of “formation” and “intellectual leaders” and “doctors of the Church,” but he does not speak of sanctifying grace, of the necessity of the sacraments, of the reality of sin and the last things. His discourse is entirely naturalistic — concerned with the improvement of institutions rather than the salvation of souls. This is the hallmark of the conciliar sect: it speaks endlessly about the Church’s mission while remaining silent about the very purpose for which the Church exists.
Pius XI, in Quas Primas (1925), established the Feast of Christ the King precisely to combat the secularism that Schnell now laments. He taught that the reign of Christ extends not only to individuals but to families and states, and that the refusal to recognize this reign is the cause of all the evils afflicting modern society. The conciliar sect, by embracing religious liberty and the autonomy of earthly affairs, has effectively dethroned Christ the King in the public sphere. Until this fundamental apostasy is reversed — until the social reign of Christ the King is restored as the organizing principle of all human society, including education — no amount of episcopal “pushiness” will restore Catholic identity to universities or to anything else.
Conclusion: The Bankruptcy of Conciliar Reform
Santiago Schnell’s address to the USCCB is a symptom of the conciliar sect’s terminal condition. It correctly identifies the disease — the secularization of Catholic education — but prescribes a remedy that is itself part of the disease. The call for bishops to be “more vocal” and “more pushy” in defending Catholic identity is meaningless when those bishops are the agents of the revolution that destroyed it. The appeal to Ex Corde Ecclesiae is futile when the document has been implemented by a hierarchy that lacks the authority and the will to enforce it. The vision of forming “doctors of the Church” is a fantasy when the intellectual tradition that produced such doctors has been systematically dismantled.
The only true remedy is the one the conciliar sect cannot contemplate: a return to the integral Catholic faith as taught by the pre-conciliar Magisterium, the restoration of the Most Holy Sacrifice of the Mass as the center of Catholic life, the re-establishment of Thomistic philosophy and theology as the foundation of Catholic education, and the recognition of the social reign of Christ the King over all nations and all institutions. Until that restoration comes — and it will come, for the gates of hell shall not prevail — the discourse of “Catholic identity” within the conciliar structures is nothing more than the sound and fury of a dying institution, signifying nothing.
Source:
Higher ed leader urges bishops to protect Catholic identity at universities (ewtnnews.com)
Date: 11.06.2026