CONGREGATION of Holy Cross Father Bill Miscamble urged Catholic institutions not to try to “blend in” with the secular culture but to hold onto the Church’s identity and offer the world an authentic witness.
Fr Miscamble has taught history for 35 years at the University of Notre Dame, Indiana.
He said when he walked into class, there was no doubt that his priesthood was central to his vocation as a teacher.
He prayed before class for inspiration, he taught about feast days when they came up, he wore his clerical collar.
“I tell them up front, ‘This is my ministry as a priest, I’m trying to serve you by teaching you’,” he said.
“The Lord was the greatest of teachers, so it’s a following of Jesus to try and serve students to aid them to develop their own God-given talents.”
Fr Miscamble was concerned Catholic institutions in education and healthcare in the US were losing their identity.
He said Catholic schools were “nice places, comfortable places” with a “comfortable brand of Catholicism”, but had struggled to spread the fullness of the Gospel.
“That has been part of my own effort at Notre Dame over the years to try and enhance and strengthen our Catholic mission so that our students understand they’re in a place that offers them a distinct education that respects the dignity of every person and that clearly conveys we have a responsibility to the common good,” he said.
Originally from Roma in western Queensland, Fr Miscamble pursued studies in history at the University of Queensland after schooling.
While studying Australian history, he discovered an interest in post-war United States foreign policy and aspired to contribute to that field of research.
This led him to the US to complete his doctorate at Notre Dame.
During his studies there, he encountered men who witnessed to him the vocation of a priest-scholar and was inspired to pursue the same life.
He joined the Congregation of Holy Cross and was ordained in 1988.
Since then, Fr Miscamble penned books on post-war US foreign policy as well as articles and biographies and he ran the campus-based seminary for a time too.
Lately he has been researching for a book that would compile biographies from the time of President John F Kennedy to President Joe Biden examining how Catholic politicians have incorporated their Catholicism into their public life.
“I’m going to look at a range of political figures and try and show a story that begins with this tension regarding JFK’s Catholicism,” he said.
“JFK, in my view, concedes too much.”
He said JFK gave a famous speech to a group of protestant ministers in Houston in which he assured them his religion was a private affair that would not interfere with his public office.
“I have some sympathy for him… there was a view pushed by a range of protestants that JFK would somehow or other have to conform his views to what the Pope said,” he said.
Regardless, JFK started a trend for many Catholic politicians who made the same promise that their faith would not interfere with public life, he said.
“That, I think, is a disaster,” Fr Miscamble said.
“If one reads Gaudium et Spes, the pastoral constitution of the Church in the modern world, (it) essentially says, ‘No, we’re not some split personality, our faith informs how we lean into life, how we live’.
“That’s the issue that I’m going to track.”
He said there were many politicians who lived out their Catholicism and it was fruitful for them and the communities where they held public office.
He was eager to explore their lives in the book as well.
The landscape of the US Church was changing and faced many challenges of evangelisation too, Fr Miscamble said.
“Participation – there’s a sizeable number of folks who tick ‘Catholic’ on the census data but transforming them into active, committed disciples is the great challenge,” he said.
“The American Church is a large Church and a quite diverse Church; the increasing percentage of Hispanic members is a major challenge for evangelising, serving those Hispanic communities is a big challenge.
“The evangelisation of the young is a challenge. Bishop Robert Barron is a bit of a hero of mine for his efforts to reach out to the ‘nones – no religious practice’ and to engage them.
“There’s a crisis of loneliness in America with people adrift and they cannot see that you need some larger sense of transcendent purpose; everyone’s caught in their own individual worlds, probably looking at a screen.”
He said these evangelisation challenges could not be answered by accommodating the culture.
“That, based on the American experience of mainline Protestants, is a disastrous course of action,” he said.
“You don’t try and blend in.
“You try and hold true to Catholic beliefs and convictions; offer folks something, and the Church of course has the sacraments to offer, but also a way of leaning into life from a disposition of gratitude.”
Fr Miscamble said from his time working away in the vineyard at Notre Dame the answer could also be found in encouraging people to seek out their vocation.
“The sense that folks have this distinct vocation that God has given them, that calls them forth, has been somewhat lost and there’s a need to reclaim that sense have to live out their faith in the world,” he said.
“There are challenges in the United States that would be somewhat similar here in Australia.”
Fr Miscamble is back on home soil to receive an honorary doctorate from Australian Catholic University at a private function in Brisbane this Friday.
He has been on the International Board of Advisers for ACU’s PM Glynn Institute, a public policy think-tank within ACU’s Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Ethics) portfolio.
Fr Miscamble said he endeavoured to be a supporter of Catholic education around the world, including his many friends here at ACU.
