Programs

A young Joseph Ratzinger wrote that “[f]or the ancient world and the Middle Ages, being itself is true, in other words apprehensible, because God, pure intellect, made it, and he made it by thinking it.” He goes on to conclude that we can see “from this traditional view that human thinking is re-thinking of being itself, re-thinking of the thought which is being itself.” For Ratzinger, the loss of this sense that the human mind’s activity is to “re-think” what is given, what is received, must be contrasted with a distinctively modern sense that can only know by making its objects, indeed, by making its world. This he tells us constitutes the real divide between the ancient and medieval view and the “specifically modern attitude of mind.” For all its accomplishments, the modern mind suffers from its loss of a receptive or contemplative sense of what it is to know things in themselves and reality as a whole.

A central purpose of Catholic education should be to restore a habitus of mind that perceives what is—as given, as gift, as creaturely, and therefore also as symbolic of its source. And yet, before this can happen, our modern assumptions about learning and knowing must be brought to the surface and exposed. This requires time and reflection within a community of students and scholars. Over the years, many students have felt the need for further formation beyond a master’s degree, both to deepen these community ties and to develop a reflective habitus and creaturely form of knowing.

The Certificate of Advanced Graduate Studies (CAGS) offers such a community and opportunity for reflection. The CAGS is intended for highly motivated, talented students who desire advanced, post-master’s studies at the Institute but for whom pursuit of a Ph.D. degree is not a desirable or feasible option. Such students are prepared to take advantage of our advanced, doctoral-level seminars alongside our doctoral students without the need to show proficiency in ancient and foreign languages, pass programmatic qualification examinations, or write a doctoral dissertation.