Your excellency, Bishop Edward Cullen, bishop of the Diocese of Allentown; Mr.Gerald White, Chairman of the Board of Trustees of Allentown College; Fr. Lewis Fiorelli, Superior General of the Oblates of Saint Francis de Sales; Fr. Joseph Morrissey, Provincial Superior of the Wilmington- Philadelphia Province of the Oblates of Saint Francis de Sales; Fr. Martin Lucas, official representative of the Provincial Superior of the Toledo-Detroit Province of the Oblates of Saint Francis de Sales; Bishop Thomas Welsh, our retired bishop of Allentown; Fr. J. Stuart Dooling and Fr. Daniel Gambet, former presidents of Allentown College; members of the Board of Trustees; fellow presidents; official greeters; delegates from sister institutions across our great land; representatives of the civil and business community; faculty, staff, and administration of Allentown College; student representatives of the college; relatives and friends ... I want you all to say hello to my mother!

This past summer I was sitting on the beach in Ocean City, New Jersey, reading a book. It was a perfect summer day. Children were splashing water on each other. The waves were kissing the shoreline. Young lovers were strolling hand in hand. Grandparents were arranging the umbrellas and the chairs as the sun slowly strode across the sky. Life seemed just right.

Many beach goers were enjoying the latest romance novel. Action thrillers were also in great demand. John Grisham had just published The Testament. Many copies of Tom Wolfe's Man in Full were still around. So what was I reading? A book entitled God's Funeral, by A.N. Wilson. (We philosophers tend to be a bit strange!) This is a very serious book exploring the arguments of some of the greatest intellectuals of our age who have "buried" God. Some might argue that the intellectual life in the twentieth century is a saga of the mind's attempt to nail that coffin shut, to place God securely in the tomb. Surely, in many of the finest centers of learning in the Western world this project has been declared complete. God is dead. The Funeral is over.

On Sunday morning, I walked down the street to one of the three Catholic churches on the island. At 8:45 the doors flew open and hundreds of people poured out of the building. They all seemed happy. Dads were throwing their children on their shoulders. Mothers were visiting with friends. Cars and people were everywhere in one chaotic frenzy of folks. The little old priest was greeting visitors. Papers were being sold. Lines were forming across the street at the bakery. As soon as space became available in the building, an entire group of new people poured in ­ different sizes, shapes, shades. They seemed supremely happy.

The next day on the beach I started wondering about all this. (We philosophers tend to do this often.) Could it be that the churchgoers did not know about God's funeral? Maybe they had been so busy with the routine chores of making a living and raising their families, that they just did not know that God had died. Ordinary life can be pretty hectic and consuming. Or, maybe the learned scholars in the universities failed to attend properly to the lives of the common folk during the last century. Could it be that the ordinary human experience of so many people throughout the world had escaped the view of these serious intellectuals? But this seems very strange. They pride themselves on fashioning adequate methods of study, appropriate modes of inquiry. Surely the intellectual life of the finest universities in the land and the ordinary life of the common people must be related in some fundamental way. We share the same world. We seem to be made of the same stuff. We breathe the same air. How could the religious faith of these happy churchgoers and sophisticated reason of these wise university people seem so contradictory?

In our Western culture, this story has a long history. About five hundred years ago, not too long before Saint Francis de Sales was born, human reason began a serious quest for what it called "emancipation." It wanted to be free. It wanted to stand on its own, to determine its own rules, to establish its own criteria. It did not want to rely upon anything other than itself to chart its new course.

There was great excitement in the early years of this experiment. A grand revolution was underway. Daring, adventure, challenge, bravery were the order of the day. Reason claimed that it could fashion a new science, one that would rely exclusively upon an experimental method. This new science would free the human person from many superstitions and myths of the past and create a brave new world. Reason would also acknowledge its human character and limit its investigations to the things that it could know with certitude of this world. It would no longer claim to have the truth in the areas of the moral life, the artistic life, the political life.

The revolution, however, was not a peaceful one. From the vantage point of human history, many of the battles were not monuments to human greatness. To some degree, reason did gain a type of respectability by developing the natural sciences. While there were always various versions of the Frankenstein story around, science commanded a type of legitimacy, a sense of primacy, an air of superiority for many years. The wars between science and religion, however, were often as bloody as the religious wars of the political arena. Neither side can claim purity of intention or nobility of cause.

The same story can be told in the arenas of morality, art, and politics. Religion continued to insist that human reason had a valid and legitimate role to play in these vital areas of human existence. The new "emancipated reason," however, said "No." It demanded a total withdrawal. These battles also were long and arduous. Many artists, moralists, and politicians resisted. Voices were raised to insist that one could make valid claims to truth in these areas of human conduct, but they were gradually silenced by a powerful new majority.

Just as reason was redefining itself and separating itself profoundly from religious faith, so one variety of religious faith responded with its own reinterpretation. Maybe religion could be grounded in faith alone. It might be possible to define religion on its own terms without the influence of human reason. Surely, religion deals with God. God is superior to the human domain. If God were placed in heaven and accessed by faith alone and the natural world were placed on earth and accessed by reason alone, maybe we could have peace at last.

Saint Francis de Sales, who lived in the later part of the sixteenth century and the early seventeenth century, was one of the strongest opponents of this solution to the cultural dilemma of his day. He was an intellectual with a firm conviction that human reason and religious faith are made for each other and that their greatest glory is found only in their embrace of each other. Unfortunately, in the seventeenth century, he lost his battle. The grand experiment simply gained momentum and moved triumphantly into the eighteenth, nineteenth, and twentieth centuries.

We are now five hundred years later. Some would say that human reason has completed its emancipation; it is free from religious faith. It now defines things on its own terms. Frank Sinatra captures its fortunes well: "I Did It My Way." But it has a gnawing ache within its very being. It senses that it is lost.

Human reason has also completed its task of withdrawal from the artistic, political, and moral spheres of life. You can hear this everyday: "Who are you to tell me what is beautiful or good?" "This is good for me." Notice here the complete absence of reason! There is nothing to debate, nothing to argue about, nothing to discover, no need to work hard to figure out what is good. It is whatever I want it to be. But it is embarrassed. It senses that it is much less than it is called to be.

Finally, many religious people today define their relationship with God on the basis of faith alone. There are no requirements that religion explain itself. There are no attempts to understand the faith. Faith does not contain intellectual content. We do not argue over religious propositions any more. We simply tell our story and then politely listen to the other person's story. We are respectful and open. But we are not very excited, not very lively. Religious faith is bored. It senses that it is failing to offer redemption and salvation to its people, things that really matter.

We are indeed at the end of the twentieth century. But we are also at the beginning of the new millennium. I sense a profound change afoot in our world. In my judgment, reason is beginning to rediscover real value in a relationship with religious faith. And religious faith senses that it can approach its God more assuredly if reason helps. I offer a few glimpses of events that give me hope:

Science and religion are beginning to value each other as partners in the quest for understanding. Creation and evolution are seen as complementary explanations for the origin of the cosmos. Medicine seeks assistance from religion in the healing art. Religion is open to dialogue with scientists.

Modern American culture is beginning to see that reason and religion are essential partners if we wish to create a human society. Television occasionally presents religion is a positive light. The hero in John Grisham's The Testament is a religious person. Self-help groups are proclaiming their religious character more vocally. Even the United States Supreme Court has stopped its attacks upon religion and is seeking an accommodation for the betterment of society.

Great religious institutions of America are beginning to see that reason is a powerful resource against the corrosive effects of nihilism, relativism, and violence. As cults proliferate, authentic religions are relying upon reason as a major safeguard of their religious character. Many faiths throughout the land are beginning to see what Saint Thomas Aquinas discovered centuries ago, namely, that reason allows religions to communicate with people of other faiths in profound ways. It provides a bridge between authentically religious people in the quest for understanding and respect.

Pope John Paul II, in his encyclical letter of November 1998, Fides et Ratio (on "Faith and Reason"), says: "The Church remains profoundly convinced that faith and reason 'mutually support each other'; each influences the other, as they offer to each other a purifying critique and a stimulus to pursue the search for deeper understanding." Our Pope has brilliantly delineated the complex and profound interrelationships between reason and faith. He has marked out for us the very character of a true Catholic University. Human reason is at its best not when it is alone, but when it is married to its bride, religious faith. And religious faith delights in its spouse, human reason. Alone, each is incomplete. Together they produce incomparable fruit. Science asks greater questions and reaches greater heights when it is challenged by a religious impulse. Our moral natures are refined and strengthened by our belief in the transcendence. Art flourishes when inspired by the richness and depth of religious experience. Political life -- our ability to live and work together as a human family -- is safeguarded and blessed by the great religious stories of the ages.

My dear friends, Saint Francis de Sales may yet win the war. He has been described by several recent popes as a "saint for our times." His profound insight into Christian Humanism is as true today as it was in the sixteenth century. The human spirit is made by God for union with God. Francis says: "Our reason, or to state it better, our soul insofar as it is reasonable, is the true temple of the great God, and he dwells there in a special manner" (Treatise on the Love of God, book 1, chapter 12).

In my view, as the new millennium develops, there will be two types of universities: the religious and the secular. The religious ones will present the greatest challenges to the culture. They will require society to respect the human person above all else. They will force serious thought about the origin and ultimate destiny of the human species. They will insist upon thoughtful attention to the tough decisions. They will not acquiesce in pragmatic compromise. They will accept the mysteries of evil and suffering and try to fashion appropriate human responses. They will demand the greatest reach by their students. They will strive for beauty, truth, and goodness. They will worship an absolute. They will insist upon this marriage between faith and reason.

I pledge to you that Allentown College of Saint Francis de Sales will clearly and firmly lead the way to this type of religious university. This is our mission. This is why we are here. The Oblate motto, the one embossed upon the seal of this College, will be our standard: Tenui nec dimittam ("We have taken hold, we will not let go.") With the guidance of Saint Francis de Sales, the prayers of all of you gathered here today, and the grace of God, we will be what the sacred writers describe in the gospel used by the Church on the feast of Saint Francis de Sales: we will be a Lamp, not hidden away but set on a stand for all to see; we will be Salt for the earth. "We will not let go."

Thank you, my friends.