A Discussion with Julio Martinez, S.J., Rector of the Comillas Pontifical University, Spain

With: Julio Martinez Berkley Center Profile

July 10, 2012

Background: In this exchange on July 10, 2012 in Madrid, Fr. Julio Martinez, S.J., and Colin Steele discussed Catholic university education. Fr. Martinez elaborated on his work on pre-political religion and his plans for Comillas Pontifical University, which he now runs. The two also discussed the state of the Jesuits today, maintaining a strong Catholic identity at a university, and the European project.

When and why did you join the Jesuit order?

I studied in Jesuit schools from the age of 5 years old to the age of 18 years old, which is how I first came to know the order and its worldview. I had originally planned on becoming a medical doctor and made all my decisions to that effect; by the age of 17, however, I began to seriously consider a vocation to the Jesuits. This surprised everyone and disappointed many, including my father, who had really looked forward to my becoming a doctor. Still, it felt right: I was attracted to the Jesuits’ commitment to education and the cultivation of the intellect, their emphasis on justice, and their devotion to God.

Describe your early influences in your formation process.

When I began considering the Jesuits—and even when I joined—I knew very little about them, really. I admired the men who had been my teachers and wanted to emulate them, but I did not know the ins and outs of their livelihood. One of my clearest memories of my school years is of the Jesuit missionaries who would visit our classrooms and tell stories from their travels all over the world. Their descriptions of life abroad had a big impact on me—I wanted to see what they saw and do what they did.

After I joined, I did my studies—three years of theology in Madrid, two years at the Weston School of Theology/Boston College, then my dissertation back here in Madrid. Since then, I’ve been working at U.P. Comillas in various capacities: professor of moral theology, chair of bioethics, vice-rector, and, as of three months ago, rector of the university.

Let’s talk about your academic interests a bit more. You’ve written this book Public Religion: Debate with the Liberals. What does that mean?

Mostly, that title has to do with bringing European theory on public religion and religious freedom into conversation with the liberal tradition, which in the twentieth century basically refers to American thought and especially its emphasis on the “strict wall” of separation between church and state. I also deal with the thought of Jürgen Habermas, who is not strictly a liberal—or even himself religious—but who has nonetheless told us that religion is a pre-political good necessary for the formation of a liberal society.

Essentially, I believe with Habermas that citizenship has to be nurtured by a common sense of the good. Religion is one of the first and best ways we have of creating that prior understanding that eventually leads to the formation of civil society. Parliaments don’t create democracies; democracies create parliaments. In both politics and economics, it’s people who make the difference—how they understand themselves as individuals and as members of a community will make all the difference in how they conduct their affairs in res publica or politeia (which are often used in the sense of “civil society,” but actually have broader and more nuanced meanings).

And how does all that affect what you do here at Comillas?

“Pre-political” does not mean “non-public.” In other words, if religion is what creates res publica in the first place, religion must be in some sense a public good. That very much informs our mission and vision as a university: as a Jesuit university producing the leaders of tomorrow’s Spain, we implicitly have a public role. Therefore, we try to have a public presence as well: it’s our job to make explicit what a Comillas degree means in the context of Spanish society.

The res publica consists of three main estates: the state itself, the political parties, and the civil society. Religion doesn’t belong in either of the first two—there, we maintain a kind of “strict separation”—but it necessarily belongs in and to the third. Here in Spain, the 1978 Constitution began the process of church-state separation. The Constitution affirms a special role for the Catholic Church in Spain—a role confirmed by the agreement concluded between the state and the Church in 1979—but it replaces the concordat of the Franco era. The agreement is a binding international treaty that cannot be changed without the consent of both parties (the Spanish state and the Vatican), but the Spanish government may make other laws pertaining to religion as it sees fit. The year after the agreement was signed, Spain passed its religious freedom law, which ensures that all Spaniards have the right to worship as they see fit. Moreover, they have to opt in to designate tax money to go to supporting the Church (or NGOs or charities, for that matter).

Unlike public universities, which are administered by the state and receive public finances, we are governed directly by the agreement and receive no state money. We’re lucky, though: even with the economy doing badly, we’re getting more applications than we can accept, and our students are considered some of the best in all of Spain. Moreover, a degree from any faculty of U.P. Comillas is a gold-plated resume item—our students are heavily recruited by some of the most important public- and private-sector enterprises, and you’ll find them in positions of power and influence, especially in the realms of engineering, law, consulting, and finance.

Given all that, what is it you do here at the university to produce such well-regarded students?

First, we try to implant in the hearts and minds of our students an abiding sense of social responsibility: we make clear to them every day that it’s at least as important for them to create good jobs for others as it is for them to find good jobs for themselves. We also expose our students to the world as much as possible: most of them spend at least four to five months abroad, primarily in the United States or elsewhere in the EU. They learn not only language skills—especially in English—but how to live and work in globalized careers and contexts. Until quite recently, most Spanish students grew up expecting and wanting to live and work close to where they grew up. Now, the expectation has been replaced by an emphasis on moving between metropolises and as often as not across national borders as well. Thus, our students offer what employers want: the preparedness and willingness to go where work requires, whether that be a new city or a new country.

Would you say the European project has changed the way you educate students? Are you building good Spaniards or good Europeans?

As I say, this generation doesn’t expect to live at home as much as my generation or even the one that followed mine did. Some of that certainly has to do with the deepening integration of the European project; some of it is in response to market pressure. For most of our students, globalization manifests itself in the expectation that they pursue highly mobile careers like finance, where they may be moved from office to office across the continent or in some cases across the Atlantic. I suppose in that sense we’re moving towards educating Europeans, but the university is still heavily (more than 85 percent) Spanish, so that’s really the context we’re working with.

And how do you integrate the Jesuit identity and values into a Comillas education?

For us, that’s critical. One of our major concerns is identity and mission; we’ve even got a vice-rector assigned to that very portfolio. There are several ways in which we inculcate our values into the university. First, we have our four pillars of transversal education: utilitas, iusticia, humanitas, and fides. These are drawn directly from the Jesuit traditions of education and spirituality, especially the thought of Diego Ledesma and Peter Hans Kolvenbach. Those four values are instilled in all of our students across all of their subjects and studies. Additionally, we try to involve all of our faculty and staff in the Jesuit mind-set: we offer two faculty retreats per year for 11 or 12 members of staff each. The first one goes to Loyola, where participants learn about the life and spirituality of Ignatius at his birthplace; the second goes to Santiago de Compostela, where we explore the four key values of this university.

It’s critical that our faculty be well versed in the theory and practice of Jesuit education, since we only have 50 Jesuits (20 of them retired) out of a faculty of nearly 1,000. With such limited resources in terms of Jesuits, we need to spread our resources wisely and engage creatively and energetically with lay colleagues if we’re to keep this place a Jesuit university. Luckily, the lay members of staff have taken to the Jesuit identity with gusto; I trust them implicitly with keeping the flame alive and in fact often find them just as knowledgeable as our Jesuits in what we’re doing—and usually easier to work with, too! Living and working with my Jesuit brothers is an integral and valued part of my vocation, but my hand-picked administration of laypeople is simply easier to get along with in the office.

As I say, they really know what they’re talking about, and I have the utmost trust in them. All of our finances are overseen by a layperson, and all of my vice-rectors are lay—including the one in charge of identity and mission. The latter is also a woman, and she’s doing a fantastic job keeping our vision alive and fresh. Do the math: with 50 out of 1,000 faculty being Jesuits, our students are unlikely to have too many Jesuit professors in their time here. If we want them to internalize our four core values and that sense of social responsibility we were speaking of earlier—and we absolutely want that, no matter which subjects our students take—it’s critical that we make these kinds of investments in our faculty in order to get them to invest in our Jesuit-educational identity. That identity is integral, not incidental, to what we do and the education we provide (and the reputation our students have), so it has to be collaboratively produced by our Jesuit and lay faculty.

Do you think that’s a sustainable model—50 Jesuits out of 1,000 faculty?

Yes, it is, and that’s entirely due to the high level of engagement and investment in our vision and values exhibited by our lay colleagues. With so few Jesuits, we’re spread thin: one administrator (myself), one dean (theology), and sprinkled throughout our academic departments. If our lay faculty weren’t such eager fellow travelers in the Jesuit way, we could hardly keep this place going as a Jesuit institution. Cooperation with these people is absolutely key to our existence and the life of this university, and that’s going to be increasingly true in the future. You know, one of the great satisfactions in being the rector of a Jesuit university is that you have a strong sense of where you’re coming from, what you’re doing, and where you’re going. Our faculty totally buy into that vision, and they have been and continue to be very supportive of it. As the order continues to struggle to find enough vocations, sharing our identity with lay colleagues and continuing to develop and realize it in concert is going to be the lifeblood of our university.

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