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Web Exclusive
Former university president Robert Spitzer, SJ now teaches faith and reason in the world’s largest classroom—the Internet.
By Elenor K. Schoen
 After serving as president of Gonzaga University in Spokane, Washington for 11 years, Robert J. Spitzer, SJ, PhD will be sharing his love of the Catholic faith and passion for education with more students than could ever fit into a traditional classroom. Pairing sophisticated web-based technology with philosophy, Spitzer is spearheading two new institutes to promote a Catholic understanding of God and the human person—the Magis Institute of Faith and Reason and the Spitzer Center for Ethical Leadership.
The popular Jesuit philosophy and ethics professor is a well-known author and speaker, and the creator of several Catholic television series for Eternal Word Television Network (EWTN). While at Gonzaga, Spitzer successfully restored the school’s financial health, while building up the campus and student enrollment.
Gonzaga Trustee and Chairman of the Board Don Nelles calls Spitzer a “visionary” in handling all the various problems he faced when he arrived at the college. Spitzer created “a growth plan that will serve us well at Gonzaga University for years to come,” according to Nelles.
More importantly, Spitzer gave needed attention to the spiritual culture at Gonzaga. He made headlines in 2000 when he cancelled a campus appearance by a Planned Parenthood representative, stating, “I consider Planned Parenthood’s actions to be blatantly contrary to the Catholic and Jesuit character of the university and to its mission.” In 2002, Spitzer refused to allow performances of The Vagina Monologues to take place on campus, saying the play was contrary to the “Catholic and Christian view of marriage.” The speakers and productions permitted on campus, he said, “[speak] volumes about who we are, what our mission is, and what we believe."
Since Spitzer’s arrival on campus, “attendance rates at retreats and daily Mass have gone through the roof,” said 2007 MBA graduate Sean Harrell. Reflecting on the Jesuit priest’s ability to draw students to more active participation in their faith, Gonzaga student Victoria LeGarde recalled in her farewell message to Spitzer on Gonzaga’s website: “If I had a problem with school or home, all I would have to do is attend a Mass that Father Spitzer was presiding over…. He would say exactly the right thing to make everything seem a bit clearer, and with that perspective, the easier the solution was to the problem.”
The Magis Institute
As he leaves Gonzaga, Spitzer is joining an organization the name of which is key to what he sees as his chance to make a “significant impact on the larger culture.” Taking its name from the Latin word meaning “more”—redefined by St. Ignatius to indicate “the even more” one must do for God—the Magis Institute was originally founded in 2002 as an association of Catholic business leaders and clergy. Spitzer believes his zeal to do “even more” to spread the Gospel fits well with Magis’ mission to “develop spiritual and intellectual resources enabling lay Catholic business leaders to aid the Roman Catholic Church in transforming the culture.”
A brainchild of Spitzer and Timothy Busch, entrepreneur and Magis’ president emeritus, the institute began by offering retreats and prayer breakfasts for local California business people, as well as for student leaders from secular universities. These events have become quite successful, attracting between 800 and 1,200 people, according to Busch, and Magis organizers hope to start holding similar retreats and breakfasts in major cities along the West Coast.
In addition to hosting events for those interested in deepening their faith, Magis is becoming “more of a ‘spiritual think tank,’ [taking] ideas about bringing spirituality to the culture,” Busch says.
The Magis Institute of Faith and Reason is the latest initiative in that effort. Stemming from Spitzer’s long-standing interest in Catholic apologetics, the institute’s purpose is to develop web-based curricula that “inspire deeper meaning and hope by exploring the close connection between faith and reason revealed by recent discoveries in astrophysics, philosophy, psychology, and Scripture,” Spitzer explained in a recent telephone interview.
These curricula will be based on Spitzer’s three upcoming books: New Proofs for the Existence of God: Contributions of Contemporary Physics and Philosophy and Jesus-Emmanuel: Evidence of the Unconditional Love of God and the Divinity of Jesus, both from Eerdmans Publishing Company, and Suffering and the Unconditional Love of God, to be published by Ignatius Press.
The curricula currently in the works will deal with developing a transcendent purpose in life, astrophysical and philosophical responses to atheism, suffering and the love of God, and the historical evidence for Jesus.
“We’re developing a cost-effective approach for delivering our programs by using the latest Internet 2.0 technologies,” Magis Executive Director Jim Berlucchi explained in an institute press release. He noted, “The interactive technology makes it possible to feel like you’re in the same room with Father Spitzer when you’re thousands of miles away.”
Spitzer said that through this web-based platform, which will allow so many to simultaneously access the program, “these curricula will give students a reasonable and responsible ground for their faith, helping them respond to questions on atheism with truly accurate data from contemporary astrophysics, philosophy, and the historical analysis of Scripture.”
The Magis Institute hopes to make its programs available to seminarians, priests, Catholic university campus ministry centers, and Newman Centers at non-Catholic universities. These centers will be charged a small fee, and the curricula will be available either for use by a group or for individuals.
There are also plans to develop a curriculum specifically for high school students, which will include training materials for those facilitating group discussions and answering questions.
If the Magis Institute model proves effective, eventually they would like to offer the program to adult audiences in churches and other settings, and to make it available for purchase on DVD. The institute also hopes to produce a Spanish version of the program, with other language editions to follow.
All of this, Spitzer hopes to achieve in two years—which he admits is optimistic. However, the fruits of the necessary labor would be plentiful, he believes. “If this is successful, we should be able to reach about a million students per year,” he said.
The Spitzer Center for Ethical Leadership
Spitzer’s second project after leaving Gonzaga will be expanding the operations of the Ann Arbor, Michigan-based Spitzer Center for Ethical Leadership, which he founded in 2006 to develop and distribute his ethics-based leadership curriculum.
The curriculum will be geared toward commercial and non-profit businesses, and will provide leadership training for Catholic parishes, hospitals, and colleges. Working from a model Spitzer calls the “Four Levels of Happiness,” it will reflect the Aristotelian idea that happiness is the one goal people pursue as an end in itself, while pursuing everything else for the sake of that happiness.
“Happiness can be sought on various levels, moving from pleasure, to status, to contribution and service, to the ultimate good that comes from encountering God,” Spitzer explained. “Each level of happiness is good in its own right, but the lower levels should serve the higher levels. When the lower levels become the dominant focus for a person or organization, they’re debilitating.”
Allowing lower-level goals to dominate is the reason many organizations “have oppressive, politicized cultures, while other organizations achieve creative, contributive cultures,” Spitzer believes. His center attempts “to help leaders and organizations to escape the former and achieve the latter.”
The Spitzer Center curriculum will discuss the cardinal virtues, one’s purpose in life, and the development of a good conscience. Using the same web-based technology utilized by the Magis Institute, it will be able to connect speaker and audience in real time, allowing for discussion, questions, assessments, even grading.
Spitzer’s agenda is ambitious, aiming to “train 25,000 organizational leaders and administrators, as well as 10,000 clergy, seminarians, and lay leaders in the next three years.” He also hopes to build working relationships with 25 dioceses.
“I am going to really miss the students at Gonzaga, and the empathy I share with them and their parents,” Spitzer said. “But this opportunity…will provide a means to reach so many people with the word of God.”
“I’m passionate about the idea that I can rescue the world, 10,000 students at a time,” Spitzer emphasized. “We’re talking about critical mass here!"
Elenor K. Schoen writes from Shoreline, Washington.
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