What if SJWs were to attack Jesuits and their educational institutions for the crime of destroying (or failing to respect) native cultures in their missionary efforts. After all, inculturation was still a means to bringing Christianity to other peoples -- the SJWs could claim that Christianity was nonetheless forced upon them, and thus their original non-Christian culture was destroyed. The Jesuits should have instead recognized that truth is to be found in every culture. Would the Jesuits surrender to the SJWs? I was thinking of the recent controversy surrounding Providence College as well -- couldn't SJWs object to the Dominicans being in charge because of their association with the Inquisition and the suppression of the Albigensians, who should have been free to believe whatever they wanted. Perhaps capitulation on the question of the use of the "Western" canon in a liberal education would not be enough for them.
The Jesuits are already doing whatever they can to accomodate multiculturalism; the Dominicans have shown some resistance at Providence College but it is not clear that the administration will be able to defend their preference for the Western intellectual tradition. Can Dominicans be "nation-less" while at the same time upholding the Western intellectual tradition as being an important part of Roman Catholicism? How can they do so if Roman Catholicism is not Western but aspires to some sort of univeralism? What relation do American Jesuits and Dominicans have to Western/European identity? And how can they take a stand on the question without alienating one group (Anglo-Americans and those identify with them) or the other (those who reject that identity)? Would they understand that any sort of compromise solution (in the direction of multiculturalism) is nonetheless a failure at the political level? Can they pretend to remain above ethnonationalism even if they believe they must be so for the sake of preaching the Gospel? (And if that were their ultimate justification, is it the case that their educational endeavors are a necessary part of that?)
In Christendom it could be possible for members of international religious orders to identify as being part of a united Christendom with a common language (Latin) and culture (even if the Holy Roman Empire never achieved political unification). They could still be attentive to the differences of local cultures and peoples. (Did they or the Church in general do anything to resist the homogenization of language and culture that accompanied nationalism and the rise of the modern nation-state?)
If peoples are determined to separate, should they stand in the way or preach a (non-existent) duty for them to stay together? It is proper for missionaries to assimilate to whatever people they wish to evangelize (in so far as it is morally possible for them to do so), but religious orders cannot have a multicultural university without destroying the university as such. They must either create an alternative institution or acquiesce to the fact that the university cannot serve those who reject its mission of passing on a particular intellectual tradition and culture.
