Greater intellects than mine have considered this question before. John Henry Newman — a saint of the Catholic Church and the patron saint of the Faculty of Theology and Philosophy at Australian Catholic University (ACU) — is perhaps the greatest among them.

Newman's eloquent articulation of a universal Catholic liberal arts ideal claimed traditions from the Oxford of his happy youth.

He foresaw an institution which could explore harmonies but also probe tensions; which was committed to truth; which would dedicate itself to the pursuit of virtue and the celebration of Catholic culture; which embodied the simple love of learning; which harnessed both faith and reason in its wide-ranging engagement with those who lie beyond the reach of Church teachings.

As first rector of the Catholic University of Ireland, Newman developed and realised his vision for learning, enriching young lives and passionately defending the idea of knowledge for its own sake. All this was the science of humanity.

I have thought a great deal about Newman's vision and its importance now that my own Catholic University told us it is to make devastating cuts to teaching and research staff, and to the University's ability to engage in knowledge creation as Newman understood it.

Some 32 full-time humanities posts are being permanently disestablished.

Other staff will retire and will not be replaced.

More staff on temporary contracts will see those not renewed.

History and philosophy — core disciplines of the Catholic tradition — are the disciplines worst affected.

Theology, literature, political science, and sociology will suffer as well from these cuts.

The University claims that this is a critical moment when its academic model requires change to ensure it can meet long-term operational needs in an economically sustainable manner.

It says it wishes to align education and research better to its major thematic directions and operational needs. But it also just does not have the money.

ACU went from surpluses of over $30 million in 2020 and 2021 to a deficit of $8 million in 2022 and a forecast deficit exceeding $30 million for 2023. Critics might ask: where did the money go?

ACU says it no longer has the students or the revenues to sustain the interest in humanities fields it was investing in as recently as the start of 2023.

But the scale and speed of its retrenchment are scarcely precedented in the history of the humanities anywhere.

The effect on the lives of individual academic employees will be a hard cross to bear.

Many ACU staff moved heaven and earth to heed the University's call to speak truth.

Some have been teaching here for years and are now forced to compete with cherished colleagues to retain their jobs.

Others left tenured positions in Britain, America, or other parts of Australia to join ACU. Only recently arrived, some will now be marooned on this island continent with no loved ones, little financial support, and no valid visa.

ACU brought over their possessions, but no one will foot the bill for their lonely return to a place of origin.

The moral tragedy of this situation is grave. It is a deplorable, heart-breaking situation which raises many questions.

Where did ACU lose its way?

Should not Newman's vision have held even in the brave new world we find ourselves in?

A twenty-first-century Catholic University cannot always conform to his golden ideal.

It must work with the secular: with research metrics, performance indicators, funding requirements, and all the knowledge-creating bureaucracy's other paraphernalia.

Those who have made decisions about our lives and futures repeatedly emphasise this.

Yet Newman's vision recognised something which risks being lost in all this: the exceptional difficulty of quantifying truth's value.

Is there a litmus test for validity of truth?

What even is a truth?

How is one truth to be separated from any other?

Is the authenticity of truth to be measured in terms of the number of pages needed to describe it or the frequency of its citation?

What of its impact factor or potential for commercialisation?

Only an unworldly ivory-tower dweller could remain self-cocooned from these questions. However, only a fool would deny that truth is not narrowly confined: it has a universality, a Catholicity.

At a practical level, truth must also be less abstract.

It must be found in the experiments scientists run, the accounts of the past historians give, arguments that philosophers reason.

A modern Catholic University must embrace all such modes of truth-telling which, properly constituted and understood, complement and inspire one another.

As Newman recognised, the Catholic University also needs to confidently embrace the daily concerns, perspectives, and languages — technical and everyday — of a wide world of stakeholders from across a global communion and academy.

ACU retains its Biblical and Early Christian Studies programmes and Theology and Religion.

It will spare a small number of history and political science posts in areas of perceived teaching "need".

But a significant question remains: is this sufficient to fulfil Newman's shining concept?

Will this lead to the impoverishment of Catholic intellectual life?

As yet incomplete research projects to be abandoned by the University, and perhaps lost to the world at large, include pioneering studies on the concept of home and problem of homelessness, on the origins of conspiracy theory, on transgender Australia and Queer Medievalism, on AI safety, and epistemic humility.

My colleagues work on understandings of gender, on stories of migration, on the entanglements of empire, and on ecologies of experience.

Such projects, disciplines, and those who pursue them, ought to be utterly central to Catholic intellectual life.

They search the innermost corners of hearts and consciences; they interrogate pasts known or unknown; they challenge perceptions of what we think we know about stories, artefacts, identities, ideas.

Charity, a primary Catholic virtue, should begin at home for the Catholic institution — and where better than through a detailed study of Catholic contributions to hospitality and treatment of the displaced and destitute?

Sexuality has been perhaps the area of the Church's greatest influence on human behaviour and the human condition. Is it not entirely fitting — indeed, essential — that a Catholic University fosters deep engagement with the difficult questions which inevitably emerge from every manner of expression of human bodily desires?

What also of our relationships to generations past and future? To art and beauty? To our fragile earthly and celestial environments?

The list of questions that were being asked by these abandoned projects is sad and long.

My intrepid ACU colleagues have pursued truths in relation to such topics and such questions without fear or favour.

They have interrogated ideas that every Catholic must ponder every day and they have answered them in language that bridges the secular-spiritual and faith-reason divides.

I suspect some see these endeavours as a threat.

They are afraid of an inexact science in which conclusions cannot be quantified and are unappreciative of irreconcilable disagreements that nevertheless benefit from being aired. But such discomfort and disagreement are part of Catholicism's universal, all-embracing identity.

As Catholics, we must all recognise that.

We must also recognise that Catholic education, especially one that benefits from the largesse of the state, is universal and for everybody. That means articulating truths in ways understandable to those of faith and those of none.

What will be lost? For what gain?

I grieve for what might have been.

And I fear there can be no optimistic chord on which to end this lament.

ACU is the second-ranked Catholic university in the Anglophone world in philosophy, and is tied for sixth-place in philosophy of religion (according to the Philosophical Gourmet Report).

Once ACU has gone down its chosen path, will it be able to recover, much less retain, its standing in the world of learning, nationally or internationally?

It seems doubtful.

Which scholar will henceforth want to settle in Australia to tell truths if it means giving up security for precarity?

Who will dare speak truth to power when that power may strip them of their livelihood in the blink of an eye?

• Miles Pattenden is, for the time being, Senior Research Fellow in Medieval and Early Modern Studies at the Australian Catholic University.

More than the pope — her reign saw seven of them — she was a constant presence in Christian life in Britain, at Church and in prayer.

She showed by example, leading ceremonies of national remembrance and addressing the nation and the Commonwealth at Christmas.

We all also knew her to be a regular churchgoer.

Her death leaves an enormous void for believers everywhere.

The optics of her position were wealth and glamour, but the philosophy which underpinned her approach to monarchy was a very quiet Christian humility.

In this, she was rather more like Pope Francis — that other great Christian figurehead of our time — than casual observers have imagined.

"For me", Queen Elizabeth said in her 2014 Christmas message, "the life of Jesus Christ, the Prince of Peace, is an inspiration and an anchor in my life. A role model of reconciliation and forgiveness, he stretched out his hands in love, acceptance, and healing."

Aged 21, she made this highly personal and very Christian commitment on radio: "I declare before you all that my whole life whether it be long or short shall be devoted to your service."

Sadly, she was called to make this promise good just five years later when her father, King George VI, died an untimely and much-lamented death.

Queen Elizabeth personified Christian virtue for the next seven decades.

She was constant; she was reliable; she was indefatigable, unstuffy, unshowy, and uncomplaining. She never demanded gratitude but toiled on regardless.

And she displayed an intense commitment to God, which inspired her to find ways to embody values cherished by the British people.

She would not abdicate because she believed such an act would have violated her oath to a Higher Power.

She was queen for life because she had been anointed.

Her forbearance in the face of failing health and old age has therefore been one of the past decade's most visible outward signs of unwavering Christian faith.

Queen Elizabeth's crown may not have been one of thorns, but its burden was nevertheless still barbed and weighty.

A thousand photographers waited in earnest for a sign of annoyance, exasperation, arrogance, vanity, or aloofness. And yet, in years and years and years, none came.

The Queen was true to her word and was loved and admired for it.

Even at the end, she was still at her dutiful best, pushing past her obvious frailty on Tuesday to meet with politicians to arrange a change of British government.

She never complained; she never explained.

Her ethic was of the kind often referred to as Stoic — and Christianity certainly absorbed aspects of it from Greek philosophy. But this was also the ethic present in Christ's Passion.

Queen Elizabeth's life became its own very modern sort of Passion play, in which one person was identified with the sins of a nation.

Britain's Original Sin has come to be seen as that of Empire, a formation of which Her Majesty had begun her reign as public face.

Yet she bore the opprobrium that her nation's imperial legacy attracted with grace and humour.

More importantly, still, she sought to construct something positive from the embers of exploitation.

The Commonwealth will surely be her lasting legacy — a global fellowship in parallel with the Anglican communion, which unites peoples of many backgrounds and many faiths through a common desire to do good.

Queen Elizabeth's death can be a moment for all of us — Christians and non-Christians alike — to take stock of our quarrels, to pause them, and to unite in grief and mourning as we are reminded of inexorability.

Today we are often encouraged to express our feelings freely, to wear our hearts upon our sleeves, à la Prince Harry.

And so Queen Elizabeth's unsentimental brand of silent public virtue has, by contrast, come to seem a touch quaint, limiting, and outdated.

Yet the moment of her death affords an opportunity not only to give thanks for her steadfastness but also to reflect on its qualities as a model for our own lives.

Quiet Christianity helped Queen Elizabeth win over many critics, even those who were opposed to her ideologically. Her obvious tolerance and moderation brought out those same impulses in others.

It is a painful irony that her Anglican Communion itself is going through such public convulsions occasioned by an inability to chart the tolerant, moderate paths which she championed.

As a Briton, and as a historian, I felt an unfamiliar unease as the news unfolded.

For me, as for most of my fellow countrymen, this is uncharted territory: a time without our great national leader, the only monarch we have ever known. Something has changed forever.

Queen Elizabeth's response to such a crisis would surely have been to turn to Jesus — but to do so calmly, softly, and unobtrusively.

We must place our faith in him to deliver us from evil now that she is gone, following her lead for how that is done.

Rest in Peace, Your Majesty. God Save the King.

• Miles Pattenden is Senior Research Fellow at the Institute for Religion and Critical Inquiry at Australian Catholic University, and Visiting Fellow in the Humanities Research Centre at Australian National University.
• First published by the ABC. Republished with permission.