"For them, St Mike's can be a refuge."

That would be unfortunate. We have all read about universities with "safe spaces" into which students who don't want their ideas challenged can retreat -- where their own ideas can be reinforced by others who tell them what is orthodox, and therefore good, to think.  

The minds of inquiring students, like the minds of all of us, should always be challenged by the 
views of others, even by those with views that are completely at odds with our own. Those views should be seriously entertained, for much can be learned from them. 

The unchallenged faith is no faith at all; it is mere prejudice. We see the results of unexamined faiths every day in the horrendous activities of tunnel-visioned creatures who have heard, in their own small spaces, only what they like to hear. 

There should never be such spaces: echo-chambers do not work for good in the end.

The world will be "dust" only when we cease to recognize that other people are also real.