As a great philosopher--my mother--often said in lectures at the dinner table academy--"It's a sin not to use the brain God gave you."

You seem to advocate a slothful, risk-free intellectual existence, where "abandonment,"  not the rigor and pain of the search for new knowledge and new understanding, will suffice. 

I agree that intellectuals should also smell like sheep; elitism values arrogance over humility in any office, from the  bishop's to the professor's. 

I could be wrong, but you make education sound like controlled  basic training more than like risky exploring. You are way off base when you claim the intellectual life is "ruminating about abstractions largely distant from the love of God." 

Research is a part of, not apart from, knowing. 

Your put down of Unitarians calls me to ask you to pray with me: "Lord, make us mindful of the needs of others. Lord, make us needful of the minds of others."

At what Catholic research universities would your views be supported?