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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 09 September 2014
The title of my reflections is “Between a Rock and A Hard Place,” which I think aptly describes the situation of Catholic theologians in the United States since the bishops' meeting of November 1999. The imagery refers to the rock of Peter, the hard place to the problems the mandatum raises for ourselves and our Catholic colleges and universities. My question is: What can the social sciences tell us about our present dilemma? First, I will look at the history of the problem as we have experienced it in the U.S. Next, the bishops' document is now in the hands of the Roman Curia, so I will look at the role of that institution. And finally, I will review quickly events to date in the light of evidence from the social sciences and suggest a possible strategy to deal with the situation in our U.S. context.
1 For the history of the question, unless otherwise indicated, I am drawing upon the work of Curran, Charles E., Catholic Higher Education, Theology and Academic Freedom (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1990), chapter 22Google Scholar, “Catholic Attitudes toward Academic Freedom before the Mid-1960s,” 26-65; and chapter 3, “Acceptance of Academic Freedom by the Mainstream of Catholic Higher Education in the 1960's,” 66-111, passim.
2 Ellis, John Tracy, “American Catholics and the Intellectual Life,” Thought 30 (1955–1956): 351–88.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
3 Greeley, Andrew M., From Backwater to Mainstream: A Profile of Catholic Higher Education, Carnegie Commission Studies (New York: McGraw Hill, 1969).Google Scholar
4 Mary Brown of the University of Dayton clarified some of the events in the “Dayton heresy trial.”
5 Gallin, Alice, ed., “Land O' Lakes Statement: The Nature of the Contemporary Catholic University,” American Catholic Higher Education: Essential Documents, 1967-1990 (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1992), 7.Google Scholar Hereafter cited as Essential Documents.
6 Gallin, , Essential Documents, “Kinshasa Statement: The Catholic University in the Modern World,” 13–16.Google Scholar
7 Ibid., “Rome Statement: The Catholic University and Aggiornamento,” 17-35.
8 Curran, 126.
9 Gallin, , Essential Documents, “The Catholic University in the Modern World,” 55.Google Scholar
10 “A Letter from Gabriel Marie Cardinal Garrone, Prefect of the Sacred Congregation for Education,” April 25, 1973, in Gallin, , Essential Documents, 59–61.Google Scholar See also Curran, 129.
11 Curran, 113. See also Burling, Philip and Moffat, Gregory T., “Notes from the Other Side of the Wall” in Langan, John, ed., Catholic Universities in Church and Society: A Dialogue on Ex Corde Ecclesiae, Foreword by O'Donovan, Leo S.J., (Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press, 1993): 172–73, note 33.Google Scholar
12 Burtchaell, James Tunstead, The Dying of the Light: The Disengagement of Colleges and Universities from Their Christian Churches (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1998)Google Scholar focuses unfavorably on this trend toward secularization. See also Annarelli, James John, Academic Freedom and Catholic Higher Education (New York: Greenwood Press, 1987)Google Scholar for another approach to academic freedom in the U.S. context.
13 Reese, Thomas J., Inside the Vatican: The Politics and Organization of the Catholic Church (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1996), 161.Google Scholar
14 “Bureaucracy” in Max Weber On Charism and Institution Building: Selected Papers, edited and with an Introduction by Eisenstadt, S.N. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1968), 66, 75–77.Google Scholar
15 Reese, 115. Congregations include: Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, for Oriental Churches, for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments, for the Causes of Saints, for Bishops, for the Evangelization of Peoples, for the Clergy, for Institutes of Consecrated Life and for Societies of Apostolic Life, and for Catholic Education. The Councils include: Council for the Laity, for Promoting Christian Unity, for the Family, for Justice and Peace, Cor Unum, for the Pastoral Care of Migrants and Travelers, for Pastoral Assistance to Health Care Workers, for the Interpretation of Legislative Texts, for Culture, and for Social Communication.
16 Ibid., 109.
17 Ibid., 143 and 158.
18 Ibid., 117-18.
19 Ibid., 119.
20 Ibid.
21 Ibid.
22 Ibid., 158. See also McBrien, Richard, “Could the Pope Resign?” The Tablet (January 15, 2000): 44.Google Scholar
22 Reese, 171.
23 Gallin, , Essential Documents, “Relations of American Colleges and Universities with the Church: Position Paper of the College and University Department, National Catholic Educational Association,” 71–86, and at 83.Google Scholar
24 Ibid., “Sapientia Christiana, John Paul II, with the Norms of Application of ihe Sacred Congregation for Catholic Education,” 87-127.
25 Curran, 130.
26 Quinn, John R., The Reform of the Papacy: The Costly Call to Christian Unity, Ut Unum Sint: Studies on Papal Primacy (New York: Crossroad, 1999), 169–70.Google Scholar
27 Ibid., 170.
28 Coleman, John A. S.J., “Who are the Catholic “Fundamentalists”? A Look at Their Past, Their Politics, Their Power,” Commonweal 116/2 (January 27, 1989): 42–47.Google Scholar Cited in “Open Forum: Preliminary Report of the CTS Committee on Profession of Faith and Oath of Fidelity,” Horizons 17/1 (Spring 1990): 112–13.Google Scholar
29 Coleman, 42.
30 This remark is attributed to Catherine Mowry LaCugna of Notre Dame in a speech given to an audience of women at the University of Washington in Seattle two weeks before her death from cancer.
31 Curran, 160-61 and 175; see also Moser, Mary Theresa, “Revising the Constitution? The Problem of Religious Freedom,” Journal of Religious Ethics 16/2 (Fall 1988): 325–44.Google Scholar
32 See, e.g., the carefully nuanced article of Orsy, Ladislas, “The Reception of Laws by the People of God: A Theological and Canonical Inquiry in the Light of Vatican Council II,” Jurist 55 (1995): 504–26.Google Scholar
33 See Saunders, Paul, “A Cautionary Tale: Academic freedom, ‘Ex corde,’ & the Curran case,” Commonweal (April 21, 2000): 12–16.Google Scholar He concludes: “‘Juridical relationships,’ such as those that the new norms require to be created between a Catholic university and the church, are fraught with peril and can lead to serious unanticipated consequences, despite the best of intentions. Changes in a university's bylaws should not be undertaken lightly or without a full understanding of the implications. Nobody at The Catholic University of America wanted to fire Charles Curran; only the Vatican did. However, because of the ‘juridical relationship’ between that university and the Catholic church, he is now a distinguished professor of theology at Southern Methodist University” (16).