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by Richard McBrien
from THE TABLET, 20 March 1999, p. 397; here
re-published with permission.
American Catholic universities have a proud tradition of academic freedom.
That is why they have been so successful. A new directive from the Vatican
could threaten their future, according to the professor of theology at the
Universiy of Notre Dame.
MANY
Catholic educators and scholars, particularly in the United States, breathed a
sigh of relief when they read Pope John Paul II’s apostolic constitution,
Ex Corde Ecclesiae (“From the heart of the Church”), on the
place of Catholic universities in the Church’s life. Released on 15 August
1990, the document was divided into two parts: the first on the identity and
mission of a Catholic university, and the second containing practical norms for
implementing the terms of the document. There were several positive statements
about these institutions of higher learning and about the faculties that teach
in them. It could have been worse, many Catholics in education thought.
Others, however, were troubled by the landmines placed here and there
throughout the papal text: the subtle equation of “the Church” with
the “hierarchy”, or simply with the “magisterium” or
teaching authority; the need of the Catholic university, as an institution, to
recognise and adhere to that teaching authority; the role of the local bishop
in preserving and strengthening the Catholic identity of Catholic universities
in his diocese; and the seemingly one-sided obligation of theologians to
respect the pastoral authority of the bishops, without a similar injunction
directed to the bishops to respect the scholarly authority of theologians.
Perhaps the most important concession in Ex Corde Ecclesiae was its
explicit recognition that not all Catholic universities are alike. Most
Catholic universities, the Pope acknowledged, were not established or approved
by the Holy See, an episcopal conference, or a diocesan bishop. He pointed out
that universities founded and governed by religious orders or by lay people
would apply Ex Corde Ecclesiae’s general norms in the light of
their own special circumstances and in keeping with their own governing
documents.
Meanwhile, the mandate from the competent ecclesiastical authority required
under canon 812 of all Catholic theologians teaching in Catholic universities
was only mentioned in a footnote. But administrators and theologians in the
Catholic universities themselves and many American canon lawyers believe that
canon 812 cannot be applied without undermining the academic freedom of
Catholic institutions. They fear it would make it more difficult for Catholic
universities in America to recruit top-flight faculty staff, and that it would
tend to diminish the reputation of these institutions.
The
apostolic constitution left to the various national conferences of bishops the
task of applying the general norms specifically to their respective countries.
In addition to the Code of Canon Law, these applications were expected to take
into account the statutes of each institution as well as the civil law of the
region. But the Pope reserved to the Holy See the right of final review and
approval.
That
was in 1990. Today the academic sector of the Catholic Church in the United
States is embroiled in a controversy provoked by the Vatican’s rejection
of the American Catholic bishops’ proposed application of Ex Corde
Ecclesiae. Although the bishops had approved the application with virtual
unanimity in November 1996 (the vote was 224-6), five months later (a
relatively rapid response for the Vatican) the Congregation for Catholic
Education indicated that a “second draft” was needed, and that such a
draft should function as a “juridical instrument” with norms for the
United States which “have a true juridical character”.
Faced
by this request of the congregation, the implementation committee of the United
States bishops asked the president of the bishops’ conference to appoint a
subcommittee of canon lawyers to assist it in its work. The subcommittee was
duly established, with Cardinal Anthony Bevilacqua, Archbishop of Philadelphia,
as its chairman. Significantly, Cardinal Bevilacqua was one of a mere handful
of bishops who had originally opposed the application that had been approved.
It came as no great surprise, therefore, that the new “juridical”
draft produced by this subcommittee faithfully reflected Cardinal
Bevilacqua’s views and of those of the tiny minority of bishops who had
voted against the application document that was subsequently forwarded to the
Holy See.
This
second, “juridical” draft is now under discussion by the bishops of
the United States and by administrators and faculty members of Catholic
universities and colleges throughout the country. Two of the most dramatic
elements of that discussion thus far have been the publication of a
hard-hitting article in the 30 January issue of the Jesuit weekly America,
coauthored by J. Donald Monan SJ, former president and current chancellor
of the Jesuit-sponsored Boston College (which, in spite of its name, is
actually a large university)’ and Edward A. Malloy CSC, president of the
University of Notre Dame; and a speech given by Cardinal Francis George,
Archbishop of Chicago, at the annual meeting of the Association of Catholic
Colleges and Universities in Washington on 2 February.
In
their article, Frs Monan and Malloy argue that the subcommittee’s draft of
the application “fails to do what Ex Corde Ecclesiae itself asked
of episcopal conferences, namely, to take account of the distinctive statutes
of the universities and the civil law of the region”. In the United
States, Catholic universities expect to enjoy “institutional
self-governance or autonomy and academic freedom in teaching and
research”. It is their boards of trustees or directors who “hold the
ultimate governing authority and responsibility for carrying out the
university’s mission”.
The
subcommittee also overlooks the crucially important distinction which Ex
Corde Ecclesiae had made between universities established and governed by
official church authorities, such as the Catholic University of America in
Washington, and those (clearly the great majority) which are legally and
canonically independent, such as Notre Dame and Boston College. These latter
institutions are more accurately described as Church-related or
Church-affiliated than as “canonically Catholic”.
With
regard to canon 812 on the necessity of theological mandates from
ecclesiastical authority for those teaching theology in institutes of higher
studies, the article in America holds up for criticism the
“incongruity” between the affirmation of academic freedom made in the
subcommittee’s second draft and its “array of prescriptions” to
reinvigorate that particular canon. “The subcommittee’s Herculean
effort to make this canonical mandate acceptable", the article says,
“cannot conceal the fact that it is an instrument, however ineffective, to
control what is taught and written." This authority to control the teachings
and writings of theologians is “legally and organisationally external to
the university and its governance", an arrangement that is totally and
absolutely unacceptable to university administrators and faculty alike.
The
subcommittee’s failure to safeguard the institutional autonomy of Catholic
universities and the academic freedom of their faculties “would be enough
to make the draft positively dangerous to these institutions”, Frs Monan
and Malloy warn. But there are other problems as well. This so-called
“juridical” draft would have the effect of removing lay people from
the governance of Catholic universities, with the ultimate responsibility
residing once again with clerics and religious. The Monan-Malloy article also
singles out for special criticism the “juridical” draft’s use of
the theological concept of “communion”. (The notion of communion is
also at the heart of Cardinal George’s defence of the subcommitteets
draft, as we shall see.)
WHILE
Ex Corde Ecclesiae itself makes only a very brief reference to the
notion of “communion” near the end of the text, the
subcommittee’s draft application places it, as does Cardinal George, at
the centre of its argument. According to Frs Monan and Malloy, ‘’this
is a further illustration of the centrality within the subcommittee document
not of Ex Corde Ecclesiae’s ideals, but of the revivification of
canon 812". In other words, the draft application is using the notion of
“communion” as a cover for its real purpose - which is to reinstate a
canon which has already been widely rejected as unworkable in Catholic
universities in the United States.
By
contrast, Cardinal George welcomes the subcommittee’s
“juridical” draft, and he does so on the basis of a doctrine of the
Church as “communion” which he assumes to have been the core of the
Second Vatican Council’s own teaching on the Church. What does he mean by
“communion”, however? For him, communion describes a “network of
relationships created when the gifts of Christ are shared”. It is a
community in which “no baptised person, no ecclesiastical institution, is
completely autonomous, and no one is Catholic simply on his or her own
terms”.
According to the Archbishop of Chicago, the Pope views Catholic universities as
residing and functioning in “the heart of the Church” in such a way
as to be “intrinsically related to all those people and institutions that
also share Christ’s gifts”. “This picture”, Cardinal George
says, “is a threat only for those who understand freedom as complete
autonomy and for whom relationships jeopardise control.”
But
when the cardinal gets into the details, he seems to use words to say one thing
but to mean another. Thus, he assures Catholic university personnel that the
theological mandate granted by the local bishop is simply “a statement of
relationship, not of direct control”. It is a juridical recognition
“that a Catholic theologian teaches in communion with the Church, and the
theologian is related to the pastor of the faith community, who recognises the
importance of his work for the community of faith”.
But
several questions are begged here. First, what effect will this mandate to a
theologian from the bishop have on the current relationship between the
theologian, on the one hand, and the local Church and the universal Church, on
the other? The cardinal says that all it does is to make that relationship
“visible”. But in that case, what does the current relationship lack
in terms of visibility?
More
important, what would be the academic effect of a bishop’s withholding of
the mandate? On what basis will the bishop make that judgement to withhold the
mandate? Will that judgement be backed up by arguments which are made public,
so that the theologian’s peers and the wider Catholic community may
examine and evaluate them? Can the theologian’s classes be listed as
theology courses, or must they be listed under some other category? Will
students be forbidden to take such a theologian’s classes? What
expectations will students and parents have of courses taught by a theologian
who was (a) granted the mandate, or (b) denied the mandate? If he is not
tenured, will the theologian’s chances of being tenured be diminished or
nullified entirely?
Cardinal George tries to reassure the Catholic academic community that the
granting of the mandate “does not put the bishop into the governance
structure of the university, any more than granting a theologian membership in
the Catholic Theological Society of America puts that organisation into the
university’s government”. But there is no comparison. First, the
criteria for membership in the CTSA are purely objective (especially regarding
advanced degrees earned) and have nothing at all to do with the
organisation’s assessment of the applicant’s theological writings.
Secondly, such membership can have no possible effect on the theologian’s
capacity to teach as a theologian in a Catholic theological faculty or to teach
theological courses in a Catholic institution. lIardly any students or their
parents have even heard of the CTSA, much less know which of the faculty belong
and which do not.
By
contrast, if the local bishop were to deny a mandate to one of those same
faculty members, that fact (not necessarily the reasoning) would become public
knowledge and would be used by conservative Catholics to put pressure on the
university to restrict that theologian’s teaching activities as a
theologian. Such Catholics would also use the withholding of the mandate as
evidence that the theologian is unorthodox and that his teachings and writings
are completely unreliable from a Catholic point of view. Why else would the
Vatican want to enforce the mandate if not to ensure “truth in
advertising”, as many of the mandate’s defenders like to put it?
Parents and students, they insist, have a right to know that what they are
paying for in tuition, namely, a Catholic theological and doctrinal edueation,
will actually be delivered. It is the local bishop’s job to give them that
assurance. But, then, all of the questions listed above come back into play.
It is
true that Cardinal George raises some questions of his own regarding the impl
mentation of the bishop’s mandate: f~ example, what about the status of no
Catholic faculty members, and is the ma date transferable from university
university? But these are soft questions. The hard ones are side-stepped - the
ones that undermine the cardinal’s (and other. assurances that there would
be no negative fall-out if the relationship between the hierarchical Chureh and
the Catholic academic community was made juridical.
I
return here, by way of conclusion, to what is perhaps the most troubling aspect
the arguments of those who support and defend the “juridical”
approach, namely their use of the doctrine of the Church on
“communion”. For Cardinal George and others, “communion” is
simply a matter relationships - but relationships, mind you in which there can
be no autonomy of individuals or ecclesiastical institutions. But the argument
against autonomy is only used against university personnel, never against the
hierarchy. In fact, however, according to the Second Vatican Council the
bishops are not “autonomous” either.
The
doctrine of “communion” is realyl about the nature of the Church as a
“communion” of local Churches, each of which is the body of Christ in
a particular place (‘Lumen Gentium, 26), and all of which together
constitute the universal Church. The doctrine of “communion” requires
not only that local Churches see themselves in a profoundly spiritual
relationship of “communion” with the other local Churches and with
the universal Church, but also that the universal Church should fully respect
the pastoral integrity and, yes, even autonomy of the local Churches, in
accordance with the principle of subsidiarity, that nothing should be decided
or done by a higher agency that can be decided or done as well, if not better
by a lower agency, in this case the local Church, or the Catholic university
within the local Church.
Thus,
if a doctrine of “communion” is at all applicable here, it means that
Catholic universities are indeed part of the life of the local, regional,
national and universal Churches and exist to contribute to that life and to the
strengthening of the ties of faith and love that bind these Churches together.
But a doctrine of “communion” also means that the universal Church
and the Roman Curia, as well as the local bishop, must respect the academic
integrity and institutional autonomy of these education institutions. This is
the other side of the doctrine of “communion” that keeps getting lost
in the argument- an argument that as Frs Monan and Malloy correctly observe
turns the concept of communion on its head.
The
Catholic bishops of the United States will be reconsidering the whole matter at
their annual meeting in Washington DC, in November. Speculation abounds whether
they will capitulate to the Vatican’s wishes by endorsing this new draft
application. If they were to do that, they would do serious harm to the
effectiveness and reputation of the very institutions which have yielded the
best-educated Catholic laity in the history the Church.
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