Prisoners, immigrants, the
mandatum
By PATRICIA LEFEVERE
Special to the National Catholic
Reporter Washington
In documents they hope will influence public policy, the U.S.
bishops turned their attention during their recent national meeting here to two
populations that remain relatively hidden to the broader culture -- prisoners
and immigrants.
The bishops approved a 42-page document, Responsibility,
Rehabilitation and Restoration: A Catholic Perspective on Crime and Criminal
Justice (NCR, Nov. 3) that strongly opposes the trend toward more
prisons, stiffer sentences and more executions as a response to crime.
The group also approved a 52-page document titled Unity in
Diversity: Welcoming the Immigrant Church in the U.S. that urges church
leaders to welcome immigrants and celebrate diversity. The bishops also called
for changes in harsh policies of the U.S. Immigration and Nationalization
Service.
While those documents might generate heated debate outside the
bishops meeting room, inside the Hyatt Regency Hotel, site of the Nov.
13-16 annual meeting, the longest debate occurred over the five pages of
guidelines concerning the mandatum, or mandate to teach, that professors
of theology at Catholic universities and colleges will be required to receive
from local bishops. The requirement for a mandatum is one of the
provisions of Ex Corde Ecclesiae (From the Heart of the
Church), the Vatican document governing Catholic higher education.
The mandatum, a controversial provision that has been
debated in the conference for years, recognizes the professors
commitment and responsibility to teach authentic Catholic doctrine and to
refrain from putting forth as Catholic teaching anything contrary to the
churchs magisterium, according to the guidelines.
Under the guidelines, a bishop has nothing to do with the hiring
or firing of a theologian, only with granting the mandatum if sought or
with withholding or withdrawing it if the teacher does not fulfill the
conditions of the mandatum.
Archbishop Daniel Pilarczyk of Cincinnati, who chaired the ad hoc
committee on the mandatum, reminded his fellow bishops that if the
conditions for granting the mandatum are fulfilled, the teacher has a
right to receive it and the bishop is obliged to grant it. You dont
say to a candidate: Prove to me youre in union with the church. The
onus is on the other side, he said. Moreover, bishops cannot withdraw the
mandatum on the basis of unsubstantiated criticism of the theologian, he
said. Such an action must be based on specific and detailed evidence that
the teacher does not fulfill its conditions.
Such assurances did not alleviate the anxiety of Daniel Finn, a
theologian at St. Johns University in Collegeville, Minn. The
deep-seated misgivings that so many theologians have about the mandatum
should not be interpreted either as questioning the truth of Catholic
teaching or as challenging the bishops role as guardians of that
tradition, said Finn, one of few lay persons to address the bishops
meeting.
He said he feared that theologians could be giving up rights they
currently have in civil law as soon as they begin to cooperate with the
mandatum process. Labor lawyers seem convinced, Finn said, that under
labor and civil rights laws the mandatum would have to be a bona fide
occupational requirement if it ever came to play a part in employment
decisions.
In that case each bishop as well as the university would be
legally liable for how it was handled, he said. The attorneys for the
NCCB, I am told, predict that the bishop would win such suits, due to a
religious or ministerial exemption from prevailing law.
Finn said he and other lay theologians supporting a family could
not afford to hire an attorney to answer these questions. He also worried that
the draft guidelines do not lay out procedures for removing a mandatum and that
they allow individual bishops too much discretion.
Finn urged the bishops to read the Catholic Theological Society of
Americas report on the mandatum (NCR, Sept. 29). While the
bishops have consulted with university presidents for most of the 1990s, he
noted that they held their first meeting with theologians on Nov. 1
Auxiliary Bishop Raymond Goedert of Chicago took up Finns
concern. Goedert said the guidelines discussed at last years
bishops meeting were more benign
It was up to the individual
teacher to seek a mandatum. If he doesnt, thats OK. Now it
seems like were lowering the boom.
This is more than
guidelines, Goedert said.
Pilarczyk countered that the newest guidelines are more
concrete, not more severe or demanding. But Omaha Archbishop Elden
Curtiss said he would deal publicly with a theologian who
didnt seek a mandatum and was teaching undergraduates. If
this person doesnt have a mandatum, its not a matter of
take it or leave it. Were responding to a problem thats
taken place. Were not playing games, Curtiss said.
Pilarczyk noted that the diocesan bishop has no power to
enforce anything within the universitys life, though a bishop is
free to say who does and who doesnt have a mandatum. He urged
bishops to meet with their theologians in the months ahead and even to begin to
hand out the mandatums. In May he plans to convene a meeting
of all prelates whose diocese included a Catholic college or university. The
bishops could vote final approval to the guidelines at their June meeting.
When Bishop Robert Banks of Green Bay, Wis., asked Pilarczyk
whether the guidelines grew out of the Code of Canon Law or is it us who
are requiring it, Pilarczyk was quick to reply: We have been
required to require this.
With its statement on criminal justice, the bishops tried to shine
the light of hope into the nations prisons. We are convinced that
our tradition and our faith offer better alternatives that can hold offenders
accountable and challenge them to change their lives, reach out to victims and
reject vengeance. It also reiterated the churchs rejection of the
death penalty and called for pastoral attention to the victims of crime and the
families of criminals.
Bishop Ricardo Ramirez of Las Cruces, N.M., called the document
one of the most timely and important statements ever made by the
bishops. Americas two million in the prison population outnumber
the U.S. military or those in U.S. graduate schools, he said
The document can be seen on the bishops Web site,
www.nccbuscc.org/sdwp/criminal.htm and will soon be available in
Spanish.
The bishops also advocated on behalf of the reunification of
immigrant families. A resolution urged several reforms in U.S. immigration law
and policy. Newark Archbishop Theodore McCarrick said the bishops themselves
needed to secure a permanent body of regulations on the importation of foreign
priests. Currently the nearly 1,000 foreign priests working or studying in
America are subject to various immigration procedures. Renewal of visas is
often difficult, McCarrick said.
The second immigration item, the pastoral Unity in
Diversity: Welcoming the Immigrant Church in the U.S., calls on Catholics
to work against prejudice and distrust and for the full integration of
immigrants into the life of the church and the community.
National Catholic Reporter, November 24,
2000
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