Implementing license to teach worries
theologians
By PATRICIA LEFEVERE
Special to the National Catholic Reporter
To seek or not seek a mandatum. That is the question
occupying theologians at Catholic colleges and universities across the land
this semester. Obtaining a mandatum certification to teach as a Catholic
theologian from ones local bishop has become an agenda item at many
faculty meetings and a conversation magnet in campus offices and hallways.
Soon it will be the subject of face-to-face encounters between the
churchs professional teachers and its pastoral leaders. Meetings are
being planned or are underway this month among the more than 1,000 theologians
teaching at 235 institutions of higher education located in 39 states, the
District of Columbia and Puerto Rico and the 100 bishops whose jurisdiction
includes a Catholic college and/or university.
Uncertainty over what the mandatum will mean in practice
was exacerbated by the recent comments of two bishops. In Ohio, Cincinnati
Archbishop Daniel Pilarczyk has said that theologians have nothing to fear from
the Vaticans requirement, or mandate, that Catholic theology professors
pledge to teach authentic church doctrine that is faithful to the churchs
magisterium.
But 700 miles away in Nebraska, Omaha Archbishop Elden Curtiss has
said he may publicize the names of any theologian who does not obtain the
bishops certification assuring that what he or she is presenting meets
the churchs standards.
Theologians are concerned
Although both positions were set out Nov. 14 at the U.S.
bishops annual meeting in Washington (NCR, Nov. 24), the upcoming
gatherings of teachers and bishops should lead to an easing of
apprehension, Msgr. John Strynkowski told NCR. Strynkowski is
assistant secretary for Catholic higher education and campus ministry at the
U.S. Catholic Conference and staff to the committee on the mandatum.
As theologians are sharing their concerns about the
mandatum with their local ordinary, the bishops are trying to design a
standard procedure for granting, withholding or withdrawing the
mandatum. The consulting bishops will meet May 30 in Detroit with
Pilarczyks Ad Hoc Committee on the mandatum to move toward final
revisions of the guidelines. In mid-June all U.S. bishops will gather in
Atlanta to approve the guidelines. Implementation of the mandatum is to
occur one year after the Vatican approves the plan.
The mandatum requirement is but one of the provisions of
Pope John Paul IIs 1990 apostolic constitution, Ex Corde Ecclesiae
(From the Heart of the Church), which governs relations between the
church and Catholic academia worldwide.
The revised Code of Canon Law calls upon Catholic theologians to
be in accord with the churchs teaching. The popes way of enforcing
Canons 807-814 is through the exhortations contained in Ex Corde. Norms
for its implementation in America have undergone three revisions since the U.S.
bishops began dealing with the document a decade ago.
After consulting with Catholic college administrators and with
canon lawyers over many years, the bishops have just begun to talk with
theologians. No one is certain where these conversations will lead. Theologian
Terrence Tilley said, Its too difficult to figure out if everything
is within Pilarczyks control.
Tilley, a consultant to the Ad Hoc Committee and chair of the
religious studies department at the University of Dayton in Ohio, said that not
all U.S. prelates are as benign in their approach and viewpoint as
is Pilarczyk. If all the bishops had his understanding of the
mandatum, we wouldnt have these problems. The University of
Dayton is in Pilarczyks diocese.
At the November meeting, Pilarczyk stated that the mandatum
did not have the force of law, but that the committees guidelines were a
procedural instrument for bishops to more or less apply the
mandatum uniformly. He saw it as an affirmation of the complementary
roles of professors and pastors and not something that should invoke fear.
The certification applies to any Catholic teaching scripture,
canon law, church history, liturgy and moral, dogmatic and pastoral theology.
Some theologians who spoke with NCR were unsure whether the
mandatum covered any other than full-time instructors even though
Pilarczyk noted in November that it applied to any Catholic teacher of any
theological discipline who is regularly teaching in a Catholic
college or university --even a graduate assistant or visiting professor.
The vast majority of Catholic theologians take their
relationship with the church very seriously, said Dan Finn, theology
professor at St. Johns University in Collegeville, Minn. Finn thinks the
theologians concern is genuine, noting that its a scary
business when your reputation can be questioned and your livelihood
threatened.
St. Johns theologians met with their bishop, John Kinney of
the St. Cloud, Minn., diocese in late November. Finn described the conversation
as frank and the parties as mutually supportive. Finn
addressed the bishops at their November meeting on behalf of the Catholic
Theological Society of America. He said reactions to his talk have convinced
him that most bishops dont have a big problem with their Catholic
theologians. For their part, theologians hope that the vast majority of
bishops will be reasonable with them, though reasonableness
is not guaranteed in the document, Finn said.
Theologians are concerned with the unspecified
discretion a bishop may have in determining what is necessary to certify
someone a teacher within the full communion of the Catholic church,
Finn said. Is such a judgment limited to what the person teaches in the
classroom, or does it include personal views and private life?
They also fear the lack of an adequate appeals process should a
theologian be denied a mandatum. They want to trust that there is no
connection between the mandatum and hiring and retention policies, as
Pilarczyk affirmed in November.
No one knows who will or wont seek a mandatum.
Its very difficult to predict numbers at this juncture,
Strynkowski said.
Among those who have said they will not seek a mandatum are
Paul Knitter of Xavier University, Cincinnati; Daniel Maquire of Marquette
University, Milwaukee, and Fr. Richard McBrien of the University of Notre Dame,
South Bend, Ind.
Trusting the process
The 23 Catholic theologians at Creighton University in Omaha will
meet Archbishop Curtiss later this month. Things will be clarified after
that, said Michael Lawler, director of Creightons Center for
Marriage and Family. Lawler has been chosen to field inquiries from the press
but said there was nothing to say until after the meeting.
On Nov. 14 Curtiss told his fellow bishops that theologians need a
mandatum because Catholic parents expect them to reflect church
teaching. He said he would not play games and would deal
publicly with a theologian who didnt seek one and was
teaching undergraduates.
Jack Phillips, a theologian at the College of St. Mary in Omaha,
is standing at the waters edge waiting to see what Curtiss
does. Phillips, an Orthodox Melkite Christian, said Byzantine Catholic
theologians want to know if the mandatum applies to them. We are a
sister church of Rome. Our synod recognized the authority of the Bishop of Rome
in the first 1,000 years of Christendom. But when Phillips teaches
Catholic theology, its Catholic theology and not a Byzantine version of
it, he said.
Phillips is not convinced that those who dont apply for a
mandatum cannot be fired. Catholic colleges depend on that
Catholic identity for their marketing. They look to Catholic high schools and
parishes to feed them students. At St. Mary, there are no tenured
positions, only four-year renewable contracts, he said.
He said that small schools like St. Mary -- a womans liberal
arts college founded by the Sisters of Mercy -- are more vulnerable
to efforts to augment their Catholic identity -- a chief goal of Ex
Corde. With no priests on campus and with no one currently serving as
campus minister, its harder to do things to celebrate
Catholicism than at a larger school like Creighton, he said.
The mandatum was high on the agenda of the Association of
Catholic Colleges and Universities whose presidents met late last month in
Washington. More than 200 of the presidents attended, including 27 of the 28
Jesuit presidents. Jesuits schools enroll 190,000 of the 700,000 students at
Americas higher institutions of Catholic learning.
Jesuit Fr. Charles Curry, who directs the Association of Jesuit
Colleges and Universities, said he took heart from guest speaker Belgian
Cardinal Godfried Danneels, who urged a spirit of communion among all parties,
noting that juridical norms dont guarantee cooperation. Danneels heads
the see of Mechelen-Brussels, Belgium, is chancellor of the University of
Louvain and a member of the Vatican Congregation for Catholic Education.
The Association of Catholic Colleges and Universities set up a
12-person committee on Ex Corde, comprising six bishops and six college
presidents under the leadership of Pittsburghs Bishop Donald Wuerl. Other
bishops include Auxiliary John Boles of Boston; Paul Bootkoski, administrator
of the Newark, N.J., archdiocese; John DArcy of Fort Wayne-South Bend,
Ind.; James Hoffman of Toledo, Ohio, and George Niederauer of Salt Lake
City.
College presidents on the committee are Fr. Dennis Dease of the
University of St. Thomas, St. Paul, Minn.; Marilou Eldred, St. Marys
College, South Bend, Ind.; Christian Br. James Gaffney of Lewis University,
Romeoville, Ill.; Alice Hayes, University of San Diego; Jesuit Fr. William
Leahy of Boston College and Vincentian Fr. David OConnor of The Catholic
University in Washington.
Dease said the presidents are focused on the pragmatic elements of
Ex Corde and are looking for clarification of the norms. He found less
anxiety among the presidents than existed a year ago. Though much is still
uncertain about the application of the mechanism to oversee orthodoxy in
college classrooms, one thing is certain, Dease said, The norms will be
applied unevenly according to the personality of the ordinary. College
presidents would welcome the bishops making the application process as
uniform as possible, he said.
At Notre Dame University, where some 40 theologians teach, Larry
Cunningham said that many of his fellow theologians are taking a
wait-and-see attitude. Those most nervous are students finishing
their doctorates who feel theyll have to choose between a Catholic
and a non-Catholic institution, he said.
Mercy Sr. Margaret Farley, past president of Catholic Theological
Society of America and an ethics professor at Yale, said theologians should be
willing to trust the process but also said that bishops have to
understand why theologians are concerned and how theologians conceive of their
profession.
The most controversial task of moral theology is to help
people live their faith in the light of the times
to help them face new
questions and not just to repeat or attack the old formulas, Farley told
NCR.
Patricia Lefeveres email address is
pal-scribe@erols.com
National Catholic Reporter, February 16,
2001
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