Catholic
Colleges & Universities
Georgetown board chairman says independence
threatened
By RICH HEFFERN
“Truth, wisdom and faith are not exclusively clerical
pursuits and not exclusively male. Every major U.S. university is graduating
equal numbers of men and women,” said John R. Kennedy, the chairman of the
board of Washington’s Georgetown University.
At a dinner in Paris on April 27 that gathered Georgetown
University alumni together for presentation of the John Carroll Awards, Kennedy
spoke about the relationship between Catholic higher education and the church,
particularly the relationship with the bishops and the Vatican.
Kennedy has chaired the Georgetown board for seven years. He is
former chief executive officer and director of Federal Paper Board Company in
Montvale, N.J., and former director of the International Institute of Strategic
Studies in London.
In his talk, Kennedy sketched out his assessment of the
achievements of Catholic higher education in the last 30 years, including
opening universities to women and welcoming non-Catholics. He noted that
Catholic colleges and universities have earned a well-deserved reputation
worldwide for excellence. Catholic higher education, he said, “is admired
… and has produced the best-educated laity in the history of the
church.”
Noting the attempt by the Catholic bishops to exert an
“increased degree of influence over Catholic universities, particularly
the faculty,” Kennedy stated that these actions seriously threaten the
independence of every Catholic university, especially Georgetown, because of
“our location in the capital of the world, the diversity of our university
population and our fundamental pluralism.”
Referring to the implementation of the 1990 Vatican document on
Catholic colleges and universities, Ex Corde Ecclesiae, Kennedy said:
“The licensing of professors would smother academic scholarship and open
the door to the banning of teachers who do not fall in step with the local
bishop. In the process, Georgetown’s academic integrity would be severely
compromised.”
Kennedy warned, “Ex Corde would require that a
Catholic university have a majority of its faculty and board of director
members be Catholic. I don’t believe this would ever be acceptable at
Georgetown. … These and other measures attack academic freedom and may
very well be inconsistent with U.S. labor and discrimination laws.”
Bishops should recognize Catholic success in higher education,
Kennedy urged, “and use it, at least in part, as a model for introducing
badly needed reform in the diocesan system.”
Kennedy acknowledged there are different issues and objectives
between an academic institution and a church, but pointed out there are also
similarities. “Catholic higher education has succeeded through pluralism
and openness. … It met the challenge years ago, and in doing so
strengthened its institutions and strengthened Catholicism.”
Rich Heffern is NCR opinion editor.
National Catholic Reporter, October 25,
2002
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