The Curran case

...The School of Religious Studies includes the Department of Theology, but it also includes other Departments, which, un-like the Department of Theology, are not ecclesiastical faculties...

...and, to the extent that its ac-tions in this case were dictated by authori-tative interpretations of canon law, they are unreviewable and are beyond the le-gitimate exercise of jurisdiction by the civil courts...

...He seeks specific per-formance of what he asserts is his contractual right to teach in the Department of Theology without a canonical mission or, failing that, his right to teach Catholic Theology in another department within the University...

...But certain things were unmistakably known and understood by the parties...

...Thirdly, the reasonable person standard is applied both to the circumstances surrounding the contract and the course of conduct of the parties under the contract" (Citation Inter-county Construction Corp...

...That struggle seeks to establish the proper role of academic free-dom within an American Catholic univer-sity, which shares with all other American universities the goal of unfettered and robust academic inquiry in an environ-ment free of external control, and at the same time shares with the Roman CathoThe Church a common bond of faith and a "mission to preserve and protect the Church's doctrine...

...This declaration was the culmination of a long investigation of Professor Curran's state-ments and writing over many years, focused primarily on Curran's vocal dissent from Catholic doctrine in the area of sex-ual ethics generally and on the subject of artificial contraception in particular...

...The Ratzinger letter stated that the decision regarding Professor Curran had been presented to, and was spe-cifically approved by, the Pope on July 10, 1986...

...They knew that, under the Bylaws, the University's Board of Trustees consists of 40 trustees, 20 of whom must be Roman Catholic clerics, of whom 16 must be Bishops, and that the cleric members of the Board will usually include all of the Cardinals who are residential ordinaries in the American Catholic hierarchy...

...In many respects the events on that campus were a reflection of the turmoil on college cam-puses all across the country...

...It is apparent that this dispute is merely a piece of a larger struggle that has been raging in Catholic higher education for many years...

...Secondly, the reasonable person is bound by all usages which either party knows or has reason to know...

...And I still believe that very strongly...

...On some issues-and this case certainly presents one of them-the conflict be-tween the University's commitment to academic freedom and its unwavering fealty to the Holy See is direct and un-avoidable...

...The University defends on several lev-els...

...You have asked this Court to order Catholic University to take you back and to permit you to teach theology at Catho-lic University...

...The Department of Theology, where Curran taught, is one such Department...

...B. The June 2, 1988 Resolution...

...Throughout the proceedings leading up to the withdrawal of Curran's ca-nonical mission, and in court, the Univer-sity has consistently said that its actions were not based on a judgment of Curran's competence as a professor...

...It is hardly surprising that the Catholic Uni-versity of America, with its close ties to the Roman Catholic Church, found itself in the middle of these struggles...

...Because in the last analysis, I think it's not only good for me, but I think it's good for Catholic University...

...On the one hand, it wanted to be recognized as a university-a Catholic university, to be sure-but a full-fledged American uni-versity nonetheless...

...The University did not breach its contract with Professor Curran by requir-ing him to teach courses other than Catho-lic Theology or, for that matter, by requir-ing him to agree to be bound by the declarations of the Holy See...

...He maintains this suit for breach of contract, alleging that the University's actions violate his right to academic freedom...

...At the present time, Professor Curran retains his tenure, but not his right to teach Catholic Theology, which he contends is his only field of professional competence...

...They knew that the Archbishop of Washington serves as the Chancellor of the University and that, under the Bylaws, the Chancellor acts as the liaison between the University and the National Council of Catholic Bishops and between the University and the Holy See...

...On July 25,1986, in a letter to Charles E. Curran, a Catholic priest and a tenured professor of Catholic Theology at The Catholic University of America ("CUA" or "the University"), Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, the Prefect of the Roman Catholic Church's Sacred Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, advised Professor Curran that he was "not suitable nor eligible to teach Catholic Theology...

...What I want to prove, and I think we have to prove, and I think I have but others might disagree, is that ultimately even academic freedom for the Catholic theologian is ultimately for the good of the Church...

...Whether that is ultimately good for the University or for the Church is something they have a right to decide for themselves...

...It is also apparent after seven days of trial that many of the parties and witnesses know considerably more than the Court about both academic freedom and the authoritative teachings of the Roman Catholic Church, which is not to say that there is unanimity on either subject...

...1562-87, Civil I, Judge Frederick H. Weisberg...

...But this is not an ordinary case...

...The excerpted material (from I. Statement of the Case...

...The court holds today that it does not...

...No one sat down and spelled out what the rights and obligations of the parties would be if the Holy See, in absolute and definitive terms, declared Curran "unsuitable" and "ineligible" to teach Catholic Theology...

...As with any question of contract in-terpretation, if the contract is ambiguous, the court must determine what a reason-able person in the position of the parties would have thought the contract meant...

...These were turbulent times, characterized by persis-tent, testing of institutional limits on all forms of expression of individual free-dom, including academic freedom...

...THE CURRAN CASE JUDGMENT DAY FREEDOM, FEALTY, CONTRACTS The following is excerpted from the decision in The Reverend Charles E. Curran v. The Catho-lic University of America (Superior Court of the District of Columbia, Civil Division, Civil Ac-tion No...

...Nowhere is this ten-sion between these two allegiances more acute than in the teaching of Catholic The-ology at a Catholic university, perhaps especially at The Catholic University of America...

...Whether or not the University is correct that it was obli-gated to accept the declaration of the Holy See as a matter of canon law, it was surely bound to do so as a matter of religious conviction and pursuant to its long-stand-ing, unique and freely chosen special rela-tionship with the Holy See...

...The 1988 Resolution If this were an ordinary case, and if Professor Curran had been dismissed for cause from the Department of Theology based on a judgment of his peers that he is not com-petent, the University would clearly have no duty to place him in any other Depart-ment...

...It is fair to assume that neither party in 1970 or 1971 could have antici-pated a judgment by the Holy See that was both as broad and as definitive as the Ratzinger letter...

...To rule otherwise, according to the University, would be to violate its First Amendment right to the free exercise of its religious beliefs...

...Finally, the Uni-versity argues that because of its papal charter and its ecclesiastical faculties, it is governed not only by civil law but also by canon law...

...Perhaps it can fairly be said that the University wanted it both ways...

...A separate letter of July 25,1986 to James Cardinal Hickey, Chancellor of CUA by virtue of his position as Archbishop of Washington, advised the Chancellor that "[t]he Pontifical approbation of this decision....renders it a definitive judgment in this case," and it directed the Chancellor to take "appropriate action...

...Conclusion The bulk of plaintiff's proof at trial was historical...

...v. District of Columbia...

...But in adjudicating the breach of contract claim he brings to this court, what is good for Catholic University or for the Roman Catholic Church is not a question pre-sented and not one the court has either the right or the competence to decide...

...On such issues, the University may choose for itself on which side of that conflict it wants to come down, and noth-ing in its contract with Professor Curran or any other faculty member promises that it will always come down on the side of academic freedom...

...The University also contends that academic freedom, by any definition, is not absolute...

...But it is the law of contract which must govern the decision in this case...

...As much as he may have wished it otherwise, he could not reasonably have expected that the University would defy a definitive judgment of the Holy See that he was "unsuitable" and "ineligible" to teach Catholic Theology...

...For one thing, in Professor Curran's most recent annual appointment letter in 1986, the University, for reasons that are not clear in the record, unilaterally changed his appointment from the Department of Theol-ogy to the School of Religious Studies...

...His burden, as he saw it, was to show that the events at CUA in the late 1960's had transformed the University into a place where aca-demic freedom reigned supreme, to the exclusion of all else, including the obliga-tions imposed on the University by virtue of its pontifical charter and its relation-ship with the Holy See...

...General Principles of Contract Interpretation...

...Like the rest of plaintiff's case, the question comes down to what the contract says and what the parties to it intended...

...In the context of this case, the University's position is that academic freedom is limited both by the discipline- the teaching of Catholic Theology-and by the nature of the institution in which the discipline is practiced-the Catholic University of America, a pontifical uni-versity chartered by Pope Leo XIII in 1899, which has maintained by choice for one hundred years what the University refers to as a "special relationship with the Holy See...

...Contract Interpretation The principal area of disagreement is over whether the contract includes a specific guarantee of academic freedom and the extent to which the University's customs and practices regarding academic free-dom are part of the contractual relation-Ship between the University and its fac-ulty...

...The University Handbook does not address this situation, and there is no custom or practice at the University that can be looked at as a source for the contractual rights and du-ties of the parties in these unusual circum-stances...

...On the other hand, it continued to place transcendent value on its unique and special relationship with the Holy See...

...In January of 1987, the Chancellor suspended Curran from teaching the courses he was scheduled to teach that term in the Department of Theology...

...For example, the parties knew that the University, in addition to its civil charter, had a pontifical charter from Pope Leo XIII in 1889...

...Professor Curran has his own view of what this case is about, which is best expressed in his own words excerpted from his trial testimony: "Q...

...Upon receipt of the Ratzinger letter, Chancellor Hickey began proceedings to withdraw Professor Curran's canonical mission, an ecclesiastical license required to teach in certain Departments at CUA, which are authorized by the Church to confer ecclesiastical decrees...

...Ultimately, after hearings before an ad hoc faculty committee, which made recommendations to the Board of Trustees, the Board voted on April 12, 1988 to withdraw Curran's canonical mission...

...And they knew that all of the University's selfdescriptions, in the Faculty Handbook and elsewhere, emphasized its unique relationship to the Holy See and its con-comitant responsibility to the Roman Catholic Church...

...If academic freedom, in one form or another, is an ingredient of the contractual relationship, the parties also disagree over whether there are limits on academic free-dom at CUA and, if so, what those limits are...

...Internally, the University had to wrestle with its own ambivalence...

...trial of this matter was held without a jury from December 14 to December 23, 1988...

...but on most issues it can also be said that the University could have it both ways...

...In making that determination, the court looks to a number of factors: "First, there is the presumption that the reasonable person knows all the circum-stances surrounding the making of the contract...

...I told my colleagues on the Faculty Inquiry Com-mittee that in the last analysis I wasn't on trial, but they were...

...They were based on the judgment of the Holy See that he is not "eligible" to exercise the function of aprofessor of Catholic Theol-ogy and the decision of the Board of Trustees to accept that judgment as bind-ing on the University...

...It contends that while academic free-dom exists as an important value at CU A, the Board of Trustees has never adopted a definition of academic freedom for inclu-sion in the Faculty Handbook, the docu-ment that defines the contractual relation-ship between the faculty member and the University...

...There is little doubt that the late 1960s was an extraordi-nary time at Catholic University...

...Given the history and content of its relationship to the Holy See, CUA could not have given up its right to accept and act upon defini-tive judgments of the Holy See in its dealings with Professor Curran unless it did so explicitly, which it certainly did not do...

...No one-least of all a Catholic priest and a professor of Catholic Theology- could have contracted with CUA without understanding the University's special relationship with the Roman Catholic Church, with all of the implications and obligations flowing from that relation-ship...

...Indeed, Professor Curran testified that in fact he did understand at all rele-vant times that this special relationship existed...

...Nor is it surprising that many of the changes at the University-the Marlowe Committee report and its partial acceptance by the Board of Trustees, new statements about academic freedom at the University and changes in the University's Bylaws and statutes, to list just a few-were directed at strengthening the independence and autonomy of the University and its faculty from interference by outside authorities, not the least of which was the Holy See...

...More importantly, Professor Curran was not dismissed for cause after peer review of his compe-tence...

...For these reasons, reference to the tra-ditional norms of academic tenure is not dispositive of plaintiff's claims, and the court prefers to base its decision on other grounds...

...The question presented is whether his contract gives him the right to teach Catholic Theology at Catholic University in the face of a definitive judgment by the Holy See that he is ineligible to do so...

...The simple fact is that it has never happened before, at this University or anywhere else...

...and, after an unsuccessful attempt to negotiate an alternative teaching assignment for Professor Curran, the Board issued a resolution on June 2,1988 barring Curran from teaching Catholic Theology anywhere within the University...

...Maybe Professor Curran is right...

...That in the last analysis, aca-demic freedom, itself, is for the good of the Church...

...and V. Conclusion) constitutes approximately one-third of the total decision and was selected to apprise Commonweal's readers of the major elements of the decision...