Editorial Plowshares into canons
Steinfels, Margaret O'Brien
EDITORIALS Plowshares into canons Earlier this year, Sister Alice Gallin, O.S.U., reported in these pages on the arduous but ultimately successful effort of U.S. bishops and Catholic university...
...their futures de-pend on the hard work and vigorous support of lay Catho-lics...
...The Congregation's juridical solution offers the wrong an-swer to a serious problem and a daunting challenge...
...Nothing remarkable in that, perhaps...
...The Congregation surely understands all this...
...The Congregation also says that a "full application" of canon 812, requiring a theologian to have a mandatum to teach Catholic theology, must be incorporated in the ordinances...
...These schools are increasingly in the hands of lay faculty and lay boards...
...The next question-Can common ground be reached with the Vatican?-is now on the table...
...undermine pre-cisely those internal mechanisms meant to nourish Catholic identity...
...as the draft ordinances say, they can pursue it best together, by means of "mutual trust, close and con-sistent cooperation, and continuing dialogue...
...And it wants the "essential elements" of a mission statement for Catholic schools in-cluded as well...
...bishops and Catholic university presidents to forge ordinances governing relations between the church and the university ("Making Colleges Catholic," March 28,1997...
...The ordinances have been returned by the Congregation for Catholic Education...
...A "second draft" is wanted...
...Making or keeping col-leges Catholic is a concern for both educators and hierarchs...
...The next issue will be dated July 18...
...and drive exasperated administrators and faculty away from the genuine challenge of upIn keeping with Commonweal's usual schedule, only one issue is published each month during July and August...
...What are bureaucracies for, if not clarification and amplification...
...holding Catholic identity in American culture...
...And what if inap-propriately drawn rules don't help but hurt...
...second, they respect the American practice of academic freedom and institutional autonomy...
...But what if ordinances as such cannot accomplish this task...
...But rather than helping to achieve the common goal, a juridical outlook will erode efforts at building trust, cooperation, and dialogue...
...In addition, the local bishop "has the right and the duty to watch over the preservation and strengthening of their Catholic character...
...The future of Catholic higher education in the United States is not so secure that the Congregation and the var-ious NCCB committees and subcommittees can afford to get this wrong...
...First, they recognize that a school's Catholic identity and character must be fostered from within...
...We assume that the Congregation, the bishops, and Catholic colleges and uni-versities share a common goal: maintaining the Catholic character of Catholic in-stitutions...
...It should be resisted...
...The ordinances had to satisfy the norms set forth in Ex corde ec-clesiae (John Paul II's 1990 apostolic constitution on higher education) while re-specting the distinctive legal and educational context in which U.S...
...Those basics rose out of the acceptance, by bishops as well as educators, that the issue of Catholic identity in higher education is not at heart a juridical problem but a cultural and educational one...
...Catholic colleges and universitites operate...
...A misreading of this future for the sake of canonical clar-ity would be a terrible loss to American society, which des-perately needs the leavening effects of Catholic schools...
...the schools themselves have corporate independence under U.S...
...The draft ordinances approved by the NCCB do two important things...
...Furthermore, it finds the ordi-nances lacking in the juridical elements that define "Catholic universities as uni-versity and as Catholic in all aspects of their organization, life, and activity...
...Indeed, if ordinances that play as well in Rome as in the United States can effectively insure the Catholic identity of Catholic higher education, then why not third and fourth drafts...
...Her assessment that bishops and academics reached com-mon ground was reflected in the 224-6 vote of approval at the bishops' November 1996 meeting...
...Worse, it would be a tragedy for the church, for which these colleges and universities are points of contact with the world of learning and the ever-new generations that pass through their gates...
...yet it is insisting that Catholic colleges and universities must be juridically tied to the local bishop...
Vol. 124 • June 1997 • No. 12
