Page 33: Cardinal Newman Society, continued
Ex corde Ecclesiae defines Catholic higher education and insists that "any official action or commitment of the university is to be in accord with its Catholic identity." Anything Pope Benedict says about Catholic higher education will almost certainly refer to this document. Add it to your winter reading list.
Even before Ex corde Ecclesiae was issued, the Association of Catholic Colleges and Universities (ACCU) and Catholic theological associations urged the American bishops to reject its juridical approach, which is enforceable under canon law. Throughout the 1990s, the Cardinal Newman Society worked closely with the U.S. bishops and defended them from a barrage of public attacks as they developed guidelines to implement Ex corde Ecclesiae in the United States. The bishops stood strong, and their 1999 guidelines received Vatican approval.
Today the U.S. bishops have largely succeeded in developing a much closer relationship with Catholic college officials, which Ex corde Ecclesiae describes as essential to Catholic identity. But respect for the teaching authority of the bishops, including their oversight of colleges’ Catholic identity and their responsibility for ensuring the integrity of Catholic theology, is still lacking. When Archbishop Elden Curtiss of Omaha cut ties with Creighton University’s Center for Marriage and Family because of its director’s outspoken dissent, University officials shrugged their shoulders. When Bishop Robert McManus of Worcester, Massachusetts, publicly urged the College of the Holy Cross to cancel a teen pregnancy conference featuring NARAL and Planned Parenthood, the Jesuit college’s president hardly blinked.
Key to the reform of Catholic higher education—and the central theme of Ex corde Ecclesiae—is the Bishop’s rightful authority to declare a college Catholic or non-Catholic. It is rarely cited by the American bishops and disregarded by most Catholic colleges. By contrast, the Cardinal Newman Society and other lay advocates of reform have repeatedly reminded Catholic colleges of their necessary ties to the Magisterium, prompting two New York colleges—Marist College and Marymount Manhattan College—to voluntarily abandon the Catholic identity upon which they were built rather than answer to ecclesiastical authority.
What Pope Benedict chooses to say with regard to the bishops’ authority in Catholic higher education will have a significant impact on the momentum of the college reform movement and the bishops’ enthusiasm to lead it.
GripMedia