| The U.S. bishops' vote on Ex Corde Ecclesiae
JUNE 16, 2001 -- In Atlanta the U.S. Catholic bishops
voted unanimously,
according to Saturday’s [June 16] Boston Globe, to require Catholic
colleges to accurately convey Catholic teaching, which seems a fairly modest
consumer protection measure. But, read further on:
[Cardinal] Law said he does not expect to deny approval to any local
theologians, that he does not plan to make public the names of any
theologians who refuse to seek his approval, and that he believes
theologians, like other academic researchers, should be free to slip up as
they push the envelope of knowledge.
''I may get all sorts of terrible letters for this, but I think that when
you are engaged speculatively in theology, there are going to be mistakes
made,'' he said. ''There's no way to make theological advances unless there
are some mistakes made. We don't believe that we know everything that there
is to know about the faith - we know that we can come to a deeper
understanding through theology.''
Surely Cardinal Law must be aware that the problem
with theology departments is not in theologians’ speculations, but in their
dissent on matters which are established doctrine and not open to speculation --
on such fundamental areas of morality as contraception, abortion, and homosexual
activity.
Many bishops, including Law, have met with their local theologians in an
effort to assure them that this is not a search-and-destroy mission for
heretics, and top bishops have repeatedly said that the measure includes no
mechanism to force theologians to comply or to punish those who refuse to
comply.
A hopeful note: Bishop Sean P. O'Malley of Fall River said he
didn't understand why universities couldn't require compliance, saying
''otherwise, it seems it's an exercise in futility if the universities
aren't brought on board.''
At BC, home to one of the most prestigious Catholic theology departments
in the nation, theologians have agreed to respect one another's decision,
and the university president, the Rev. William P. Leahy, has said that he
will not interfere with what he believes to be an issue between the
theologians and Law.
Now, does that have a familiar ring to it? Did someone say “pro-choice”?
The president of the National Conference of Catholic Bishops, Joseph A.
Fiorenza, publicly denounced conservative Catholics who have created Web
sites on the Internet attempting to rate colleges based on their professors'
compliance with the requirement. He called such actions ''dangerous'' and
''harmful'' and said, ''it would be a serious misuse of the mandate by any
member of the church if they make it a means of attack rather than of
building up the church.''
Was Bishop Fiorenza talking about
excommunication.net? We don’t think so,
since we have not yet included the rating of colleges. But, rating colleges according to the orthodoxy of
their professors is a wonderful idea -- again, it‘s just consumer protection;
if you pay for a Catholic education, you should get one. Now, why do the bishops
think that this principle is not important enough to enforce?
End of report.
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