McCormick disinvited in New Orleans, bishop: some might object to theologian - Notre Dame University 's Richard McCormick; Archbishop Francis Schulte, includes test of letters McCormick and Schulte wrote to each other

National Catholic Reporter, Feb 14, 1997 by Tom Roberts

University of Notre Dame alumni in New Orleans, warned by an archbishop that some people might be offened if Notre Dame theologian Fr. Richard McCormick spoke in the archdiocese, canceled a lecture they had scheduled for mid-January.

McCormick, who had already purchased his airline ticket to travel to New Orleans for the Jan. 16 lecture, was informed DEc. 20 by Eric Tansberger, president of the Notre Dame Club that its invitation was being withdrawn.

Tanzberger reported told McCormick, a Jesuit, that he was simply abiding by the wishes of Archbishop Francis Schulte, who had informed alumni that "some persons might find objections" to McCormick's visit.

McCormick writes regularly on moral and ethical issues, particularly in the area of medicine and sexual ethics. His positions on some matter have raised eyebrows among church conservatives, but he has never been disciplined or censured.

Schulte was unavailable despite repeated attempts by NCR to contact him. Tom Finney, communications director for the archdiocese, said Schulte had nothing to say beyond the letter he had written to McCormick. Finney said he had no idea what criteria Schulte used to determined if a speaker would offend people in the archdiocese nor did he know if Schulte monitored all Catholic groups and the speakers they invited.

According to a Jan. 4 story in The Times-Picayune of Orleans, however, "As some alumni involved in the McCormick invitation see it, Schulte was upset at the prospect of McCormick's appearance in New Orleans, so much so that the alumni club felt it necessary to withdraw the invitation to preserve cordial relations with Schulte and avoid controversy."

Schulte told The Times-Picayune that he informed the club o his feelings to help them avoid a public relations problem. Schulte said he feared public criticism from conservation Catholics in the archdiocese, but emphasized, as he did in a subsequent letter to McCormick, that he did not for bid the theologian from speaking in New Orleans.

"There have been cases where I said I don't think some person should be speaking in the archdiocese," Schulte told the paper. But, he added, the McCormick case was not one of them. "I didn't say, `I wish you'd uninvite this guy.' I never said that," he told The Times-Picayune.

"I said for the sake of the university, it might be better to have another," he said. "But if you want to have McCormick, I can't say no."

Tanzberger interpreted Schulte's comments as a "high level of concern," according to the paper's account, and felt he had to convey that concern to the board of the club and ultimately to McCormick.

According to The Times-Picayune, the club originally sought approval from the archdiocese's Office of Religious Education for a list of possible speakers made available annually by Notre Dame for its Hesburgh lecture series.

McCormick was one of the approved names returned by the office. It was just before the lecture that Schulte learned of McCormick's scheduled appearance.

According to the newspaper account, Schulte then shared his concerns with Mike Read, described by the archbishop in his letter to McCormick as "Mr. Notre Dame" and someone who helped the archdiocese obtain football coach Lou Holtz as a speaker for a fundraiser.

In discussing the incident with the newspaper, Read said, "I have such profound respect and administration for Archbishop interest of the club to do something that might meet with his disapproval," according to the story.

"I told the club, `I'ts probably not in our best interest to do this. We have to live here, we have to work with this archbishop going forward."

Read emphasized, however, that Schulte did not demand a cancellation, but rather gave "a word of caution that we were dealing with someone who was not noncontroversial, and there might be some reaction."

Tanzberger said the club listened to Read's comments and then, in what he describe as a difficult call, passed on the wishes of the archbishop to McCormick.

McCormick, the John A. O'Brien Professor of Christian Ethics, has been a member of the Notre Dame faculty since 1986 and is the former Rose F. Kennedy Professor of Christian Ethics at George-town University's Kennedy Institute of Ethics. He is a past president of the Catholic Theological Society of America and was awarded its Cardinal Spellman Award in 1969. Since 1965, McCormick has written then widely read "NOtes on Moral Theology" for the journal Theological Studies.

He has written or edited 16 books, including the recent The Church as Moral Teacher; Persons, Patients and Problems; and corrective Vision: Explorations in Moral Theology.

He has received 13 honorary degrees and taught fellow Jesuits moral theology for 17 years before going to george-town.

The Hesburgh Alumni Lecture series is offered each year through Notre Dame's network of more than 200 alumni clubs. The lectures are delivered by faculty members nominated by their colleagues and the deans of the university's colleges and law school.

McCormick said the lecture he planned to give was titled "MOral Theology in the Year 2000," and was based largely on a chapter of Corrective Vision (Sheed & Ward, 1994).