AAUP denounces Meinrad officials

National Catholic Reporter, August 9, 1996 by Pamala Schaeffer

The American Association of University Professors has denounced the administration of St. Meinrad School of Theology, St. Meinrad, Ind., charging the school violated its adopted principles of academic freedom and its own faculty constitution.

The denunciation stems from the firing in May 1995 of a tenured theology professor, Mercy Sr. Carmel McEnroy, without due process, according to the AAUP.

The association's findings, set forth in a 6,000-word article in the July-August issue of Academe, accuse Archbishop Daniel Mark Buechlein of Indianapolis of playing a major behind-the-scenes role in McEnroy's dismissal for "public dissent" from church teaching on women's ordination.

St. Meinrad dismissed the report in a prepared statement as "not worthy of an association of professional academics," and Buechlein rejected the claim that he manipulated events as "outright fabrication." His 1,000-word rebuttal is also published in the latest issue of Academe.

The school's administrators, who describe the firing as a "church matter" outside the boundaries of academic freedom, had refused to cooperate in the association's investigation in February that led to the report, or to comment on a draft of the report.

McEnroy, fired for signing an open letter to Pope John Paul II calling for continued discussion on women's ordination, is fighting her dismissal with a suit filed in federal court on May 22. She says she had been promoted and praised for her work throughout her 14 years of teaching at the Catholic seminary.

McEnroy was fired by president-rector Benedictine Fr. Eugene Hensell, whom she describes as previously a supporter of her work, acting under a directive of Benedictine Archabbot Timothy Sweeney and following a visit by a team of bishops under the auspices of the National Conference of Catholic Bishops. However, investigators for the academic association concluded that "the crisis could have been created only by Archbishop Buechlein." The report accused him of orchestrating events behind the scenes while in a position to withdraw many students "with the likelihood that his actions would severely damage the reputation of the school and result in further loss of students."

The report described the firing process as "a subterfuge" designed "to minimize the school's legal liability" in the matter by calling it a church matter.

Buechlein, a member of the Benedictine order that operates St. Meinrad and a former president-rector of the school, said the "conspiracy theory" was "the stuff of melodrama" and potentially libelous.

Jonathan Knight, the organization's associate secretary, said the report could lead to formal censure of the school at a national meeting next June. Meanwhile, he said, its role would be to work toward a resolution of the case.

The organization, devoted to preserving academic freedom, has 44,000 members and a current list of about 50 colleges and universities under censure for violations.

The association played a major role in developing the 1940 Statement of principles on Academic Freedom and Tenure -- principles adopted by St. Meinrad when Buechlein was president and published in its faculty handbook.

No warning

According to the report, McEnroy was dismissed with neither warning nor due process after her signature appeared among hundreds on the open letter, sponsored by the Women's Ordination Conference and published in NCR Nov. 4, 1994. The letter was a response to the pope's 1994 apostolic letter Ordinatio Sacerdotalis, which stated that the church's ban on women priests was to be held definitively and was not open to debate.

McEnroy said signing the letter, without reference to her St. Meinrad affiliation, was within her rights as a citizen under principles of academic freedom.

The AAUP committee concurred. Her dismissal, according to the report, was an act of injustice that had both undercut the school's published philosophy supporting academic freedom and seriously undermined morale at the school.

After McEnroy was fired, another tenured professor, St. Louis Sr. Bridget Clare McKeever, resigned. The result, according to the association's report: "At the start of the 1994-95 academic year there were two women in full-time teaching positions at the St. Meinrad School of Theology. By the end of the year there were none."

McKeever told AAUP investigators: "When Carmel's professional life and ministry was so obviously used as a bargaining chip between ecclesiastical power brokers, I realized my ethical boundaries were being stretched beyond their limits. I had no option but to resign."

Buechlein served as president-rector of St. Meinrad from 1972 to 1987 before becoming bishop of Memphis and then, in 1992, as archbishop of Indianapolis, overseeing a territory that includes the seminary.

Among his first acts as archbishop, Buechlein scheduled a formal visit to St. Meinrad and, according to the AAUP report, complained to president-rector Hensell that the faculty had a reputation for graduating students who questioned authority and openly supported female priests. In March 1995, two months before McEnvy was fired, a team from the NCCB headed by Archbishop Widen F. Curtiss of Omaha, Neb., spent several days at the school.