Academic freedom and the Vatican's Ex Corde Ecclesiae

Academe, May/Jun 2002 by Maguire, Daniel C

The Vatican's new policy attempts to bind Catholic theologians more closely to church hierarchy, but Catholic theology and Catholic universities are best served by holding fast to academic values.

In 1990 Pope John Paul II issued an "apostolic constitution" on Catholic higher education, entitled Ex Corde Ecclesiae, or "out of the heart of the church." It stated that in all colleges and universities related to the Roman Catholic Church, Catholic professors of theology must obtain a "mandate" from the bishop of the area where the university is located. The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops decreed that this requirement would have "the force of particular law for the United States" as of May 3, 2001. Professors are required to petition for the mandate by June 1, 2002. If the professor does not apply for and receive the mandate by that date, the bishops directed that "the competent ecclesiastical authority should notify the appropriate authority in the college or

university." The decree applies to both full- and part-time professors.

The announced purpose of the mandate is to ensure that the teaching of Catholic theologians is in `full communion with the Catholic Church." The bishops recognize the professors' "lawful freedom of inquiry" but make the point that not all `freedom of inquiry" is lawful. The bishops stress the professors' obligation "to refrain from putting forth as Catholic teaching anything contrary to the church's magisterium." The Latin term magisterium means teaching office, but in the official language of the church hierarchy it means the teachings of bishops and the pope. Thus the mandate could be denied or withdrawn if the local bishop deems that the professor is not in accord with hierarchical teaching. Any appeal by the professor would have to adhere to "the general principles of canon law," that is, Roman Catholic Church law, not to systems of academic due process.

The following text, edited for publication, is from a January 25, 2002, letter from Daniel Maguire to Archbishop Rembert Weakland, 0. S. B., of the archdiocese of Milwaukee, where Maguire's institution, Marquette University, is located. Translations of Latin terms appear in parentheses. The original text of the letter, including citations, is available by e-mail at .

I am responding to your letter of January 2, 2002. I appreciate your request for theological input to help you understand the role of theology in church and society, and I would hope that all bishops are doing the same. I will not request either a mandate or an ecclesial blessing, and my theological response will explain that decision. The theology I will present is, I believe, friendly to all bishops, since only theology can free them from the impossible burden they assumed in voting for the mandating process. I will share my remarks with others in theology, so you need not consider this response confidential.

In my judgment, the apostolic constitution Ex Corde Ecclesiae; the U.S. bishops' document, "The Application of Ex Corde Ecclesiae for the United States"; and their "Guidelines Concerning the Academic Mandatum in Catholic Universities (Canon 812)" are seriously flawed both as theology and as law. Some of the errors in these documents are these:

a. The ruling assumptions of the above-mentioned hierarchical documents depart from mainstream Catholic teaching on the legitimate role of the theological magisterium and on the definition of a theologian.

b. The mandatum would anomalously subject professional theologians to the judgment of those who are outside academe and are not professional theologians. In my judgment, no theologian could accept this without violating the integrity of his or her discipline. It also puts the bishops into the embarrassing and impossible position of judging scholars without the benefit of the appropriate expertise.

c. The mandating process violates the civil status of universities, which, while devoting themselves to the study of Catholicism and other religions, are chartered under U.S. law and are understood in American jurisprudence as institutions of higher education committed in good faith to untrammeled academic freedom.

The theological magisterium has its own competence and freedom to pursue the truth wherever it leads. Published theologians are always subject to corrective criticism from their peers, that is, from those who are professionally qualified to judge their work. Theologians should also correct errors from any provenance, including the hierarchy. The mandating process introduces a system of oversight and control that would chill and even negate these theological duties and freedoms.

Some of the realism of the Second Vatican Council's Gaudium et Spes, the Constitution on the Church in the Modem World, applies here.' We are advised not to assume that "pastors are always such experts that to every problem which arises, however complicated, they can readily give ... a concrete solution, or even that such is their mission." In my judgment, the healthy ideal for relations among theologians, laity, and hierarchy is contained in the council's words in Gaudium et Spes: "They should always try to enlighten one another through honest discussion, preserving mutual charity and caring above all for the common good." Such a process obviously would not involve a theologian's getting permission from a nontheologian to do his or her job.