The State of the Question

    On his first pastoral visit to the United States in 1979, Pope John Paul, a former university professor and campus minister, told the faculty, administrators and student body of Catholic University in Washington that a principal task of any Catholic institution of higher learning is to teach the authentic Catholic faith. Students have the right, the Pope said, to learn true Catholicism and have their faith strengthened on a Catholic campus. The admonition was heard respectfully, but nobody did anything.

    Four years later, in 1983, the long-awaited revision of the Canon Law was issued. In canon 812 the Code requires that those who teach theology "should have a mandate from the competent ecclesiastical authority," which usually means the local bishop. This too was widely ignored. Finally, in 1990, the Congregation for Catholic Education in Rome issued a document called Ex Corde Ecclesiae (From the Heart of the Church) which told the bishops and university presidents to work together to implement the canons dealing with Catholic universities. For 16 years, college and university presidents and boards have largely resisted any church oversight of the Catholic institutions they head and govern. The U.S. bishops have this at the top of their agenda for their annual meeting in November.

The Case For the Schools

    The opposition of the schools to Ex Corde Ecclesiae was summed up by an article in America, the Jesuit weekly journal of opinion, on January 30, six days before the WTL article mentioned above. The article was authored by two university heavyweights: Fr. Edward A. Malloy, C.S.C., president of Notre Dame, America's most famous Catholic university, and Fr. J. Donald Monan, S.J., president of Boston College. With 28 colleges and universities in the U.S., the Society of Jesus is more heavily invested in higher education than any other religious order. Along with Georgetown and Fordham, Boston College is a flagship in the Jesuit system.

    The position taken by Fathers Malloy and Monan, and supported by the Association of Catholic Colleges and Universities, is essentially this: For the Catholic college or university to be respected in the academic world it must have "institutional autonomy" and not be answerable to any "outside authority."

 

The Case For the Church

    Ex Corde Ecclesiae got its strongest support thus far from another Holy Cross priest, Fr. James T. Burtchaell, who spent years as a professor and administrator at Notre Dame. In 1998 he authored his ]3th book, The Dying of the Light: The Disengagement of Colleges and Universities from Their Christian Churches. It was voted in one survey as one of the three most important books on religion published last year. Fr. Burtchaell followed that up with a lengthy essay in Crisis magazine last month entitled "Everything You Need to Know about Ex Corde Ecclesiae." The essay is in five parts covering most of 28 pages. Part 4 is a devastating critique of the claim that the involvement of bishops in the teaching of theology threatens academic freedom.

    Fr. Burtchaell points out that the first "outside authority" to which all American colleges and universities regularly defer is the federal government. He lists 10 departments (State, Justice, Education, Labor, etc.), nine agencies (the EPA, Library of Congress, National Institutes of Health, etc.), and the U.S. military, if the campus has ROTC.

    Next comes the North Central Association, the regional accrediting agency for many Catholic colleges and universities, which sets standards in 16 areas (everything from fund raising to insurance, from the academic calendar to the adequacy of research). Then there are as many as 13 specialized associations that scrutinize a university's performance  (from tony ones like the National Association of Schools of Music and the Association of American Law Schools to hardnosed ones like the Committee on Health Education of the A.M.M. and the Financial Accounting Standards Board).

    Let's not forget the regulation of athletics by the N.C.A.A. Or, finally, the local regulations that are applied to colleges and universities by health departments,' fire departments, building inspectors, zoning inspectors and prosecuting attorneys.

    I counted 5 1 "outside authorities" to which Fr'.. Burtchaell says colleges and universities must listen in order to be accredited and respected in the academic world. That being so, what is so extraordinary about the idea that the Catholic Church should give accreditation to professors who teach theology in a professedly Catholic college or university?

    The editors of Crisis wrote, "More than 200 institutions of higher education in the U.S. annually present themselves to prospective students as appealing Catholic, and have amassed billions of dollars in endowment from foundations, families and individuals who believe they are furthering the work of the Church by their trust and generosity."

    It appears, after 20 years, that for some of them Rome has called their bluff. Case closed.

    What is one to think about the arguments in opposition to this measure that have surfaced in letters to editors, on call-in talk shows, and in the statements of political and celebrity types?

 

Ideological Opposition

    Some argue loftily that displaying the Ten Commandments in public buildings is unconstitutional, a violation of the separation of church and state required by the First Amendment. Bullfeathers! The U.S. Supreme Court has the tablets of the Ten Commandments engraved in stone on its own courthouse. That is no more a violation of the Constitution than having "In God We Trust" engraved or printed on all our money. Displaying laws of behavior that are common to Jews and Christians and respected by Muslims (who accept Moses as a predecessor prophet to Mohammed) can in no way be construed as establishing an official religion.

    Lawyers and judges know that, except for the commandment to observe the Lord's Day every week, the Commandments are common sense and humane rules for living that were recognized long before Moses. By the use of their reason, people could have figured them out by themselves without divine revelation. Nine of the ten, in one form or another, can be found stated in law everywhere during all ages of history. Shucks, even secularists and atheists should be able to see the benefit to themselves of laws that forbid murder, theft, lying, etc.

 

Religious Opposition

    Oddly enough, some evangelical Protestants, probably confusing the 613 Mosaic ritual regulations with the Ten Commandments, are contending that it was impossible to keep the law of Moses. Therefore Christ died for our sins and took the yoke of the law off our necks. But these people are reading Scripture selectively. Jesus nowhere in the Gospel abrogated the Ten Commandments. In fact he did the opposite in his response to the rich young man in Matt. 19:1619, in his discourse to the disciples at the Last Supper in John 14:15-16, and in the Sermon on the Mount in Matt. 5:17-19.

    With sorrow that seems hypocritical, a spokesman for Americans United for the Separation of Church and State bemoaned the fact that children would be upset If the version of the Ten Commandments posted in their school differed from the one they heard in their church. This is a red herring , because the basic understanding o the Ten Commandments is the same for Jews, Protestants and Catholics. The text is the same, the numbering varies.

    Martin Luther kept the same numbering that the Catholic Church has used from the t tine. The Reformed, Orthodox and Anglican Churches divide our First Commandment into two and combine our Ninth and Tenth Commandments in one. So we Catholics and the Lutherans differ from other Christians on the numbering of two through nine. True, the differences in numbering cause confusion; but in these days of ecumenical understanding and collaboration among biblical scholars, a common rendering ought to be possible,and should certainly be pushed.

    Will posting the texts of the Ten Commandments in schoolrooms and public buildings solve Al the problems of society? Of course not. But it will be a significant step and make a strong statement to the young.