Priest Under Fire From Vatican Wins Tenure

Father James Provost, a Catholic University professor under fire from the Vatican for his controversial interpretations of church law, has won a crucial tenure vote in an unusual mail ballot.

By a reportedly slim majority, the 18 bishops on the Vatican-chartered school’s board of trustees reversed themselves this week and consented to grant tenure to Provost, who otherwise faced automatic dismissal by the end of the month after his seventh year of teaching canon law at the university. The Washington school has the only department of canon law in the country.

Provost was unavailable for comment, but officials at the university confirmed Friday that he had been informed of the ballot’s results. Although overwhelmingly supported by his academic colleagues, Provost’s application for tenure had been stalled for nearly two years.

Provost’s case is the second recent intervention by the Vatican in Catholic University faculty appointments over doctrinal--rather than academic--matters.

The Provost case had shaken Catholic academics around the country because they considered his dissent mild compared to that of Father Charles Curran, the Catholic University theologian who was stripped by the Vatican this week of his right to teach Catholic theology. Curran had departed from Vatican norms on sexual ethics.

The Vatican questioned Provost’s writings on such issues as circumstances under which divorced and remarried Catholics could receive Communion, permissible dissent from church teachings and the right of lay Catholics to hold church office. He was reportedly also criticized for writing that the church discriminated against women.

Washington Archbishop James A. Hickey, the university’s chancellor, had sent Provost’s case to the Vatican Congregation for Catholic Education, which later referred the matter back to the university’s bishop-trustees. The bishops could not agree on approving Provost at a closed-door session in June but authorized the mail balloting on his tenure.

Provost’s appointment must be voted on by the full board of trustees, but approval is expected in light of the bishops’ action.