Pope Gets U.S. Plea on College Autonomy

Leaders of Roman Catholic colleges and universities in the United States urged Pope John Paul II on Tuesday to respect their academic freedom and institutional autonomy.

The appeal came in 10 recommendations to the Vatican that climaxed a weeklong conference between 175 Catholic educators from around the world and officials of the Curia, the church’s administration.

“The recommendations call for a short, positive and future-oriented papal document on the role of Catholic universities,” said Sister Alice Gallin, executive director of the Assn. of Catholic Colleges and Universities in Washington. “The autonomy and freedom of the university must be affirmed.”

Individual recommendations call for freedom in teaching and unfettered research in all areas, including philosophy and theology. One provision urges close links between Catholic universities and local bishops, but without giving bishops the juridical power to intervene in university affairs, as some in the Vatican would like.

Another recommendation asserts that “the maintenance and strengthening of the Catholic identity of the university is primarily the responsibility of the university.”

Adopted virtually unanimously and based on reports by six working groups, the recommendations to the Vatican’s Congregation for Catholic Education will become the basis of a papal proclamation on Catholic higher education, called an Apostolic Constitution, which has been nearly a decade in the making.

Participants said the amicable meeting defused fears among some American educators that the Pope was planning to bring Catholic institutions of higher learning under tighter church control.

‘Remarkably Democratic’

“Anyone who came cynically has changed his mind,” said Father Donald Monan, president of Boston College. “This was a remarkably democratic and open process.”

Addressing the delegates at their closing session Tuesday, John Paul said their universities should be faithful to their twin responsibilities of being both Roman Catholic and catholic.

“The Catholic university is--yes!--in society and in history, but it is also in the church,” the Pope said. “The university crisis since World War II is not so much organizational as spiritual and cultural. It is not a crisis of means but of identity, aims and values.”

The conference was called to consider a bulky draft document prepared by the congregation that listed 72 specific proscriptions for Catholic universities to observe.

“At first they seemed to be saying that to be Catholic, an institution had to be under control of the church,” said Father Joseph O’Hare, president of New York’s Fordham University.

Among the 18 American delegates representing 230 Catholic colleges and universities in the United States, the specifics and the tone of the draft triggered widespread concern that the Vatican would seek to sharply curtail a school’s right to govern itself.

“What we never realized was that the document we were called to discuss was the distillation of 540 different suggestions from all over the world,” said Sister Sally Furay, University of San Diego provost.

To the relief of the Americans and most others, delegates said Tuesday, the Vatican agreed that its draft document was too long, too detailed and too restrictive.

“There was never any serious question about the importance of academic freedom, or that the enlightenment of faith adds to freedom and does not contradict it,” said Sister Magdalen Coughlin, president of Mount St. Mary’s College in Los Angeles. “I think the Vatican understands that the nub of Catholic universities is the relationship between faith and culture.”

The next step is for the congregation to produce a new draft incorporating the conference’s recommendations. A 15-member commission will review the proposals before they are sent to the Pope.