Catholic Colleges

* Re “Catholic Bishops Move Toward More Control Over College Theologians,” Nov. 18: In their vote the U.S. Catholic bishops sounded a misbegotten call for Catholic universities to return to the ghetto. Catholics have been engaged in a long, painful and scandal-strewn struggle to function in the public arena as equals with their fellow Americans. The bishops’ letter threatens that hard-won pilgrimage of progress.

Phrases in the document like “hiring those committed to the witness of the faith” are inherently ambiguous. In so far as they can be specified at all, they require participants in the hiring process such as search committees, department chairs, deans and academic vice presidents to exercise discernment about “standards.” Would not these standards inevitably contain positions which many of those participating in hiring would reject? Perhaps, in part, because they themselves could not meet the newly ordained standards.

The Catholic identity of an institution is a function of the behavior of the students, staff, administrators and professors who make up the community. At one Catholic university where I taught for over 30 years, the colleague who, in my judgment, best exemplified Catholic values was a Jew.

BILL FITZGERALD

Professor Emeritus

Loyola Marymount University