Back to the chalk board.

WASHINGTON, D.C.--In the wake of a worldwide consensus of Catholic bishops and university leaders, Pope John Paul II published in August 1990 Ex corde ecclesia, the apostolic constitution on Catholic colleges and universities. After another process of consultation, the U.S. Catholic bishops in 1996 overwhelmingly approved a set of norms for applying Ex corde to U.S. colleges.

Apparently, however, this lengthy process did not arrive at the right answers. The committee's final draft became a "first draft" in the eyes of the Vatican's Congregation for Catholic Education, which responded with a set of "observations" laying out the ways in which the text lacked the necessary "juridical" basis for resolving doctrinal conflicts involving Catholic colleges.

The U.S. bishops' recently approved revision of the norms, while picking up provisions of earlier drafts, calls for university presidents, trustees, and faculty to be "faithful Catholics" and for presidents to make a profession of faith and take an oath of loyalty to the teaching office of the church. Teachers of theology are obligated to seek the official approval or mandate of the local bishop.

The proposed norms have raised some concern over threats to academic freedom, hiring-discrimination risks, the alienation of non-Catholic students and faculty, and the reversal of 30 years of development of Catholic higher education in the United States.