ET CETERAS.

We have lists n Looking for a guide to "authentically Catholic" universities, colleges, and seminaries? Visit www.mandata.org, which is complete with links to lists of university faculty who have obtained the mandatum to teach theology, as required by Ex corde ecclesiae.

Father John J. Stryjewski, webmaster and priest of the Archdiocese of Mobile, Alabama, has devised the mandatum quotient (MQ)--"a decimal number formed by dividing the number of faculty members who have received the mandatum by the total number of eligible faculty members"--to rate Catholic schools and seminaries on a five-star scale. An MQ of 1.0 yields a five-star rating, while an MQ of .5 and under merits only two stars.

The U.S. norms for the application of Ex corde have not yet been implemented. If the bishops approve them in May, Catholic professors of theology will still have two years to obtain the mandatum. This makes Father Stryjewski's list of schools with any rating at all very short. The Catholic University of America, The Josephinium, Steubenville, and Christendom College are five-star schools. Viterbo University and Loyola University Chicago bring up the rear, with MQs of .12 and .04, respectively.

"Please remember," Fr. Stryjewski writes, "that the MQ is just a dispassionate number...which might condition answers to your questions about authentic Catholic teaching." Good thing we won't be seeing any McCarthyite tactics in the discussion of the Catholic identity of colleges and universities.

Future tensions n Not even his fans have accused President George W. Bush of being quick or eloquent on his feet. Earlier this month, he showed again why extemporaneous speaking is not his forte. During the diplomatic visit of South Korean President Kim Dae Jung, Bush informed Kim that Washington would not be pursuing a missile agreement with North Korea. Kim, who had worked diligently with President Bill Clinton to achieve such an agreement, was disappointed. Bush explained his reasoning on the North Koreans as follows: "We're not certain as to whether or not they're keeping all terms of all agreements."

The problem with Bush's explanation is that, in fact, North Korea has only one agreement with the United States, a 1994 treaty on freezing plutonium processing at a nuclear weapons plant. There is no evidence that North Korea has violated that treaty.

Asked what agreements Bush was referring to, a White House spokesman said the president was talking about future agreements. "That's how the president speaks," he explained.

Far be it from us to suggest that the White House is fudging on this one. Perhaps the president wasn't entirely clear about what agreements the U.S. has with North Korea. But before the tensions escalate, we think the secretary of grammar should work with the president on his future tenses.