We are told that the third requirement of the pope and the draft Ordinances, Catholic theologians with credentials from their bishops, has agitated the presidents more than the other points at issue. This is strange, for the other two imperatives are much more important for their survival. It may be that the presidents, like the bishops, have been unduly discomfited and embarrassed by the public clamor over the dozen-odd controversial theologians who have brought them heartburn, so that the final say over theological appointments has become a non-negotiable demand for both sides. It is unfortunate that a few out-of-synch theologians should distract all parties from the scores of theologians who serve unnoticed with quiet incompetence (I include defection by a Catholic theologian from the Catholic faith among incompetencies).
Ex Corde Ecclesiae makes it very clear that the appointment of theologians belongs to the universities. It makes clear, as well, that Catholic theology takes as a primary source of knowledge the ancient and unfolding tradition created in, by, and for the Church—and now read and reflected upon within the Church. Faithful discipleship in the communion of that Church is thus an obvious and essential credential for a Catholic theologian. For a professional appointment to a public office, there is good reason for that communion to be manifest, and it is our tradition that the bishops have the duty of certifying clerics, institutions, teachings, practices, prayers, etc., as Catholic. Parish priests do this on a smaller scale when they issue baptismal certificates, register someone in their parish community, or accept couples for public marriage.
Practical Suggestions
How is a bishop to know if he should certify a theologian’s communion with the Church? It seems a reasonable suggestion that a bishop could turn to a group of two or three theologians with whom he has a trustworthy working relationship. With considerably less angst than interviews conducted by a school’s theology department, this small panel convened by the bishop might ask to read her dissertation, contact some references, and interview her. Then, on the panel’s recommendation and the bishop’s acceptance, she might be invited to one of the bishop’s cathedral Eucharists, asked to sit in the sanctuary in academic garb, be introduced and welcomed at the homily, and then be asked to lead the congregation in the Nicene Creed, which qualifies as her inaugural profession of faith and manifests that she “teaches within the full communion of the Catholic Church.” That would be followed by the presentation of her mandate. Somewhere along this progression, they probably ought to break bread together. And if the bishop takes his residential theologians seriously, he might invite them all for an annual afternoon of discussion, a Eucharist together, and a good dinner.
To carry it further, it might be well for the bishop to dine periodically with all his theologians, acknowledge their publications when they send him complimentary copies, and call on them for counsel on questions he confronts. And he ought to list them publicly, as a resource the diocese acknowledges.
That would seem to be a wholesome way of giving a mandate, which the implementation plan considers to be a form of recognition rather than of approbation (which the term “mandate” might otherwise suggest). It takes seriously the notion that if someone wants to be recognized as a Catholic theologian, it is a position of trust, a trust to be vouched for by a person of authority in the Church, not just someone who wants to be known as the CEO of a nonsectarian and secular corporation. It is unlikely that the process for receiving one’s initial mandate would be contentious; it might make sense to issue a mandate for a specific term, to allow for review and renewal as one’s theological career unfolds.
In the back of each president’s imagination is the darker question: What happens when the bishop gets complaints, or even hives, about a particular theologian? Both complaints and hives can arise from different disorders, but the one the presidents are probably fretting about is dissent, especially dissent brandished in the secular media, reported and hyped by the prurient and unfriendly people who write that kind of story.
To this question, the Vatican can speak with more authority than I. And the Vatican has already spoken in an unnoticed document issued in the midst of all this other business, back in 1990: an Instruction on the Ecclesial Vocation of the Theologian. Inevitably, it deals with dissent, and inevitably, Rome does not encourage it. Indeed, even to speak of it brings out that well-remembered, painful old prose of the Holy Office. But I was pleasantly surprised by what Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger and John Paul II, who gave the text his mandate, had to say about dissent:
[I]t could happen that some magisterial documents might not always be free from all deficiencies. Bishops and their advisors have not always taken into immediate consideration every aspect or the entire complexity of a question…. [Bear with Rome; this isn’t easy.]
In fact, the theologian, who cannot pursue his discipline well without a certain competence in history, is aware of the filtering which occurs with the passage of time. This is not to be understood in the sense of a revitalization of the tenets of the faith. [In other words, don’t presume your own little flash of insight is a second Pentecost.] The the-ologian knows that some judgments of the magisterium could be justified at the time in which they were made, because while the pronouncements contained true assertions and others which were not sure, both types were inextricably connected. Only time has permitted discernment [though discernment in Rome always seems to require more time than you’ve got] and, after deeper study, the attainment of true doctrinal progress.
Even when collaboration takes place under the best conditions the possibility cannot be excluded that tensions may arise between the theologian and the magisterium. The meaning attributed to such tensions and the spirit with which they are faced are not matters of indifference. If tensions do not spring from hostile and contrary feelings, they can become a dynamic factor, a stimulus to both the magisterium and theologians to fulfill their respective roles while practicing dialogue.
In the dialogue a twofold rule should prevail. When there is a question of the communion of faith, the principle of the “unity of truth” (unitas veritatis) applies. When it is a question of differences which do not jeopardize this communion, the “unity of charity” (unitas caritatis) should be safeguarded. Even if the doctrine of the faith is not in question, the theologian will not present his own opinion or divergent hypotheses as though they were non-arguable conclusions. Respect for the truth as well as for the people of God requires this discretion (cf. Rom, 14:1-15; 1 Cor. 8; 10:23¬33). For the same reasons, the theologian will refrain from giving untimely public expression to them.
There, surrounded by cautious double negatives like so many potted ferns, is a pretty fair account of what the high-ego theologian would do well to take to heart about dissent. The subtext, as they say, seems to be that theologians whose egos interfere lose the benefit of the doubt.
Public square
There is another side to this point. Theologians some-times blurt out their new and critical insights publicly, with little sense of the public forum. They can be like unpolished actors who imagine their voice sounds in the back of the theater like it sounds to the actors on stage. One of the functions of the bishop as coach and critic is to help refine the delivery of the message to the public arena: Until you can make sense to your bishop, you probably can’t make good enough sense to your Catholic public. And if you don’t care about the public, why are you trying so hard to gain their attention? There are also times when a theologian is being roughed up unfairly, and some plucky patronage from the bishop can be much appreciated. Matthew Clark’s persistent loyalty, as bishop of Rochester, to his priest, famed Humanae Vitae dissenter Charles Curran, may be a case in point.
The presidents can’t have it both ways. If they recognize theologians as Catholic theologians, then those scholars will have dual citizenship in the Church and in the academy. In that complex public status they will exemplify the situation of the Catholic university itself: called to be academically authentic and religiously faithful. Obviously they will also exemplify the dual responsibility of the Catholic college presidents, whose own ambivalence may explain their reluctance to expect it of their theologians. But on a campus where the clerics, the lawyers, the medics, the ROTC, the counseling psychologists, and the security force all maintain multiple citizen-ship, so to speak, why is that such an obstacle?
For all these reasons I do not believe that the Church’s enactment for Catholic universities is unworkable, as the presidents want to believe and want us to believe.
Coming to a Head
How all this hand-wringing over the implementation plan will conclude is mystically prefigured by two telltale remarks overheard along the way. They evoke the very different perspectives of the two antagonists in this long and very important struggle: the presidents and the pope. When confronted by Rome’s mandate to scrap the ordinances and rewrite, and then the canonists’ no-nonsense Norms that were the result, several of the lead presidents agreed among themselves that the only sensible policy on their part will be to continue delaying still longer, until the “old man” dies.
The other remark came from the old man. It was made in a private audience with some of the presidents’ most senior and credible spokespersons, who went to lobby him. They ardently explained why special circumstances determining their survival in America left them no alternative but to present themselves publicly as civil, ostensibly secular, institutions answerable to no one— while, of course, comporting themselves privately as the Catholic schools they had always been. The pope is said to have replied, with a smile, “Then I think you will have to learn to get along without the American government’s money.”