On Nov. 14 Curtiss told his fellow bishops that theologians need a mandatum because Catholic parents expect them to reflect church teaching. Phillips, an Orthodox Melkite Christian, said Byzantine Catholic theologians want to know if the mandatum applies to them. We are a sister church of Rome. But when Phillips teaches Catholic theology, it's Catholic theology and not a Byzantine version of it, he said. Phillips is not convinced that those who don't apply for a mandatum cannot be fired.
Catholic colleges depend on that Catholic identity for their marketing.
They look to Catholic high schools and parishes to feed them students. At St. Mary, there are no tenured positions, only four-year renewable contracts, he said. The mandatum was high on the agenda of the Association of Catholic Colleges and Universities whose presidents met late last month in Washington. More than 200 of the presidents attended, including 27 of the 28 Jesuit presidents. Jesuits schools enroll 190,000 of the 700,000 students at America's higher institutions of Catholic learning.