The text adopted in November contains many of the good points of the 1996 message. It affirms institutional autonomy and academic freedom. It suggests that the majority of trustees and faculty should be Catholic but leaves room for adaptation with phrases like to the extent possible. Still, the overall tone suggests a submission to canon law that will be hard for trustees to accept. And the document requires that Catholics teaching theological disciplines obtain the mandatum.
Anxieties center on three aspects of the mandatum.
Second, it requires acceptance of an understanding of theology that is less a partnership and more a matter of professing truths defined by the hierarchy. For many theological scholars deeply committed to the church this requires a surrender of professional integrity. And third, and from the point of view of many administrators, most important, it opens the door to continued wrangling. Ideologically-driven groups claiming orthodoxy and loyalty to the Pope are many and vigilant, and they have been after the theologians and the universities for years. Still, the future is not entirely bleak.