Next week, the National Conference of Catholic Bishops will gather in Washington for its annual meeting. Ecclesiae, Pope John Paul II's apostolic statement on Roman Catholic higher education. Precisely how Ex corde should apply in practice at the 230-plus Catholic colleges and universities in the United States will be the subject of discussion, and perhaps a vote, by the bishops. The issues raised by Ex corde are just the latest in a long history of debates over how Catholic institutions should relate to the Catholic Church, and are far more complicated than the press sometimes makes out.
Some historical background puts what is happening in perspective.
The institutions at the meeting joined to form an association that would later be called the International Federation of Catholic Universities. Through the organization, Catholic colleges and universities worked together to rethink their nature and their mission in the context of the Vatican Council and the changes confronting society in the 1960s. That 1967 statement marked one of the most important moments in the history of Catholic higher education in the United States. It captured Vatican II's stress on shared governance with the laity and greater support for Catholic universities, and spurred such changes in the United States. By 1970, many leaders of major American Catholic institutions of higher education had turned over fiduciary authority to predominantly lay boards of trustees.