DESARROLLO PRÁCTICO DEL 4º TALLER:

The question, “What makes a university Catholic?” is deceptively simple. To begin, the Catholic Church has a system of canon law that addresses this. Just as a university or company can be incorporated under United States civil law, giving it a legal persona within the US justice system, so too can an institution be incorporated with juridic personhood under Catholic canon law. The legal status of most Catholic universities under civil law is unambiguous; they are independently incorporated non-profit institutions that maintain a religious character voluntarily. However, as Sheridan (2011) points out, the universities’ status under canon law is not as clear.

Most were never officially incorporated with juridic personhood within the Church, and therefore, by some interpretations, have never been “Catholic” institutions in their own right.

The dioceses and religious orders that sponsor the universities, however, are incorporated canonically.5 The Sisters of Mercy, for example, are fully incorporated within the institutional Church, and as a result, each of their colleges can be considered Catholic as long as the Sisters identify it as an official ministry of the order. In the past, this was taken for granted when the Sisters owned the entire Carlow campus and operated the College directly as a subsidiary, but now, after the civil connection between the two has evolved, the canonical relationship needs to be sustained more proactively. For a time, the local branch of the Sisters of Mercy served as Carlow’s canonical sponsor; however, in 2002, the Sisters of Mercy of the Americas established the Conference for Mercy Higher Education (CMHE), an organization that acts as a nationwide intermediary between the Sisters and their ten universities, five colleges, and one college of health sciences. Each Mercy-affiliated institution has entered into an affiliation agreement with the CMHE – a process that Carney (2010) describes as surprisingly complex, necessitating separate negotiations with each individual college on issues like property ownership and the Conference’s advisory power over school administrators. Today, CMHE’s eleven-member board has become the institutions’ collective canonical sponsor and ensures their continued Catholicity in the eyes of the Church (Conference for Mercy Higher Education, 2017).

The CMHE also maintains some specific powers over its network of colleges and universities – a feature somewhat unique to Mercy-affiliated schools, and not necessarily present at all Catholic universities:

5 _{The correct canonical term for an order of priests, brothers, or nuns is not “religious order” but “religious} institute,” or in some cases, “society of apostolic life.” However, I use the term “religious order” in this document because it is all-inclusive, and because “institute” usually has a different meaning in the context of universities and academia.

CMHE approves the appointments of presidents and members of the local institutional boards, as well as all changes to the mission and philosophy of the institution. The Conference also has the responsibility to approve borrowing in excess of $5.7 million at most of our institutions (Conference for Mercy Higher Education, 2017).

This approach by the Sisters of Mercy – to maintain sponsorship and certain administrative powers through an intermediary organization – represents one of many possible canonical arrangements. Some Catholic universities are sponsored directly by a diocese, but this is relatively rare; Seton Hall in the Archdiocese of Newark is perhaps the most prominent example. Most are sponsored by religious orders – some by more than one. Mergers between formerly all-male and all-female institutions have resulted in some complicated relationships; Loyola Marymount University (the result of a merger of three Catholic colleges in Los Angeles) is canonically sponsored by three different orders: the Jesuits, the Religious of the Sacred Heart of Mary, and the Sisters of St. Joseph of Orange (Loyola Marymount University, n.d.). In some cases, canonical sponsorship has changed hands over time. The University of Scranton was founded in 1888 by the Diocese of Scranton, then entrusted to the Xaverian Brothers in 1897 when the Diocese ran short of personnel to staff it. A year later, the Xaverian Brothers handed it over to the Christian Brothers, who, after 45 years, passed it on to the Jesuits (University of Scranton, n.d.).

Although the term “sponsorship” is frequently used to describe the relationship between a religious order and its universities, Holland (2011) points out that the exact meaning of “sponsorship” is not defined in either civil or canon law, and the expectations for what it entails on the part of the religious order can be unclear. She prefers not to use that term, pointing out

that most Church documents refer instead to the “relationship” between the Church and the university. She describes her interpretation of the law in this way:

The relationship of a university with the Church…must be adequate to merit use of the name “Catholic.” I believe this suggests that in order to use the title Catholic, a university must either be in the hands of an entity which by its very definition works in “the name of the Church” (a diocese, religious institute, society of apostolic life, or an “apostolic” public juridic person) or it must have the written consent of ecclesiastical authority (paragraph 9).

One important Church document in particular addresses the issue of “written consent” by ecclesiastical authority.

3.2.1 Key document: Ex Corde Ecclesiae

In 1990, the Catholic Church published the first major legal document in its 2,000-year history that specifically addresses the role of Catholic universities. Ex Corde Ecclesiae (“From the Heart of the Church”) was authored by Pope John Paul II and is classified as an apostolic constitution – the highest form of legal degree a pope can issue. Among other things, it defined the basic criteria a university must meet in order to describe itself as “Catholic,” requiring all Catholic institutions to maintain regular dialogue with their local dioceses and giving the local bishops final, perpetual discretion on reaffirming the relationships (Ex Corde, 1990). Thus, sponsorship by the Sisters of Mercy (through the Conference for Mercy Higher Education) is necessary, but not sufficient for Carlow University to identify itself as Catholic; in addition, the bishop of Pittsburgh must accept the Sisters’ sponsorship and has the power to revoke the University’s religious affiliation if he sees fit. This is essentially the legal standard; it means that

“the university cannot unilaterally proclaim itself Catholic” (Holland, 2011, paragraph 8), and that the final arbiter of its right to claim an affiliation with the Church is the local bishop. Ultimately, no university can claim to be Catholic unless its bishop consents. More will be said about Ex Corde in section 3.3.2 below and in Chapter 5.