The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops announced about a year ago the start of its 10-year review of Ex corde Ecclesiae, a Vatican document that Pope John Paul II released two decades ago to guide Catholic colleges, sparking questions about institutional autonomy and academic freedom. But the review was designed to take place behind closed doors, in the form of discussions between bishops and college presidents.
Some information on how Ex corde is playing out, however, is now publicly available. Jamie Caridi, vice president for student development at Ohio Dominican University, surveyed presidents and theologians for his doctoral dissertation on the topic. Mr. Caridi, who recently earned a Ph.D. from the University of Nebraska at Lincoln, discussed his findings with The Chronicle.
Q. What made you decide to focus on Ex corde in your research?
A. I’ve worked in Catholic higher education since 1998, so it’s a personal interest to me, being born and raised a Catholic, having attended Catholic grade school, high school, and university. In addition to that, there’s the fact that since this apostolic constitution, Ex corde Ecclesiae, released in 1990, and the subsequent application document, approved in 2000 by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, there’s been no research done, in America, to assess whether or not Catholic postsecondary institutional leaders understand, appreciate, value, and have implemented the tenets and the principles that are outlined in those documents. This is really an uncharted area of research. It was an opportunity to provide a small contribution to ecclesial and institutional leaders, to get a sense of where we stand right now.
Q. Tell us a little about your survey—what you were hoping to learn, who you sent it to, and what kind of response you got.
A. I designed two surveys: one for presidents and one for academicians. Those are two constituencies that are regularly identified both in Ex corde Ecclesiae and in the U.S. application document, and they are likely to have the greatest impact on whether Ex corde is being implemented. We surveyed all presidents at Catholic institutions, so 217 Catholic postsecondary presidents, and we surveyed academicians who teach within or oversee theology or religious-studies departments.
One would ask, Why didn’t you just survey theologians? Well, the truth is, That’s a little harder because not every Catholic college or university has a department of theology. Oftentimes it’s identified as religious studies; sometimes that’s within a broader department of humanities. We wanted to try to get as broad participation as possible so that we could have a nice sample size.
Having said that, 75 percent of our respondents taught theology, so we really did have what we felt was the best of both worlds. We were looking to see if these postsecondary leaders and academicians were aware of, in agreement with, and responding to the call placed upon the colleges by the Holy Father in 1990. I was also looking to see what evidence there was to suggest that they have, in fact, embraced the tenets of Ex corde and demonstrated their successful deployment into the university.
In addition to that, the mandatum [a controversial requirement of church law that theologians teaching at Catholic colleges get a “mandate,” an acknowledgment that a professor teaches “authentic Catholic doctrine,” from their bishop] was an area of substantive dialogue, and has been for the last 20 years. I wanted to specifically look at whether or not Catholic theologians had received the mandatum, and if they embraced Ex corde more so than those who had not.
Q. What about your response rate?
A. We were very pleased to see that we had 110 presidents respond, which constituted 51 percent, which is a very high response rate. And of the academicians surveyed we had 69 respond, which constituted 37 percent.
Q. What were some of your major findings?
A. We had lots of important outcomes that were statistically significant, both some that are positive regarding the state of Ex corde Ecclesiae, and some that express areas of challenge or continued work. On the positive side, we found that presidents are in fact motivated to work on this issue of mission and identity. And that’s important, because presidents of Catholic institutions are dealing with all the challenges that presidents at public colleges are dealing with.
There’s always been this question: Are mission and identity issues falling into a secondary level of importance because of all these other very important issues? And, frankly, are presidents motivated to work on it? Well, what we found is presidents are motivated and working on this issue. They have a desire to work on it, they believe their efforts will be positively rewarded, and they value issues of mission and identity.
The other thing we found was that 75 percent of theologians teaching Catholic theology have received the mandatum. There’s never been any effort to assess just how are we doing in that regard. Now, in fairness, our sample size was somewhat small (I think it was 35). And obviously I think a lot of people will say, “Boy, you know, if it’s not 100 percent, we’re not there yet.” But that shows positive movement.
One of the biggest headlines that I got out of the research is that there is absolutely no threat to academic freedom whatsoever that can be seen anywhere within our results. Both the academicians and the presidents responded in a wide-ranging manner, with very high response rates, that they are afforded academic freedom. I think presidents stated 98 percent that they are satisfied with the academic freedom on their campuses. The academicians were 90 percent satisfied. That is important because this was the big controversy, that Ex corde Ecclesiae will hurt institutional autonomy and the academic freedom of professors.
Q. Your findings show that presidents seem more optimistic about how Ex corde is playing out on their campuses than the theologians do. What is going on there?
A. There’s no question: On every measure, the presidents responded more optimistically than academicians. Both presidents and academicians basically had optimistic outlooks with regard to their campuses, so it’s not like presidents were optimistic and academicians weren’t. But presidents were clearly more optimistic.
When we probed this question in the interviews with both presidents and theologians, there were a couple of reasons largely agreed upon across the six interviews. That presidents are looking at the institution from a different vantage point was cited as one main reason. But, candidly, the presidents admitted that oftentimes they are charged with expressing hope and optimism. One president said that the distance between mouth and microphone, as a president, is never too far. Not that they are being disingenuous in any respect, but just that generally, as they walk through the day, they’re exuding, expressing, and articulating a sense of optimism about their campuses in a way that the academicians may not be.
Q. What are the key implications of these findings for administrators and professors who work at Catholic colleges?
A. No. 1: There is some very good work being done. By and large, Catholic campuses are focused on this issue. But there is still a lot of work to be done. And I think no clearer is that expressed than in the findings on work-force-related issues. While presidents responded positively on how their campuses are doing with regard to Ex corde, Ex corde specifically states some things with regard to the employees. So, for example, is a majority of the faculty Catholic? Is a majority of the board Catholic? What we found there was a disconnect. Institutional leadership doesn’t really have a good sense of just what percentage of their faculty is, in fact, Catholic. And so this issue of hiring for mission is an area of great ambiguity and challenge. For example, how does a Catholic university hire for mission in a largely non-Catholic state? What does hiring Catholics mean? Are they baptized Catholic or aren’t they? What are the legal rights of a Catholic university to probe that issue?