The Vatican's number two education official predicts that Pope Benedict XVI will follow a path of "evangelical pruning" of secularized Catholic colleges and universities, declaring them no longer Catholic.
Archbishop Michael Miller, secretary of the Vatican Congregation for Catholic Education and former president of the University of Saint Thomas in Houston, addressed officials and faculty at the University of Notre Dame on Monday.
Miller said that his prediction was based on an examination of the new Pope's writings and approach. The Pope has argued "that it might be better for the Church not to expend its resources trying to preserve institutions if their Catholic identity has been seriously compromised," Miller said.
In the Holy Father's view, "the measure of an institution can be judged by its Catholic integrity," Miller said. If the institution secularizes, "it might be a matter of truth and justice that such an institution is no longer upheld. . . . [I]f a Catholic institution is no longer motivated by a Catholic identity, it is better to let it go."
Link.
I can hear the objections:
(1) "This is just B16's way of enforcing orthodoxy."
Sure, but if you're not orthodox, you're not Catholic. You think otherwise, but that's why your colleges might get the clipper: you think wrong. I realize that the idea that a person's thoughts could be wrong is heterodoxy in the pantheon of modern dogmas, but the RCC isn't supposed to be a part of that pantheon.
(2) "This violates the college's right of self-identity."
If "self-identity" is your primary touchstone of what's right and what's wrong, you're not Catholic. Indeed, you might be more comfortable with the pagans.
