From the Desk of the President
President Thomas E. Dillon
(Fall 1999 Newsletter)
[Index
of Past Articles by President Dillon]
As this issue goes to press, our nation's bishops are meeting
to discuss the most important issue facing Catholic institutions
of higher learning: implementation of Pope John Paul II's
Apostolic Constitution, Ex Corde Ecclesiae. The document
the bishops are considering aims to apply Ex Corde in all
230 Catholic colleges in America and ensure, as the 1983 Code
of Canon Law requires, that "the principles of Catholic
doctrine are faithfully observed."
For us at Thomas Aquinas College, these efforts are superfluous.
Twenty-nine years ago, this College was founded with the explicit
intention of faithfully observing the principles of Catholic
doctrine.
In 1969, our founding document, A Proposal For The Fulfillment
Of Catholic Liberal Education, declared that the Catholic
Faith "should be the light under which the curriculum
is conducted." We sought to reestablish "the central
role the teaching Church should play in the intellectual life
of Catholic teachers and students."
We saw no conflict between this and the academic freedom
of our teaching faculty. Indeed, we declared our beliefs as
Christians that Christ Himself is the Truth, and that if we
will be His disciples we will learn the truth and the truth
will make us free. (Jn. 8:31-32).
We realized that such a premise would distinguish us from
secular colleges. We said that the Catholic College, "if
it is to be faithful to the teaching of Christ, will differ
from its secular counterpart in two essential respects. First,
it will not define itself by academic freedom, but by divinely
revealed truth, and second, that truth will be the chief object
of study as well as the governing principle of the whole institution,
giving order and purpose even to the teaching and learning
of the secular disciplines."
In 1990, John Paul II issued Ex Corde, in which he
proclaimed these very principles to be the foundation of every
Catholic university: "Every Catholic university, without
ceasing to be a university, has a relationship to the Church
that is essential to its institutional identity . . . One
consequence of its essential relationship to the Church is
that the institutional fidelity of the university to the Christian
message includes a recognition of an adherence to the teaching
authority of the Church in matters of faith and morals."
The correspondence between Ex Corde and our founding document
is striking. Ex Corde stands as a ringing endorsement
of our academic mission.
John Paul's Ex Corde directs the bishops of the world
to implement various provisions of the 1983 Code of Canon
Law. Some of those provisions appear on this page. In 1996,
the National Conference of Catholic Bishops, under Ex Corde
Chairman Bishop John Leibrecht, issued ordinances for implementing
Ex Corde in the United States. Rome, however, rejected
those ordinances, evidently because they were too weak.
In 1998, a revised draft was prepared under the authority
of a subcommittee specially appointed to assist the implementation
committee. This subcommittee, chaired by Anthony Cardinal
Bevilacqua (who presided over our 1998 Commencement ceremonies)
submitted that draft for approval to the U.S. Bishops' Conference,
which added certain amendments in June of this year. Now this
November, the bishops are meeting to consider that draft.
By most accounts, the document will be approved in time to
meet the Vatican's deadline of 2000.
Thomas Aquinas College has worked closely with our own ordinary,
Cardinal Roger Mahony, to implement various aspects of Ex
Corde. Since 1993, I have been meeting, along with the
heads of the three other Catholic colleges in the Los Angeles
Archdiocese (Loyola Marymount, Mount Saint Mary's College,
and Marymount College) to discuss implementation of Ex
Corde in our own institutions.
Under the authority of Cardinal Mahony, at our Convocation
Ceremonies here on September 13, I myself and the Catholic
members of our teaching faculty, as teachers of theology,
made the Profession of Faith and took the Oath of Fidelity
that you see below. For us, the event was no imposition. It
was something we embraced. Since our founding, we have been
committed to the truths which these pledges manifest. It is
hard for us to see why, as there evidently is among some other
leading Catholic colleges, there should be opposition to these
pledges.
One thing is clear. Whatever our bishops decide to do with
Ex Corde, we will continue to provide authentic Catholic
liberal education earnestly, faithfully and without apology.
-- Qtrly Newsletter, Fall 1999
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