Catholic Colleges - Identity Problems Addressed

Catholic Higher Education Officials Engage in Dialogue at 'City on a Hill' Symposium

Addressing the neglected norms in Ex Corde Ecclesiae, Pope John Paul II's 1990 Apostolic Constitution on Catholic higher education, he objected to the "bleaching" of Catholic identity and noted that "some institutions have ignored, hidden, or lost their ecclesial identity."

To correct that problem, Archbishop Miller urged schools to adopt quantifiable measures of assessment about their Catholicity. He recommended that those measures include, among others, ensuring that a majority of the faculty are Catholic, that all scholarship and research are in accord with Catholic teaching, and that the schools' theologians obtain a Mandatum from their bishop, guaranteeing that all they teach is in conformity with the teachings of the Catholic Church. He also made it clear that "assessment is not an end in itself." Rather, he stressed, "the whole point of assessment is enhancement."