Intellectual Freedom and the Catholic University
In July of this year my invitation to teach at the Catholic University of San Diego was abruptly canceled during a phone call from the provost. I had been invited to teach as a visiting professor under the John R. Portman Chair in Roman Catholic Theology in January of 2008 and had completed negotiating the terms of the contract with the head of the Theology and Religious Studies Department and the dean of the College of Arts and Sciences. On April 30, I signed a letter indicating my willingness to accept. Although the provost did not admit it at the time of her call in mid-July, it soon became evident that the primary “problem” with my occupying this chair of theology, even for a short time (I had accepted to teach part-time for one semester), was pressure on the school from a right-wing Catholic group. Its chief objection was my membership of the board of Catholics for Choice.
Catholics for Choice takes a nuanced view of abortion. As noted in the last issue of Conscience, “We affirm that the moral capacity and the human right to make choices about whether and when to become pregnant or to end a pregnancy are supported by church teachings. We believe that people should be empowered and given support to exercise their rights and responsibilities. We believe that women have a right to choose.” The best way to reduce the need for abortion, a goal we support, is to promote effective sexuality education and contraception. In other words, to reduce the need for abortion, we need to reduce the likelihood of unplanned pregnancies. For this reason, among our major emphases at CFC is a campaign called Prevention Not Prohibition. We also have a campaign called “Condoms4Life” where we argue that the use of condoms should be accepted, and they should be made readily available to prevent the transmission of HIV, a view that is generally rejected by the Catholic hierarchy, although several bishops have openly supported their use.
I was not planning to talk about abortion in my class as USD. My agreement was to teach a course on Ecology and Theology. That fact made no difference to those who wanted to exclude me from teaching there. The fact that I was a member of a dissident Catholic group was sufficient for them to declare that I should not be allowed to hold this chair, even though I am the author of 45 well received books on theology and social issues and have been a professor of theology for more than 40 years at several universities, including some Catholic ones. As a retired professor with a standing invitation to teach at the Claremont School of Theology and the Graduate University in Claremont, Calif., I am not in need of this job. However, for me and for many others, this decision signals something very disturbing about the state of intellectual freedom at Catholic universities.
More than 2,000 people worldwide, in addition to 50 members of the faculty of USD, have signed a petition asking for this decision to be reconsidered, but the administration has declined to do so. My concern is that Catholic colleges and universities are in danger of becoming intellectual ghettos where controversial issues, particularly in relation to Catholic teachings and practices, cannot be discussed. But if they cannot be discussed at Catholic universities, where else can they be discussed? What better place is there for them to be discussed? I believe that if an issue like abortion could be examined in an open and respectful forum, many Catholics could find common ground with the views taken by Catholics for Choice. We all agree that it would be good to reduce the need for abortion. The question at issue is how to accomplish this goal. Is it accomplished by forbidding contraception even within marriage? Or is it best accomplished by effective use of contraception within responsible sexuality?
Catholic universities in the last 40 years increasingly have excluded critical Catholic thinkers who are seen as diverging from Catholic teaching, even though they themselves see their views as appropriate developments of Catholic teaching. Leading Catholic moral theologian Charles Curran was excluded from teaching at the Catholic University of America in 1986 for opening up questions on the morality of contraception. Eminent Catholic theologian Hans Küng was excluded from the chair of Catholic theology at Tübingen University in Germany for questioning papal infallibility. Jesuit theologian Roger Haight was excluded from teaching at Weston Seminary for his book on Jesus that opens up his human historical context. The list could go on. Küng continues to teach at Tübingen, but now in a chair of ecumenical theology. Curran and Haight teach at Protestant schools. Around the world, the most creative Catholic theologians and ethicists find themselves teaching outside Catholic universities. Is this good for the Catholic community? I think not. A church confident in its quest for truth should be open to respectful discussion of differing views. Only in this way can we arrive at fuller understanding.
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Rosemary Radford Ruether is a feminist theologian and prolific author, most recently of Catholic ≠ the Vatican (The New Press, 2008). She is currently the Carpenter Emerita Professor of Feminist Theology at Pacific School of Religion and a board member of Catholics for Choice.