Word: curran
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...second major ruling, the Vatican in August ended Father Charles Curran's career at the Catholic University of America, citing his open disagreements with Catholic moral teachings on birth control and other issues. As Curran fights to reclaim his post, probably in vain, educators are nervously awaiting a Vatican decree that could clamp new doctrinal controls on all Catholic campuses...
American Catholic academics and liberals have protested against the treatment of Curran, who may find himself shut out from other Catholic institutions as well; it is likely that none will dare give him a teaching job now. Curran says his own plight will create a general "chilling factor, at minimum. Certainly people are going to have to think twice about what they might write." Francis Fiorenza, a colleague of Curran's at Catholic University, predicts that despite efforts at dissuasion by U.S. educators, the Vatican will issue controversial new rules requiring that theology teachers on all Catholic campuses be approved...
...Curran has defended his dissent on the ground that he is not contravening any infallible dogma, meaning one that is divinely protected from error. Such a teaching -- the bodily assumption of Mary into heaven, for example -- differs from what is called the ordinary magisterium, or an authoritative teaching of the church that does not have the certainty of absolute truth. But in his letter to Curran, Cardinal Ratzinger pointed out that the Second Vatican Council held that any doctrine taught by the Pope and the bishops together in a definitive manner is also to be considered infallible. "The church does...
Some U.S. bishops had backed a compromise proposal Curran made to Rome -- namely, that he keep his position but not teach sexual-ethics courses. In fact, he has not offered a class exclusively in sexual morality for 15 years, although he has been a C.U. professor since 1965. Nonetheless, hierarchical support for the disciplinary action was as predictable as the crackdown itself. The Most Rev. Matthew Clark of Rochester, Curran's home diocese, accepted the decision as the "final word" but said Curran "always will be welcome" as a priest in Rochester. Later, a Vatican official said Clark had ! been...
Meanwhile, Curran has promised to remain a "loyal and committed Catholic," asking his supporters to stay with him inside the church to continue pressing for the right of intellectual dissent. Perhaps anticipating future battles, he declared, "There's got to be room in the church for disagreement on specific issues . . . My church is a big church...