Partial victory for Fr Curran

THE Catholic University of America board of trustees officially stripped Fr Charles Curran of his church licence to teach on April 12, two years after the Vatican found him unfit because of his views on a number of moral issues.
The priest still holds tenure and can teach outside the university's Vatican accredited theology department. The board said it instructed top university officials "to enter into discussions with Fr Curran concerning an alternative teaching assignment within an area of his professional competence". It said he is barred from "teaching in the University's department of theology," For the 1987-88 school year Fr Curran accepted a one-year visiting professorship in Catholic studies at Cornell University, and, through internal Catholic University procedures, he appealed against Archbishop Hickey's decision to seek withdrawal of the "canonical mission" that professors need to teach in the Catholic University The board of trustees decision to pursue an alternative teaching assignment for Fr Curran represented a partial victory for the theologian. In an earlier statement just recently made public, the board questioned whether the priest could teach theology anywhere in the university.