During his U.S. visit next month, Pope Benedict XVI will likely urge the presidents of Catholic campuses to assert and strengthen their institutions’ Catholic identity by reviving the teaching of Catholic theology and ethics. Some parties are predicting that the Pope’s exhortation will be to little avail, since the Vatican only directly controls Catholic University.

I queried Patrick Reilly, president of the Cardinal Newman Society, on this matter. He has responded in some depth, placing the issue in historical and hierarchical perspective:

After 1967, when several Catholic higher education leaders declared
complete independence from the hierarchy of the Church in the “Land
O’Lakes Statement,” nearly every Catholic college and university in
the United States severed legal ties with their founding religious
orders and established lay boards of trustees. There were many
reasons for this — including the now-alleviated concern that federal
courts were turning toward increased restrictions on federal aid to
faith-based colleges — but certainly it had much to do with distrust
of Church authority and the turmoil in the Church following the Second
Vatican Council.
Because most Catholic colleges are legally independent institutions,
neither the Vatican nor the local bishops have the authority to
control day-to-day functions and decisions of Catholic college
officials — no more than they can control any individual Catholic’s
personal affairs. But the apostolic constitution Ex corde Ecclesiae
– issued by Pope John Paul II in 1990 — does define a Catholic
college or university under the Church’s canon law and imposes
specific requirements on any institution that is permitted to bear the
label “Catholic.” If the college or university steadfastly refuses to
abide by Ex corde Ecclesiae, the local bishop can declare the
institution no longer Catholic — a decision about which U.S. civil
courts would refuse to intervene, because it is a religious matter
left to Catholic authorities to decide.
Having the ultimate authority over a college’s Catholic identity gives
a bishop opportunites to influence Catholic college activities by
privately pressuring college leaders or publicly declaring activities
inconsistent with Catholic identity.
The Pope is the bishop of Rome and therefore has such authority over
universities in Rome — but it is generally left to the local bishops
to monitor and, if necessary, admonish Catholic colleges for their
failings. So perhaps the most important thing that Pope Benedict XVI
can do when he visits the U.S. is to encourage the bishops in their
important role. When the Holy Father meets with all of the 213
Catholic college presidents on April 17 — an extraordinary summons
that indicates the Pope has an important message to deliver — he can
also remind the college presidents of the bishops’ authority, an
essential message given that many Catholic college leaders still
reject any meaningful oversight by the bishops. The Vatican has also
been urging Catholic colleges to develop voluntary “benchmarks” or
measures of their Catholicity, to ensure progress in conforming to Ex
corde Ecclesiae; the Pope may very well repeat that call, likely to
spur action.
So no, I would not say the Pope’s visit is likely to produce nothing
more than a brief media blitz. What he says, depending on what he
chooses to say, could have a profound impact on Catholic higher
education at a time when Catholic colleges’ long-simmering resistance
to the bishops’ rightful oversight of their Catholic identity is
reaching the boiling point. Recall that some of the foremost leaders
in Catholic higher education declared Ex corde Ecclesiae “unworkable”
and dead-on-arrival in the 1990s, but at the Vatican’s insistence, the
U.S. bishops rejected the educators’ concerns and have not backed off
their firm reliance on Ex corde Ecclesiae as the yardstick by which to
judge Catholic colleges. On the other hand, anything the Pope or the
Vatican writes or says can be ignored by anti-authoritarian Americans,
which is why the 20,000-plus members of the Cardinal Newman Society
and college officials, faculty, alumni, students and others continue
to remind the faithful that Catholic college reform is a top priority
and that the Vatican wants results.