A Letter To My Alma Mater

Each year I get a nice phone call from a current student at my Alma Mater, St. John's University (SJU) in Collegeville MN asking me for a donation to their annual fund. In past years, although funds around my house are generally scarce, I've tried to give what I can because I really enjoyed my time there and appreciate the education I received while pursuing a mathematics degree there.

This year I spent some time talking to a very nice young freshmen student at SJU and waited for him to ask me the inevitable question regarding donations. This year instead of just donating the money I said, "I'd be happy to give you $100 this year if you can tell me: Has St. Johns signed the Mantatum?"

The young student, "The What?" (this is the response I expected)

"The Mandatum essentially states that theology professors will not teach as fact anything contrary to the Catholic faith" I replied.

The young student, "Let me see if I can find out, hold on"

After a brief pause he returned, "No one here knows, but if it's something that most universities do, we're sure that we have"

Not likely I thought, and not wanting to berate this poor soul any more than necessary I responded, "I'll tell you what, mail me the forms for donation. In the mean time I'll do my own research to determine the status of the Mandatum at SJU and if it's signed, I'll send in the check"

That worked for him and our conversation ended. Finding the status of the Mandatum was not easy, but I did find this list put together by the National Catholic Register. SJU is not on the list. I searched SJU's web site and found some conversations regarding the Mandatum, but all indications were that they had more problems with it than there were inclinations of actually complying with it.

Yesterday I received the mail regarding my pledge of $100 for SJU. I did not write them a check. Instead I wrote the following letter and put that in their reply envelope (used my own stamp) and sent it back:

To whom it may concern,
It would appear that St. John's University has not complied with the Mandatum of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) in reference to the Code of Canon Law 812 approved in June of 2001. If you can provide evidence that St. John's has complied with the Mandatum and required all theology professors to sign the Mandatum as well, I will be happy to send you the $100 I have pledged. Until that time I must withhold payment

Thank you
Franklin Peach '96

I have no pretence that it will do much good, but if we can get more catholics refusing to donate to their Catholic Alma Mater on the same grounds we might just be able to have an effect. In reality this is not something that they are just suggested to do. It is a mandate (that's where the word Mandatum comes from) and I would hope that our Bishops start holding our university's feet to the fire (so to speak) and maybe if they remove the word 'catholic' from a university or two it would get many of the others to comply.

For reference Canon 812 states: "Those who teach theological disciplines in any institutes of higher studies whatsoever must have a mandate from the competent ecclesiastical authority."

And the Mandatum by the USCCB states in part

The object of the Mandatum is the content of the professor's teaching, and thus the Mandatum recognizes both the professor's "lawful freedom of inquiry" and the professor's commitment and responsibility to teach authentic Catholic doctrine and to refrain from putting forth as Catholic teaching anything contrary to the Church's magisterium [emphasis added]

That's not so much to ask is it?
Here is the full text of the Mandatum