Religion & Law

The Marquette Affair raises a question that Notre Dame's President Jenkins largely ducted in responding to a similar question at the recent symposium on Alasdair's MacIntyre's "God, Philosohy, and Universities," to wit: What is the relationship between a Bishop and a Catholic university within his diocese?

In his recent post, Russ speculates "that some outside party (perhaps a donor or Church official) expressed dissapproval" leading Marquette to withdraw its offer to Prof. O'Brien.  Since we don't know the details with respect to Marquette and O'Brien, let me offer a hypothetical.  Suppose that a hypothetical Catholic University is hiring a dean for one of its college's.  After supposedly careful vetting, the university decides to offer the job to a professor whose primary scholarly focus could reasonably be viewed as sophisticated and rigorous pro-choice advocacy.  Should the university have offered that person the job in the first place?  If not, does the local bishop have the right (duty?) to step in and encourage (pressure?) the university to rescind the offer?

What do you think?