Religion & Law

David House has this essay, "Catholic Colleges 20 Years After 'Ex Corde'", in the Chronicle of Higher Education.  He writes:

Twenty years ago, Pope John Paul II issued Ex corde Ecclesiae (From the Heart of the Church), an Apostolic Constitution that defined Roman Catholic colleges and created guidelines to assist them in fulfilling their missions.

Catholic higher education has never been quite the same since. . . .

Clearly, in 20 years of such disputes, Catholic colleges have changed. But how? . . .

First, Ex corde significantly increased awareness of Catholic higher education as a unique segment of postsecondary education in the United States. . . .

Second, a new generation of leaders is emerging in American Catholic higher education. . . .

Third, the landscape of Catholic higher education has changed appreciably in the past 20 years, with the renewal of a vibrant Catholic identity at several colleges, as well as the creation of new Catholic institutions rigorously faithful to church teachings. . . .

We are blessed with a highly diverse system of higher education in the United States. But we lose some of that diversity when Catholic institutions become Catholic in name only. . . .

I think that House is too hard on Notre Dame in the piece (as is, unfortunately, the Cardinal Newman Society, with which House is affiliated), and that he is too quick to buy into the "bad sell-out Notre Dame v. good, orthodox Christendom" dichotomy.  That said, I think the essay is worth a read.  Ex Corde deserves, in my view, more serious attention by Catholic universities and their faculty and administrators than it has received.