Religion: Curran Events

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For two decades Moral Theologian Charles Curran of the Catholic University of America vexed the Vatican with his liberal ideas on birth control, homosexuality, abortion and divorce. In 1986 Rome declared him unfit to teach in the church's name. The university suspended him last year, but a review committee declared that, while the school's trustees could withdraw Curran's "canonical mission" as a church theologian, they must guarantee his tenure. The trustees (one-third of them bishops) agreed last week, announcing that Curran could teach in an "area of his professional competence," presumably moral theology, but not at the Vatican-chartered graduate theology school. Curran pronounced the decision a "vindication of academic freedom in Catholic education." A senior Vatican official notes that Rome never required the school to "fire" Curran, but officialdom will surely seethe when the maverick resumes teaching at a high-profile Catholic campus.