July 17, 2017

University President John Garvey published commentary in the National Catholic Register on the 50th anniversary of the Land O'Lakes Conference. He was quoted in a National Catholic Register story on the response to the Land O’Lakes Statement (see below) and was mentioned in an Our Sunday Visitor story on the statement. 

The University and former president Bishop David M. O’Connell were mentioned in an America story on the statement. 

... With this introduction the “Land O’Lakes Statement,”  as it has come to be called, began a debate about academic freedom and the Church’s teaching office that we are still engaged in half a century later.

It has also defined the terms of the debate. The statement sets up an apparent conflict between academic freedom and Church authority: The Catholic university must have academic freedom “in the face of” clerical authority. Our discussions have largely assumed that this conflict is real. They are framed as issues of conflicting claims of right — the right of academics to independent inquiry, the right of the Church to preserve and teach the faith, the right of the faithful to know whether a professor teaches theology in communion with the Church. ...

Continue reading in National Catholic Register.