Battle for soul of St. Thomas takes a turn for the worse

Katherine Kersten updates readers in the Star Tribune about a story covered previously:

[On Oct. 25, 2007] St. Thomas' trustees voted to eliminate the archbishop's automatic position on the board. As a result, come next spring, for the first time since Archbishop John Ireland founded the institution, a sitting archbishop will not chair the St. Thomas board. Moreover, he may not even have a seat on it...The vote severing this legal link with the archdiocese is the latest development in a long-running struggle for St. Thomas' soul...

"I found this action very, very disturbing -- it was clearly directed at Archbishop Nienstedt," said Tom Mooney of St. Paul, a St. Thomas alumnus and donor. Many St. Thomas alums are concerned about the "erosion" of the institution's Catholic identity, he said.

"I think there's a problem, and a lot of priests do," said the Rev. Paul LaFontaine of St. Charles Borromeo parish in St. Anthony. "The archbishop is the chief teacher of the faith in the diocese. He ought to be part of the academic community, and respected and regarded as such."

. . .

The pace of secularization at St. Thomas could escalate rapidly if two archdiocesan seminaries affiliated with the university -- St. Paul Seminary and St. John Vianney College Seminary -- move to cut ties. Both are independent archdiocesan corporations. St. Paul Seminary was once a separate organization and could possibly be again.

An interesting observation and one which may need to be evaluated further if St Thomas trustees continue their secularization of the university.

Another good article, The Politics of Higher Education, by Anne Hendershott, can be read at insidecatholic.com here.