The Coup at Catholic University

by Fr. Peter M. Mitchell - published by Ignatius Press, 2015

A Book Review by Father John McCloskey

The decade of the 1960s could be considered in some ways as the most troubling in the recent history of the United States. It was a time not only of change, but of revolution. The changes in the Catholic liturgy following the Second Vatican Council were wrenching and disorienting for traditional Catholics.

After all, many Catholics thought that if the Mass could be changed, then so could morality. The result was a revolution in thought and attitude that is still with us today, where so-called Catholics have invented their own form of the faith that is inconsistent with the traditional teachings of the Church through the centuries.

In this important book, Father Peter Mitchell recounts the story of this revolution in great detail, focusing on the sad decline of what once was the pride of the Church in the United States: Catholic education.

In particular, he studies the internal warfare at The Catholic University of America in Washington. The main figure among several significant players at this time was Father Charles Curran, who undermined traditional Catholic teaching among both his graduate and postgraduate students. Although there was an effort to remove him from the faculty, after much pressure from his supporters, Father Curran not only stayed at the university for many years, but also received tenure.

Years later, after the Vatican intervened in the mid-1980s to deny him the right to teach Catholic theology, he relocated to Southern Methodist University in Texas, although he remains a priest in good standing.

The first of the two heroes of this excellent chronicle of this era of discord is Cardinal Patrick O'Boyle of the Archdiocese of Washington, who suffered greatly in trying to restore orthodoxy to Catholic University, but unfortunately was not sufficiently backed up by Pope Paul VI and the Vatican — a true tragedy for the Church in the United States. The second person was Msgr. Eugene Kevane, then-dean of Catholic University's School of Education, who defended the right of "the official national Catholic university of the American hierarchy" to safeguard and pass on with integrity the teaching of the true faith and resist those who would sow "the seeds of religious doubt"; as he knew in 1968 and we know now, such false teaching would then spread throughout the nation's Catholic schools.

The "Curran controversy" and its fallout became an ongoing tragedy in the Catholic world of education at all levels.

However, in recent decades, there have been signs of hope, particularly through the American bishops chosen by Pope St. John Paul II and Pope Benedict XVI and the blossoming of many vibrant and faithful new high schools, colleges and universities.

First appeared on National Catholic Register in August, 2015.