A Concordat at St. Thomas

 

"The University of St. Thomas can only live in the Heart of the Church."


 

On October 25, 2007, the University of St. Thomas Board of Trustees changed their century old bylaws to eliminate the archdiocesan ex officio offices for the Archbishop and Vicar General and invest in themselves the power to elect the Chairman and Vice Chairman of an autonomous Board of Trustees. On Sept 4, 2008, statements by Archbishop Nienstedt and Fr Dennis Dease outlined terms of a concordat between the Archbishop and the University. The Board of Trustees has agreed that it will make no decisions that may affect the University's Catholic mission or Catholic identity without directly consulting the office of the Archbishop. The present Vicar General (Fr Lee Piche) will be the archbishop's representative on the board. Archbishop Nienstedt very wisely did not accept a seat on the Board for himself "as an individual." For while this bylaw change was very much aimed at John Nienstedt the man, the rupture was more deeply a blow against the office of the Archbishop and the integrity of the local Church. This unprecedented institutional severance is an event affecting many more archbishops than Harry Flynn and John Nienstedt. The office attacked is that of the local ordinary which hearkens back to John Ireland and John Fisher and James in Jerusalem and forward to a host of men whose names we do not know. Archbishop Nienstedt is acting for all these men and for their sacred office. He has left the deeper question of governance still very much in play. That is the peculiar power of such concordats. Only statements of charity were publicly spoken by Archbishop Nienstedt. No statement was made about the previous Vicar General (Kevin McDonough) and previous Archbishop (Harry Flynn) keeping their positions as Vice Chair and Chair of the Board.

 

The concordat places none of us under obligation to forget. These men, along with Fr. Dease, misled the board in cutting their positions from the archdiocesan offices and then "humbly accepted" the board's offer to renew their positions for five years as individuals, while extending the $250,000 per year presidency to Fr Dease. They now sit in large uncomfortable chairs obtained through their sacred offices but retained as unrobed individuals. Board elections are fine but they cannot confer the sacred. These chairs can never be properly filled by any men "as individuals". The incredibly restrained and yet forceful response of Archbishop Nienstedt allows his brother priests fresh opportunities to reevaluate their misdeeds, voluntarily repent and resign these offices. The Concordat allows a particular moment of grace for Archbishop Flynn to restore his own credibility and model the repentance and reform so needed by an outgoing generation of clerics who continue to scramble for institutional power and pay in the diocese.

 

A Continuing Major Role for Diana Murphy

Twice a year, Archbishop Nienstedt will be meeting with the most powerful of the Board members- Judge Diana Murphy who is chairwoman of the Executive Committee. Judge Murphy has recently been overruled by her fellow Eighth Court of Appeals judges in a landmark decision that led to Planned Parenthood closing its South Dakota offices and effectively ending abortion in the state. Judge Murphy tried to sustain Planned Parenthood and was the principal author of a decision allowing them two extra years in the state. Judge Murphy and PP argued that South Dakota could not require doctors to tell mothers before their abortion that the procedure would end the life of a "unique human being". Judge Murphy called this simple sentence "the compulsory communication of ideological statements" She will be the chief representative of the University sitting with Archbishop Nienstedt showing how the intellectual and moral mission of the University is staying true to its Catholic mission. Fr Dennis Dease in announcing the concordat was very proud to remind us all of Diana Murphy's position as Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals judge. He remains awestruck by secular status and considers her a great boon to the University. Her fellow judges are not so easily swayed and Father would do well to read and emulate their resounding repudiation of her feminist ideology posing as law.

 

Father Dease in his Own Words
The first act of the board under the new bylaws was to extend the Fr Dease presidency with a lucrative five year package of luxurious housing, travel expenses and over a million dollars in salary. We have not been able to find out if he returned those portions of his salary above the diocesan average priestly salary to the University as was the practice of diocesan priests up to the rupture. This was one of the traditional ways the diocese contributed to the University and is one basis for diocesan claims for consideration. If Dease kept his whole salary in these last 16 years, this is a serious breach of commandment seven. Getting the single man to repay what he owes could build a nice scholarship for the many deserving Catholic students who need an honest and frugal St Thomas for their future. We might call the restitution "showing a preferential option for the poor."

 

Fr Dease and the pre Nienstedt insiders are clearly circling an old set of wagons by elevating the well connected Fr John Malone. After the bylaw coup he was quickly added to the Board but apparently will soon supplement his volunteer work by coming on the payroll with a generous administrative income as the University VP of Mission. In the deeper better maintained inner circles of the fractured priestly fraternity, Fr Malone has kept an effective and synchronous web of relationships quite functional linking urban Democrats with like minded church employees and social agencies.

 

Fr Dease resents charges that St Thomas has lost a good deal of Catholic identity under his presidency. He in fact now says St Thomas is one of the most "Roman Catholic of universities and colleges in the country'. This is certainly more bold than the usual "in the Catholic tradition" slogan. He proves this claim by listing clerics on the board noting particularly Fr McDonough and himself. But are Catholics so naive that a list of clerics and nuns assures us that an institution is Roman Catholic? Has anyone heard of Boston College? Isn't the whole lesson of the last forty years that there are many clerics, nuns, and staff (from the McDonough brothers to Sister Fran Donnelly at her new post in Catholic graveyards) who are using paid and honorific positions in the church for self gain while they no longer believe in the mission of the church and the demands of the gospel? Is not this masquerade a major theme of our post councilar forty year wandering and the long Lent of Scandal -A layer of self centered job and pension protecting clerical and lay employees have replaced a sacrificing brotherhood of priests and bishops as the driving force of the Church's day to day institutional culture. All of the Dease era clergy and nuns voted to sever the University from the trust and obedience of governance by a papally appointed Archbishop. Instead they ate the apple of autonomy to enshrine a Board's self perpetuating "right of choice" to create a privately elected Chair. Are we really supposed to consider this replay of the Eve story to be the mark of a Roman Catholic University? The clerics and nuns who Fr Dease mentioned have allowed what properly must be called "the deChristianizaton of the St Thomas faculty". This is the faculty and staff who mounted sustained articulate protest (140 signatures on their manifesto ) defending the "right" of two lesbians to their hotel bed while there was nary a public faculty peep when all future bishops and vicars general lost their rightful chairs on the University governing board. We see why Fr Dease always chooses forums with no chance of debate or dialogue when he assures us that Catholic identity is been safeguarded by the presence of Fr McDonough even though Fr McDonough is presently benefiting only himself by sitting in Fr Piche's usurped chair as Vice Chairman of the Trustees.

 

All these sitting clerics and nuns have allowed an institutional obscuring of the Catholic intellectual categories which distinguish the sacred from the profane, the male from the female, and orientation from disorientation. These definitional categories which would do so much to clarify our confused civic debate have instead been incorporated in Catholic life under the muddled secular terminology of "diversity." This has confused skin color with these more fundamental categories and made St Thomas a hostile environment for normal black people and traditional Catholics. Here are three quotes from Fr Dease's favorite mode of communication-the press release as "column".

 

From Fr Dease April 25, 2007 column titled: A Warm Welcome for CoAdjutor Bishop John Nienstedt

“He (JN) will assist Archbishop Harry Flynn and eventually succeed him as spiritual leader of the archdiocese and as ex-officio chair of the boards of St. Thomas, the St. Paul Seminary and St. John Vianney Seminary. Bishops generally retire at age 75 and Archbishop Flynn will be 74 on May 2.

I met with Coadjutor Archbishop Nienstedt on Tuesday and look forward to working closely with him in the years ahead. I know that we will develop the same collaborative relationship that has characterized my work with Archbishop Flynn since 1995 and with his predecessor, the late Archbishop John Roach.”

 

October 25, 2007

The St Thomas Board of trustees with full backing from Fr Dease vote to block Archbishop Nienstedt and his Vicar General from assuming their governance roles as Chair and Vice Chair of the Board. In changing the bylaws of the University they not only blocked the leadership of John Nienstedt but Archbishops for generations to come. Archbishop Flynn and Vicar General McDonough after blocking their successors from their rightful offices then reinstated themselves for five more years as individuals. The Board said they were following recommendations made several years ago by a secular group (with close ties to Judge Diana Murphy).

 

From Fr Dease Nov 2007

Father Dease explains the change in by-laws which block Archbishop Nienstedt in another column. “The simple reason was that ordinaries of the diocese typically chair so many boards and are so inundated with the demands of their jobs that it has become increasingly difficult to be actively involved as university chairs.”

 

Sept 4, 2008 after the Concordat, Fr Dease again.

“As I begin my 18th year in this job, I very much look forward to working with Archbishop John Nienstedt, who succeeded Archbishop Flynn as ordinary of the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis on May 2. I have found Archbishop Nienstedt to be an exceptionally good listener as well as a wise and thoughtful leader imbued with the same characteristics as his predecessors when it comes to St. Thomas.”

 

The docsociety steps back. Will the faculty step up?

 

The words and actions of Fr Dease speak for themselves. (See PDF below). As we have always argued, a religion based on testimony about the resurrection of the dead must have reliable witnesses. Preaching the gospel demands credibility. Our analysis and request that Fr Dease resign the presidency for the good of the Church remain. Our hope by withdrawing ourselves from extended online conversation is that faculty and students will "be not afraid" to engage in face to face dialogue with Fr. Dease about redressing the wrong he has done to our local church. If ever requested, we of course would be eager for a good old face to face I-thou dialogue.

 

While faculty members have traveled the country and to Rome lecturing on business and governance ethics, the culture of life, social justice and courage in ethics there has been no public faculty meeting , debate or speech about this unethical severing of governance from future archbishops or the continued scandal of Judge Diana Murphy's role in present governance of the University. We can only hope that faculty, students and priests will take heart from the archbishop's courage against an entrenched network of political and bureaucratic allies. A strategic pitting of Christian fraternity against an entrenched bureaucracy is precisely what had to happen for Vatican II to succeed. There is plenty of historical precedence that might embolden our academic brothers. It is personal courage more than orthodox intellectual principles or cleverness in argument which is now needed to take back ground in a contest that no Archbishop or Pope can fight alone.

 

The doc society believes the present agreement should be viewed as a Concordat.(The accompanying images are of three such concordats in Church history with France, Germany and Italy.) The archbishop got what he could get and continues the dialogue with lots of cards to play. This is not the end but the beginning of a new era. The archbishop's partial victory does not obviate the need for other initiatives. We believe that the Catholic renewal of St Thomas cannot be reduced to a fight over governance. Eventually the offices of the diocese will be given back their rightful Executive chairs on the Board of Trustees. For now let the priests, seminarians, faculty and students gather at the Eucharist on the campus around our bishop. All Catholic culture and certainly the life of the University flow from our central act celebrated by the Bishop. This is the real center of gravity of both love and authority in our common life together. Docsociety began our St Thomas reportage with an evening Mass in the St Thomas crypt on his feast day last year. Then our priest was a simple Friar Tuck-now the "good King" has returned and finally we hear the voice of an episcopal shepherd. The future of St Thomas looks very good if the campus community enrolls in this vital contest informed by our great communion. We will see you at Mass.

DOCUMENTS


Statements of the Concordat (ConcordatArchNienstedt PDF) and (ConcordatFrDease PDF)
Our extended narrative, A Trust Betrayed (PDF), we think is the best reporting thus far on the initial story of the takeover. You can also read a short summary here (PDF). Our case that the secularization of St Thomas is directly related to the moral and intellectual incoherence of Dennis Dease is Losing the Sacred Center (PDF). The key role of Judge Diana Murphy in the secularization of St Thomas is related here Abortion's Handmaid (PDF). We have added two files of her decision (Murphy Decides for PP PDF) and her subsequent dissent when she was overruled (Murphy is Overruled PDF). These include her chilling reflections on what is human as she attempts to block the South Dakota legislature’s informed consent law describing abortion as taking the life of “a unique human being.” Finally-- The Men of Sherwood (PDF) is a pictorial story of how a community of learning that was given to us by our forefathers and intended for our descendants was seized by the most self-centered generation of clerics the diocese has ever known.

To learn more about the St Thomas father trying to clean up the English Department see http://www.ustclassaction.com.

Pope Benedicts’ April 17, 2008 address at Catholic University to American Catholic educators on the purpose of Catholic education is here.

 

 

The accompanying images are three concordats signed by the Church with France, Germany and Italy at different times in Church History.

 


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