Nation's bishops, Catholic college heads to have local dialogues

Published: 2006-01-13

WASHINGTON (CNS) -- At a Jan. 10 meeting in Washington, the U.S. bishops' Committee on Education approved a set of questions to guide local dialogues nationwide between diocesan bishops and the presidents of Catholic colleges and universities in their diocese. The dialogues are to be conducted by May 3, the date on which "The Application of 'Ex Corde Ecclesiae' for the United States" took effect five years ago. "Ex Corde Ecclesiae," Latin for "from the heart of the church," is Pope John Paul II's 1990 apostolic constitution on Catholic higher education, which set norms to assure the Catholic mission and identity of Catholic colleges and universities worldwide and called on national bishops' conferences to establish implementing norms applying the general norms within the context of their own countries. Bishop Robert J. McManus of Worcester, Mass., chairman of the education committee, said in an interview after the meeting that the guiding questions were themselves the result of a dialogue process between bishops and Catholic college and university presidents.

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