WASHINGTON — Pope Benedict XVI celebrated a colorful, open-air Mass with thousands of eager faithful at Washington's just-opened baseball stadium Thursday and later urged church educators to work to strengthen Roman Catholic identity in their schools and universities or risk "confusion" for the young.
On the third day of a U.S. visit that takes him to New York today, the pope also addressed representatives of non-Christian faiths and held a small, separate gathering with Jewish leaders in honor of the Passover holiday. Benedict met privately with a small group of victims of the clergy abuse crisis that he has repeatedly acknowledged this week has badly shaken the U.S. Catholic Church.
In the widely anticipated address to Catholic educators, the pope emphasized that the church's teachings should shape "all aspects of an institution's life, both inside and outside the classroom." His audience included presidents of the nation's Catholic colleges and universities, and school superintendents from its 195 dioceses.
A former university professor, Benedict reiterated his earlier statements of support for academic freedom, calling it a "great value," but suggested that it might also have some limits at a Catholic college.
"In virtue of this freedom you are called to search for the truth wherever careful analysis of evidence leads you," he told the educators at Catholic University. "Yet it is also the case that any appeal to the principle of academic freedom in order to justify positions that contradict the faith and the teaching of the church would obstruct or even betray the university's identity and mission."
Catholic schools' mission, he added, could not be "somehow autonomous or independent" from that of the church.
The tension between academic freedom and fidelity to church teachings is a perennial issue for Catholic schools, especially for many of the well- regarded institutions of higher education among them. In recent years, some Catholic universities have been criticized by local bishops for straying from Catholic beliefs inside or outside the classroom. Some have allowed campus speakers supportive of abortion rights or stem cell research, for example, or permitted productions of controversial, secular plays.
In Catholic universities as well as grade schools, the pope said, teachers and administrators have a duty to ensure that students learn about Catholic doctrine and practice. Any divergence from "public witness to the way of Christ," he said, weakens Catholic identity and "inevitably leads to confusion, whether moral, intellectual or spiritual."
