Catholic University

A Roman Catholic priest's suit to regain his theology chair at Catholic University went to trial Wednesday--pitting claims of academic freedom against the church's right to discipline its clergy. Father Charles E. Curran claims the university breached his contract by removing him from a tenured theology professorship because of his dissent from church teaching.

Father Charles E. Curran, the moral theologian banned by the Vatican from teaching theology at Catholic universities, will teach the subject at USC during the 1988-1989 school year. Curran, one of the best-known contemporary U.S.

Pope John Paul II, in a strongly worded speech Saturday night, told leaders of Catholic higher education that bishops should have a greater part in the academic affairs of Catholic colleges and universities and warned that Catholic theologians are not free to depart from official Vatican teachings.

When Pope John Paul II makes a pastoral visit to the United States next month, he will find that Americans in general--and Catholics in particular--have a highly favorable impression of him. But his personal popularity does not translate among Catholics into strong fidelity to official church doctrine, especially on matters of sex and marriage, the Los Angeles Times Poll has found.

Work among Bible scholars for a long time has transcended the divided condition of Christianity, and their latest output--a revised New Testament--shows it. The new translation, produced under U.S. Roman Catholic auspices, has the ring and often phraseology of the main Protestant translations and the elevated English of their King James ancestry.

Dissenting theologian Charles Curran said Monday that he is suing Catholic University of America, seeking a civil court order halting his suspension from the Roman Catholic school. Curran's difficulties with the university stem from a deep and long-running disagreement with the Vatican concerning his views--considered too liberal by church authorities--on birth control, abortion, divorce, homosexuality and other issues of sexual ethics.