c. 1998 Religion News Service

UNDATED _ As Roman Catholic activists and theologians sort out the meaning of last week’s Vatican crackdown on dissent, they’re caught between characterizations of the new document ranging from”repressive”to”just another piece of housekeeping.” The truth, as with all such actions in Rome, is likely to depend on how individual bishops choose to apply and enforce what the Vatican calls”clarifications”of canon law.

For activists, the apostolic letter was one more attempt by Pope John Paul II, entering the twilight of his papacy, to more forcefully stamp out liberal dissent on a range of issues _ such as the ordination of women _ that the pontiff had already declared out of bounds.

Call to Action, the Chicago-based liberal reform group, for example, predicted the pope’s letter would lead to”repression”on Catholic college campuses and in parishes.

But for others, such as the Rev. Avery Dulles, a theologian at Fordham University in New York, the letter and accompanying”theological commentary”penned by Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, the conservative who heads the Vatican’s doctrinal watchdog agency, is”just a piece of housekeeping. It’s a little tidying up.” Indeed, Dulles said, liberals can take some heart from the document.

Dulles said the clarifications in canon _ or church _ law announced in the pope’s letter”more clearly divides”some church teachings into new categories _ a top”category one”section of divinely revealed truths and a second”category two”set of”infallible teachings”that are connected to divine revelations but not taught as revealed truths.”If it’s category one, the denial of it (as truth) is heresy,”he said.”If it’s category two, the question is what do you do about it.” Ratzinger’s commentary cited 20 examples of church teaching as being in the second-tier, including the church’s teaching that the priesthood must be restricted to men.

As long ago as 1994, John Paul issued a letter forbidding the ordination of women. In 1996, Ratzinger’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith issued a statement that the pope’s ruling on the issue was”infallibly taught,”thus barring any further theological discussion of the matter.

Those Vatican decrees have troubled a number of U.S. theologians because they believe the statements threaten academic freedom but also because they are likely to inhibit efforts at Christian unity.

Last year, the Catholic Theological Society of America adopted a statement challenging Ratzinger’s interpretation of John Paul’s 1994 letter and calling for further study.

In addition, of all the obstacles to church union, women’s ordination _ accepted by most Anglican, Lutheran, Methodist and other mainline Protestant bodies _ is central.”If you are serious about unity within the churches, you have to keep open discussion of women’s ordination,”Jon Nilson, a professor at Loyola University in Chicago, told The New York Times when the new letter was released.

But women’s ordination is not the only issue involved in the new statement.

One example cited by Ratzinger in his commentary as”definitive”was the 1896 declaration of Pope Leo XII that all Anglican ordinations are invalid.

Coming less than a month before the start of the Lambeth Conference, the once-a-decade gathering of Anglican prelates from around the world, the Ratzinger commentary is likely to cast a chill on efforts to repair the breach between the two faith bodies.

Dulles, however, said last week’s letter by the pope should encourage supporters of women’s ordination.”Before this document one could easily think that this (men-only priesthood) was being taught as a revealed truth and denial of it is heresy,”Dulles said.”Now what the Vatican is saying is that it is not taught as a revealed truth and denying it is not grounds for heresy. In other words, they (dissenters) should be happy about this. It’s not a case of the pope cracking down. It’s a case of the most moderate statement that could be expected.” Other theologians read it differently.

The Rev. Richard McBrien, of the University of Notre Dame, argued that the new additions to canon law open the way for punishing theologians who dissent not only from”infallible”truths but also from”definitive”teaching.”Should the terms of Ratzinger’s commentary be enforced, Catholic theologians who question the prohibition of women’s ordination … would be subject to a `just penalty’ and would even risk breaking communion with the church itself,”McBrien wrote in a commentary for The Los Angeles Times.

While lay-led reform groups such as Call to Action and the Women’s Ordination Conference are generally able to ignore such Vatican actions, theologians are likely to find themselves under increasing scrutiny and bishops may find themselves under increasing pressure by conservative Catholics to”do something”about liberal theologians.

MJP END RNS