Jesuit barred from teaching theology at Catholic university

Friday, April 17th, 2015

A Jesuit academic has been barred from teaching theology at the Pontifical Catholic University of Chile.

Late last month, the university’s chancellor Cardinal Ricardo Ezzati Andrello removed Professor Jorge Costadoat, SJ, from the role.

In a letter to the university’s council, Cardinal Ezzati stated Fr Costadoat’s academic path “included unwise affirmations that blurred the magisterial teaching of the Church”.

The cardinal reportedly told the theologian to reread Ex Corde Ecclesiae, to meditate on it, and then he could reapply to teach theology next year.

Professor Costadoat wrote to a local newspaper that he did not know what he had been accused of.

This led to speculation that the ousting was due to his progressive views on interreligious dialogue, the social mission of the Catholic Church and his call for freedom of thought in Catholic universities and for the relaxation of the Church’s views on sexual morality.

Professor Coastadoat had been under investigation by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith for several years for his writings on liberation theology.

But the CDF had taken no action.

Following the barring of Fr Costadoat, there was an uproar about academic freedom in Chile.

A letter from Cardinal Ezzati in El Mercurio newspaper on April 3 stated that Fr Costadoat, who taught Christology, had not followed the programme of study and had failed to cover most of the essential contents of the course.

Therefore, to expect him to do so was not “to disregard his academic freedom but to demand from him a minimum of rigour”.

One report stated that Fr Costadoat didn’t teaching the early Church councils in his Christology course.

The next day, the Cardinal stated he had gone out on a limb for Fr Costadoat at the Congregation for Catholic Education in Rome and at the CDF, and obtained for him “the necessary teaching authority that he did not have”.

Cardinal Ezzati was appointed the Congregation for Catholic Education by Pope Francis.

Fr Costadoat will be allowed to continue research at the university.

Sources