Bowing to what it called “the heightened sensitivity” of contemporary thinking, the Vatican has issued new rules for handling doctrinal debates within the Roman Catholic Church, setting clear guidelines for how dissident theologians may defend their views.
The rules, officially approved three months ago and released Friday, give Catholic scholars and theologians the right to a Vatican-appointed defender who will help determine whether or not their views are erroneous or even heretical. They also may select their own adviser to take part in doctrinal examinations and involve local bishops in the proceedings.
The guidelines appear to be an attempt by the Catholic Church, which maintains its centuries-old tradition of a strictly hierarchical interpretation of doctrine, to answer criticism that it has been too arbitrary and too secretive in its judgments of dissident theologians.
“To me, this sounds like a reasonable response to those criticisms,” said Rev. James A. Wiseman, chairman of the theology department at Catholic University in Washington.
The Vatican hailed the procedures as a step toward greater openness in a process that has its roots in the Inquisition and that as recently as this year led to the excommunication of a Sri Lankan theologian.
“An important point is the total transparency of the regulations and the added guarantees they provide” for the accused, said Joaquin Navarro-Valls, chief spokesman for the Vatican.
Critics within the church said the guidelines — the first issued since 1971 — will change little in a procedure that is still heavily weighted against those who challenge church doctrine as interpreted by the powerful Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith.
The congregation, headed by Cardinal Jozef Ratzinger, a conservative who has spearheaded Pope John Paul II’s campaigns to rein in dissident views within the church, still keeps the right to select not only the defender of the accused but also the experts called in to judge their work.
“The guarantees for the author’s defense are not expanded in any significant way,” said Rev. Charles E. Curran, an American priest who was stripped of his right to teach Catholic theology in 1986 after a seven-year inquiry into his views on the church’s teachings on contraception, homosexuality and other sexual issues.
“The update of the 1971 procedures is cosmetic at best,” said Curran, reached by telephone at Southern Methodist University in Dallas where he is a professor of human values. “The fundamental problems remain. The congregation controls everything: It is lined up to be the judge, the jury and the experts.”
The guidelines outline an intricate procedure that begins with an inquiry into works that appear to contain “grave doctrinal error.” After experts have examined the texts, a defender is appointed whose task is to illustrate “the positive aspects of the teaching and the merit of the author.”
In an explanatory note issued Friday, the congregation said the new process is so elaborate, involving so many people, that “it is impossible to accuse the procedure of haste or superficiality.”
In extraordinary cases where the writings are “clearly erroneous” and contain views that could cause “grave harm to the faithful,” the rules say the congregation may bypass the procedures. The congregation, acting with the approval of the pope, may require a correction from the wayward author within two months. If no correction is forthcoming, then the congregation may proceed to declare excommunication.
