Friday, Feb. 03, 1967

A Louder Voice for Laymen

Roman Catholic education in the U.S. was in the midst of a full-fledged upheaval last week. College after college an- nounced that it was opening up its board of trustees to laymen. Jesuit-run St. Louis University, up to now governed by 13 priests of the order, said that it will shift to a board on which laymen will have an 18 to 10 majority. Father Paul C. Reinert will step aside as board chairman--to be replaced by Daniel L. Schlafly, a layman. Chicago's Loyola University said that for the first time in its 97-year history laymen will be named as trustees. Still another Jesuit School, the University of Detroit, will turn over half the seats on a new 16-man trustee board to the laity.

Other Catholic schools have similar plans. Last week the Congregation of Holy Cross, which operates the University of Notre Dame, reorganized the school's governing board; under the new setup the six priests who currently make up the board will be balanced with six laymen. At the same time, the Holy Cross Fathers approved another mixed lay-clerical board for the University of Portland, which they also control. Cleveland's John Carroll University is working along the same lines, and New York's Fordham University, which has been experimentally allowing its 36-member lay board of advisers to vote on school matters along with its eight Jesuit trustees, may well make the practice permanent.

The transfer of power symbolizes not only the increasing role that laymen now play in the administration of many Catholic universities, but also the postconciliar emphasis on their position in the church. For many schools, a contributing factor is a Maryland court decision last year declaring unconstitutional state aid to colleges that are totally religious in spirit and atmosphere. Fordham's President Father Leo McLaughlin admitted as much last week. "In the not too distant future," he said, "the Supreme Court will have to consider the question raised by the Maryland court, and, if that principle is upheld, changes will have to be made within the structure of the Catholic institutions which will make them eligible for federal and state aid." Otherwise, he warned, many of them will have to close their doors.

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