PART I
Regarding: "One of the more controversial statements in the Land O'Lakes document is its assertion that "the Catholic university must have a true autonomy and academic freedom in the face of authority of whatever kind, lay or clerical, external to the academic community itself." "
- Though this sentence from the statement is hyperbolic, essentially it captures what the Catholic education system world wide and specifically in the USA had to endure. 
- That is, the notion that church authority was narrowly focused on the episcopal dictates either in the local diocese or from the Holy See.  Sadly, as history often illustrates, bishops in the USA before the "Land o'Lakes" statement, then and now, are ill equipped to singularly evaluate institutions of education. Often these same men impose expressions of Catholicity that speak more of heavy handed marketing and episcopal vainglory.