text: Thanks, CAEL. I'm not surprised by any of this. I know what the pattern has been with other seminaries and Catholic universities. Bishops come in who don't like what they consider the "liberal" bent of a long-standing institution, so they reinvent it according to their own preferences.
  
  My observation about such situations is that the primary qualification these bishops look for in their new faculty members is loyalty to the magisterium. Such things as scholarship, pastoral sensitivity and the ability to actually teach are secondary considerations. The priests they produce tend to be long on rules and regulations and short on much else.
  
  I think the sad result of all this is a chipping away at the authentic Catholic intellectual tradition  that has been the crowning glory of the Church in the U.S. Revered bastions of Catholic higher education like Notre Dame and Boston College are being replaced by uninspired schools where inbred thought rules the day. It's a real shame.