VATICAN CITY (RNS) Pope Benedict XVI on Saturday (May 5) called on Catholic colleges and universities in the United States to do more to affirm their "Catholic identity," particularly by ensuring the doctrinal orthodoxy of their faculty and staff.

Speaking to a group of bishops from Colorado, New Mexico, Arizona and Wyoming, who are in Rome on a regularly scheduled visit, Benedict said there has been a "growing recognition" on the part of Catholic colleges of the need to "reaffirm their distinctive identity."

But "much remains to be done," the pope said, singling out the church law requirement that Catholic theology teachers "have a mandate from the competent ecclesiastical authority," usually the local bishop.

That requirement was introduced more than 20 years ago by Benedict's predecessor, Pope John Paul II, according to the Rev. Scott Brodeur, a professor at the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome. But there has been "continuous resistance against it."

"If he is repeating it it is because it has not yet been fully implemented," Brodeur said.

Benedict's remarks come a few months after U.S. bishops denounced Sister Elizabeth Johnson, a theology professor at Jesuit-run Fordham University in New York. Johnson's book "Quest for the Living God" does not accord with "authentic Catholic teaching," said the bishops' doctrinal committee.

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"Affirm their catholic identity," eh? And that bit about "ensuring the doctrinal orthodoxy of their faculty and staff," too. Is anyone here getting the idea that the church is noting resistance from within its own ranks and all of the above is little more than code for clamping down on the heresy?

The catholic church is catching resistance from all over. It just got all bent about an organization of nuns in the US and their supposed deviance from the true path, and it wasn't that long ago that Bishop Thomas Olmsted of Phoenix excommunicated a nun who approved an abortion at a catholic hospital to save the life of the mother. This doesn't even mention the 95% of catholic women who may be using birth control, in violation of Paul VI's encyclical,
 Humanae Vitae and other divergences in the laity from the dictum from on high.

Want my opinion? I think the church is on the verge of running scared. Look toward the end of the HuffPost article and you'll see Joe the Rat encouraging students "to embrace faith in 'every aspect of their education'" ... which is nothing more than an attempt to reinforce the indoctrination those students had as children, and a dubious attempt at best.

Fact is, the catholic dyke has sprung numerous leaks, and it seems as though ol' Joe all of a sudden wants to play Little Dutch Boy and attempt to plug them all at once. Honestly, I don't see him measuring up to the job at hand....