Yes, he has these powers. But given that Ex corde ecclesia EXPLICITLY grants autonomy to Catholic universities as far as the management of their “university-ness” is concerned, for the bishop to revoke the priestly faculties of Holy Cross priests as a penalty for the university’s decision about an honorary doctorate would, in canon law, I think, be rather dubious. I’m no canon lawyer, but it strikes me as dubious.
In the old days (Middle Ages), where the entire population were baptized Catholics, the interdict could be used this way. But universities sought and achieved autonomy,a certain kind of arms-length relationship with the local bishop already in the 1200s, almost as soon as they were founded.
Indeed, technically speaking, what created the universities in the first place was the masters guild (or student guild, at Bologna) claiming a degree of autonomy from the bishop’s chancellor. Prior to that, as cathedral schools, they were directly under the bishop’s chancellor’s authority. But the masters (professors) organized precisely put an arms-length between them and the chancellor and that’s what birthed the university. So when Ex corde ecclesiae says “autonomy,” it’s not making it up out of whole cloth. It’s an ancient prerogative of the universities, back when the culture was still wholly Catholic.
“But given that Ex corde ecclesia EXPLICITLY grants autonomy to Catholic universities as far as the management of their ‘university-ness’ is concerned, for the bishop to revoke the priestly faculties of Holy Cross priests as a penalty for the university’s decision about an honorary doctorate would, in canon law, I think, be rather dubious.”
I disagree. Revoking faculties, etc., is very much of a piece with declaring the university to no longer be Catholic. It is a way of saying, “We withdraw our association with you. We wish you the best as you continue on without us, but you are no longer a part of us. You are a cesspool, a den of iniquity, and you no longer have anything to do with the Church of Jesus Christ.”
In that it is a Catholic university that is honoring the most pro-baby-murdering person ever to achieve office in the history of the United States of America, it would not be inappropriate for the bishop to pronounce the entire university no longer Catholic in any way, and to state that it would be a sacrilege for the sacraments to be offered in such a polluted, unholy place. He could say that it would be like offering Mass in a whorehouse.
“In the old days (Middle Ages), where the entire population were baptized Catholics, the interdict could be used this way.”
The bishop still has the capacity to put folks under interdict.
In none of these actions, the revocation of faculties, the revocation of permission to say public Masses, and selective interdicts, is the bishop asserting any right to run the university. He is merely making clear in his actions that the university is no longer a Catholic one, and is so far removed from and so hostile to Catholicism, that extraordinary means are required to let the perpetrators know, and also to let others know, that, if they wish to protect their souls, they should stay away.
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