[jude24]

Honestly, what I think happened was that the administration decided that their donors wouldn't appreciate a Catholic on the faculty. Christian colleges and seminaries are highly dependant upon the donations of alumnii and others to give them endowments. Having a Catholic on the faculty would not sit well with some donors, no matter how evangelically-minded his brand of Catholicism may be.

Other schools have kept their blanket prohibitions on alcohol use or dances for similar reasons.

[Dionysiusdecordealcis]

This is exactly right. And I can empathize with it. I once faced a similar situation--just as I decided to become an Episcopalian (20 years ago), I received inquiries about filling a long-term position at the strongly denominational school I was teaching temporarily at. I said I'd be interested in the position but that they needed to know I was joining the Anglicans and that that probably would be too much for their constituents to swallow--I wanted to create room for them to withdraw the tentative expression of interest. I understood that there were certain lines they could not cross.

The influx of so many Wheaton faculty into the Episcopal Church has not been well received by the same portions of Wheaton's constituency that would object to a Catholic teaching there. There's long been grumbling about so many Episcopalians. That's the direct background for excluding a Catholic--it would be a straw breaking constituent camel backs. They backed themselves into this corner when they didn't nip the Anglicanphile movement in the bud 25 years ago. It's too late to do anything about that, but they darn sure can do something abou this one.