Academics at Heythrop College have indicated that the Bishops’ Conference of England and Wales could sabotage a proposed partnership with the University of Roehampton, a move they say would have devastating consequences for Catholic higher education in Britain.
The crisis at the college deepened dramatically as The Tablet went to press on Tuesday (5 July) with the sudden resignation of its principal, Michael Holman SJ. Fr Holman said a factor in his decision was “an underlying health issue”. He was disappointed that a plan to save Heythrop had not been realised in his time as principal.
A letter sent to The Tablet this week by 42 members of staff at Heythrop College said there were signs that the hierarchy would not back the Roehampton merger, the remaining lifeline for the 400-year-old Jesuit institution. “The Society of Jesus has sought the support of the Cardinal Archbishop of Westminster and of the Bishops’ Conference of England and Wales. We confidently hoped to receive support for a merger that holds so much promise but there are now signs this support may not be forthcoming,” they wrote.
The proposal for a merger with Roehampton, which followed a failed attempt to partner with St Mary’s University in Twickenham, was the result of eight months of “creative and positive” discussions, they said. It presented the only viable option for Heythrop, which is due to close following the academic year 2017-2018, with the vast majority of its staff being made redundant, its property in South Kensington sold off and its library disposed of.
A failure by the Bishops’ Conference to back the proposal would bring to an end centuries of Jesuit higher education creating an “unbridgeable gap” in the provision of Catholic higher education in Britain, staff argued. “It would be a tragedy with reverberations on the international stage if Heythrop College should be forced to close. Such a loss would raise serious questions … as to the credibility of the Catholic Church in England and Wales in fostering and protecting serious academic study of philosophy and theology.”
The Tablet reported last week that concerns about the Bellarmine Institute, the ecclesiastical faculty at Heythrop that helps form seminarians, had proved a sticking point. Cardinal Vincent Nichols said: “The future of Heythrop College is inseparable from the priorities of the British Province of the Society of Jesus. I have offered further discussions with the Society about its future priorities, among which the continuation of the Bellarmine Institute is, in my view, central.”
(To read the letter in full, see p16 of this week's Tablet.)
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