Godfried Danneels

There is a very well-defined procedure that allows the Vatican to raise issues with a particular theologian about something that does not appear in conformity with the Catholic faith. It is not always easy to make this determination.

The word survivor suggests someone who has emerged alive from a plane crash or a natural disaster. But the word can also refer to the loved ones of murder victims, and this was the sense in which it was used at a four-day conference in early June at Boston College.

The problem for Rome, then, is how and when the intervention should be done with a sense of the possibility of going too far in limiting the freedom of theologians. This is not an easy time - neither for Rome nor for the theologians.