Peru Catholic University announces 11th-hour accord to maintain pontifical status

April 04, 2012

The Pontifical Catholic University of Peru (PUCP) has announced that it has reformed its governing statutes in compliance with Vatican demands, and will retain its status as a pontifical university.

After years of conflict, during which university leaders refused to comply with directives from Church authorities, the Vatican announced in February that it had given the PUCP a deadline of Easter Sunday by which the school must revise its statutes. University officials said on April 3 that they had met the Vatican deadline.

The Vatican has not commented on the revised statutes that the PUCP has reportedly submitted for review. But last week Cardinal Juan Luis Cipriani of Lima expressed optimism about the prospects for an agreement.

Last year, after making an apostolic visit to Peru as the Vatican’s emissary, Cardinal Peter Erdo of Budapest reported that he had been unable to persuade PUCP officials to comply with Church directives to enforce the guidelines for pontifical universities set forth in the apostolic constitution Ex Corde Ecclesiae. In February, after a long series of failed negotiations, the Vatican summoned the rector of the PUCP to Rome and issued its final warning with the Easter deadline.

A loss of status as a pontifical university would have had serious implications for the PUCP. The original donor of the property on which the university is located had stipulating that he was giving the land to a pontifical university, and if the university lost that status the property could revert to the Lima archdiocese.

 

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Further information:

• Pontifical university claims conformity with Vatican directive (CNA)
• Vatican gives Peru's Catholic university an Easter deadline (CWN, 2/21)