Religion: Curran on the Carpet

As part of Pope John Paul II's determined campaign to enforce orthodoxy, the Vatican has taken action against a number of nonconformist theologians. First it ruled that Hans Küng of West Germany could no longer call himself a Catholic theologian; next Dominican Edward Schillebeeckx of the Netherlands was summoned to Rome for an inquiry into his theological writings; and Brazilian Franciscan Leonardo Boff is undergoing enforced silence for advocating Marxist-tinged liberation theology.

Now it is the turn of the Rev. Charles Curran, 51, a moral theologian at the Catholic University of America in Washington. Last week, after meeting in Rome with...