A power struggle reached a climax this month between the Catholic Church and academics at the German speaking world's sole Catholic university, raising questions about whether faith and scholarship can get along with one another.

The Catholic University of Eichstaett (KU) has been operating for months without a head after Gregor Maria Hanke, the bishop of Eichstaett, refused to appoint a principal who had been nominated by the university's professors.

The university in Germany's Bavaria state has about 4,500 students and teaches regular arts, science and business courses.

This week, the bishop, with express backing from other Bavarian bishops, also suspended the university's administrative head and appointed two temporary new chiefs, saying a fresh start was needed.

Faith vs academia

Whereas the church sees its university as a refuge of faith in a nation that is increasingly hostile to religion, professors have painted the struggle as a battle for academic liberty and autonomy, as claimed by universities around the globe.

Interest in the dispute has been heightened by the fact that Pope Benedict XVI is a Bavarian and was a formerly a professor in the state, at a different university, Regensburg. The Vatican has not spoken out about the row.

Unlike at theology colleges, students do not have to be Catholic to attend KU. As at most German state universities, the tuition fees are minimal compared to those in most western nations.

To some, the row brings back memories of the Vatican's desire in 1979 to remove the dissident Swiss-born theologian Hans Kueng from his professor-of-theology post at the German University of Tuebingen.

However the man at the centre of the latest tussle, Ulrich Hemel, is not a theologian but a business executive whose main academic subject has been the religious formation of children.

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