REILLY: Georgetown: ‘Fertile ground’ for anti-Catholicism
Honoring pro-abortion Sebelius is a betrayal of church’s mission
Illustration: Georgetown University by Linas Garsys for The Washington Times
Georgetown
University seems to be in serious danger of losing what makes it truly
special: its historical commitment to a quality Catholic education. The
university’s stately spires, topped with crosses and standing high above
the nation’s capital, are a permanent reminder of the fervent Catholic
faith and vision of Archbishop John Carroll and his fellow Jesuit missionaries who founded Georgetown the same year the U.S. Constitution was ratified.
But
today those crosses stand in stark contrast to the rapid secularization
of America’s oldest Catholic university and the unprecedented threats
from the White House, just blocks away, to the religious freedom of America’s largest religious denomination.
Both problems, the secularist oppression of the Obama administration and the secularization of Georgetown, will be on display this Friday when the university presents Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Kathleen Sebelius as the speaker for its Public Policy Institute diploma ceremony.
In
2008, the former governor of Kansas was asked by her bishop to stop
receiving Communion because of her “30-year history of advocating and
acting in support of legalized abortion.” Now at HHS, Mrs. Sebelius
is the chief architect of a health insurance mandate that would force
Catholic colleges and universities, in violation of Catholic teaching,
to provide coverage for sterilization and contraception to both students
and employees.
Instead of standing by the Catholic bishops and
fighting this clear violation of religious liberty, Georgetown has been
on the sidelines - until now. Honoring Mrs. Sebelius is a public betrayal of the Catholic Church and all religious people in America.
In
many ways, Georgetown’s choice is even more offensive than Notre Dame’s
commencement honors to President Obama in 2008. At the time, the
president was still making promises to respect the consciences of
faithful Catholics. But Mrs. Sebelius
has helped him break those promises, which probably is why more than
26,000 have signed the petition at GeorgetownScandal.com calling on
Georgetown to rescind the invitation.
Of course, Georgetown’s
betrayal of its Catholic roots didn’t begin with the Sebelius flap. Many
campus speakers in recent years have offended Catholics, including
pornographer Larry Flynt, who warned students, “The Church has had its hand on our crotch for 2,000 years.” Sandra Fluke,
the Georgetown student-turned-contraception-activist, earned a
prominent lecture on campus instead of correction for her opposition to
the bishops.
Many Georgetown professors have opposed Catholic
moral teaching on abortion, same-sex marriage and physician-assisted
suicide. Madeleine K. Albright and Donna Brazile are perhaps the
best-recognized. The Rev. Robert Drinan, a longtime law professor who is
still celebrated at the law school after his death in 2007, infamously
served in Congress while supporting abortion rights. Judith Feder is a
next-generation “pro-choice” politician even while serving as a
professor and former dean of the graduate program that will host Mrs. Sebelius on commencement day.
To
be sure, some magnificent professors, such as the Rev. James V. Schall,
a Jesuit priest, remain on the faculty. Even so, one of Father Schall’s
accomplished peers in the government department, Patrick J. Deneen,
recently announced his escape with a devastating public critique.
Georgetown, he wrote, “increasingly and inevitably remakes itself in the
image of its secular peers, ones that have no internal standard of what
a university is for other than the aspiration of prestige for the sake
of prestige, its ranking rather than its commitment to truth.”
Outside
the classroom, Catholic students also find much to regret: condoms
distributed in the university’s “Red Square,” the ironically labeled
campus free-speech zone; annual performances of “TheVaginaMonologues”;
Georgetown’s well-funded LGBTQ (lesbian gay bisexual transgender
questioning) Resource Center; groups like H*yas for Choice and Law
Students for Reproductive Justice opposing the church on abortion and contraception, and much more.
Last
year, Georgetown’s Jesuits released a video intended to celebrate their
work on campus, but in the process, they helped explain their
diminishing relevance. “Our job as educators and as priests is not to
bring God to people, or even to bring people to God,” said the Rev. Ryan
Maher, associate dean and director of Catholic studies. “God’s already
there and the people are already there. Our job, our way, of living out
our educational vocation is to ask the right questions, and to help
young people ask those questions.”
By shying away from answers
about God and truth, Georgetown seems almost ashamed of its mission as a
“Catholic and Jesuit” university. Contrary to claims that this makes
Georgetown a “true” university, it threatens the end of once-prestigious
Jesuit education. The wavering fidelity of Georgetown and most large
Catholic universities leaves too many students unaware or uncertain of
their purpose in life beyond the accumulation of knowledge and career
preparation.
Secularization cannot replace faith; it only leaves a
void to be filled. Georgetown’s students are under intense pressure in
today’s culture to veer away from Catholic morality.
In this
context, perhaps Catholics should not be so shocked by recent reports
that al Qaeda once thought Catholics to be “fertile ground” for
conversion to Islam. There’s no denying the shaky ground upon which many
young Catholics stand today. The failure of some Catholic schools and
colleges to embrace the Catholic faith with honesty and confidence
indeed prepares “fertile ground” for ideologies like the secularism and
relativism championed by Kathleen Sebelius.
Patrick J. Reilly is president of the Cardinal Newman Society.
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