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The Spectacle Blog
William Peter Blatty is the author of the deeply thoughtful novel The Exorcist. (The movie tried, but didn’t quite, capture the depth of theology in the novel; the movie is now remembered mostly as a rather graphic horror flick, but it really was far better than that.) Now Blatty has taken up a massive cudgel against his (and my) alma mater, Georgetown University, for its repeated affronts to people of Christian and particularly Catholic faith which — after including the draping of the Jesuit cross in order for President Obama to speak on campus — has culminated in yesterday’s featured speaking role for HHS Secretary and religious-freedom assault queen Kathleen Sebelius. As Jenna Johnson reported in the Washington Post, “An invitation to be seated on the commencement stage is one of the highest honors a university can bestow. Especially coveted is the opportunity to address the graduating class.” Yet Georgetown’s increasingly radical President Jack DeGioia, in direct defiance of the Archdiocese of Washington, has defended the Sebelius invitation and basically thumbed his nose at every Catholic bishop in the country and at all the faithful following.
Blatty is justifiably incensed. He offers a petition drive against Georgetown, asks those who ordinarily donate to the school to withhold contributions for at least a year, and promises a canon lawsuit against the university. Among the potential outcomes from the lawsuit would be “relief that may include a declaration by the appropriate ecclesiastical authority that Georgetown University is no longer entitled to call itself a Catholic or Jesuit university.” This would be big stuff. Frankly, my understanding is that it is within the Pope’s authority to order the Jesuits out of Georgetown entirely.
In addition to these potential actions, I would suggest consideration — not a conclusion yet, but definite consideration — of another one: Fire Jack DeGioia.
I write this with heavy heart. Jack and I have always been friendly, ever since my first day on campus as a resident of the building he then served as Resident Director. In many ways he has served Georgetown well in various capacities for something like 35 years. But he has gone well beyond the pale. His defiance is outrageous.
Despite an absurd editorial by the increasingly anti-Catholic-leaning Washington Post, the Sebelius speech has nothing to do with “the free exchange of ideas.” It is patent dishonesty to somehow suggest that a speech at a diploma ceremony does not carry with it a rather explicit honorific. This is not an in-semester speech sponsored by the College Democrats or by an on-campus debating society. This is a university sponsored and sanctioned event — as Johnson wrote, “one of the highest honors a university can bestow.” DeGioia knows this. The Post knows this. To suggest otherwise is errant nonsense, so much a prevarication as to be beneath contempt.
As the Archdiocese noted, DeGioia is being deliberately and flagrantly misdirectional by making the excuse that the invitation to Sebelius went out before the January announcement of the final decision on abortifacient mandate. The fact is, as the statement indicates, that “the mandate was published last August” as a near-final draft rule for public comment. In fact, it was way back in September that the bishops objected and called it “an unprecedented threat to individual and institutional religious freedom.” That was long before the invitation from Georgetown was issued. DeGioia knows this.
It is not just the defense of the invitation by DeGioia that raises the issue of his fitness to continue as president; it is the intellectuall dishonesty represented by the above-described evasions of the truth.
Again, this isn’t just some debate about contraception or even about abortifacients. This mandate is a direct frontal assault on religious liberty — and not just that of Catholics, but of every faith and denomination in the country. It is the very essence of tyranny to force somebody to financially support that which his faith teaches is among the gravest of all sins.
When I was at Georgetown and writing 200 articles for the Georgetown HOYA newspaper, the single biggest feature I did was on the role of the Jesuits at Georgetown. I was/am a Catholic-leaning Anglican, but I was fascinated by the additional moral seriousness at GU that seemed to stem from its Catholic identity. I wish I had the story in front of me, but one of the interviews I did has stuck with me until this day. The legendary Fr. Joseph Durkin, S.J., founder of the school’s American Studies program, author of a multi-volume history of the university, and beloved, active member of the campus community until his death two weeks after his 100th birthday, told me in words that I can repeat almost verbatim from memory even a quarter-century later:
“We are a Catholic and Jesuit University. Because we are a university, we welcome and encourage freedom of thought and of speech. Because we are Catholic and Jesuit, we take specific positions on certain issues. You have every right to speak up against those positions of ours, openly and without fear of repercussion. But we reserve the right to explain to you why you are wrong, and to insist that while you are perfectly free to keep being wrong, we will continue to say publicly why we are right. An example of this is the Communist philosophy, which teaches atheism. It is wrong, and we will say so.”
Jack DeGioia not only is failing to step up and say that Kathleen Sebelius is wrong, but is going in the other direction by providing her a speaking slot that carries with it a widely understood honor (even if not officially an honorary degree). DeGioia thus has moved nearly 180 degrees away from Father Durkin’s wisdom. Shame on him. And shame on the university’s board if it lets him get away with it.
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More Blog Posts by Quin Hillyer
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C Bowen | 5.19.12 @ 7:51PM
If Georgetown and Jack DeGioia gave a job to the dishonorable Doug Feith (remember what General Franks said about him? I would write the quote but it would censored) do pro-war "Catholics" really think anything will happen at that "elite" institution? Surely you are not that naive.
Is this just for show, Quin? Hold off contributions for one year, that will really show them.
TLP| 5.21.12 @ 7:30AM
In case you weren't around for the 70's and the 80's? Catholic Jesuit, is an Oxymoron. It is, in reality, a piece of the Counter Culture Religiosity known as - The Religious Left.
The Jesuits were a huge part of the problem in Central and South America, giving Aid and Comfort to the Godless Marxist Revolutionaries, eager to do the bidding of their Soviet Masters, in their bid to spread Communism, around the World. They Ministered to their Communist Rebel Compatriot's Religious needs, which of course, them being COMMUNISTS, were few. As in - None.
We also know that THEY knew, all about everybody's favourite SLUT - "I like to get Laid, A LOT!" - Sandra Fluke, and what she was up to.
(You probably thought I was gonna say - Tamara Holder. Tamara Holder is a WHORE, who was being snuck in to the REVEREND Jessie Jackson's Hotel Room? No. Miss Holder, who, apparently, likes Jessie Jackson's Male Organ, more than she does her Job, her Career, any Family she might have, or her Reputation. (Which is now, and forever more, that of A WHORE.)
We'll return to The Whore, later, after she's had time to take a Shower, and get a Blood Test.
As far as Georgetown, and her Jesuit infestation, remember this: When HAMAS' "Deliveror" was invited to speak at Georgetown, after just having been elected by the most Ignorant, and Stupid among us, he made a very strange request be granted, before HE (A very huuuuuuge Christian) would grant their wish. HE would glorify them, and their wishes to kneel before HIM and bask in HIS light, but first they must obey HIS command that: All reference to the Old Messiah - CHRIST - be REMOVED from the room where the NEW MESSIAH, was to speak.
That's really all you need to know, about Georgetown.
The Jesuits complied with HIS request, thus violating Commandment given to Moses, which states: Thou shalt not have no God, before me.
Occam's Tool| 5.19.12 @ 8:22PM
Quin is quite correct, here.
I don't donate to Brandeis because of their position on Israel, which is reprehensible for a Jewish school. I don't donate to TCU because it is no longer a moral school, and because it's newspaper once ran Holocaust deniers advertising. My wife controls the pursestrings to Bama. There it is.
C Bowen | 5.19.12 @ 8:36PM
Occam,
You were the one who wanted to genocide the Iranians et al, and make the survivors slaves to build a Wall on the Mexican-USA border, right?
Occam's Tool| 5.20.12 @ 7:12PM
You have a better solution, right?
Occam's Tool| 5.20.12 @ 7:16PM
It would work, right? They no longer would be building the bomb, and we would have our labor force to build the wall. Of course having them as a labor force is not a viable solution---they can't be trusted with that.
No, Bowen, I suggested using nukes if necessary to stop the Iranians. When they get a nuke, and they blow it up in one of our harbor cities, what do you think our response will be then? Do you think the firebombing of Japan was more merciful than my solution? It is time for actions to have consequences in the Muslim world. And, when they attack us with a WMD, which is only a matter of time after they get a nuke, what we will do then will be much harsher than anything I can write. I've read American history, Bowen. Beware this Republic on the march.
Mike Rogers | 5.19.12 @ 9:19PM
Any place of worship, or Christian academy which feels it must cover up a cross to respect the wishes of the president is putting the president above God.
Either Barack Obama is a Christian as he has claimed, and he upholds our constitution as he has sworn, or he is neither Christian, nor president, nor should he be welcome.
At the very least, the Christian institution should simply say "we're sorry that you cannot respect our religion" but we'll find a more suitable speaker.
And if DeGioia really thinks that honoring the president (or his godless socialist lackeys) is more important than honoring his god, he must go. If the board does not understand that simple truth, then may a thunderbolt erase Georgetown from the face of the Earth.
Thankyou and goodnight!
Bob S| 5.20.12 @ 2:44AM
Georgetown should give up the charade, and stop calling themselves a Catholic university.
Kenny| 5.20.12 @ 10:42AM
Much of the institutional Catholic Church and its clergy & hierarchy should, too, give up the charade and stop calling themselves Catholic.
The Rev.Robert A. Shackles| 5.20.12 @ 8:10AM
As also a Catholic-leaning Anglican (but no longer Episcopalian), I rejoice that you maintain this fight for Truth. Stay at it in your best Abiding Trust (Faith) in our Lord of all Truth. It encourages me.
RAS+
PattyMor| 5.20.12 @ 8:18AM
Pope Benedict is busying reigning in the runaway Nuns and their liberal views. Benedict must now get busy and reign in the runaway University leaders. For if you wont't promote Catholic values, why are you in charge of a Catholic institution?
Instead you've just become another cog on the road to communism and godlessness.
Kenny| 5.20.12 @ 10:47AM
Benedict has as of yet not been successful in reigning in the runaway nuns. Not by a long shot.
And I'll bet dollars to donuts that as soon as the Church hits resistance from the loony nuns and their secular supporters like the New York Times, etc., the Church will retreat, mumbling some platitudes about how tough it is on dissent. Ha!
Watch and see.
Questions| 5.20.12 @ 1:04PM
"[R]eining" in Patty, not "reigning," ----------- you're dead right that Ratzinger should have busied himself establishing doctrinal clarity in the clergy and the orders, for it's not just the Jesuits run amok.
Georgetown ought to be taken over by the Vatican; the Jesuits stripped of their control. That would make HUGE news and send a signal throughout the whole Church that things are going to be much different now. If the Jesuits howl, and they would, that would only serve to further demonstrate their insubordination.
Desiree Hellegers| 5.20.12 @ 10:06AM
Are we to understand then, that Blatty was silent on the appointment of Alvaro Uribe to the faculty at Georgetown? Where was his outrage—and where was the Vatican’s--for example, when Jeanne Kirkpatrick was commencement speaker back in the early 1980s? Where was Blatty’s outrage when the late Salvadoran President Roberto D’Aubuisson was invited by a conservative student group to speak on campus in the 1980s? D’Aubuisson, of course, was one of the architects of the assassination of Archbishop Oscar Romero and the rape and murder of Sisters Maura Clarke, Ita Ford and Dorothy Kazel, and lay missioner Jeanne Donovan. He was responsible for the deaths of countless union and human rights organizers and Salvadorans who were tortured and murdered in unspeakable ways—that as Noam Chomsky has observed, “often had…Satanic overtones.”
But I’m glad to see Blatty stepping into the forefront of this debate.
After all, he’s probably done more to popularize Satanism in the U.S. than anyone since Cotton Mather. Among his many cinematic achievements—still seared in my teenage consciousness—is a scene in which Linda Blair masturbates with a crucifix.
The problem, though, is that Blatty doesn’t go far enough in his desire to return Georgetown—and Catholicism—to its conservative roots. Instead of having Sebelius preside over commencement, can’t we burn her at the stake along with Sandra Fluke. Now that’s a tried and true solution for women who try to advance health care options for women. But barring the resurrection of that tradition, I guess a good old inquisition will do. And who better to advance it than Blatty, with his appeals for justice to a pope whose qualifying credentials include membership in the Hitler Youth Brigade? And those students who, as I understand it, voted for Sebelius as their graduation speaker? Simply explain to them that democracy and independent critical analysis have no place in a Catholic institution. Jesus, I’m sure, would have loved all of this stuff.
Finally, as someone who really loved Father King and attended his masses--almost nightly for a time—as an undergraduate, I’m sorry to see this witch hunt unfolding under the banner of his name.
Desiree Hellegers GU Alum, ‘83
Questions| 5.20.12 @ 1:17PM
El Salvador was in the midst of a civil war, which only ended by the actions of Roberto D'Aubuisson. Was protracted strife to be preferred to making an end to the Left?
D'Aubuisson by the way won handily his election bid, and in an election that was widely reported to be free of fraud.
The Left did what to religious freedom in Nicaragua? Compare the latitude provided the Church in El Salvador to that provided by the Left in Nicaragua.
D'Aubuisson was not linked to the assassination of Romero. He WAS linked to the death squads to be sure, but not tethered to the assassination of Romero. By the by, Romero picked a side in a civil war, by that action, he had ceased to be an impartial bystander providing spiritual consolation to the needy. He became a player, ------------ was it a big surprise that some of those battling for the very soul of their country would be livid by his support of the Marxists, the Godless, the Communists, who were doing everything they could to take over and destroy El Salvador?
Romero ceased to be an innocent the moment he provided political and spiritual cover for Marxian terrorists.
Where too is any mention of the atrocities committed by the Leftist terrorists, which provided the sine qua non to the rise of D'Aubuisson and the death squads?
Accusing a guy of "popularizing Satanism" by EXPOSING the real, unreported on battle against Satan himself is bizarre, just bizarre.
Do you even understand WHY people were burned at the stake, why it was called auto de fe?
"[W]itch hunt?" The Left in this country has completely taken over every institution of higher education, sacred or secular, and has driven forth into a howling wilderness anyone who challenges their domination thereof. Yet here you are pretending that isn't the case!
What Church are you a member of?
Yea, you're a member of that "church" that does its best to jive the message thereof with the platform of the Democrat party.
Good luck with that............
MEA | 5.23.12 @ 10:04AM
Pope Benedict and all German male youth were forced to "join" the Nazi party due to the fact that Hitler was needing more military because of the number of casualties. As a matter of fact, elderly men were also forced into the military.If one would want to search for truth, one could find that Pope Benedict escaped from the Nazis and he and his family detested Hitler and his henchmen.
JP| 5.20.12 @ 12:37PM
Cdl Wuehrl's silence is deafening. For those are not aware, the local Bishop has the final say as to what constitutes a Catholic institution inside of his Dioceses. Whether it is a local charity, mission church, hospital or even a university, any institution that is affiliated with the Roman Catholic Church automatically comes under the canonical authority of the local Bishop. And it is only by the authority of the local Bishop can this affiliation be severed. It is through the Bishop that the process begins in which a university loses its affiliation. The final call comes from the Holy See himself.
It should also be noted that the local Bishop has the authority to "correct" as well as remove his imprimatuer on all theological material taught within the university or college. That is, if professor at Georgetown or Notre Dame teaches that Christ is not the Son of God, or questions the
veracity of the Immaculate Conception, or questions the authority of the Magesterium, the Bishop has the authority to issue the equivalent of a cease and desist order. If the university refuses, the Bishop can begin the process of removing the university's affiliation with the Roman Catholic Church.
The bishops flinched at the 2009 Notre Dame commencement address. Bishop A'Darcy was at the time in the process of retiring. I take it that the incoming Bishop and current Bishop of Fort Wayne (Indiana), Bishop Rhoades wanted no part of the controversey. We should defer to the authority of the Bishops and not second guess them. However, we can also point out the problems they've created for themselves. Cdl Wuerhl, for whatever reasons, is refusing to use his authority and his office to defend the Church from scandal, to teach the Truth, and defend the Church from the Obama era Kulturkampf. Like us all, he will be judged by God. We hope for thier benefit and ours that they will eventually do what is right. We should always pray for all of our priests, bishops, Protestant ministers, rabbis and missionaries.
Questions| 5.20.12 @ 1:22PM
The Bishops didn't "flinch" with the speech at Notre Dame.
They loved it.
They too would have loved the opportunity to grovel before obama. Sure there are exceptions, to be sure, albeit few and far between.
But by and large the Bishops, JUST LIKE DOLAN for instance, WENT TO BAT FOR THE LEFT!
They've reconciled themselves to socialism, to government control, to expansionist government, to confiscatory taxation rates and they've reconciled themselves to an agenda built and founded on ENVY, on CLASS WARFARE, on class strife, on covetousness, on racial grievance and endless racial provocation.
THAT'S what they reconciled themselves too, and in many cases, that's what they love!
JP| 5.20.12 @ 12:50PM
""We are a Catholic and Jesuit University. Because we are a university, we welcome and encourage freedom of thought and of speech. Because we are Catholic and Jesuit, we take specific positions on certain issues. You have every right to speak up against those positions of ours, openly and without fear of repercussion. But we reserve the right to explain to you why you are wrong, and to insist that while you are perfectly free to keep being wrong, we will continue to say publicly why we are right. An example of this is the Communist philosophy, which teaches atheism. It is wrong, and we will say so." "
No, a Catholic University's first and ultimate goal is the teach the Truth as the taught by and through the Magesterium, which is guided by the Holy Ghost and Christ Himself. Otherwise, why remain Catholic?
The Jesuits began as Defenders of the Church. Igantius Loyola envisioned an order that would be the last physical and intellectual defenders of the Holy Father. Thier noviatiates were akin to spirtual boot camps that in many ways were spirtually, and emotionally brutal. Thier priests spent years studying all subjects of the day; they could match wits with any philosopher, theologian, or politician or king. Thier evangelical zeal was austounding. Thier missionaires were sent all over the world preaching and teaching. In the US alone, most of our early colleges were Jesuit insitutions.
But, like everything else human weakness, pride, vanity, and greed began a steady assault on the Jesuits. Today, they are just Progressive Catholics, a religious arm of the Democratic Party.
Questions| 5.20.12 @ 1:24PM
Allegiance to the truth must be privileged over any dubious fealty to a transitory, politically correct climate that extols "diversity" and "multiculturalism."
They don't see that though.
They're besotted with walking the political and cultural cat walk, strutting and showing their garb, posturing, posing, patting themselves on the back for their "right opinions."
Vanity! Oh the vanity!
desiree hellegers| 5.21.12 @ 2:30PM
The collective endorsements here of what amounts to "killing for Christ" simply amaze me. There's no resemblance between the militarism, hatred and intolerance voiced by so many on this website and the actual Gospel teachings of Christ, which provide no evidence that he ever endorsed killing anyone--regardless of their religious or political views.
DRA2010| 5.22.12 @ 1:40AM
You must have missed a few parts of the Gospel - just some quick examples: Matthew 10:34 "Do not suppose I have come to bring peace to the Earth, I did not come to bring peace, but a sword", and later, in 10:39 "Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it". Of course there are multiple citations of his attack on money-changers at the temple, and I am quite certain what he would do to worshippers of Moleth or Baal. I mean geez, one time when he was hungry, he shrivelled a fig tree to nothingness since when he found it there wasn't any fruit on it!
FeFe| 5.22.12 @ 4:41PM
Fr. Durkin's quote is like butter!