Tale of Two Commencements

Accuracy in Academia ^ | May 8, 2012 | Malcolm A. Kline

[Academiadotorg]

Georgetown, a Jesuit university which refuses to provide contraceptive coverage in accordance with its catholic designation, is inviting as a speaker the federal official who is most determined to make them do so—U. S. Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius.

“Secretary Sebelius is not speaking at Georgetown’s commencement,” Georgetown spokesman Rachel Pugh said in an email to The Cardinal Newman Society (CNS). “She is speaking at Georgetown Public Policy Institute’s annual student and faculty awards event.”

“The nation’s oldest Catholic and Jesuit university has chosen to honor Sebelius by granting her a prestigious platform at its Public Policy Institute commencement ceremony, despite her role as the lead architect of a healthcare mandate that will force Catholic institutions to pay for contraception, abortifacients and sterilization against their religious beliefs,” the CNS had stated.

(By the way, “Over 100,000 organizations opposed this mandate when it was announced in August, and Colorado Christian University, an Evangelical university, has joined the Becket Fund in their lawsuits against this mandate,” the self-same Becket Fund for Religious Liberty states. “If the First Amendment means anything, it means the government can’t force religious institutions to violate their conscience.”)

“Secretary Sebelius deserves civility and respect as the appointed Secretary of our government Department of Health and Human Services,” a letter to Georgetown from Catholic Vote.org avers. “She does not, however, deserve a platform or place of honor at a prominent Catholic institution commencement ceremony.”

(Full disclosure: Your correspondent signed onto this letter as a concerned Catholic citizen.)

[PGR88]

Over the past couple of decades, Georgetown has steadily succumbed to the lure of becoming the premier, elitist, modernist university located in the capital at the center of the empire. When the conflicts between their Catholic identity and serving Caesar inevitably come, their Catholic identity will lose out.

The temptation was really too great.