TGA - December 2012

THE GEORGETOWN ACADEMY
VOLUME XXIII, NUMBER 1
Georgetowns Independent Journal

of Faith and Reason
December 2012
ONE
OF
THESE
MEN
SHOULD
BE
A
CARDINAL
First Copy Is Free
Each Additional $1.00

Volume XXIII, Number 1
Special 2012
Hells hottest place is reserved for those, who

in times of conflict, remain neutral.
-DANTE
Board of Editors
Thomas J. Fisher, Jr.

Eric J. Larsen
Melissa Christoffel Jacob
James Morrow
Todd H. Davis
Daniel J. Kaufman
Sean G. Rushton
Robert J. Swope
Eric P. Wright
Peter J. Freeman
Amar Weisman
Barry Schiffman
Anath Hartmann
Dr. David B. Beer
Student Publisher
William K. Lane III
Advisors and Scholars
Manuel A. Miranda, Chairman

Rev. Robert Araujo, S.J., Loyola Chicago Law
Larry Cirignano, CatholicVote
William Donohue, Catholic League
Patrick Reilly, Cardinal Newman Society
Joseph A. Varacalli, Center for Catholic Studies
Bridget Wagner, Heritage Foundation
Peter R. Campomanes, Father King Society
President
The Georgetown Academy encourages responses from students,

faculty, and administrators. Letters to the editor should be sent to:
editors@georgetownacademy.com
All letters should include contact information. The Academy reserves the right to publish letters at the discretion of the editors.
The views expressed in this journal are the views of the respective
authors and are not necessarily those of The Georgetown Academy,
the editors, staff, or other contributors. We reserve the right to
edit all submissions for clarity and length.
Letter from TGAs President

Dear Reader,

This is a special commemorative issue of The
Georgetown Academy. It honors TGAs receipt, almost 10
years ago to the day, of the Ex corde Ecclesiae Award in
Student Catholic Journalism presented to us by the Cardinal
Newman Society. That award recognized the impact of
TGAs first 12 years when we led on a series of issues with
repercussions on and off the Hilltop, including: student
government reform, crucifixes in classrooms, the decimation
of our English curriculum, the defunding of GU Choice, the
preservation of Catholic identity, and many, many more.

This issue is also an alumni reunion in print,
featuring new articles by TGA alumni as well as key archival
reprints. TGA was founded in 1990 and is supported by a
mostly alumni board of directors, comprising past editors and
publishers with 25 years experience in Georgetown student
publications.

We are also using this issue as a revival effort to
recruit new student collaborators for 2013 and beyond. If
you are a student, you like what you see, you are not timid
or compromised, and you want to make a difference, The
Georgetown Academy is for you. On Page 23, we list all the
positions that are available. We promise one thing: you will
not only have a great time but you will look back on your
TGA years, as all of our alumni do, with pride.

The Georgetown Academy is unique among student
publications and even student activities. We are a culture
and a community that joins students with alumni, allowing
students to have a perspective that reaches well beyond
their short time at Georgetown and the myopias of a small
campus.

We admit that TGA has not been steady in the
past 10 years. TGA alumni take responsibility for that. By
this special issue, we are committing to a renewal and a
reinvigoration.

This issue calls for a Cardinals hat for our past
advisor James V. Schall, S.J., and honors this best of men.
We call on Cardinal Wuerl to unfurl the sacred purple and
bring us all relief in response to the opportunity that the
great and beloved William Peter Blatty, C50, is giving
to His Eminence and to the whole Church. We illuminate
Georgetowns willful refusal to implement Ex corde
Ecclesiae and bemoan our disappointment in the incredibly
shrinking Jesuits. We reprint our Laud Editorial of Blessed
John Paul II and newly laud Pope Benedict XVI.

We publish here our Mission Statement and an
article that we have used in the past as a recruitment handout,
written by a former senior editor at The Hoya who came over
to become our best Editor-in-Chief.

We hope you are moved by our special issue
moved to action.
Hoya Saxa!
Melissa Christoffel Jacob, SFS 95
President, The Georgetown Academy
A Cardinals Hat Should Mean Something

Perhaps if we put this is in the right hands it
will reach the Holy Father. After all, who better than
Georgetowners to suggest that Father James Schall, S.J
should get a Cardinals hat, like Avery Dulles. S.J., a
humble theologian at Fordham; or the great controversialist
and eternal freshman, Fr. Newman of Oxford. Schall is
probably more prolific than either of these two, and there is
no greater interpreter of Pope Benedicts scholarship, and
remarkably frequent reliance on Plato! Moreover, given
his love of expensive wine, we think Schall would accept
the great honor.

A Cardinals hat should mean something. Of
course, it always does mean something to someone. For
most of us, however, it means something usually distant.
In the case of Fr. Schall, it would mean something very
special indeed and it would speak heart to heart to a
community of scholars and Catholics that is often in near
despair; who need more encouragement from the Church
than we get. After all, what Church would be left without
us; without discerning men like Schall? It might also
speak to those few remaining Jesuits who might see in that
Cardinals hat a more resounding exhortation and valuable
apparel than their guayabera.

In this issue, we speak to Schalls irreplaceable
impact on and off the Georgetown campus. We let Schall
speak for himself. We will not make the case any further
for his Cardinals hat. Some things must be left to speak
for themselves, and as Fr. Schall has taught us, because we
know that reason needs faith, Holy Father.

But what should a Cardinals hat mean if you
are the Most Rev. Donald W. Wuerl, the Archbishop of
Washington? What does it mean in practice to be a Prince
of the Church?

Our sources tell us that Cardinal Wuerl is headed
soon to Rome to fill permanently an even greater charge.
Surely he must be doing something right. Our points of
comparison are few.

Cardinal James Hickey spent 20 years or so as
Washingtons archbishop and probably visited Georgetown
twice. He was a lamb and beloved. Even so, in 1991 he
roared, as a Cardinal should, when he declared then-Dean
DeGioias decision to fund a pro-abortion advocacy student
club was inconsistent with Georgetowns Catholic
identity. With the help of his aide, Msgr. William Lori,
now the Archbishop of Baltimore, His Eminence navigated
the shallows and brought eventually to bear the full weight
of the Church to save Georgetowns soul. DeGioia and
his boss, the infamous Leo ODonovan, S.J., reversed
themselves.

By contrast, Cardinal Theodore McCarrick, a
signer of the divisive Land O Lakes Declaration, visited
the campus so often that he had a meal plan. He was a
wolf in lambs clothing. He did no good at all. Instead, his
ubiquitous presence gave safe harbor to the many excesses

of President DeGioias Georgetown. An institutional
audit of Georgetowns catholicity, soon to be released,
reports that McCarrick even met with GU theologians and
essentially laughed off the Mandatum, a license to practice
that all Catholic professors of theology must obtain from
their bishop.

His Eminence, Cardinal Wuerl has proven to be
no fool. Georgetowns administration is a big fat bully and
Wuerl has sometimes stood up to it and sometimes hasnt.
He put his Cardinals hat on when Georgetown seemed
to be ready to side against the bishops in support of the
Obama administrations HHS mandate. It is not every day
that our Archbishop calls our President a liar.

His Eminence unfurled the sacred purple when
Georgetown invited the excommunicated HHS Secretary,
who is intent on limiting the religious liberty of Catholics
and all Americans, to be a commencement speaker.
The Archdioceses official publication declared that at
Georgetown today leadership and faculty find their
inspiration in sources other than the Gospel and Catholic
teaching, and that the vision guiding university choices
does not clearly reflect the light of the Gospel and authentic
Catholic teaching. You got that right.

So now, and before he leaves for Rome, Cardinal
Wuerl is being given the opportunity of a Cardinals
lifetime. Georgetown patriots are petitioning the Cardinal
as their pastor, as the Laity have the right to do in Canon
Law: to maintain communion with the Church, to
perfect the order of temporal affairs, and legitimately to
vindicate our rights in the Church,[due to our grave
concern that our] rights to know and follow the truth of
the Catholic Church, to a Christian education, and others,
have been violated by Georgetown Universitys twentyone year refusal to comply with the law of the Church
through the implementation of the general norms of Ex
corde Ecclesiae and its eleven year non-compliance with
certain particular norms adopted for the United States,
which has led directly and indirectly to the tolerance and
promotion of deviations from authentic doctrinal and moral
teachings by Georgetown University authorities, a long
series of Scandals to the faithful ... and a growing threat
to the academic freedom of professors and students in
favor of new illiberal and intolerant orthodoxies. (www.
fatherkingsociety.org)

According to our sources, the Petition asks the
Cardinal to declare that Georgetown is Catholic by virtue
of its faithful compliance and implementation of Ex corde
Ecclesiae, or, in the alternative, to apply a remedy and
chart a course if His Eminence discovers that Georgetown
is not faithful. We will have to wait the 90 days that Canon
Law provides to see if this Cardinals hat means something.
News
Catholic Students, Parents, Faculty, and Alumni Unite

For An Answer on Whether Georgetown Is Catholic

After 11 years into the controversial presidency of Dr.
John J. DeGioia, and 22 years after the promulgation of Ex
Corde Ecclesiae, a normative constitution intended to govern
and preserve the Catholic identity of Church-sponsored
universities, over 1,000 Georgetown students, alumni, faculty
and parents are petitioning under canon law for the Church to
take itself seriously with regard to Georgetown University.

The dramatic lay effort aims to bring the Churchs
hierarchy fully to bear to make Georgetown comply with
Church requirements or to cause GU to lose its right to
call itself Catholic and Jesuit, beginning with the Cardinal
Archbishop of Washington, Donald P. Wuerl, one of the
successors of Georgetowns founder Archbishop John Carroll
of Baltimore.

Academy Award winner William Peter Blatty (C
50), best known as the novelist and screenwriter responsible
for The Exorcist, announced plans in May for the creation
of The Father King Society to Make Georgetown Honest,
Catholic and Better. The organization is named for the late Fr.
Thomas King, S.J., a beloved Georgetown theology professor
and pro-life icon.

We have all been too patient, Blatty said. The
scandals that Georgetown has given to the faithful are too
many to count and too many to ignore any longer.

The petition is neither a lawsuit nor does it begin an
adversarial court process, as has been erroneously reported by
multiple news outlets beginning with The Hoya. When the
effort was first announced in May, with the mother news piece
appearing in The Hoya, the news resulted in over 200,000
news and blog commentaries worldwide in several languages.

The effort was announced even before the Vatican
ordered this summer that the Pontifical Catholic University of
Peru cease to call itself both Pontifical and Catholic. That
result, however, did not end that universitys obligations to
the Church and left the door open for the university to cure its
deficiencies and comply with its obligations. The Peru order
came after the Vatican ordered a Visitation, what amounts to
an institutional audit similar to what accrediting agencies do in
the United States.

The Georgetown petition threatens a similar result but
also seeks Georgetowns honest compliance.

At press time, the Georgetown petition was to be
December 2012
delivered to Cardinal Wuerl the week of November 12th.

The petition will be submitted confidentially and will not be
released to the public.

According to sources familiar with the Father
King Society effort, the petition will first ask that Cardinal
Wuerl declare that Georgetown is Catholic by virtue of its
compliance with Ex corde Ecclesiae.

This is something that he will not be able to do if he
values his soul, said the source.

This is not Georgetowns first experience with a
canon law petition based on Ex corde Ecclesiae. In 1991,
then Dean of Students John J. DeGioia made headlines
after authorizing university funding for GU Choice, a proabortion advocacy student club. Catholic students, teachers
and alumni, including Fr. Tom King, quickly organized
in response. A petition was eventually submitted to the
Archdiocese of Washington. Cardinal James Hickey punted
the matter to the Vatican claiming that Georgetowns status
was dependent on its 1836 pontifical charter.

Petitioners promptly appealed. Their appeal
included a smoking gun memorandum from the Association
of Jesuit Colleges and Universities to all the presidents of
Americas Jesuit institutions of higher education showing
that Georgetown administrators had been lying about their
decision and that the funding was part of a broader scheme
by which GU would go first and show all other Jesuit schools
how to fund abortion advocacy.

According to news reports in all the campus
publications in March and April 1992, then-Georgetown
President Fr. Leo J. ODonovan, S.J., was called to Rome and
was ordered to reverse the GU Choice decision. ODonovan
refused at first, but in April 1992 a very senior Jesuit leader,
Joseph Pittau, S.J., visited Georgetown and gave ODonovan
a written order. Georgetown reversed itself at the end of that
week.

The new Georgetown petition will be submitted
after several months of consultation with canon lawyers in
the United States and in Rome. Under canon law procedure,
Cardinal Wuerl will have 90 days to respond.

We expect that the Cardinal will show no less
respect than Cardinal Hickey did, he responded in 90 days and
was very cordial throughout, said Blatty.

Georgetown University has had a no comment
position on this matter since it was first announced.
Page 4
In His Own Words
It Is Up to Us
William Peter Blatty
loved Georgetown from the first day that I set

my footlocker down in Healy Circle and asked
an upperclassman how to find a room to put it
in. I loved the Jesuits too. In my novel The Exorcist I
thanked them for teaching me to think.

My hard-working mother harangued the
principal of a Jesuit prep school in Brooklyn into giving
me a scholarship. GU gave me a scholarship too, and
I am ever-grateful. Without these gifts, I would never
have gone to college, never heard in Theology class
about a case of something called possession that I one
day would write about.

More importantly, GU gave me the gift of
a liberal education that included the keys of reason
to unlock the mysteries of faith. Throughout an
undeservedly wonderful life, I have been guided by the
light of my Georgetown education, grounded firmly,
as I knew it was even in my youth, in the unmatched
intellectual wealth of the Catholic Church. Each time
I faltered, as I often did, sometimes grievously, that
light never failed to come to my rescue.

What I owe Georgetown, however, is nothing
as compared to what she owes to its founders and the
Christ of Faith, and so it grieves me deeply that my
alma mater is failing so scandalously in its debt to both,
and to the militant Jesuits still buried there who gave
it their everything, who made it so special for so long.
Georgetown today seems to take pride in insulting the
Church and offending the faithful.

I know that some students, or the earnest
Jesuit, might want to point me to the liturgies, the
chaplains, the Knights of Columbus chapter, and so on.
Administrators wish to assure me that they speak to the
Archbishop and visit Rome regularly. I know the litany
all too well. It describes a Potemkin village, complete
now with long waving banners.

Those who believe in that village seem satisfied
Page 5
with their little Catholic ghetto. The illusion contrasts

so starkly with the Archdioceses view of things. On
May 10th, its official publication stated plainly that at
GU today leadership and faculty find their inspiration
in sources other than the Gospel and Catholic
teaching, and that the vision guiding university
choices does not clearly reflect the light of the Gospel
and authentic Catholic teaching.

The Potemkin village illusion was rejected
also by the Pope. On May 5, 2012, in a speech to
American bishops, Pope Benedict XVI called on
Americas Catholic universities to reaffirm their
Catholic identity. The Pope noted the failure of many
Catholic universities to comply with Blessed John Paul
IIs apostolic constitution Ex corde Ecclesiae. The Pope
said that preservation of a universitys Catholic identity
entails much more than the teaching of religion or the mere
presence of a chaplaincy on campus.

Of course, the decimation of Catholic began
long ago when we first looked with envy toward
Harvard and reduced the Jesuit curriculum. Much later,
the dissidents came, some wearing Roman collars, and
others who would find personal gain in the reactionary
movement against Church authority. For a while
Georgetown galloped toward secularism; even crucifixes
disappeared from classrooms.

Then, in the early 80s, a top New York P.R.
firm counseled the University that it was misguided
to diminish the Catholic. The report explained how
Catholic identity was a valuable brand that G.U.
should exploit in its fund raising and recruitment.
Georgetown got the memo, but pursued a cynical path.
In its prose, Latin quotes, and other cosmetics, GU
would tell the world that it was Catholic and Jesuit.
It would quote Jesuits and offer Ignatius Exercises. At
black-tie alumni dinners, a Jesuit would be placed at
every table like a flower setting. The march toward
secularism and moral relativism continued.

Debate is usually the servant of truth. In this
continued on page 6
December 2012
In His Own Words

continued from page 5
case, the debate over whether Georgetown is or is not
Catholic has itself become a great deception. Some
say yes, some say no. What does it matter what any
of us think? There is only one accrediting agency that
gets the last word. The Church, however, sought input
and counsel from university leaders, and after years,
Pope John Paul II, a former university professor, issued
a normative constitution for Catholic universities, Ex
corde Ecclesiae. Since 1991, Georgetown has had a
metric. Its leaders have chosen willfully to ignore it.

In fact, it seems as if every month GU gives
another scandal to the faithful. Look at Georgetowns
obtuse invitation to Secretary Sebelius to be a
commencement speaker. Each of these scandals is
proof of Georgetowns non-compliance with Ex corde
Ecclesiae and canon law. They are each inconsistent
with a Catholic identity, and we all know it. A
university in solidarity with the Church would not
do these prideful things that do so much harm to our
communion.

In the meantime, should you suspect that mine
are the quaint views of a wistful old man, if not a spry
but cranky dinosaur, I invite you to read what Chiara
Cardone, a 2010 GU graduate, wrote to me:

Georgetowns Catholic identity was one of the many

outstanding attributes that appealed to me. After four
informative but uninspiring years of public education, I was
excited by the freedom of thought and the purposeful inquiry
promised by a private, Catholic, liberal arts institution,
unrestricted by contemporary fads in society, public policy and
academia, not bound to inconsistent conventional wisdom. I
sought a universityengaged in the timeless pursuit of truth(that
unfashionable but empowering claim that freedom and thought
have a higher purpose), through the application of reason and
rigorous scrutiny.I fully expected my opinions to be challenged,
but I also expected my values to be respected.

Unfortunately, I found that Georgetown today lacks the
integrity to consistently live the Catholic identity it claims. While
faith and spirituality are embraced at Georgetown, they are
respected only so long as they are either confined within the
walls of Dahlgren Chapel, ordiluted to appease the dictatorship
of relativism which is sweeping our civilization. My Catholic
manner of worship was always accepted, but my Catholic lifestyle
and convictions were sometimes attacked by studentorganizations
and staff members, themselves underpinned by tacit and even
December 2012
explicit university endorsement. Far beyond nuanced scrutiny

or respectful debate, my convictions, especially those regarding
the dignity of human life, were instead the subject of sweeping
condemnation, even at university-sponsored events. My cultural
identity was insulted; my intellectual autonomy and personal
agency were denied in order to render my voice inconsequential.
On thoseoccasions I came to wonder why, ata Catholic institution,
I wasso ridiculed for my Catholicism. I sometimes felt betrayed
by a campus culture which discouraged faithfulness, even while
banners everywhere touted the ideal of faith in action.

Colin Cortes, a student at Georgetown currently,
essentially agreed with Chiara and wrote: It is time for
Georgetown to decide whether it wants to be a Catholic
institution. I agree.

It is not too late. We can do something. I
have formed the Father King Society to unite students,
faculty, parents, and alumni to make Georgetown
honest, Catholic and better. I have been struck by the
quality of the students and faculty who have joined.
us. Anyone interested can contact me through www.
fatherkingsociety.org. Only the courageous are
welcome.

To become authentically Catholic again does
not mean the return to the past. It means building
something entirely new; a new way for our University
to meet the world that Georgetowns old guard might
well be unable to imagine. And so, they defend their
comfortable status quo. Among other things, a Catholic
university will defend academic freedom against the
illiberal and intolerant new orthodoxies that allow no
dissension from their new truths, as is happening at
Georgetown today.

Our new society is named for Tom King, S.J.,
who in 1991 assisted a first canonical petition to stop
Georgetowns slow separation from the Church. That
petition, ironically, asked the Church to strip GU of
its Catholic label. It got the desired, not the requested
result. We have asked the Church, beginning with
our pastor, Archbishop Wuerl, to do something quite
different and much larger. Our excitement is palpable.
Like Jesuit Father Karras, we do it for Love.
William Peter Blatty, CAS 1950 is an Academy Award

winner for the screenplay of his #1 bestselling novel The
Exorcist.
Page 6
Feature
The Best of Men:

Honoring Schallcrates of Georgetown
Robert J. Swope
t is, perhaps, one of the most remembered bits of

learning a student receives. An old half-blind
Jesuit with one lens in his spectacles the color of
smoke walks into a room and asks what year Socrates
died. 399 B.C., comes the reply. From there, not
unlike the potential philosophers who once came to
the ancient Greek for wisdom, you and your classmates
would be examined on the rest of the days lesson.
No lecture, no group exercises. Just a peppering
of questions interspersed with short explanations,
clarifications, and follow-ups from a Catholic priest
who wanders about the room seeking the truth
of things, one whose charges long ago nicknamed
Schallcrates for his wisdom and pedagogy.
Since 1976, until his retirement at the end of
this semester, Father James V. Schall, S.J., will have
taught nearly every undergraduate government major
at Georgetown, where he has resided as part of the
universitys ever-dwindling cadre of Jesuits for the last
35 years. His required Elements of Political Theory
class has been, for would-be politicians, bureaucrats,
and other similar sorts who might one day have a
hand in governing the polity, a necessary encounter
with the giants of philosophy. Everyone knows the
greats: Aristotle, Cicero, St. Augustine, and Aquinas.
Moderns such as Machiavelli, Hobbes, Locke,
Rousseau, and Nietzsche also make appearances, as do
some lesser-knowns few would consider belonging in
such company, men like E.F Schumacher, Yves Simon,
and Alan Bloom.
Yet most of all students find Plato, to whom
Schall always returns, and from whom he tells us,
everyone who follows is a mere derivative. This is,
he says, because Plato was the first philosopher to
seriously examine the highest things and ask the
most important questions, ones we still ask ourselves
today, while at the same time bequeathing to us
Page 7
answers that remain relevant and true. If a student

graduates from a university without having ever
encountered Plato, Schall once quipped, he should sue
for his money back.
Over the years he has also taught from a
rotating list of around nine electives, including
courses on Classical Political Philosophy, Medieval
Political Philosophy, Natural Law, Thomas Aquinas,
St. Augustine, Aristotle, and Plato. Once students
discovered him, more than a few competed to see how
many of his classes they could cram into four years.
We called it majoring in Schall.
Born in, of all places, a log cabin, in
Pocahontas, Iowa, Schall as a young man enlisted in
the Army at 18 and served two years in uniform, then
joined the Society of Jesus, to which he has belonged
for 65 years. Before coming to teach at Georgetown
he not only attended, but also taught for over a decade
at the Gregorian Pontifical University in Rome, alma
mater to seventeen popes, three saints, and the current
Holy Father. Outside academia, where he is one of
the United States most preeminent Catholic political
theorists and Thomists, Schall is perhaps most famous
for his work on G.K. Chesterton, on whom he is
widely considered to be among the worlds foremost
experts.
Schalls renown is, in part, because rarely is a
professor so prolific. Consider the corpus: since the late
1960s he has written over 30 books and edited some
15 more, all the while contributing monthly columns
and occasional articles to a variety of periodicals.
Few professors have had a collection of their best
writings edited and published. Fewer still have the
pleasure of seeing while living (and still teaching, no
less!) a volume of thoughtful essays and appreciations
written by learned men and women in praise of their
scholarship and influence. Schall has had both.
The ultimate battles, Schall once wrote, are
continued on page 8
December 2012
Feature
not economic or even political. They are philosophical
and theological. Perhaps his core teaching is that
political philosophy is necessary not only because it
involves the study of the most just regime, but because
it forces us to ask questions about life and the nature
of existence that reason alone cannot answer.
His book, At the Limits of Political Philosophy:
From Brilliant Errors to the Things of Uncommon
Importance, directly concerns the contribution of
revelation, arguing that political philosophy on its
own is incomplete and cannot adequately explain the
reality of evil nor the possibility of good within the
city. It is in many ways a refutation of Machiavelli,
who, along with Marsilius of Padua, initiated the
modernist project by breaking with the classical
tradition of the world having an intelligible order of
being, one in which man was not the sum of existence,
nor autonomous in his thinking, but in need of Athens
and Jerusalem, both reason and revelation, as a guide
toward achieving a purposeful life and a well-ordered
polity.
Indeed, one might sum up Schalls philosophic
work as a reaction against the author of The Prince and
other modernists who lowered the sights of political
philosophy by turning governing into a simple game
of power, since in their relativist view, mankind
was incapable of being able to properly distinguish
between good and evil in politics, or in other words,
what one ought to do.
To the ancient and medieval philosophers who
sought to build the best possible city, if not in practice,
then in speech, both virtue and justice were the
foundations of the most just regime, and discerning
what one ought to do was the purpose of philosophy.
Yet to Machiavelli, says Schall, [w]hat was good was
simply what was successful, what was evil, [was that
which] failed to retain power. Schall seeks a return
to the classical tradition in which both philosophy
and revelation are respected on their own terms
and in need of each other if either is to be properly
understood.
In recent years, in addition to his
December 2012
philosophizing, Schall has also been willing to argue

in defense of the Catholic university, something many
might say his fellow Jesuits have been loath to do
when needed. When Georgetown brought in Health
and Human Services Secretary KathrynSebelius
as a commencement speaker earlier this year, not
long after her department announced regulations
that would force Christian institutions to pay for
contraceptives for employees in their health insurance
plans, Schall wrote in The Catholic World Report that
the invitation was a sign of Georgetowns indifference
to the Church. As a Catholic university, Schall said,
one would expect Georgetown to be the institution
that most intelligently defended the Church against
such practices. The distance that many Catholic
universities are perceived to have moved from
Catholicism is for many, he wrote, illustrated by the
publicity of this invitation. What is more, Schall
continued, is that [h]onoring the person who intends
to shut ones institution down unless it conforms to
laws that deny religious liberty and human intelligence
seems, at best, dubious.
In his writing and his actions, Schall appears
to be a living exemplar of Georgetowns original
mission as the nations oldest Catholic university;
whose motto Utraque Unum(both into one) seeks to
unify the connection between revelation and reason.
Robert Reilly puts it best when he says that Schall is
a priest who philosophizes, someone who embodies
the paradox he seeks to explain, a man of reason and
revelation in one.
Though he leaves Georgetown for a second
and final time (he earned a Ph.D. in political theory at
Georgetown in 1960), Schall is already immortalized
in the minds of his students as one of the universitys
legendary teachers. There are, for instance, two annual
awards named after him, one of which includes a
$5000 prize. According to Professor Robert George
of Princeton, Schalls great gift is for demonstrating
to his students the contemporary relevance of classic
works of political philosophy from those of Plato and
Aristotle, through those of Augustine and Aquinas,
and Madison and Tocqueville. And by his students,
says George, I mean not only those who have sat in
Page 8
In His Own Words

his Georgetown classrooms, but all of us who have
read his articles and books and listened to his public
lectures and presentations at academic conferences.
In losing him, Georgetown University not
only loses one of its most widely loved professors,
but one who is at home with a traditional approach
to studying the Western traditionfree from the
usual p.c. bromides. It also loses a man who can
claim that which most other professors cannot: a
transformational impact on the lives of many of his
students. Because of him, my fellow undergraduates
and I became, if only for a short time, the potential
philosophers Socrates spent so much time with, men
and women much better able to grapple with some of
lifes most important questions: the nature and purpose
of existence, what is happiness, the roles of love and

friendship in our lives, how best to order the most just
regime, the relationship between reason and revelation,
and the limits of philosophy.
In other words, we examined lifes highest
things, under the guidance of a wise and noble
teacher; exactly what some might say is the purpose of
a liberal education.
Robert Swope served as TGAs Editor-in Chief in 2000.
He made national headlines for his opposition to the
Vagina Monologues. In March 2003 he was a combat
infantry platoon leader in the invasion of Iraq and
subsequently served in Kurdistan as a diplomat with the
State Department.
On Georgetown and the

Essential Unity of All Knowledge
(May 10) called the invitation disappointing but not

surprising. Though this statement is rather blunt, it is
probably too mild in light of the damage the invitation
Editors Note: This article first appeared in Catholic World causes. It is more than disappointing, though it is
Report on May 17, 2012 in response to Georgetowns
indeed no surprise.
invitation to Secretary Kathleen Sebelius to be a

The distance that many Catholic universities
commencement speaker.
are perceived to have moved from Catholicism is, for
many, illustrated by the publicity of this invitation.
aiths recognition of the essential unity of all Honoring the person who intends to shut ones
knowledge provides a bulwark against the alienation institution down unless it conforms to laws that deny
and fragmentation which occurs when the use of religious liberty and human intelligence seems, at best,
reason is detached from the pursuit of truth and virtue; and dubious.
in this sense, Catholic institutions have a specific role to play
The best background theory about why
in helping to overcome the crisis of universities today.
Sebelius was interested in this invitation is that the
Obama administration does not think it can win the
-- Pope Benedict XVI, Ad Limina Address to U. S.
election if people are reminded of the economy. Thus,
Bishops, May 5, 2012.
effort is made to shift attention to what are called
moral issues, a euphemism for the use of rights
I. In its editorial occasioned by Georgetown
to redefine the whole field of public life. Obamas
Universitys invitation to Kathleen Sebeliusa
advocacy of gay-marriage also falls into this category.
Catholic, who is engineering the requirement that
The administration understands the value of splitting
Catholic institutions must provide services to any
the religious vote between those who stand for
employee, even if they include things contrary to
Christian teachings and practices and those who reject
conscience, faith, and reasonthe Catholic Standard
continued on page 10
Rev. James V. Schall, S.J.
Page 9
December 2012
In His Own Words

evangelization He acknowledges that they should be
better recognized and supported.
them but insist on changing the Church to conform

It is no exaggeration to say that providing
to the secular pattern. However many can be enticed
young people with a sound education in the faith
by this tactic may be enough at the polls to win
represents the most urgent internal challenge facing
reelection. The only bad prince, as Machiavelli put it, is the Catholic community in your country. The young,
one who loses power.
in fact, have a right to encounter the faith in all

The Church would expect, at a time when
its beauty, its intellectual richness and its radical
its liberty of mission and action is threatened by
demands. One would be hard-pressed to say that the
specific governmental decree, that universities, not
young are so presented with this fullness in many of
just Catholic ones, would be the first to come to its
our schools.
aid. But they seem to be the last. They appear mostly

Education is directed both to minds and
indifferent to what has been probably the most unique hearts. The question of Catholic identity, not least
of American legal innovations about the relation of
at the university level, entails much more than
religion and government. The Sebelius invitation, from the teaching of religion or the mere presence of a
the outside, seems an indifference to the Church by
chaplaincy on campus. The pope is direct. Catholic
those who would be most expected to support her on
schools and colleges have failed to challenge students
the grounds of intelligence itself.
to re-appropriate their faith as part of the exciting

The issue is whether universities called
intellectual discovery which mark the experience
Catholic have not become rather secular with
of higher education. The pope himself clearly
vague religious symbols still about but no substantial
understands the excitement of intellect, an excitement
connection with what it is to be Catholic in reason and enhanced and elevated by revelation directed to reason.
intelligence. The bishops, for all their courage in facing The harmony of faith and reason should guide our
this question, have not addressed the factual question
life-long pursuit of knowledge and virtue. In this
about what is the actual orientation of universities that endeavor, teachers and professors are vital. This fact
are called Catholic for
the issue
CATHOLICS [ARE LOSING THEIR LIBERTY underscores
whatever reason.
of who is hired and by
BECAUSE OF CATHOLICS], POLITICAL AND what criterion. If it is
II. Meanwhile,
ACADEMIC, WHO HAVE DENIED...ANY REAL only a secular criterion,
Pope Benedict XVI
the school will soon be
CONNECTIONS BETWEEN REASON AND
has been speaking to
secular. The splendor
REVELATION.
various groups of the
of truth, both human
American hierarchy on their periodic visits to Rome
and divine, needs to be seen in the teachers themselves.
to report on the status of the local Church. To the

By its nature, faith incites us to know the
final group of visiting American bishops, the pope
fullness of truth that includes what Christ revealed.
spoke of education. Catholic colleges and universities And who is Christ? He is the creative Logos in
need to reaffirm their distinctive identity in fidelity
whom things were made and in whom all reality holds
to their founding ideals and the Churchs mission in
together. Christ is the new Adam who reveals the
service of the Gospel, Benedict observed. Obviously,
whole truth of man, a phrase that Bl. John Paul II
Benedict knows that both the identity and fidelity are
used to love. The pope here repeats a title that is proper
in serious question in many if not most universities.
to Christ, something that he discussed in his Jesus of
The universities are not doing what might be expected Nazareth. Christ is the new Adam who reveals the
of them. The pope tells the bishops, however, that
ultimate truth about man and the world in which we
the schools remain an essential resource for the new
live.
December 2012
Page 10
In His Own Words

III. As he often does, Benedict recalls Augustine and
Plato. He compares the unrest of our time with that of
Augustines time. Augustine pointed to this intrinsic
connection between faith and human intellectual
enterprise by appealing to Plato, who held, he says,
that to love wisdom is to love God (City of God,
Book 8, c. 8). It just happens that I had been reading
the City of God with a class this semester. I went back
to reread this remarkable chapter of Augustine.

Augustine pointed out how, of all the
philosophers, Plato is the closest to revelation. (See
Josef Pieper,Platonic Myths). Plato defined the
Sovereign Good as the life in accordance with virtue
(Gorgias, 470d), and he declared that this was possible
only for one who had the knowledge of God and who
strove to imitate him; this was the sole condition
of happiness. And Augustine concludes: Now this
Sovereign Good, according to Plato, is God. And that
is why he will have it that the true philosopher is the
lover of God, since the aim of philosophy is happiness,
and he who has set his heart on God will be happy in
the enjoyment of him.

It seems most remarkable that, in these very
days of hassle about what a Catholic university ought
to be, the pope himself explains it to the bishops in
terms of Plato. As I often say, there is no such thing
as a university in which the constant reading of Plato
does not on. It seems quite clear that this reading has
not been going on.

The Christian commitment to learning, which
gave birth to the medieval universities, was based
upon this conviction that the one God, as the source
of all truth and goodness, is likewise the source of
the intellects passionate desire to know and the wills
yearning for fulfillment in love. In recalling that the
very foundation of universities was in the effort to
relate revelation to reason, to the fact that the source
of intellect both in reason and revelation is the same
God, Benedict puts his finger on the heart of the issue.
Universities, on a very narrow basis of methodological
reason, close themselves off from the whole of reality
that is open to the human mind. All of this was
brilliantly set forth in John Paul IIs Fides et Ratio,
Page 11
a seminal document which, I would estimate, was

read by less than one percent of graduates of Catholic
colleges during their past four academic years.

Leading us all to the truth is ultimately an act
of love. What is lacking in our universities is precisely
this openness to all reality. Faiths recognition of the
essential unity of all knowledge provides a bulwark
against the alienation and fragmentation which occur
when the use of reason is detached from the pursuit
of truth and virtue, Catholic institutions have a role
to play but only if they are able to recognize what is
at stake in their purpose for existing. Evidently, many
have failed in this matter.

The pope speaks of a culture that is genuinely
Catholic. What is obvious today is that, with the
decrees constantly coming from the government, the
culture is becoming less and less open to any sort of
Catholic presence except that which is confined to a
narrow range of itself. It is consoling that the bishops
seem to recognize what is at stake. It is, shall we say,
unsettling that the universities largely do not.

In an official statement (May 15), the President
of Georgetown has affirmed, even in cases like the
current one, that the university does not approve of
anything that is contrary to basic Catholic teachings.
Kathleen Sebelius speaks because she recognizes the
value of her role as a nominal Catholic in submitting
the freedoms of the Constitution to the control of a
rights-state that is all too willing defines for us what
religion must mean if it is allowed to participate in
public life.

We are perhaps seeing the end of the great
American experiment of religious freedom by those
who have little understanding or sympathy for
it. Catholics, ironically, are seeing their freedoms
restricted and ended by the aid of other Catholics,
political and academic, who have denied, in practice,
any real connection between reason and revelation.
Fr. Schall is a professor of political philosophy at
Georgetown University and an early advisor to The
Georgetown Academy.
December 2012
Implementing Ex corde Ecclesiae
Evading Truth:
A Young Mans Play on Old Mens Games
Red Smith
Editors Note: The following reprint was first published in

1999 and provides a startling snapshot of Georgetowns
response to Ex corde Ecclesiae under Georgetowns
infamous past president Leo ODonovan S.J.
t may be that as one gets older it becomes easier

to lie. Or perhaps, with experience and selfconfidence, it just becomes easier to believe that
you can prevaricate and it will have only the intended
effect.

This observation ties together for me the
biblical admonition that says beware the devil
masquerading as light, with that of Jesus when He
warns us against teachers who are wolves in sheeps
clothing, and that of William F. Buckley, Jr., in
his prophetic book God and Man at Yale, where he
describes the ease with which men are manipulated
by skillful educators. Three warningseach starkly
illumined at Georgetown where some educators wear
Roman collars.
The Old Dialogian

At his first-ever State of the School address
to students on October 28th, Georgetown University
president Leo ODonovan, S.J. lauded Ex corde
Ecclesiae, the Popes apostolic constitution for Catholic
universities, as an inspiring statement about the
enduring accomplishments made by Catholic fathers
and universities around the world (The Hoya, Friday,
Oct. 29).

On the Universitys website Father President
says: As we embark on our third century, we are
called by the Church, our unique history, and the
world to cultivate and renew our Catholic, Jesuit
tradition in the spirit of Ex corde Ecclesiae, Pope John
Paul IIs inspiring apostolic constitution on Catholic
universities.
December 2012

Inspiring seems to be less troublesome than
in the spirit of. There is a generation of Catholics
all too familiar with such language, and the damage
wrought in the spirit of Vatican II. The trouble
comes from what every informed student and every
faculty member, on every side of the issue, knows
and can agree upon: that there is a very wide chasm
between what is said by our administration on the
question of Catholic identity and what is done. But
the truth hurts more than that.

The inspiration that the ODonovan
administration has received from John Paul IIs Ex
corde Ecclesiae is best evidenced by the complete lack of
any evidence of voluntary, meaningful implementation
since it was issued in 1990. So inspiring was the
Popes exhortation that in 1993 Father ODonovan
convened and published a symposium to discuss its
weaknesses. So profoundly affected was he that, in
1996, Fr. ODonovan sponsored a year-long faculty
seminar (diversely comprised, of course) which
produced our very own lengthy definition of what it
means to be Catholic (Centered Pluralism) which
remarkably never once mentioned Ex corde Ecclesiae
(not even in a footnote). Unlike Ex corde, our diverse
faculty magisterium also failed to contain a single use
of the word truth in its opus.

So moved was Fr. ODonovan by the
Holy Fathers charismatic guidance that, in 1998,
Fr. ODonovan appointed a diverse task force to
discuss, not the implementation of Ex corde, but of
Georgetowns own Centered Pluralism. (Or was it
the spirit of Centered Pluralism?).

On October 19th, Fr. ODonovan also met with
faculty to discuss the significance of the anticipated
adoption by the U.S. Bishops of Implementation
Guidelines.

It is difficult to convey the thrill of seeing
Georgetowns great faculty enter a room one by one
for a meeting of gravitas. It is impossible to describe
Page 12

my sadness in seeing these great minds treated, and
behaving like sheep, herded in and herded out without
any significant discussion of the issue they were
convened on. I have seen more intellectual vigor at a
restaurant staff meeting, and more intellectual honesty.
Albeit, to much the same effect: The kitchen wants
you to sell the specials, push the flounder.
While The Academy has repeatedly documented
the errors of Fr. ODonovans presidency, nothing
could better illustrate his
irresponsibility than his
conduct at the two open
meetings of October,
evidenced in the two cases
by both the ignorance
underlying the questions
asked and the manner
in which Fr. ODonovan
allowed that ignorance to
continue.

In his meeting with
faculty, a distinguished
law professor of Jewish
background and Watergate
fame, Sam Dash, stood to
express concern that a revived
Catholic purpose would
interfere with his freedom to
teach his civil law courses. In
the meeting with students,
a student asked a question
that contained in its premise that renewed Catholic
identity would necessarily diminish the ever-holy
campus diversity of the student body.

After nine years of dialogue on Ex corde
Ecclesiae, we have the right to fault Fr. ODonovan for
the state of ignorance and reckless misinformation at
this university demonstrated by these questions. But
what is most reprehensible is that, rather than address
the underlying uninformed premise of each question,
Fr. President allowed both the learned professor and
the demagoging campus politico to believe that the
concern they raised over Ex corde implementation was
valid; painting himself, of course, as the white knight
Page 13
of academic freedom and diversity up against the big

bad Church. Father President has missed his calling,
screenplay writing at HBO, Disney and Miramax
awaits.
The Old Lawyer and The Old Philosopher

The October 19th faculty meeting was entitled
GU and Ex corde Ecclesiae. After initial remarks by
Fr. ODonovan, in which he reminded the faculty
that he had given them
his personal commitment
to stand up for academic
freedom and institutional
autonomy, Provost Dorothy
Brown gave the floor to Jesuit
Fathers Ladislas Orsy and
John Langan to present their
understanding of Ex cordes
implications for Georgetown.

At the outset, Fr. Orsy,
a distinguished canon lawyer,
promised that he would
attempt to fairly present
the sides of the issues. It
was an unfulfilled promise.
From start to finish, Fr. Orsy
sounded like the lawyer
we have come to hate in
movies, a tax lawyer to be
exact, laying out a plan
of loopholes, exemptions,
schemes, and evasion. Rather than the distinguished
jurist I had been told to expect, I saw a toiler, a
schemer, a stubborn old guy holding on to conclusions
formed for different times long past.

As if speaking to children who might
otherwise be frightened away or, more likely, who
needed to be kept frightened, Fr. Orsy explained
repeatedly that Ex corde must not be understood as a
normative document, but a document from another
culture that allows for many dispensations and
exceptions and much interpretation.

Fr. Orsy registered his regret over the mandate
December 2012

that theologians at Catholic universities need to obtain
from the local bishop. Such a mandate, Fr. Orsy said,
is regrettable because bishops are chosen for their
pastoral, not theological, abilities, and such a mandate
might scare talented Catholic scholars from coming to
Catholic universities.

Most remarkable, however, was both the
acceptance by Orsy that the Bishops would adopt their
draft Guidelines, and the quixotic attitude of a warrior
who would keep on fighting. Orsy made it clear that
armed with a good lawyer who could interpret away
the applicability of Ex corde to Georgetown, our
university could avoid any alteration of its statutes and
all other application during the fateful years to come.
(Or as Fr. ODonovan told an Academy editor last year,
Ex corde will not affect Georgetown, if Georgetown
does not let it.)

Fr. John Langan, S.J., Georgetowns new
Bernadin Chair in Catholic Social Thought followed
Orsy. Except to remind the faculty that Ex corde
came from a Pope that was himself a university
professor, Langan failed to offer much but criticism,
concerns, and dismissiveness for Ex corde. He did
not fail, however, to raise the neo-sacred values of his
generation for toleration and diversity as if suggesting
that these were threatened by Ex corde.

But most revealing of the distance of these
old men from the reality of modern college life was
their failure to grasp the very real and significant
consequences that Ex corde has for student life and
culture. The best question, by far, came articulately
from theologian and Dean of Students James A.
Donahue. Donahue pointed out that, in his opinion,
as much as 75% of the issues that garner the most
attention on the debate of Catholic identity deal
with questions of student lifein which he included
residence life, student activities, and issues related to
the manner that the college dealt with sexual ethics.
Donahue asked these tired experts how Ex corde
would impact the arena of Student Affairs?

Orsy and Langan did not have a clue. It became
painfully clear that these men were so absorbed in
December 2012
yesterdays battles, leading them to myopic activity

on issues of mandates, academic freedom, and
institutional autonomy, that they could not even
understand the question. Fr. Langan could only pull
something from his 1960s bag to mumble something
about all that being a matter of personal choice
which, of course, could not be regulated. Not a clue!

Overall, Fathers Orsy and Langans remarks
were successful if the intent was to keep people
uninformed and frightened, and safely in the fold.
Professor Dashs fears were symbolic of the level of
information and fear among the Georgetown faculty.
Such fears are entirely reasonable after nine years of an
overwhelmingly one-sided presentation of Ex corde.
What came across in technicolor in seeing
ODonovan, Orsy and Langan dance around the issues
was the conclusion this publication has previously
articulated: At the highest echelons, Georgetown is led
by Jesuits living in the past. This tired old generation
continues to stay a course undertaken over three
decades ago, reflecting a Catholic perspective on a
world that has long ago ceased to exist. They reflect
an inferiority complex no longer shared by Catholic
Americans in a post-JFK world. They conspire against
a pre-Vatican II church few Catholic Americans in
universities today remember or know.

Perhaps Georgetowns Jesuits have forgotten
their oath of loyalty to Christs Vicar. Perhaps in their
responsibility to teach they need to recall the words
of Jesuit Father General Pedro Arrupe (see abridged
letter in this issue), calling Jesuits to obedience, even in
matters they would dispute.

In the 1969 controversy over contraception,
Fr. Arrupe said, A teaching such as the one [the
Pope] presents merits assent not simply because of the
reasons he offers, but also, and above all, because of
the charism which enables him to present it. Guided
by the authentic word of the Popea word that need
not be infallible to be highly respectedevery Jesuit
owes it to himself, by reason of his vocation, to do
everything possible to penetrate, and to help others
penetrate, into the thought which may not have been
his own previously
Page 14
The following is the letter (abridged) of August 15, 1968 by Jesuit General, Fr. Pedro Arrupe to the Society of Jesus one month following the
issuance of Humanae vitae, the most controversial Church teaching in this century. On August 15, 1990, John Paul II promulgated Ex corde
Ecclesiaie, an apostolic constitution for Catholic universities. In light of the obstructionism to Ex corde Ecclesiae by Jesuits such as Georgetowns
own Fathers ODonovan and Orsy, The Academy thought the letter was worth receiving again. Fr. Arrupe is considered by many, especially
among liberal Jesuits, to be the most significant Jesuit leader since Ignatius.
Epistula A.R.P.N. Generalis ad omnem Societatem occasione Litterarum Encyclicarum Humanae vitae. Acta Romana Societatis Iesu. Vol. XV,
Fasc. II, anno 1968
Dear Fathers and Brothers,

Pax Christi! We are all aware of the response given to the most recent encyclical of Pope Paul VI, Humanae vitae, about
the problems raised by the question of contraception. While many completely accept the teaching of the encyclical, a number of the
clergy, religious and laity violently reject it in a way that no one in the Society can think of sharing. Yet, because the opposition to the
encyclical has become widespread in some places, I wish to delay no longer before calling to mind once more our duty as Jesuits.
With regard to the successor of Peter, the only response for us is an attitude of obedience which is at once loving, firm, open and
truly creative.In fact, on various grounds and because of particular competence, some of us may experience certain reservations and
difficulties. A sincere desire to be truly loyal does not rule out problems, as the Pope himself says. A teaching such as the one he
presents merits assent not simply because of the reasons he offers, but also, and above all, because of the charism which enables him to
present it. Guided by the authentic word of the Pope -- a word that need not be infallible to be highly respected every Jesuit owes it
to himself, by reason of his vocation, to do everything possible to penetrate, and to help others penetrate, into the thought which may
not have been his own previously; however, as he goes beyond the evidence available to him personally, he finds or will find a solid
foundation for it.
To obey, therefore, is not to stop thinking, or to parrot the encyclical word for word in a servile manner. On the contrary, it is to
commit oneself to study it as profoundly as possible so as to discover for oneself and to show others the meaning of an intervention
judged necessary by the Holy Father.
We must not forget that our present world, for all its amazing scientific conquests, is sadly lacking a true sense of God and is in
danger of deceiving itself completely. We must see what is demanded of us as Jesuits. Let us collaborate with others in centers of the
basic research on man, where the specific data of Christian revelation can be brought together with the genuine achievements of the
human sciences and thus achieve the happy results that can be legitimately anticipated. In all this work of sympathy, intelligence, and
love, let us always be enlightened by the Gospel and by the living tradition of the Church.
In so fulfilling our mission as Jesuits, which is to make the thought of the Church understood and loved, we can help the laity,
who themselves have much to bring to the problems touched on in the encyclical, and who rely on us for a deep understanding of their
points of view.
You understand well that it is the spirit of the Constitutions which inspires me as I write these words. For, as the Constitutions
tell us in substance, each member of the Society must remember that his personal manner of serving God is realized through a faithful
obedience to the Roman pontiff. That is why I am certain that today too, the Society is able to show itself worthy of four centuries of
complete fidelity to the Holy See.
It certainly cannot be said that the Second Vatican Council has changed all this. The Council itself speaks formally of this
religious submission of will and of mind, which must be shown in a special way to the authentic teaching authority of the Roman
pontiff, even when he is not speaking ex cathedra. That is, it must be shown in such a way that his supreme magisterium is acknowledged
with reverence and the judgments made by him sincerely adhered to according to his manifest mind and will. (Lumen Gentium,
n.25).
In the enormous crisis of growth which envelops the whole world, the Pope himself has been what the entire Church must be, and
Vatican II affirmed, both a sign and a safeguard of the transcendence of the human person (Gaudium et Spes, n.76). For this reason the
service we as Jesuits owe to the Holy Father and to the Church is at the same time a service we owe to humanity itself.
In my awareness of our obvious duty as Jesuits I could say much more, particularly at this time which seems to me crucial for the
Church. Difficult times are times made for the Society, not to seek its own glory, but to show its fidelity. This is why I am certain that
all of you will understand my words
May St. Ignatius help each of us to become, with the aid of the Holy Spirit, more Ignatian than ever. May he obtain for us the
understanding that our legitimate desire to be totally present to this world demands of us an ever-increasing fidelity in the service of
the Church, the Spouse of Christ and the Mother of all mankind.

I commend myself to the prayers of all of you.
Most devotedly in Christ,
Pedro Arrupe
Praep. Gen. Soc. Iesu
Page 15
December 2012
From the Archives
Fallen from Grace:

The Disappointment of Georgetowns Jesuits
the former Jesuit -- descended directly from his Jesuit
predecessors. Carroll wished his school to follow
the path he set out for it, that is, one in line with the
ohn Carroll, Americas first Catholic bishop and
successful practices of a Jesuit education that had been
Georgetowns founder, wanted his students to
practiced for over two hundred years. Georgetown
experience an education that was authentically
although not Jesuit operated until 1814 was to offer a
Catholic. His Proposals for Establishing an
Jesuit inspired institution, and to be Catholic. So much
Academy at Georgetown, express a vision for the
university that mirrors the idea of a Jesuit education as so that Carroll wrote Upon this school I place all my
hope for the future of the Catholic faith in America.
established by St. Ignatius of Loyola, founder of the
Yet, in recent years, Catholic teachings and moral
Society of Jesus.
instruction have been continually battered about at
Although the Jesuits had ceased to exist as an
Georgetown, and when the university community
Order at the time of Georgetowns founding, Carroll
engages in actions utterly contrary to our Catholic
wrote away to Rome to the Congregation for the
identity, Georgetowns Jesuit guardians have remained
Propagation of the Faith -- for permission to apply at
conspicuously silent. When pornographer Larry Flynt
Georgetown the former Jesuits core curriculum and
pedagogy the famous Ratio Studiorum, first issued in held forth with his anti-religious, bigoted views about
the Catholic Church, not a word of protest or even a
1599.
correcting response was heard from the Jesuits.
In the Constitutions of the Jesuit Order, Loyola
The reason most often put forward has been that
had explicitly stated that the twin purposes governing
the Jesuit community at Georgetown has no control
a Jesuit education consists of intellectual training and
over who students invite to speak on campus or
moral formation. St. Ignatius believed that very
what actions the administration takes. Besides what
special care should be taken that those who come to
actions could be taken that were not a violation of the
American value of free speech and
HISTORIANS WILL NOTE THE GENERATION THAT that old misused whore academic
BEGAN [THE JESUITS] RUIN AND HOW IT CAME freedom. Nothing, the Jesuits
argue, can be done about it. How
ABOUT.
very Jesuitical of them. Their only
problem is that it is not true.

In
denying
their
responsibility or power, the Jesuits
the universities of the Society to obtain knowledge
should acquire along with it good and Christian moral pretend to assert two things. First, they are no longer a
relevant force on campus. The Jesuits gave up control,
habits.
they say, in the 60s to a civil corporation. But if this
In his Proposals, John Carroll remained true to
were practically true, then logically it follows that
the ideals of Ignatius stating that the purpose of his
when the Jesuits can no longer control what goes on
school at Georgetown would be to unite the Means
at their university, the school itself ceases to be Jesuit,
of communicating Science [meaning learning in
and when this occurs, the university, which is Catholic
its broadest sense] with an effectual Provision for
by virtue of it being Jesuit, becomes Catholic no
guarding and improving the morals of Youth.
The philosophy of education that inspired Carroll longer.
December 2012
Robert Swope
Page 16
From the Archives

After two hundred years of following the tradition hiring and firing in the administration and faculty.
of a Jesuit and therefore Catholic education at
As a practical matter, federal law Title VII allows
Georgetown, our modern day torch carriers believe
religious institutions near-total freedom when it comes
that they have voluntarily extinguished their flames.
to hiring and firing to reflect its religious identity. So
The lights have been turned out. They wait passively
does DC local law. Georgetown is also a private and
now for the time to come when someone will close the not a public university. It has great relative freedom to
door.
decide what happens on its campus.
Today, advertising Jesuit education at Georgetown Moreover, considerations of civil law over who is
to a Catholic student is tantamount to advertising to a
responsible for Georgetown are now irrelevant. It has
Jewish butcher a kosher-like hot dog. Neither exists been made clear by the Vatican that the Jesuits are still
and it is dishonest
responsible for the
for the university
S
OME DAY THEY WILL DISINTER THE [JESUITS] mission they
to advertise its
once faithfully
BURIED
IN
OUR
GRAVEYARD
[...]
AND
STUDENTS
Catholicism in its
received from the
WILL WONDER WHO THE JESUITS WERE.
letters to alumni
local bishop in
and prospective
1821. According
students. If they had any respect for their Order or
to the canon law of the Catholic Church, a Catholic
their Church at all, they wouldnt do it.
university is the responsibility of the religious order
Still, despite their abdication of responsibility,
that founded it or to which it was commissioned.
the Jesuits are, in fact, still responsible for everything
That same law now requires religious institutions
that occurs at Georgetown. The hidden story behind
to remain faithful to the teachings of the Catholic
Jesuit power is that the Society of Jesus through its
Church, and respectful of the Churchs episcopal
representatives still controls the university.
authority. The Jesuits then, have no choice, they have
Georgetown is a non-profit membership
a duty to remain faithful to the terms Catholic
corporation chartered in the District of Columbia.
and Jesuit, if these are to be used in promoting
This membership corporation has five members, the
or characterizing our university. If they are going
majority of which are Jesuits. The owners of the
to use the Catholic tradition to define the identity
university, as do the owners of any other corporation,
of university, then they have to remain true to that
have the power to set policy and retain or delegate
tradition.
full discretionary authority concerning any actions
And the university cannot define for itself what
the university takes. It is these owners who appoint is Catholic. Instead, it must look to the principles
the Board of Directors, who in turn hire university
that for centuries have defined Catholic ecclesiology
employees and decide the most important matters
and made famous Jesuit education. On the 400th
affecting the university.
anniversary of the Ratio Studiorum which made them
What is difficult to understand then, is why the
famous, the Jesuits must look only to their founder and
Society has failed to act in matters dealing with
to the founder of this university for guidance.
university policies that are utterly contrary to the
Georgetown is a trendy place and it responds to
Catholic nature of the school, and why it has not
trends. Of these, the trend to secularize appears still
done a better job of keeping this so-called Jesuit
paramount. But secular is not the absence of religion,
institution faithful, in any meaningful way, to the
nor has it proven neutral to religion. As Justice
educational standards of the Jesuits. It is certainly not Clarence Thomas has written, secular now implies
because the law prohibits them from stepping in and
hostility to religion. This is painfully clear to any
using their religious principles to influence university
devout student at Georgetown. The Jesuits have not
policy. This is true even when it comes to university
Page 17
December 2012
From the Archives

been forced to let the university deteriorate into a
secular state. Rather, they have willingly succumbed
to certain modernist notions of education. In doing
so, they have lost what it is that makes Georgetown
special: her Catholic and Jesuit heritage. Its time for
some courageous men of the cloth to take a stand for
their Order and ensure that a Jesuit education exists
and is renewed at Georgetown.
There is an old joke that you can tell the kind of
Jesuit youre dealing with depending upon when he
bows his head at the mention of the Society of Jesus.
Some, the punch line says, bow at Society, while
others bow at Jesus. The Jesuits of Georgetown do

not appear uncertain of when to bow their heads, but
whether to bow their heads at all.
Some day, they will disinter the thin black line of
men buried in our graveyard to make space for new
construction, and students will wonder who the Jesuits
were. Historians will note the generation that began
their ruin and how it came about.
Robert Swope served as TGAs Editor-in-Chief in
2000 when this article was first published. In March
2003 he was a combat infantry platoon leader in the
invasion of Iraq and subsequently served in Kurdistan
as a diplomat with the State Department.
The Man of the Century: John Paul II

Editors Note: This first appeared as an editorial in our
Bishops Issue of November 1999.
little over a year ago journalists were surprised

that the head of the Roman Catholic Church
would issue a ringing defense of reason. They
should not have been. From early on the Church has
championed reason and consistently warned against
fideism - the tendency to rely exclusively on faith for
ones understanding of the world and mans place in it.

Whether preserving classical learning in its
monasteries, or in embracing the philosophies of Plato
and Aristotle, or in founding the great universities
of Europe, the Church has always recognized the
essential place of reason in any true understanding
of the human condition. Pope John Pauls encyclical
Fides et Ratio [Faith and Reason] is not a radical
departure, arises from two thousand years of Christian
tradition.
The real surprise is that so few in todays academy
are willing to join him in defending reason. As
Dominican Father J. Augustine De Noia recently
pointed out, At the end of the last century, the
pope had to defend faith against reason, at the end
of this century the pope has had to defend reason
against unreason. Much has been written about the
December 2012
hegemony of identity politics on todays campuses; it

is enough to say that self-assertion and the quest for
power have supplanted reason and the quest for truth
in todays postmodern universities.
In the great struggle for human destiny that
has defined and animated his pontificate, John Paul
has often been a lone voice. When most world leaders
and the Holy Sees own diplomatic corps assumed that
communism was here to stay and that the world would
have to accept a cynical power-sharing arrangement
with an Empire of Lies, John Paul stubbornly
insisted that culture, not politics moves history.
Resistance organized around authentic Christian
humanism would, in the form of Polands Solidarity
movement, which he inspired, force the collapse of
a system of secular humanism. With that peaceful
collapse went a cycle of bloody revolution that had
gripped Europe for two hundred years.
In offering the world a vision of Christian
humanism John Paul draws from a life which has
embraced all aspects of the human experience and
has seen in them the potential for a dignity and
greatness most human beings scarcely imagine. For
John Paul no aspect of human life lacks the potential
for that dignity or the ability to point man toward
a greater understanding of himself. Until his recent
Page 18
From the Archives

illness, the Pope was an avid sportsman. Some of his
greatest pastoral work prior to becoming pope was
done on kayak trips. He is an actor, a playwright and
a poet. During both the Nazi and Soviet occupation
he used those talents to resist tyranny and show his
countrymen that the Polish nation could survive even
if the Polish state ceased to exist in any meaningful
way.
Above all he is, to borrow from George
Weigels superb biography, a teacher and a witness
to hope. As a philosophy professor at the University
of Lublin the future pope had a magnetic presence.
He engaged even hostile and skeptical students with
patience and a seemingly inexhaustible ability to listen,
and defended them against more zealous students
who attempted to shut them up. As the Archbishop
of Krakow he met regularly with physicists and
historians, and sponsored efforts to shape both the
faith and culture of the Polish people with a more
direct interaction with the world of scholarship.
As pope, John Paul has put most university
presidents to shame in his passion for intellectual
exchange. Early on in his pontificate the Pope began
a biennial series of humanities seminars at Castel
Gandolfo, bringing scholars of many different
backgrounds for free-flowing discussions of the
various disciplines. He has also continued to consult

with physicists about the latest developments in their
field and has perhaps done more than any other pope
in history to encourage a more intimate relationship
between science and faith.
No pope in the history of the Christian
church and no religious leader in the history of
human flourishing, has written more or contributed
as much to the nature of faith and knowledge, and
of the understanding of God, man, and church than
has this former university professor. There is little of
being human that this Vicar of Christ has not touched
during his stewardship of Peters two keys.
With Ex Corde Ecclesiae the Pope has called upon the
worlds Catholic universities to embrace a mission
that is far more radical than anything proposed in
the navel-sized intellectual environment of todays
academy. He challenges them to begin again the quest
for authentic humanism. The choice for Catholic
universities is between shaping the culture or being
swallowed by it.
On behalf of the millions of young people
you have taught and inspired, at every turn against
the expectations of the smart set, we thank you, Holy
Father. We laud you as the man -- the educator of the
century.
In Mysterious Ways:
A Non-Believers Faith in Georgetowns Catholic Identity
Sean Rushton
(Editors Note: When Sean Rushton served as TGAs

Editor in Chief and delivered this speech in 1999 he was
an atheist.)

I was born and raised in New York City, and
came to Georgetown in 1991, to study foreign affairs.
Although raised Catholic, I was - like most young
and modern Manhattanitesthoroughly embarrassed
by the Churchs unfashionable stances on certain
controversial issues.

My reasons for choosing Georgetown were
Page 19
not terribly well thought out and Catholicism played

a minor role. I knew Georgetown was prestigious,
especially for international studies, and I knew it had
a faint whiff of something ancient and profound about
it. But I knew little about what Jesuit education
meant, and less still about matters such as the Ratio
Studiorum.

Two interesting things happened to me during
my years on the Hilltop. First, I became an Atheist.
Second, I became an ardent advocate for Georgetowns
Catholic identity.
December 2012
From the Archives


My atheism is not of much relevance here;
suffice to say I struggled with my faith. But in
the process of that struggle, I also realized that a
philosophy that had survived for 2,000 years through
the crucible of history, must be important and
compelling. Silly and irrelevant ideas do not survive
so long with such success. I saw Catholicism as an
ancient and civilizing force, one that resisted the
trendiness of the times for timeless wisdom. And
I recognized that in contrast to most of the cynical,
post-modern set, my religious friends had a sense of
decency and hope about them that I admired.

I realized Georgetowns Catholicism rooted
it in a historical tradition of scholarship and moral
development that created a fundamentally different,
and, in my opinion, better, conversation than existed at
most other schools.

During these years, I also became aware of
what was going on in higher education nationally.
Deconstructionist theory that rendered literature
meaningless. History slanted to portray the Western
world as fundamentally corrupt. Philosophy that
taught morality was an arbitrary construct created by
the powerful to suppress the masses.

I came to the opinion that Georgetowns
intellectual and spiritual heritage was vital to
maintaining, at least in our small platoon, morality,
respect for tradition, and a classically liberal education.

Realizing all this, I was disturbed to find on
the Hilltop not only the absence of an authentically
Catholic world view, but a seeming antipathy towards
the Churchs norms and tradition, particularly at the
level of the administration.

The year I arrived on campus, for example,
the university had decided to fund a pro-abortion
rights group. I realized that, regardless of my personal
opinion, it was anti-Catholic bigotry for students
to demand their views be endorsed at an institution
constitutionally opposed to such views. What
surprised me even more was the administrations
acceptance of these demands, and then its stubborn
refusal to reconsider the decision, despite tremendous
December 2012
student and alumni protest.

Another battle, in which I became directly
involved, came in 1996, when religious students
circulated a petition calling for the replacement of
crucifixes in the classrooms. Again, as an Atheist,
I had no devotional interest in the crucifix. But, as
the university understood early on, the issue was one
of great importance. A university that rehangs its
crucifixes cannot gallop into secularism at quite the
same pace.

Of more direct concern to me, personally, has
been the assault on Georgetowns curricula throughout
this decade. In 1995, I joined students to protest the
English Departments decision to throw out the major
requirements of Shakespeare, Milton, and Chaucer for
trivia courses on Alfred Hitchcock, detective fiction,
and stardom.

Last year, the university almost adopted a
radical proposal to scrap Georgetowns longstanding
core curriculum, also thwarted by student (and faculty)
protest.

What is most bothersome at todays
Georgetown is that fundamental change has been
initiated without discussion or even admission that
it is happening. Most students are short-sighted
and hopelessly modern in their outlook, so they dont
notice or care, and most alumni do not know whats
going on. The university has nurtured this ignorance,
and appears downright duplicitous when it pledges in
its fundraising letters to [Preserve] and [fulfill] the
profound vision of [University Founder] John Carroll .
. . . [and] ensure that scholarship, service, and faith live
at Georgetown forever.

What is happening at Georgetown - as in
many other areas of our politics, law, and culture - is
radicals in power are transforming that institutions
norms and character, all the while castigating those
who protest as reactionaries, religious fanatics, and
the like. I have come to realize it is not fair to
surreptitiously institute dramatic change and then
demonize those who call for open debate.

There are reasons to be hopeful. The culture
wars at Georgetown have brought attention, not
just on campus and among alumni, but in national
Page 20
Our Character
publications like the New York Times and Wall
Street Journal. Last year, the university president
was presented the Sheldon Award by U.S. News &
World Report, for his failure to vigorously defend
the free speech of a pro-Catholic publication, The
Georgetown Academy, after it was stolen and destroyed
by disgruntled students.

The Academy, which I edited last year, calls
attention to the universitys quiet embrace of modern
academic fads and secularism. Through its articles,
administrators, faculty and students hostile to
Georgetowns Catholic identity have been quoted
directly and forced to take ownership for their
activities.

The Academy has also had a significant effect
on campus, eliciting both scathing critiques and
heartfelt thanks from students, alumni and even some
faculty. In the last two years, The Academy has set the
agenda for much of the campus debate, in my opinion,
provoking editorials and articles in the main campus
press, which, though often hostile, spread information
and inspire thought. The alumnus of the future
will be much more cognizant of whats going on at
Georgetown than are those today.

Other student groups, such as the Philodemic
Debate Society, have made debating controversial
campus topics a staple, thereby increasing awareness
and scrutiny of whats going on. Further, independent
alumni associations affiliated with specific clubs and
organizations on campus, have proliferated, creating a

small contingent of active alumni with direct access to
information about the university.

Best of all, small groups of students and alumni
are fighting back with pressure campaigns to correct
the universitys course in key areas. One example is
coalition that successfully challenged Georgetowns
abortion rights club.

A second example, the Committee to Restore
the Crucifix, mentioned earlier, triumphed after two
years of pressure. And a third example came last
fall, when a coalition of students wrote letters to the
parents of Georgetowns freshmen, to obtain the
alteration of an offensive sex education program. The
effort quickly succeeded in forcing the university to
make the requisite reforms.

Such activism, coupled with publications and
networks of alumni can make all the difference. While
I believe Georgetown today is misled, the 1990s have
also inspired a heretofore nonexistent core of activists
devoted to defending Georgetowns identity. Fewer
and fewer believe that nothing is afoot on the Hilltop.

The final point is that, luckily, institutions like
Georgetown endure past the administrations of a
misguided few. One day, the current crop will retire
and fresh thinking will sweep in.

So, to the question Are students interested in
Catholic identity? my answer is, yes, very much so.
And not just students of faith.
About The Georgetown Academy:

What Are We On About?
Sean Rushton
n todays post-modern world it is clearly

unfashionable to believe in much of anything,
except perhaps in wet-noodle platitudes about
tolerance, diversity and the honors of the sneaker
industry in Thailand. But to care about intangibles like
tradition and history, and gasp! - to unapologetically
advocate ones beliefs in a loud, clear voice is nowadays
seen as downright rudeeven vitriolic.
Page 21
The editors and staff of The Georgetown

Academy arent interested in being fashionable, or
members of polite society, if silence is what it takes.
What we are interested in is recounting, examining
and defending Georgetown Universitys unique
character on-campus and around the country. We
believe Georgetowns history and heritage should
be required learning for all new members of our
December 2012
Our Character
community, faculty members included. We believe
the universitys heritage deserves recounting, analysis,
and defense no less than four times per semester,
which is how often we publish. We believe under
classmen ignorant of Alma Maters heritage will make
poor caretakers of that heritage as upperclassmen and
alumni. And we think such matters are interesting in
their own right.
We believe that todays professorate, at
Georgetown and throughout higher education, is
increasingly hostile - or at least intellectually agnostic
- towards issues of traditional religion, history, and the
accumulated wisdom of the ages, preferring instead the
modem fads of academia. We believe G.K. Chesterton
got it right when he said The road of history is
littered with the corpses of dead moderns.
We believe Georgetowns administration is
bloated with career bureaucrats who care little for
Georgetowns heritage, and is headed by a few Jesuits
eager to jettison that heritage for anew, more modern
course. We believe these administrators wish to
remake Georgetown in the image of the secular Ivy
League, stripping her of her roots in Catholicism and
the Western Canon, and we believe they wish to do
it slowly and quietly enough to avoid open debate.
We believe these administrators view informed and
active alumni as a threat to their designs. Even more
threatenings are informed students who know enough
to tap into the wellspring of alumni support. We
believe these administrators are long on wine and
cheese receptions with the smart set short on the
vision thing.
We believe Georgetown should be measured
by something other than the size of its endowment, or
the salaries of its graduates, or where it falls in the U.S.
News rankings. We believe the university should resist
the corrupting influence of money and fame from
big-time sports and corporate endorsements and focus
on producing well-educated men and women of high
moral character. We believe Georgetown is unique
and should be guided by its own lights, ever vigilant of
becoming a third rate Harvard on the Potomac.
December 2012
We believe the universitys intellectual climate

is weak and may not be accurately measured by Rhode
Scholarships won or SAT scores. We believe the
phrase intellectual climate at Georgetown is, in fact,
a contradiction in terms and that most students are
severely anti-intellectual. We believe that most faculty
members do little to encourage students otherwise,
either because they are transients in the community or
too busy climbing the government ladder across town
to notice, or simply too afraid to stand out.
The Georgetown Academy is the traditionalist voice
at the nations oldest and most prestigious Catholic
university. Thus, Catholicism is given significant
and, we hope, serious consideration. We believe
Catholicism demands open-mindedness and tolerance,
particularly in the context of a modern (that word
again) American university. Simultaneously, we
believe that Georgetown, as a Pontificallychartered
University, has at the very least a duty to conduct
its affairs without violating the Catholic Churchs
Catechism, its most basic rules and laws. We believe it
is unreasonable and reprehensible for students, faculty
members and administrators, who chose to come to
Georgetown of their own free will, to protest oncampus manifestations of Catholicism.
The Georgetown Academys mission is to see the
university with a critical but loving eye in hopes of
contributing to her betterment. TGA seeks to defend
what many hostile faculty members, turf-building
administrators and a user-unfriendly bureaucracy
are all too willing to cast aside. And it is about
sparking debate on the issues of the day, hopefully in a
provocative, entertaining way.
Mr. Rushton served as Editor-in-Chief in 199899. He had served previously on the Media Board
and as Senior News Editor of The Hoya. He pursued
a communications career and served most recently as
campaign communications director for a successful U.S.
Senate candidate. He is a well-known advocate for a
strong dollar.
Page 22
If you are a student and you like what you have read,
then follow your heart and join

The Georgetown Academy
You can contact us at editors@georgetownacademy.com to apply to be:

Editor-in-Chief
Publisher
Business Director
Catholic Issues Editor
Alumni Editor
Faculty Editor
Student Life Editor
Lay Out Editor
Copy Editor
Web Editor
Or you can join simply to write, or as a manager, or
as a member to support the cause.
Our Mission Statement

The Georgetown Academy is an independent journalistic enterprise dedicated to preserving and celebrating the intellectual, cultural and religious traditions particular to
Georgetown University, and most particularly Georgetowns traditions of student and alumni independence, their contribution to the history and culture of the University, and Georgetowns authentic Catholic identity.

We do not publish for ourselves or without a purpose or editorial position. By philosophical inclination, the journal may be considered conservative, but the publication shall
have no partisan political agenda. Its purview will be issues and ideas that shape the lives
of students, the curriculum, and the perceptions of Georgetowns alumni; aiming to foster
dialogue on intransient topics neglected by conventional campus publications, however controversial. Among these topics are forgotten ideas, some reflected in seminal and provocative
articles that created dialogue whether two years or two centuries ago. We offer also to bring
to bear voices from the outside that will better inform the discussion inside. The journal is
also defined by a fellowship that looks at Georgetown with a loving but critical eye and is
willing to stand against the winds of popular opinion or the self-serving approval of administrators or others who are easily challenged by the airing of challenging ideas. Popularity
and personal self-interest will not bar us from asking our proctors and professors why or why
not?

As long as we publish, and eventually across generations, we stand by our Dante motto: Hells hottest place is reserved for those who in times of conflict remain neutral.

TGA Lauds
Pope Benedict XVI (at Regensburg)

In his inaugural speech as university president, John DeGioia
attempted to redefine Georgetowns motto Utraque Unum by speaking
about the House of Intellect and (more briefly) the House of Faith.
The speech was a forewarning of Georgetowns further fall into the union
of confusion and scandal.

Strongly affirming his own spiritual feeling, but never
mentioning any aspect of Church teaching, and after surgically extracting
justice and spirituality from religion (as they all do); while incompletely
quoting Fr. Arrupe (so as to ignore the needs of the non-poor and the
education of moral virtue), Dr. DeGioia approached the university
project from the perspective of rationalism and empirical knowledge
alone, which he endorsed when he referred, without critical qualification,
to Georgetowns Enlightenment tradition.

DeGioias attempt to explain the fusion of faith and reason
was an apology, or at best an attempt to assure some listeners that he is
persuaded that it is possible. How far afield from Archbishop Carrolls
certainty of vision for the university
that the Church commenced and
funded, that Cardinal Newman
explicated so profoundly well, and
that Blessed John Paul reflected in
his masterpiece Faith and Reason and
when that great Pope spoke of the
university as born ex corde ecclesiae,
from the heart of the Church. It was
far from Ex Corde Ecclesiaes most
defining passage: the distinguishing
task of the Catholic university is to
unite existentially by intellectual effort
two orders of reality that are too often
placed in opposition as though they
are antithetical: the search for truth
and the certainty of already knowing
the fount of truth. (Compare with
Schalls On Georgetown and the
Essential Unity of All Knowledge in this issue.)

A century before, Cardinal Newman had already foreseen the
German model that Dr. DeGioia and his two predecessors, ODonovan
and Healy, endorsed: they had concluded that faith, for which they still
professed to have a profound respect, was after all feeling that is, a
matter of sentiment to be associated with religion and poetry. How well
Cardinal Newman addressed Dr. DeGioia and his Georgetown of today
when he wrote: You will break up into fragments the whole circle of
secular knowledge, if you begin with the mutilation of the divine.

In 2006, at Regensburg, Pope Benedict XVI offered his own
magisterial views on the very same question. Most of the world will
remember Regensburg for the Holy Fathers comments on Islam and
the ability of non-Christians to reach salvation, even though there was
nothing news-making said at Regensburg about either salvation or Islam.
Regensburg was an academic lecture, and as our own Fr. Schall has
said it was one of the greatest of its genre ever given. It was a lecture
intensely about the university project and all of the ways that Church
philosophers restate Georgetowns motto: Jew and Gentile, Jerusalem
and Athens, revelation and knowledge, faith and reason. It was also a
December 2012
profound rebuke of moral relativism.

The encounter between the Biblical message and Greek
thought did not happen by chance, began the Holy Father, as he posited
the realistic necessity for Paul to take the Gospel to Greece so as to
encounter philosophy and reason rather than go to any other place in
the world. In making this provocative statement, the Holy Father shows
himself to be a master of the philosophical whole, says Schall. If the
encounter between Jerusalem and Athens was intended, what then was
the purpose and result?

At Regensburg, Benedict became the great defender of
the Western intellectual tradition that fused reason and revelation,
culminating with Aquinas, and that would define Europe as more than a
place or a race, but as a historical intellectual phenomenon that did not
happen by chance.

Benedict addressed the falling apart of the union; in effect the
separation of reason and revelation, and the denial of reason itself. He
describes this as occurring in the three
steps of dehellenization. The first was
the fideism of the Reformation that
sought to diminish reason in favor of
faith. The second step came with the
Rationalists (Kant, Pascal, Harnack)
who sought to separate reason and
faith entirely, and reduce the divine,
making Christ a mere humanitarian.
The third step is the modern
multicultural or diversity stage. In
this stage, reason becomes deaf to the
divine and relegates religion (including
truth and morality) into the realm of
subjectivism and therefore incapable
of entering into the dialogue of
cultures.

As we laud Benedict, we honor
also here our friend, who is his greatest
interpreter. We leave the rest to Fr. Schall: At this point, Benedict recalls a
striking passage from Platos Phaedo. It is addressed to the question of many
false philosophies that abound. The implication is that nothing true can be
found in their midst. What is true is seen as just another falsity. And there are
many false theories. This attitude leads to the position that nothing can be true.
Socrates response to this situation, something Benedict agrees with, is this: It
would be easily understood if someone became annoyed at all these false notions
that for the rest of his life he despised and mocked all talk about beingbut
in this way he would be deprived of the truth of existence and would suffer a
great loss. The fact of a multiplicity of error is not a proof that no truth exists.
The aversion to consider this full scale of truth has endangered the West
This interrelation of faith and reason was forged when Paul was called to
Macedonia. The going forth to baptize and teach all nations was itself in
divine providence contingent on this first meeting of Jerusalem and Athens.

Benedict ends his Regensburg lecture by calling universities
to both the revelation of the logos and the breadth of reason. Such,
he says, is the great task of the university. Not social justice, not
spirituality, and also not carnality.
Page 24

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THE GEORGETOWN ACADEMY

VOLUME XXIII, NUMBER 1

Georgetowns Independent Journal

THE GEORGETOWN ACADEMY

Hells hottest place is reserved for those, who

Thomas J. Fisher, Jr.

William K. Lane III

Advisors and Scholars

Manuel A. Miranda, Chairman

Melissa Christoffel Jacob

The Georgetown Academy encourages responses from students,

Letter from TGAs President

A Cardinals Hat Should Mean Something

ubiquitous presence gave safe harbor to the many excesses

Catholic Students, Parents, Faculty, and Alumni Unite

delivered to Cardinal Wuerl the week of November 12th.

THE GEORGETOWN ACADEMY

In His Own Words

William Peter Blatty

loved Georgetown from the first day that I set

with their little Catholic ghetto. The illusion contrasts

THE GEORGETOWN ACADEMY

In His Own Words

Georgetowns Catholic identity was one of the many

explicit university endorsement. Far beyond nuanced scrutiny

William Peter Blatty, CAS 1950 is an Academy Award

THE GEORGETOWN ACADEMY

The Best of Men:

t is, perhaps, one of the most remembered bits of

answers that remain relevant and true. If a student

THE GEORGETOWN ACADEMY

philosophizing, Schall has also been willing to argue

THE GEORGETOWN ACADEMY

In His Own Words

of existence, what is happiness, the roles of love and

On Georgetown and the

(May 10) called the invitation disappointing but not

Rev. James V. Schall, S.J.

THE GEORGETOWN ACADEMY

In His Own Words

THE GEORGETOWN ACADEMY

In His Own Words

a seminal document which, I would estimate, was

THE GEORGETOWN ACADEMY

Implementing Ex corde Ecclesiae

Editors Note: The following reprint was first published in

t may be that as one gets older it becomes easier

THE GEORGETOWN ACADEMY

Implementing Ex corde Ecclesiae

of academic freedom and diversity up against the big

THE GEORGETOWN ACADEMY

Implementing Ex corde Ecclesiae

yesterdays battles, leading them to myopic activity

THE GEORGETOWN ACADEMY

THE GEORGETOWN ACADEMY

From the Archives

Fallen from Grace:

THE GEORGETOWN ACADEMY

From the Archives

THE GEORGETOWN ACADEMY

From the Archives

others bow at Jesus. The Jesuits of Georgetown do

The Man of the Century: John Paul II

little over a year ago journalists were surprised