Commentary by Susan Brinkmann, OCDS
Cardinal Donald Wuerl of the Archdiocese of Washington DC has joined the chorus of people expressing their outrage at Georgetown University for allowing the president of Planned Parenthood to speak on campus next month.
The Washington Post is reporting on the dust-up between the university and the Archdiocese which began when the University’s student-run Lecture Fund announced plans last week to invite Planned Parenthood’s Cecile Richards to speak on campus.
Not long after the announcement, the Archdiocese responded with a blistering rebuke.
“What we lament and find sadly lacking in this choice by the student group is any reflection of what should be an environment of morality, ethics and human decency that one expects on a campus that asserts its Jesuit and Catholic history and identity,” the Archdiocese’s statement reads.
“One would prefer to see some recognition by this student group of the lives and ministry, focus and values of people like Blessed Óscar Romero, Blessed Teresa of Calcutta and Pope Francis in place of that group’s seemingly constant preoccupation with sexual activity, contraception and abortion.”
The statement goes on to say that “The apparent unawareness of those pushing the violence of abortion and the denigration of human dignity that there are other human values and issues…lends credence to the perception of the ‘ivory tower’ life of some on campus. This unfortunately does not speak well for the future . . .”
As expected, the university defended the students’ right to invite Richards, saying that while Catholic and Jesuit values maintain a “privileged place in our community,” they feel compelled to provide “a forum that does not limit speech either in the content of the view being expressed or the speaker expressing the view. . . Georgetown remains firmly committed to the sanctity and human dignity of every life at every stage.”
How firm could that commitment be when they invite a woman who heads an organization responsible for the killing of 300,000+ Americans a year and is presently under investigation in multiple states for possible illegal trafficking of fetal body parts?
As a result of the invite, and the university’s refusal to back down, the Cardinal Newman Society, an organization dedicated to restoring the Catholic identity in America’s Catholic colleges and universities, has started a petition drive in which people are being invited to register their displeasure with Georgetown.
“It is shameful that Georgetown University would defend the Lecture Fund’s invitation to this horrific speaker,” the Newman Society writes. “There is no academic freedom that can justify the willful denial of basic truths and advocacy for gruesome crimes against humanity.”
Click here to register your displeasure!
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