The Georgetown Eight Ask That Sebelius Invitation Be Rescinded

The Cardinal Newman Society ^ | 5/9/12 | Charlotte Hays

[marshmallow]

Patrick J. Deneen, who is soon to leave his post as Associate Professor of Government at Georgetown University, has launched a campaign to obtain Georgetown faculty signatures on a letter asking Georgetown President John J. DeGioia to rescind an invitation to “pro-choice” HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius to speak at the Jesuit university on commencement day.

Sebelius’s HHS promulgated the mandate that faith-based institutions must provide health insurance policies that cover contraception and abortifacients, regardless of their moral objections to these practices.

Calling the invitation to speak on commencement day “one of the greatest honors that a University community can bestow upon an individual,” the letter says, “Secretary Sebelius’s role in crafting and advancing the HHS mandate that would require religious institutions to offer insurance coverage that would provide abortion-inducing drugs, sterilization and contraceptives, makes her a profoundly objectionable choice.”

Only eight members of the Georgetown faculty besides Deneen himself have signed the letter, which Deneen plans to present to President DeGioia late this afternoon, have signed so far. Deneen remains technically a member of the Georgetown faculty until May 30.

Georgetown has 2,173 full- and part-time faculty (not including other staff). So 8 is 0.4 percent of the university’s faculty.

“There really aren’t a lot of faculty members at Georgetown who would sign a letter like this,” Deneen told The Cardinal Newman Society. “That’s very sad.”

[marshmallow]

The faithful remnant.

[PGR88]

Georgetown Profs and their Administration are fully soaked in the political, modern, secular, elitist culture that is Washington DC.

For them, being an academic at the prestigious university at the center of modern Rome is far more interesting than worrying about conflicts with a “Catholic Identity.”

[Mrs. Don-o]

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