Georgetown and the Church

[DFW HOYA]

Interesting column in Friday's HOYA about one of the most under-discussed issues at Georgetown: its uneasy relationship with the Church.

Georgetown certainly isn't at the forefront of Church Militant, but it seems uneasy to cut ties entirely (as opposed to, say, Marist, which freely declares itself an independent college with only an ecumenical tradition). Where Georgetown goes in the future should be of utmost interest to all alumni.

Here's the article:

www.thehoya.com/viewpoint/102204/view7.cfm

[reformation]

FR Maher's Hoya article offers an insightful analysis of georgetown's jesuit vs catholic heritage and some good and candid thoughts on the issues facing the catholic chucrh in the USA.--.-----I believe that the article would have been even more useful; however, if he had offered a couple of specific ideas regarding things that he would like to see change or happen at GU.


A few questions and comments, (maybe you can shed some light on this DFW). Isn't Gtwn's relationship with the Catholic Church largely informal other than the tie in with the jesuit order--who in the catholic church outside of GTWN including the jesuit order really has any influence on Gtwn?

As far as GTWN goes for Catholics, I guess the author would like Catholic GU students to play a more active role in the catholic church--that seems like a worthy goal, provided its voluntary

The author makes a reference to the "sovietization"of the church hierarchy--Gtwn today suffers from one aspect of "sovietization" that I would like to see abated--- every correspondence, every communication, every talk by university officials contains some type of formal, usually rote homage to Gtwn's catholic and jesuit tradition--it is used so often that it becomes meaningless --I have no issue with proclaiming proudly our religious heritage, but it should be used more judiciously where it has a real impact-(I lived in Brezhnev's Russia for a time and I can honestly say that a lot of Gtwn's communication reminds me of the obligatory Soviet praise that I used to endure while living in Leningrad)

Maybe this is wishful thinking, but it would seeem to me that the Catholic church and the jesuits both would be better off by pooling resources to help foster a few really outstanding universities: Gtwn is the obvious candidate, rather than maintaining a network of a couple of good universities and a slew of marginal ones. It seems to me that the catholic authorities have trouble seeing the big picture on this point--it also may be true that Gtwn does not ask for help or take the lead in this regard, i really don't know--part of my motivation for asking the question who in the church really influences gtwn and vice versa who can we influence.