Georgetown University

The Growing Controversy over Slavery Reparations

The hot-button issue of slavery reparations got a major boost April 13 when students at Georgetown University voted in favor of a special fee that would benefit the descendants of 272 African slaves once owned by the Catholic university, located in Washington, DC. The vote fanned the flames of an escalating political debate over whether … Read more

Georgetown, Slavery, and the Riots in Sweden

Two years ago, Georgetown University made a show of repenting of its past connections to slavery by renaming two buildings whose namesakes had once sold slaves. It might be expected then that when a Georgetown faculty member defends slavery, not just online, but in the course of a ninety-minute lecture, the reaction would be swift … Read more

Georgetown Battles “Islamophobia” While Christians are Killed

If Islamization ever comes to America—and it may come quickly depending on the outcome of the November election—certain Catholic individuals and institutions will bear a heavy burden of responsibility. I’m thinking in particular of Georgetown University and its Alwaleed bin Talal Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding (ACMCU). ACMCU’s Bridge Initiative released a report in September on … Read more

When Jesuits Ignore Papal Decrees

On September 1, John J. DeGioia, the president of Georgetown University confirmed and published the recommendations of the university’s Working Group on Slavery, Memory and Reconciliation. For almost a year the members of this group have been studying the ties of the Georgetown Jesuits with black slaves, and particularly, with the sale of 272 slaves … Read more

Catholic Colleges and Planned Parenthood: New Proof of Collusion

As corporations and governments face increasing pressure to cut ties with scandal-plagued Planned Parenthood, let’s not forget the obvious: Catholic colleges ought to do the same. What, you ask? Catholic colleges have ties to Planned Parenthood, the nation’s largest abortion provider and alleged purveyor of aborted human parts? How is that even possible? It’s a … Read more

How to Fix Our System of Higher Education

For Catholic parents with intelligent high school children, this can be a trying time. A good many ostensibly Catholic universities have simply become indistinguishable from the mass of U.S. colleges. Take Georgetown, for example, which the New York Times gleefully reports has become a gay-friendly campus. During the month of “OUTober,” described by the Times … Read more

The Lord of the World

In 2001, St. Augustine’s Press published a new edition of Robert Hugh Benson’s 1907 novel, The Lord of the World. A friend of mine in Vermont recently urged me to read it, and I did. Ralph McInerny, in a brief introduction, writes: “The novel wonderfully conveys the flatness and boredom of a world without God. … Read more

The Catholic Church, By the Numbers

Browsing through my feedreader earlier today, I happened across this fascinating web page from Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate (CARA), “a national, non-profit, Georgetown University affiliated research center that conducts social scientific studies about the Catholic Church.” Entitled “Frequently Requested Catholic Church Statistics,” it’s a compilation of particularly interesting statistics concerning the Catholic … Read more

Obama’s Nominee for EEOC Promotes Polygamy and Homosexuality

President Barack Obama has nominated a Georgetown University law professor, Chai R. Feldblum, to the Equal Employment Opportunity Council. Feldblum, a lesbian activist lawyer, formerly worked for the American Civil Liberties Union, the Human Rights Campaign Fund, and in the mid-1980s clerked for Justice Harry A. Blackmun, the author of Roe v. Wade. Feldblum faces … Read more

A Transcendent Nature

The 29th section of Caritas in Veritate concerns religious freedom. What is at stake here is not the usual “church and state” hassle. To clear the air, Pope Benedict XVI states that he is not concerned here with fanaticism, in which violence is used to promote the goals of religions. It is self-evident that this … Read more

The Christmas Fire

Several years ago, I was given a very handsome Platinum Press edition of Stories for Christmas by Charles Dickens. This book has 478 pages, so Dickens had much to say about this wonderful, wonder-filled feast. I recall Chesterton saying somewhere that the ceremony surrounding the English-speaking Christmas is practically invented by Dickens.   We Americans, … Read more

On Words and Symbols

  I read an interview recently that is worth commenting on. The subject notes:   I was feeling conflicted because my Catholicism is so deeply important to me. It was my sense of connection to the Almighty, to humanity, to my heritage, my upbringing . . . . And my Catholicism informed my view of the … Read more

The Pleasure of Learning

  The central thesis of our civilization is found in the following passage from Plato’s Gorgias: "For no one who is not totally bereft of reason and courage is afraid to die; doing what’s unjust is what he’s afraid of. For of all evils, the ultimate is that of arriving in Hades with one’s soul … Read more

In the Company of Good Men

A term paper on Aristotle ended with the following sentence, not in quotation marks: “After all, a good man can only be truly good in the company of other good men.” The sentence struck me. Was it a citation from some place? I checked Google. The references it gave were no help. Many passages used … Read more

Schall at Eighty

Schall was born January 20, 1928, on a farm in Pocahontas County, Iowa. You cannot get more American than that. My mother was Bohemian and my father German-Irish. To my Jesuit colleagues at breakfast on my birthday I hint that this memorable event happened in a log cabin. Most doubt this as too picturesque, while … Read more

Anti-Catholic Bias in Georgetown AIDS Report

On January 9, Ray Ruddy, president of Boston’s Gerard Health Foundation, wrote a letter to Georgetown University President John J. DeGioia asking him to disavow or retract a Georgetown report entitled “Faith Communities Engage the HIV/AIDS Crisis.” The report, published in November by Georgetown’s Berkley Center for Religion, Peace, & World Affairs, criticizes faith-based approaches … Read more

A Conversation with James V. Schall, S.J., Part II

InsideCatholic.com music critic Robert R. Reilly sat down with noted writer, political thinker, and Georgetown University professor Rev. James V. Schall, S.J., to talk about the life of the mind, the future of the West, and lessons learned over a long career in education. This is the second part of the interview. Click here to … Read more

Religious Freedom

The English edition of L’Osservatore Romano, for the Fourth of July, carried a “Common Declaration” signed in the Vatican Private Library by Pope Benedict XVI and the Orthodox Archbishop H. B. Chrysostomos II of Nea Justiniana and All Cyprus. In No. 4 of this declaration, these two leaders, somewhat curiously, address themselves to “those who … Read more

Item added to cart.
0 items - $0.00

Orthodox. Faithful. Free.

Signup to receive new Crisis articles daily

Email subscribe stack
Share to...