Print This Post Print This Post

Oct

19

How a Catholic university reinforces pluralism


Like any alumna of any educational institution, I receive solicitations for money all the time. But the one I got today was unique, and timely.

It came from Georgetown University’s Vice President for Mission and Ministry (an office which includes, by the way, former Father Moore – who was a brand new prof and Jesuit when I was a freshman and had a serious NYC accent and looked like a sleeker Superman, and the rumor was that he fell in love, went to the Vatican, got officially and acceptably defrocked and then married; I don’t know much about the in love and married part, but I do know that he left the Jesuit order not long after I had him as a professor – NO connection, just giving a timeline, lol; again – remember – as a Jew at a Catholic university, this whole idea that you would spend YEARS becoming a priest and then, not be a priest, it was blowing my mind).

Specifically, the letter was signed by Father Philip Burroughs, S.J. His cover letter described numerous activities that have taken place on the campus since the start of the 07-08 year: Pluralism in Action (part of New Student Orientation), the New Student Orientation’s Mass of the Holy Spirit, the Jewish High Holy Days, Ramadan and an Interfaith Council prayer service to commemorate 9-11.

The enclosure card for donations gives you the chance to designate that the gift go to one or more of several funds listed:

Mission & Ministry

Catholic Chaplaincy

Protestant Chaplaincy

Jewish Chaplaincy

Muslim Chaplaincy

Eastern Orthodox Chaplaincy

Chaplains in Residence

Interfaith Initiatives

and then several related to specific, Catholic efforts (retreat programs, Catholic Chapel Choir etc.)

I thought this kind of appeal at this time of the year (and after several days of blogging about how my experience of Christians in this world makes me believe that some people seek to pervert religion for profit) was very well-planned. I am not giving at this time, but I really liked the approach.

Now, just so you know I know my school’s imperfections, GU continues to struggle with properly treating gays. This article details the end of an eight-year legal battle that ensued while I was at GU, and this one details a current struggle related to treatment of gays on campus. And, while I was there, as well as afterwards, there was blatant disregard for the timing of some events which forced me to choose between major student activities and my religious observances.

Although I can’t speak from experience about how it feels to be a gay student at a Catholic university, I know the president a little bit – he grew up in my hometown, went to my high school (about four years before me), was my resident director during my sophomore year and supported me in writing when I started to work on a book about being Jewish at Georgetown (a book I still hope to write – tentatively titled Oya Saxa – with the help of Rabbi Harold White, who just celebrate 40 years of being the chaplain at Georgetown and is part of Campus Ministry, which is not the same as the Office of Mission and Ministry though I can’t really figure out quite what the difference is except that I think the Office is only Catholic and the Campus is for all religions – the rabbi was brought on not long after Vatican II ). And the president seems like a pretty progressive guy – even for someone in charge of Jesuit school (Jesuits have the reputation of being progressive in the first place).

And, for a little extra dose of Friday night nostalgia: here’s info on the Red Bird Mission Work Camp that I went to during my Spring Break in Appalachia experiences, done through GU, when I was a junior and senior. Wow – I have similar pictures but now you can see that mountaintops are partly reclaimed – when I was there, they were just stripped, grey mud. In fact, last week, I met someone at the AAPC conference who was intimately familiar with Red Bird because he lives in KY and is very involved with his Methodist church. I even think Governor Strickland was involved or knows of Red Bird – but I’ve never gotten confirmation of that (he did some work in the Methodist ministries in KY too at some point).

Anyway – I wish you could still hear me describe for the radio show, State of Belief, what I said about my life-altering revelation during a Methodist service one day while in Red Bird (the post for that specific show is here). But it appears that the archives only go back to a few weeks after my recording. I ended up on the program because one of its producers at the time was Alex Goldmark who has a graduate degree in public policy from GU and he somehow wound up on my blog and contacted me about having been a Jew at Georgetown and would I talk about that. And I did. Alex does a lot of neat stories for Marketplace so you might recognize his name. Very cool guy.

Anyway – it was just your typical, Jewish girl goes into the Appalachian hollers with ten Catholics and a Methodist Mission story. If you’ve heard one, you’ve heard ‘em all.

Bookmark and Share

By Jill Miller Zimon at 9:45 pm October 19th, 2007 in Religion 

Comments

Comments are closed.

"));