October 31 marks the 500th anniversary of the Reformation, and the occasion brings to mind a joke: A young priest asks a wise older priest, “What’s the difference between the Jesuit and Dominican orders?” The older priest says wearily, “Well, actually they have a lot in common. They were both founded by Spaniards, St. Dominic for the Dominicans, and St. Ignatius of Loyola for the Jesuits. They were also both founded to combat heresy: the Dominicans to fight the Albigensians, and the Jesuits to fight the Lutherans.” The younger priest says, “I see. But where do the Jesuit and Dominican Orders really differ?” The older priest looks at him and says, “Well, have you met any Albigensians lately?”
I happen to be Lutheran, so as amusing as this is, I would quibble with the notion of who’s heretical here. But there’s no question that I find common cause with a lot of God-fearing Catholics when I say that Jesuits are no good at enforcing the points of doctrine we do agree with. Case in point, is this story from Catholic News Agency out of Jesuit-run Georgetown:
Subsequent to the publication of this report, the Student Activities Commission hearing has been postponed until October 30, and I suppose there’s still a chance Georgetown’s student government will come to their senses and won’t follow through on the threat to deny Love Saxa its meager $250 in student activity funding and deny the group use of university facilities for publicly expressing Catholic beliefs. But the fact that it’s even scheduled to take place, at a Catholic university, is kind of astonishing. Love Saxa doesn’t appear to have said or done anything explicitly homophobic. The proximate cause for this inquisition-in-a-teacup is a September op-ed in The Hoya where Love Saxa president Amelia Irvine wrote, “we believe that marriage is a conjugal union on every level—emotional, spiritual, physical and mental—directed toward caring for biological children. To us, marriage is much more than commitment of love between two consenting adults.”
A big part of this story is the idiocy that occurs on plenty of secular and public universities, where the inchoate young adults who run student governments are given millions of dollars to play with, and a correspondingly awesome amount of authority to shape life on campus. Not surprisingly, student governments have become astonishingly corrupt and abuse their power in all manner of ways. (For loads more alarming information on this issue, see my 2014 WEEKLY STANDARD feature, “Schools for Scandal.”)
But again, Georgetown is a Catholic university. There’s nothing stopping the administration from stepping in and stopping this before it starts, and even upbraiding the student government for not acting in a manner consistent with attending a Catholic school. The fact the administration has even let things get this far is a disgrace.
It brings to mind a variation on another old joke, “Is the pope Catholic?” (Yes, I realize that Frank the Hippie Pope has a lot a Catholics sincerely asking that question. I happen to find his emphasis on grace refreshing. But I would say that—I’m a heretical Lutheran.) Anyway, this is just one of many troubling developments at Georgetown in recent years that have faithful Catholics concerned. It might not be out of the question to ask, “Is a Jesuit university Catholic?”
