Speaking of my alma maters. The Catholic University of America in D.C. is abuzz with a silly controversy. Their president, Rev. David M. O’Connell, lead a prayer at a Bush-Cheney event on election night (the Victory-Party-in-Waiting at the Reagan building). From a GOP perspective, he’s an obvious priest to get—he’s a local, and the party’s chair, Ed Gillespie, is a grad of the school. For the school, it’s a boost to be at a prominent event on election night. Of course he would go if asked.
Would I feel the same if he said a prayer at a Kerry event? Of course not, because it would have given the impression of endorsement of a candidate who voted consistently against a ban on partial-birth abortion. (Confession: That partial-birth-abortion fact is the first thing I think of every time I hear John Kerry’s name.) I don’t think Fr. O’Connell’s prayer equals an endorsement of Bush, but, frankly, if it gave the impression, I wouldn’t go nutty, because George W. Bush was the culture-of-life candidate.
I find this campus controversy especially laughable given some of the things priests said on the trail for Kerry (Fr. Hummer, for a for instance).
CUA’s campus newspaper, The Tower (which I once wrote for), along with some professors I had in my undergrad days (Dr. Schneck, look at me now! Sorry–you can’t win them all!) say that Fr. O’Connell is something of a hypocrite for not allowing pro-abortion speakers on campus while going himself to say a prayer at a Bush-Cheney event. The difference is pretty clear, it seems to me. And, again, if he appeared at a Kerry event, frankly, they might have more of a prayer at using that line of argument.
Further–and this gets to what this is really all about–The Tower argues that somehow Catholic U. is not “a real university” because of the current speaker’s policy. This goes back to a very old debate–at many Catholics schools, but one that I have always thought is even more important at CUA, the archdiocesan school for Catholics in the U.S., chartered by the bishops. It’s a debate I was intimately involved in during my years there, before Fr. McConnell was there. (Let’s just say his immediate predecessor had some very different views on what should be allowed on campus.) Are you a university or are you Catholic? Answer: You are both. And it is the Catholicity of the place that makes it special. Without that, you’re just another school.
CUA is no small-potatoes place. Grads of the school of philosophy earn pontifical degrees, for instance. You may laugh at that if you are looking for a secular place, but it’s a rigorous program, with some remarkable professors (don’t get me started on that adulatory note). And, if you’re looking for secular liberal arts, you’re at the wrong place…but doesn’t, like, the name tell you that? And, by the way, there is diversity of ideas there, but the school is what it is–or is more on the road to being what it should be than it was when I graduated, not too terribly long ago.
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