It is a huge story for Catholic education. “What do you exist for?” is the question at the heart of every institution that calls itself Catholic. That Georgetown would remove the name of Jesus Christ is truly shameful (if you take Him away, Georgetown is just another academic venue). That might not be the biggest story in America, but it’s a crucially important story. And when it trickles down and affects parochial schools in inner-cities, it can be a life and death issue that affects much more than Catholics (Catholic schools have turned lives around and given kids — many of them non-Catholic — the only shot they’ve got in instances you can ask non-Catholic observer parties like Sol Stern at the Manhattan Institute about).
The moment the White House made its “IHS” request, Georgetown should have requested the White House take its speech down the road to GWU.
I wrote about this all midday yesterday — Obama at Georgetown, Obama at Notre Dame, and the simultaneous good news for anyone who cares about the future viability of Catholic institutions that’s been all over New York via Timothy Dolan this week — here.