Vatican Acknowledges that Complaints about Georgetown University are Well Founded

The Vatican has acknowledged that complaints listed in a canonical petition it received from alumni of Georgetown University are “well founded.”

What this means in real life, I’m not sure. Hopefully, it signals the beginning of a return to Catholic education at Catholic universities.

William Peter Blatty, author of The Exorcist and Georgetown alum, submitted the petition, which contained 2,000 signatures, to the Vatican last September. Here is the text of the petition:

I, the undersigned, a Catholic in full communion with the Church, in keeping with the rights, duties and obligations of the Laity and the Christian faithful under the 1983 Code of Canon Law to make known our needs to our pastors through petition, to maintain communion with the Church, to perfect the order of temporal affairs, and legitimately to vindicate our rights in the Church, as well as the rights and duties we have under Article 4 of Ex corde Ecclesiae, we express our grave concern that our rights to know and follow the truth of the Catholic Church, to a Christian education, and others, have been violated by Georgetown University’s twenty-one year refusal to comply fully with the law of the Church through the implementation of the general norms of Ex corde Ecclesiae, and its eleven year non-compliance with certain particular norms adopted for the United States, which has led directly and indirectly to the tolerance and promotion of deviations from authentic doctrinal and moral teachings by Georgetown University authorities, a long series of Scandals to the faithful through actions inconsistent with a Catholic identity, and a growing threat to souls through the ever-spreading ideology of radical autonomy in Georgetown’s institutional initiatives, and to the academic freedom of professors and students in favor of new illiberal and intolerant orthodoxies.  I, therefore, petition in the protection of my rights and in fulfillment of my duties in accord with Canon Law, for such relief to obtain the implementation of canon law and Ex corde Ecclesiae that has been requested by the Petition submitted by William Peter Blatty.

The Vatican replied to the petition on April 4. Here is the text of their letter to Mr Blatty from Archbishop Angelo Vicenzo Zani, the secretary for the Congregation for Catholic Education.

CONGREGATIO DE INSTITUTIONE CATHOLICA

(DE STUDIORUM INST!TUTIS)

Rome, 4 April 2014

Dear Mr. Blatty,

Further to our letters to you of 22 October 2013 and 19 December 2013, both with

the above protocol number, our Congregation has examined your petition for hierarchical

recourse in the matter of Georgetown University. We hereby notify you that:

(1) The matters to which you referred in your communications to this Dicastery

cannot be considered grounds for a hierarchical recourse, inasmuch as the

petitioner in such a recourse must be able to show that he/she has suffered an

objective change in his/her condition due to an administrative act.

(2) Your communications to this Dicastery in the matter of Georgetown University

instead constitute a well-founded complaint. Our Congregation is taking the issue

seriously, and is cooperating with the Society of Jesus in this regard.

Taking the opportunity to express to you our sentiments of consideration and

esteem, we remain

Sincerely yours in Christ,

Archbishop Angelo Vincenzo Zani