Tuesday, April 21, 2009
Just to clarify, for everyone who misunderstood...
Gaston Hall at Georgetown is not a church. It is an auditorium, in which there are several religious symbols incorporated into the architecture, because Georgetown is, after all, a Catholic university. Granted, there are several chapels at Georgetown--the Dahlgren Chapel of the Sacred Heart, Copley Crypt Chapel of the North American Martyrs, St. William Chapel, St. Thomas More Law Center Chapel, the Medical Center Chapel, St. Ignatius Medical School Chapel, and the Dahlgren Crypt Chapel--but the President didn't give a speech in any of them.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Min's Current Conditions
- PhantomMinuet
- Nashville, TN, United States
- If it was a perfect world, I'd be out of a job.
6 comments:
I appreciate your setting the record straight and have updated my post accordingly. Thank you!
My feeling is that even if the speech was given in a hall and not a place of religious worship, it strikes me a censorship against religious and artistic expression to black out the Greek lettering within the lovely stain glass windows.
My University had stain glass window of the Greek Muses, and while I don't believe in them, I still could enjoy the beauty of their representation, including their names and mottos in Greek.
Perhaps, but I'm not aware of any Americans who still worship the Greek pantheon, so the Muses are not a religious symbol relevant to modern believers. Christian symbols are. The President is the president of every American citizen, not just the Christian ones, so he and his communication staff made a conscious choice to appear more ecumenical at Georgetown.
I wouldn't have minded, if he had left the symbols uncovered, but I'm a Christian, so it's no skin off my nose. If I was Jewish or Muslim or Bhuddist, I might feel differently.
As a Jesuit educated Catholic (with the student loans to prove it) I was very sad that the Jesuits would agree to blot out the name of Christ in ANY location on their campus in order to please the political authorities de jour.
It seems as though every knee is bending for the President... but not for Jesus.
I will say it was not on stained glass windows - rather the IHS and cross were painted in gilt on wood above the stage.
I'm not surprised. It's quiet a feather in a university's cap to have a sitting President speak on campus.
I agree it is quite a feather in the cap of Georgetown... butt at what price?
If the price of approval by the sitting President is denial of Christ - then the price is far too high.
I would have hoped that the Jesuits would be unwilling to pay that price. Evidently I hoped in vain.
Oh, please. The Jesuits are not denying Christ. All you have to do is look at their name to figure that out. They simply agreed to cover up the IHS that would have been right above the president's head, because the backdrop already partially obscured it. There were still over 20 other IHS's displayed in that same auditorium. Not to mention the fact that the Alpha and Omega are clearly visible in the stained glass windows above the President.
It's a tempest in a teapot.
Post a Comment