Planned Parenthood chief Cecile Richards was greeted with a standing ovation at “Catholic” Georgetown University Wednesday, where she had been invited to speak about reproductive rights to some 400 students at the Lohrfink Auditorium.
Michael Khan, President of Georgetown Right to Life, told the Daily Caller that he was disappointed, but not terribly surprised, that his university had granted a platform to someone so opposed to Christian values.
“We’re probably the most liberal Catholic university in the nation,” Khan said. “Many of our students and faculty aren’t Catholic and are very hostile to Catholic doctrine.”
Georgetown Right to Life, along with The American Society for the Defense of Tradition, Family and Property and others, organized a demonstration on campus to protest the University’s decision to invite Richards.
Bentley Hatchett, a volunteer with Tradition, Family and Property, called Richards’ appearance a “scandal,” noting that the first responsibility of a Catholic college should be “to be faithful to the church and consistent with the church’s message.”
Hatchett said that the protesters represented the 13,000 people who signed a petition urging the University not to host the president of America’s largest abortion provider.
Protesters noted that Ms. Richards has “overseen the wholesale death of over 2.8 million babies since becoming Planned Parenthood’s president in 2006” and that her presence on campus “dishonors the memory of all the Jesuit saints and martyrs who gave up their lives for God and the Church.”
During Richards’ speech, a campus newspaper, The Hoya, sent out a flurry of approving tweets to give further visibility to her message.
“The decision to have a child is the most personal…we believe this is not decision to be made by politicians.” –@CecileRichards
— The Hoya (@thehoya) April 20, 2016
“No woman should be afraid to gain access to reproductive rights.” –@CecileRichards on increased animosity at Planned Parenthood clinics.
— The Hoya (@thehoya) April 20, 2016
“Planned Parenthood has never sold fetal tissue and never would.” –@CecileRichards on the scam video scandal.
— The Hoya (@thehoya) April 20, 2016
The Georgetown Lecture Fund, the campus group that issued the invitation to Richards, sums up its mission on its webpage: “Keep them coming, all of them — the radicals, the politicians, the spiritual leaders and whoever else can be roped into speaking here. To continue the Jesuit ideal of lifelong, comprehensive learning, our minds need to be challenged, inspired and opened.”
The Archdiocese of Washington and its newspaper, the Catholic Standard, criticized the event, but they did not intervene to block it.
Though Georgetown boasts of being “the oldest Catholic and Jesuit institute of higher learning in the United States,” it has repeatedly come under fire for having sacrificed its integrity and Catholic identity on the altars of secularism.
“This is the latest in a long history of scandal at Georgetown University,” said Cardinal Newman Society President Patrick Reilly. “Disguised as an academic event, this is nothing more than a platform for abortion advocacy at a Catholic university.”
Follow Thomas D. Williams on Twitter Follow @tdwilliamsrome
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