Georgetown University’s Lecture Fund has invited the president of Planned Parenthood Federation of America (PPFA), Cecile Richards, to address students on campus this April.
The ever vigilant Cardinal Newman Society reported that Richards will speak at Georgetown in April, and the Lecture Fund is planning a 30-minute question and answer session as part of the evening’s activities. The event will be closed to the public, however, and only “invited” guests and media may attend, as well as those “with a Georgetown University identification card.”
During Richards’ tenure as president of PPFA, the abortion giant has brought about the deaths of over 2.8 million babies.
Richards has demonized the U.S. Catholic Bishops for their “hard-line opposition to women’s rights” that “endangers millions of women around the globe.” He organization is currently embroiled in a series of Congressional hearings titled “Select Investigative Panel on Infant Lives.” The panel’s task is to gather information about medical practices of abortion service providers who sell baby body parts.
At a hearing Wednesday, Rep. Diane Black (R) referred to Planned Parenthood as the “Amazon.com for baby parts.”
The Georgetown Lecture Fund webpage greets readers with a pithy statement of purpose: “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 Catholic Church has been endeavoring to ensure that universities bearing the name “Catholic” act in conformity with their religious identity and not provide a microphone to those who work in opposition to Christian principles. In their 2004 document, “Catholics in Political Life,” the U.S. bishops stated that Catholic institutions should not honor those “who act in defiance of our fundamental moral principles” with “awards, honors or platforms which would suggest support for their actions.”
“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.”
A month ago, two law professors from Georgetown published an article on a university website calling on the World Health Organization (WHO) to recommend birth control and abortion in response to the Zika virus outbreak in South America in order to “truly respect the dignity and health of women of childbearing age.”
The authors stated that it is “critical” that countries be required “to respect, protect, and fulfil women’s health-related human rights, including reproductive rights,” which include “accessible, affordable, acceptable, and quality abortions.”
The article, titled “The WHO Must Include Access to Birth Control and Abortion in its Temporary Recommendations for Zika-Associated Public Health Emergency of International Concern,” was posted on Georgetown University’s O’Neill Institute for National and Global Health Law blog website.
According to the Catechism of the Catholic Church: “Human life must be respected and protected absolutely from the moment of conception. From the first moment of his existence, a human being must be recognized as having the rights of a person — among which is the inviolable right of every innocent being to life.”
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 the secularism.
William Peter Blatty, author of “The Exorcist” and a graduate of Georgetown University, submitted a petition to the Vatican in 2013 requesting that Church officials strip his alma mater of the titles of “Catholic” and “Jesuit” because it had abandoned its Catholic identity.
In response to criticism over its decision to invite Richards, Georgetown officials released a statement declaring, “Our Catholic and Jesuit identity on campus has never been stronger.”
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