Vox Populi, the staff blog of the Georgetown Voice announced those who will be speaking at Georgetown University’s commencement exercises. Way down in the list you see… “Former governor of Kansas and current secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services, Kathleen Sebelius, will be addressing the Georgetown Public Policy Institute.”
It raises your eyebrows that the person who implemented and oversees what the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops has called “an unwarranted government definition of religion” to speak at Georgetown. They go further than that, they also said the HHS mandate to force Catholic institutions to pay for contraceptives and sterilization is “alien both to our Catholic tradition and to federal law,” “a violation of personal civil rights” and “a mandate to act against our teachings.” Prior to Sebelius taking the helm of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Stephen White notes at the National Review she was best known for her ties to the late infamous abortionist George Tiller.
Not exactly glowing credentials.
Who knows what the motivation for having Sebelius come speak at Georgetown Public Policy Institute’s commencement service is, but it is certainly (justifiably so) raising a firestorm among Catholics. For instance the Cardinal Newman Society has begun a petition to protest the invitation at GeorgetownScandal.com. They also report that they have alerted alerted Washington Cardinal Donald Wuerl and sent a letter to Georgetown President John DeGioia urging him to immediately withdraw the invitation. Pat Archibold at The National Catholic Register went as far to say in his opinion piece published there that “we cannot allow this to happen or we cannot allow Georgetown to carry the name Catholic.”
It will be interesting to see how Georgetown responds.