On Saturday, Oct. 13, John J. DeGioia was inaugurated as Georgetown University’s 48th president. As the first lay president, DeGioia is in a unique position to influence our Catholic identity. In some respects, when we had a priest as president, it presented an outward declaration of our “Catholicness.” With the shrinking number Jesuits, however, there is also a shrinking pool of Jesuits qualified to be the presidents of the Jesuit universities in the United States. The Presidential Selection committee made the right choice in selecting the best candidate?not simply the best Jesuit candidate.
Nonetheless, DeGioia’s lay status will be a point of scrutiny for his observers. He is in a precarious position?he runs the risk of either ignoring the fact that he isn’t a priest, or overcompensating for it. DeGioia broached the issue well during his inauguration speech. He spoke of the tension between Georgetown as an academic institution, with emphasis on research, reason and objectivity, and Georgetown as a spiritual institution. DeGioia admitted that this tension will create conflict. “Our work is messy. Our business lies in disorder and conflict. But make no mistake, our responsibility is to preserve the tensions and not finesse them away.”
As a 26-year member of our community, DeGioia understands this conflict well. When he was Dean of Students, DeGioia had to deal with the University’s obligation both to give a student group such as H*yas for Choice (then GU Choice) a voice on campus and also its Catholic pro-life stance. Because of DeGioia’s decision to grant recognition and University funding and then his later decision to revoke it, he ultimately upset those on both sides of the issue. However, he did recognize that there was a conflict between the University as an academic institution and the University as the Church.
This tension will not go away. The implementation of Ex corde ecclesiae will test what Georgetown values most?its identification as an educational institution or its identification with the Church. On each decision, debate must be active. As DeGioia said, “Paradoxical as this may sound, we are most authentic when these tensions are most alive.”
