Unlike many of my peers, I am not a member of the Catholic Church. Also unlike many of my peers, Georgetown’s Catholic identity had no bearing on my decision to study here?I came to Georgetown because I wanted to pursue a degree in American Studies in the nation’s capital, and Georgetown provided the opportunity for me to do so. However, as I close in on the end of my seventh semester as a Georgetown University student, I find that I must also reflect on the profound influence that this university has had on me. While I would say I am the same person that I was when I first walked through the gates, I have changed the way in which I think about and interact with the world around me. This fact can be directly tied to Georgetown’s Catholic identity.
I must admit that when I first applied to Georgetown, I wasn’t aware that it was a Catholic school, let alone the oldest Jesuit academic institution in the United States. When I moved onto this campus as a first-year student, I still didn’t know what a Jesuit really was. Thus my initial identification with Georgetown was as simply an academic institution?I was here to learn. I knew that a Georgetown University education was distinctive because it had one of the best American Studies departments in the country. My Georgetown education was special because not only did this school attract the best candidates among American high school students, but also because it rejected nearly 80 percent of those applicants. I was about to embark on an education that would place me in the classroom with the “best and the brightest” and engage in discussions about the fundamental tenets of American democracy in the place where those tenets were supposedly actualized. This was only the beginning of my education.
I don’t know what exactly clued me in, but perhaps it was the crosses in each and every classroom or the collar-wearing fellows running around campus that called my attention to Georgetown’s Catholic identity. This realization enhanced my educational experience because it forced me to consider issues that I might not have faced at a secular academic institution. For five weeks of Professor Gillis’ “Problem of God” course, my classmates and I tried and failed miserably to refute the assertion that there was no Supreme Being and yet for five weeks after that, we remained equally impotent to challenge our professor’s argument that there was a God. Attending a Catholic school made for particularly relevant conversations about prayer in schools, abortion, the death penalty and freedom of speech. There was even discussion about the capabilities of the Catholic Church to effectively prepare students for life in an increasingly diverse and non-secular world.
Thus, my Catholic education served as the catalyst for much debate and as such fostered the learning process of Catholic and non-Catholic students alike through exposure to new ideas. Over the course of my time at Georgetown I have slowly but surely come to recognize what a Jesuit education, and not simply a Catholic education really means. As a result, I have simultaneously learned how to put that education into practice. The Society of Jesus is distinct from other sects of the Catholic Church because the Jesuits are not only religious leaders, but scholars as well. Education inevitably reveals the injustice and inequality that pervades our world. The challenge of Jesuit education is not only to learn about the world around you, but in doing so, to use that education to change the world around you. Georgetown University’s mission statement declares that one of the primary goals of this institution is to create “men and women for others.” I have seen this conviction realized in my peers on a daily basis. This morning, eight students from Georgetown got out of bed at 5 a.m. to serve food at Miriam’s Kitchen, a soup kitchen located in here in D.C. Last month, I attended an activist theatre performance which portrayed Georgetown Community perspectives on the events of Sept. 11. Yesterday afternoon, my professor announced a demonstration against the death penalty and encouraged us to consider attending this event. All of these observations serve as evidence of the Jesuit tradition lived and breathed on this campus and how that tradition touches all students regardless of their faith.
If you had asked me three years ago if I thought I had a Catholic identity, I would have scoffed that I was not Catholic myself and didn’t even know very many Catholics. How could I possibly identify with the Catholic faith? However, as I come to the midway point of my final year as a student of this prestigious university, I am immensely thankful to have studied at this Catholic Jesuit academic institution. I came to Georgetown for many reasons having nothing to do with religion, but am amazed at how that education has shaped my identity and made it even richer.
