The temperature hovered around 50 degrees on the morning of Saturday, May 17; a light rain had moved through a few hours before. By the time horns cued “Pomp and Circumstance’ at 9 a.m., the clouds that brought the drizzle remained, thick and gray, along with a steady 10-mph wind. Slowly, the graduates and faculty of Georgetown College marched across Healy Lawn to their seats. An invocation was given, the University charter was read, the late Rev. Joseph T. Durkin, S.J. was recognized on the occasion of his 100th birthday.
By the time Georgetown College Dean Jane Dammen McAuliffe took the podium to introduce Francis Cardinal Arinze to the Class of 2003 and the rest of the crowd, many were more focused on getting inside to warm their chilled bones than on the message the Nigerian prelate might have for them.
“To you, dear young friends, I say,” the Cardinal intoned, “allow serious religion to lead you to lasting joy.” It was an innocuous remark, not unexpected from a clergyman, even if it held little resonance for a group of college graduates-a group likely to associate “lasting joy” with things other than “serious religion.” Arinze spent the first minutes of his speech buttressing that point-there is more to happiness than money, sex and power. Whether or not that point might be advice or consolation to a group of college graduates, its thorough familiarity is undeniable.
For ears tuned for a commencement address, what came later was much less familiar. Where graduates might have expected congratulations and warm counsel, they received, quite simply, a sermon. “In many parts of the world, the family is under siege,” said Arinze, at the climax of his speech. “It is opposed by anti-life mentality as is seen in contraception, abortion, infanticide and euthanasia. It is scorned and banalized by pornography; desecrated by fornication and adultery; mocked by homosexuality, sabotaged by irregular unions and cut into two by divorce.”
“You don’t solve a difficult algebra homework by burning the algebra book,” he continued. “You don’t solve a family problem by divorce.”
During this part of Arinze’s speech, Theresa Sanders, Associate Professor of Theology, got up from her seat on the stage behind Arinze and walked off. Sanders declined to comment on why she left.
As Sanders departed, Rachel Boutennot (CAS ‘03) was seated toward the front of the graduating students, “making faces,” as she described it, to her faculty mentor, exasperated at what Arinze had said. The top of her black mortarboard, which she had prepared the night before, read “RESIST” in bright yellow paint. When she saw Sanders leave, she got up and left as well.
Walking toward Copley Lawn, Boutennot met Danielle DeCerbo (CAS ‘03), a former Voice staff member, who also walked out on the speech, concerned that family members might have been offended by Arinze’s words. Asked why she left, DeCerbo said, “the Cardinal was hurting members of my family at a family celebration.”
The two talked briefly, debating whether to return. Boutennot went back to the crowd and shouted to her family, “Get up, we’re leaving!” They refused to leave; she walked back to Copley Lawn, sat down and gathered her thoughts.
She returned to receive her diploma on stage, walking past Arinze. “It was like tunnel vision,” Boutennot said, “I didn’t even see him.”
Meanwhile, Joylynn Holder (CAS ‘03) did what many more had done: she stayed in her seat, aghast and uncomfortable. “I just didn’t expect it at all,” she said. “I was shocked.” A theology major, Holder wondered what her professors were thinking about what she considered “undeveloped theology” represented by Arinze’s comments.
Later, Gabriel Wartofsky (CAS ‘03) shared his feelings directly with the Cardinal. As he walked across the stage to receive his diploma from Provost James J. O’Donnell, Wartofsky leaned down to speak to the seated Arinze, who looked him in the eye as he spoke. “I said it was disgraceful,” Wartofsky recalled later. “It was the most disgraceful speech I’ve ever heard in my four years.”
Arinze is a high-ranking, influential Catholic prelate who spoke about Catholic doctrine at the commencement exercises of a Catholic university. Exactly what about that situation might spark animus is not apparent. It is the qualifications to that statement that makes the Arinze affair so bizarrely controversial.
The 70-year-old Arinze’s career is remarkable in innumerable respects. Baptized a Catholic at the age of nine, Arinze entered the seminary only four years later. Ordained in 1951, he studied in Rome and London before being consecrated bishop of Onitsha, a city of nearly a half million along the Niger River in Southeast Nigeria, in 1965. Two years later, he would be made archbishop, the youngest in the world at age 34.
During his time in Onitsha, the number of Catholics in Nigeria expanded rapidly, and Arinze proved himself a master of managing relations between Catholics and Nigeria’s Muslim majority. In 1985, the Holy See called Arinze to service in Rome. In short order, he was elevated to Cardinal and made president of the Pontifical Council on Interreligious Dialogue, a group dedicated to fostering relations between Catholicism and other religions.
Since then, Church commentators have occasionally included Arinze’s name in short lists of future candidates for the papacy, owing both to his high profile both as specialist in Muslim-Christian relations and as a “rising star” of African Catholicism. Whether that represents serious consideration or mere tokenism may be addressed by the fact that as Pope John Paul II’s health has precipitously declined over the past years, Arinze’s name has been mentioned less and less often.
Still, Arinze’s accomplishments are impressive by any measure; he was an eminent choice to speak. Yet the process by which he was selected to speak at Georgetown was unusual. Typically, commencement speakers for the College are drawn from a list of candidates submitted by each academic department. In the fall, the College’s Executive Council whittles the list to four or five names. Those are then passed on for approval to the Provost, President, and Board of Directors.
Arinze was not on the original list drawn up by the College Executive Council in fall 2002. According to a member of the Council involved in the selection process who spoke on the condition of anonymity, those chosen in the fall all declined for scheduling conflicts and other reasons.
Dean McAuliffe, who refused comment for this story, personally proposed Arinze to fill the vacancy before the Executive Council as late as April, the member of the Council said. McAuliffe, whose academic expertise is in Islamic studies, had known Arinze for several years as a representative to the Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue. The member recalled McAuliffe said to the Council that Arinze would talk about issues concerning dialogue among religions.
“I don’t think she was prepared for the speech either,” said the member. “I think she was shocked too.”
McAuliffe’s introduction of Arinze at the ceremony confirms that impression. She spoke at length about his expertise in “seeking cooperation and relations with those of other faiths” and the “complex backdrop of interactions between Muslims and Christians across Subsaharan Africa.” She closed by nailing home the significance of having a specialist in Muslim-Christian relations speak to a group of American university graduates: “We look to the leadership of Cardinal Arinze as a voice for the Catholic Church in envisioning the secure peace towards which the world must work.”
Briefly, before Arinze made his most controversial comments, he spoke about the confluence of Catholicism and other religions. But his comments were squarely in keeping with his general focus on Catholic doctrine. He drew a sharp line between religious tolerance and religious relativism. “If you are Catholic, you are to keep intact your religious identity, your distinction as a witness of Jesus Christ,” he said. “You can without risk meet people of other religions and collaborate with them, provided you know who you are.”
That Arinze would hold conservative views comes as little surprise. According to Philip Jenkins’ book, The Next Christendom, Arinze represents the brand of Christianity prevalent throughout the developing world, a brand that is “far more comfortable with notions of authority and charisma than with newer ideas of consultation and democracy.” Jenkins also notes that Arinze himself is a close follower of Pope John Paul II; the doctrine in his speech is generally in keeping with the Pope’s conservative views.
Speaking to those offended by Arinze, it is not the fact a conservative prelate was invited that was offensive to them; it was the fact that he expressed his views in the forum that he did. Numerous defenders of Arinze’s speech, fueled by articles about the speech from the Atlanta Journal-Constitution and the Washington Times which made their way around the Internet, jumped on the incongruity of inviting someone of well-known views and then being surprised when he expresses them.
But the protesters’ concerns show that the incongruity is complicated by the occasion-a celebration of the graduation of 800 students of various backgrounds and religions. Had the Cardinal spoke on the expected topic of interreligious relations, or merely kept up the platitudes early in his speech, all might have left smiling, looking for a spot to warm up after the long ceremony. Instead, his words cut through the crowd, shocking many, and making countless others uneasy.
What happened in the week following the speech was different from the usual pattern of student protest. The vast majority of non-graduating students had left campus a week or more before, and few of the newly minted graduates were eager to stick around to see what ensued. News of the speech and words of support for members of the campus lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender community went out over an e-mail list organized by GU Pride.
On Monday morning, History Professor Tommaso Astarita drafted a “letter of concern” asking the University to make an explicit committment to inclusiveness and distibuted it to faculty members. By Wednesday, about 70 professors had signed the letter, and it was delivered to McAuliffe. Those faculty members would constitute the core of the protesters. “I’m proud of the extent to which the faculty stepped forward and registered its concerns about the speech and the larger events it illustrates,” said English Professor James Slevin, who signed that letter.
That same day, McAuliffe released a brief statement acknowledging the controversy. “As an academic community, vigorous and open discussion lies at the heart of what we do,” she wrote, “and there are many different voices in the conversation.” She set aside two hours for a meeting that Friday, May 22.
The meeting was held that afternoon in a conference room below McAuliffe’s office in White-Gravenor. About 30 persons attended, of which the majority were faculty, and nearly all of them were upset about the speech. A handful of students attended as well, including Holder, who described the tone of the meeting as “very serious, very formal.”
The meeting opened with a lengthy speech from McAuliffe, who focused on the Cardinal’s background and the differences in the perception of homosexuality in Nigerian culture. She was also concerned about a backlash against the Cardinal, said Holder, from conservatives who considered him “simple.” Repeatedly, attendees said, McAuliffe spoke about “walking the tightrope” between the University’s Catholicism and the concerns of students and faculty.
But most of those who spoke later about the meeting said that Arinze himself was not the issue, but rather how the speech highlighted the University’s perceived pattern of marginalizing the LGBTQ community. Holder, for one, felt McAuliffe’s words did not directly address those issues. She described the remarks as “political” and “very diplomatic.” “[McAuliffe] had a script and she stuck to it,” Holder said. “That was very frustrating.”
According to attendees, Slevin was particularly concerned about McAuliffe’s evasion of certain issues. Slevin declined to speak about what happened inside the meeting, but attendees described him as particularly disturbed by the University’s response. At one point, frustrated with McAuliffe, he told her, “cut the crap, Jane.” Later, Slevin walked out of the meeting.
During the meeting McAuliffe again expressed her surprise at the content of Arinze’s speech. Numerous professors and students spoke; one professor deemed the Cardinal’s words “hate speech.” Only one person, Stephen Feiler (CAS ‘02), who could not be reached for comment by press time, spoke in defense of Arinze.
By the time the meeting ended two hours later, discussion had edged toward possible actions to mollify protests. McAuliffe said she would in the future distribute a “fact sheet” about Georgetown University stressing its diversity and inclusiveness. The main product of the meeting, however, was a letter sent to the graduates, their parents, College faculty and current College students. The letter was sent by mail to the graduates and their parents within the week. The rest received the message by e-mail.
The letter, which was dated May 29 and signed by McAuliffe, begins by expressing concern that people had been offended by Arinze’s speech. “[T]ruly, the last thing I would want is for anyone in our community to feel marginalized or rejected,” McAuliffe wrote. The letter goes on to quote portions of the University’s Ethos Statement and Mission Statement pertaining to issues of inclusiveness and academic freedom, before closing with a nod to history: “We at Georgetown will always work to live a deep dedication to inclusion and community support, a dedication that has been so much a part of our identity since our founding in 1789.” The letter does not specifically address the concerns of any single group.
That made the letter virtually meaningless to Astarita, which he told McAuliffe. “It didn’t accomplish much of anything,” he said. “It was a known statement.”
Slevin also does not consider the carefully worded letter a satisfactory response. Rather, he said, events surrounding the beginning of the semester and the welcoming of new students to campus provide plenty of chances for administrators to address issues concerning inclusiveness on campus in the wake of Arinze’s speech in a more deliberate manner.
“The time is now to do it,” Slevin said. “I’m looking to the President, to the Provost and to the Board of Trustees.”
Slevin and his colleagues may hope to make their workplace a more tolerant place, but for the students the graduated that day, it was just another in a long line of insults toward certain members of the University community, and it came on a particularly unfortunate occasion.
“After four years of working hard,” Wartofsky said, “to suddenly have this was offensive.”
And ultimately, graduates quickly replaced the offense, shock and frustration with cynicism.
“I’m just so friggin’ glad I’m done with that University,” Boutennot said.
“I’m glad I’m not at Georgetown now,” Wartofsky said. “I’m just bitter.”
