COMMENTARY: Vatican Needs to Remove Georgetown University's Catholicity for Defying Christ and Catholicism

Georgetown University -- America's oldest Catholic university -- has decided once again to defy the teachings of Christ and Catholic doctrine by offering a course at its law school next semester that will have students working with a pro-abortion rights advocacy organization.

Titled Regulatory Advocacy: Women and the Affordable Care Act, the course will have students working with the National Women's Law Center (NWLC) "to develop projects that will assist the organization's regulatory advocacy efforts."

Needless to say, Georgetown's decision to have its students work with such a pro-abortion lobby is a direct contradiction of the teachings of Christ as well as Catholic doctrine.

The fact is that Georgetown has defied Christ and the Catholic Church on numerous occasions in recent years. For example, two years ago, Georgetown selected U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius -- a strong pro-abortion advocate -- as its graduation speaker, despite the fact that the Vatican had declared that Sebelius should not receive Holy Communion because "she obstinately persists in support of abortions."

Earlier this month (even before the revelation of Georgetown law school's scheduled course on abortion), William Peter Blatty -- a Georgetown alumnus and novelist -- filed a canonical lawsuit with the Vatican to protect the Catholic identity of Georgetown.

Accompanied by a petition with more than 2,000 signatures, the lawsuit urges the Vatican to require Georgetown to implement "Ex Corde Ecclesiae," a papal constitution governing Catholic colleges. It also calls on the Vatican to suspend or revoke Georgetown's right to call itself Catholic and Jesuit in any of its representations, if it fails to implement and abide by this constitution.

We agree that the Vatican needs to remove Georgetown's Catholicity -- or take other severe punitive ecclesiastical action against Georgetown -- to put an end to its anti-Christian actions. Otherwise, Georgetown will just continue to operate on its current anti-Christian path, defying the teachings of Christ and Catholic doctrine.