Washington, D.C. – Academy Award winner William Peter Blatty, whose best-selling book and blockbuster film The Exorcist were situated at his alma mater,
Georgetown University, announced today that he has delivered a
“Petition” on behalf of more than 1200 alumni, students, parents,
teachers, and other laity from around the world. The “Petition” prays
that the Catholic Church will grant several remedies, including, if made
necessary, the removal or suspension of top-ranked Georgetown’s right
to call itself Catholic and Jesuit in its fundraising and
representations to applicants.
The Petition cites a Vatican Decree issued on July 11, 2012, at the
request of the Archbishop of Lima, that ordered the Pontifical Catholic
University of Peru, a very prominent Latin American university, to cease
calling itself “Catholic” and “Pontifical” while declaring that it continued to be ecclesiastical property and subject to the requirements of Church law.
On the order of Pope Benedict XVI, the Vatican Secretary of State, Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, based the decision on the university’s failure to comply with Ex corde Ecclesiae, the 1990 Apostolic Constitution for Catholic Universities and that the University of Lima persists “in continuing to orient its institutional initiatives according to standards that are inconsistent with the norms and morality of the Church.”
