Blatty Submits Petition to Archbishop - Academy Award Winner Takes on Georgetown As Promised

Exorcist Author Submits Petition of 1200 Alumni, Students, Faculty, Parents to Address Repeated Scandals, Dissidence and Non-Compliance with Church Law

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.”

Academy Award Winner Takes on Georgetown

Exorcist Author Leads Alumni & Student Effort to Address Repeated Scandals and Non-Compliance at America’s Oldest Catholic University 

 

William Peter Blatty also wrote the screenplay for The Exorcist, which earned 10 Academy Award nominations in 1973. His most recent novels include Elsewhere, Dimiter and Crazy.

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 will lead alumni, students and other members of the new Father King Society to petition the Catholic Church for remedies up to and including the possible removal or suspension of top-ranked Georgetown’s right to call itself Catholic or Jesuit in its fundraising and representations to applicants.

The move comes on the heels of an unprecedented rebuke of Georgetown and its first lay president by His Eminence, Donald Cardinal Wuerl, the Roman Catholic Archbishop of Washington, over Georgetown’s invitation to HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius to be a diploma ceremony speaker today. Despite this and two petitions collecting almost 60,000 voices, Georgetown did not relent. 

Archdiocese Rebukes Georgetown University Invitation to Secretary Sebelius

Her face proclaims her - wicked.

The Archdiocese of Washington has weighed in on Georgetown University’s invitation of U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius as a commencement speaker in clear terms, saying that the school has unmoored itself from Catholic identity and chosen a stance against the country’s Catholic bishops.

Secretary Sebelius is the primary figure behind the HHS mandate forcing religious groups to provide free sterilizations, abortifacient drugs, and other forms of birth control to employees under the new health care law. She is also known for her extreme pro-abortion record, most notably her close ties with late-term abortionist George Tiller during her time as governor of Kansas. She is listed as a commencement speaker at Georgetown’s Public Policy Institute.

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More than 16,000 Sign Petition Opposing Sebelius Commencement Speech at Georgetown

The vindictive, cold and hateful Kathleen Sebelius

It is becoming an annual tradition where higher educational institutions, on the fringes of fidelity to the Catholic Church, feel the need to challenge their local bishop by inviting and honoring enemies of the Church at campus commencement ceremonies.  Not to be outdone by the adolescent behavior of Notre Dame in 2009, Georgetown University has landed no less than the Obama administration's point person for Church persecution - the embittered, excommunicated, pro-death champion, Kathleen Sebelius.

The quisling Sebelius has been granted the honor of speaking at a diploma ceremony for Georgetown University’s Public Policy Institute on Friday, May 18.  

In light of all that has transpired over the past year, it is hard to understand the mindset of those who claim to be within the Church and yet honor a notorious persecutor, who may yet force the closure of all of the Church's health and social service ministries.  Do they think they will be spared Sebelius' assaults on her former Church?

In response to this offensive move on the part of Georgetown University, the Cardinal Newman Society has posted a petition to protest this outrage here.  The Cardinal Newman Society has also alerted Washington Cardinal Donald Wuerl and sent a letter to Georgetown President John DeGioia urging him to immediately withdraw the invitation.  We hope Georgetown alumni and donors will also make their views clear to university administrators.  This outrageous behavior must be painful to many Georgetown alumni.  Certainly, no faithful Catholic family would jeopardize a son or daughter's faith at such an institution.

In 2008, Archbishop Joseph Naumann of Kansas City reportedly told Sebelius, then a Roman Catholic, to stop receiving the Eucharist until she publicly recants her position on abortion and makes a “worthy sacramental confession.”  No road to Damascus conversion has yet been noted.