drinan chairs: a comment

I guess I'll offer a comment about the Georgetown and BC chairs honoring Father Drinan. My first reaction is that these decsions are not a huge surprise but that the decisions are open to serious question. I am sure that Father Drinan has done a lot of good things in his long career. (One of my younger sisters was his research assistant a couple of decades ago and she had good things to say about his personal qualities.) But his public profile involves a long record of support for abortion rights. That record includes his scandalous New York Times op-ed in support of President Clinton's veto of a ban on partial-birth abortions. I understand that he recanted that op-ed but I don't think that recantation received much attention. Father Drinan also serves on the Boards of the ACLU and PFAW, groups that are not known for their strong support of Catholic social teaching. Given this record (and perhaps he has reformed on the issue of abortion), I don't think that a Catholic law school ought to have a chair in his honor. Maybe the theory is that his other work cancels out these lapses, but the message that is being sent is that the areas where he departs from the teachings of the Church must not be terribly important.

When we discussed the Rice honorary degree, I noted that a school defines itself in part by the people the school chooses to honor and to hold up as role models. These actions do not signal a whole-hearted embrace of Ex Corde.   

Richard M.