How "Catholic" is Georgetown?

dzleprechaun
Wed, 17 Apr 2013 13:44:55 +0000

You can’t buy condoms on campus, but the walk to CVS (or, at last resort, the Exxon at the base of the Exorcist Stairs) is not long at all. Plus, H*yas For Choice hands out condoms for free periodically and you can always get some from them. The Student Health Center has a formal policy of only prescribing birth control for non-contraceptive reasons (although word on the street is that any reason, e.g. acne control, will suffice), but I don’t believe filling it would be a problem, for the same reason. To be honest, I’ve never heard of anyone using the pharmacy at the hospital for this, though - again, CVS and the like are much more convenient. Students generally get long-term prescriptions written for them at home by their PCPs or other regular doctors.

Georgetown has a fairly strong Jewish presence (you likely won’t find publicly available statistics on this, but it is over 10% self-reported) and the political atmosphere is much more careerist/pragmatic than doctrinaire (with some exceptions on both sides, naturally), either on the left or the right. I’m not religious, but I do think there are non-religious benefits to the Jesuit affiliation, specifically a strong emphasis on social justice and serving others, through public service and other means. There is also a big emphasis on inter-religious dialogue, which is very important for the education of people who will be going out and working in a very diverse country and world.

As others have mentioned, Georgetown was explicitly founded as a school where students of any or no religious profession could study. At the time, anti-Catholic sentiment was pervasive and precluded John Carroll from pursuing higher education in the colonies, so he wanted to create an institution that was not exclusionary. That value continues to be held dear today.

So, short version: I absolutely do not think that a liberal atheist of Jewish heritage would feel out of place at Georgetown. I know more than a few people who fit that exact description, and they loved their experience.