For inviting HHS secretary Sebelius to speak at a graduation and still calling itself a "catholic" institution.

Good for him.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/on-faith/exorcist-author-william-peter-blatty-to-sue-georgetown-university-in-catholic-court/2012/05/18/gIQA90GIZU_story.html?hpid=z3


‘Exorcist’ author, William Peter Blatty, to sue Georgetown University in Catholic court

Bill O'Leary/WASHINGTON POST -  Protestors of Kathleen Sebelius sing and pray outside the main gate of Georgetown University, where she is speaking on May, 18, 2012 in Washington, DC
By Daniel Burke| Religion News Service, Published: May 18

The author who turned Georgetown University into a horror scene in “The Exorcist” plans to sue the school in church court, charging that his alma mater has strayed so far from church doctrine that it should no longer call itself Catholic.

William Peter Blatty, who graduated from Georgetown in 1950, says the “last straw” was the university’s speaking invitation to Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius.



Sebelius, who addressed graduating public policy students on Friday (May 18), has been criticized by conservative Catholics for approving a mandate that requires many religious institutions to cover employees’ birth control costs. The Archdiocese of Washington called the Sebelius invitation “shocking.”

Blatty, 85, credits a Georgetown scholarship with fostering his writing career, which includes an Academy Award for “The Exorcist,” a blockbuster based on his best-selling 1971 novel. In the book and movie, a Jesuit priest at Georgetown, the nation’s oldest Catholic university, struggles to save a demon-possessed girl. Now retired, Blatty lives in Bethesda, Md.

“What I owe Georgetown, however, is nothing as compared to what Georgetown owes to its founders and the Christ of faith,” Blatty said in a statement.

The author says that Georgetown has violated church teaching for decades by inviting speakers who support abortion rights and refusing to obey instructions the late Pope John Paul II issued in 1990 to church-affiliated colleges and universities.

Georgetown should amend its ways or stop calling itself a Catholic or Jesuit institution, Blatty said.

A media spokesperson for Georgetown did not respond Friday to a request for comment. On its website, the university says, “Catholicism’s rich and diverse intellectual tradition is central to Georgetown’s academic life.”

In response to criticism of the Sebelius speech, Georgetown president John J. DeGioia said this week that the university is “committed to the free exchange of ideas” even if it does not agree with all of them.

Blatty’s “indictment” against Georgetown charges the school with failing to recruit Catholic teachers and students, neglecting to instruct students in Catholic morality and failing to act in accord with church doctrine. He expects the suit to be filed in the Archdiocese of Washington’s court of canon law this fall.

Blatty recently founded The Father King Society, named after a former Georgetown theology professor, to enlist fellow alumni in his cause.

A similar church suit was brought against Georgetown in 1991 for authorizing university funding for a student group that supported abortion rights. According to Cardinal Newman Society President Patrick Reilly, the case reached the Vatican before Georgetown agreed not to fund the group.

The conservative Cardinal Newman Society has assisted Blatty’s cause.

The movie, The Exorcist, had been on the list of condemned movies that Catholics were forbidden to see.

It was the first time (and last time) we saw the movie.
It was disturbing.  I didn't think a 1973 movie could be that bad. And made by a guy who was Catholic too.  Yep, we have to go to Confession after that one.  
Had I known it was on the banned list...
To be honest.  I haven't felt right after watching the movie.  It was my fault too that my husband watched it.  I feel terrible.  

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Your husband watched "the Exorcist" because you wanted him to go with you to see it?
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Your feeling terrible is not unwarranted. You can spend the rest of your life working off a subjective grudge like that, sad to say.
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I guess I was fortunate at the time because by then I had already tried to read some books that were along that line and found out they were not my cup of tea, to put it mildly.
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I had worked for a man who was a Catholic leader in the community, so when he suggested to me that I ought to read The Screwtape Letters because he -- get this -- had been reading them to his children (ages 5 to 14) and it was helping them get to sleep at night (?!) I had to wonder what kind of emptiness must be in their heads to not be disturbed by hearing stuff like that at bedtime. If I had someone reading that to me before I slept I would never get to sleep, and I was an ADULT.
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So when I found out that chapter 3 would not be one I could finish in Malachi Martin's Hostage to the Devil, I gave up such reading for keeps.
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When the Exorcist came out, I had friends at school that said they really enjoyed seeing the little girl's (IRL it was a boy) head spin all the way around, and that it was "great" when she vomited that green axle grease, I already knew the movie would be a waste of my money. And that was when theaters only charged $4 for admission. Even the popcorn was less than $1.50.
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