Georgetown as a Catholic

There are a number of facts that surprise many of my friends and acquaintances at Georgetown. For example I took Spanish freshman year. I used to be able to touch the bottom of a basketball rim. I used to teach tennis. I used to work as a vendor at Fenway Park.. I took piano lessons for 9 years. I am estranged from my best friend in high school. I am not half-white. And amazingly, Kerry Burke did not realize that I played college ultimate until January of this year. Also, I am a practicing Catholic and go to Mass perhaps 3 out of every 4 Sundays.

Most of the facts are relatively secret because they are not typically relevant in everyday life. It’s hard to make that same argument for religion. If it’s not relevant in your day-to-day life then you’re not religious. I think for me, I’ve just never been super comfortable discussing my religion. As a result, I have really kept that part of my life private and never had a problem with that. Georgetown though gave me a great chance to expand my faith, both internally through self-reflection, and externally through discussion with peers.

First off, Georgetown is an interesting school because it seems to try to brand itself as a great resource of a dichotomy of services. On one hand, it is one of the best schools for international study in the country, served by its location in the uber international relevant Washington D.C., the Walsh School of Foreign Service and the well renown Government departments, the presence of Bill Clinton as the school’s most prolific alum and the large international student population and study abroad program. On the other hand, Georgetown is also seen as one of the best, if not best Catholic universities in the country with a steep Jesuit tradition. These two characteristics may not seem contradictory but let me show you some interesting ramifications.

All students apply to Georgetown because of its academic reputation, but many do so without even realizing that it is a Jesuit University. I’d imagine that at least 75% of the incoming freshman class would not be able to explain what a Jesuit is. I barely could and I went to a Jesuit church at Boston College for all my life. The name Georgetown University, unlike say St. Michael’s, does not imply anything religious. Thus to many high school seniors, Georgetown is on their List alongside many Ivy League schools (by rule having no religious affiliation) or schools like Duke, Tufts, NYU. Georgetown is probably the only religious school they apply to. For me, it was only one of two, with Villanova being my safety school. For many other students though, Georgetown is on their List precisely because of its Jesuit heritage. I met many a Midwesterner, to pick on a region, who went to Catholic high school and applied en masse to the likes of Notre Dame, Boston College, Villanova, Fordham, Santa Clara etc. There is nothing wrong with either of these two “approaches,” and neither are these two mentalities indicative of even a majority of Georgetown. It is simply a pattern that I have empirically noticed.

One of my other best friends from high school, Greg, went to Notre Dame. Through talking with him and studying abroad with him and his Notre Dame friends in Dublin, I am very well aware that Georgetown and Notre Dame are completely different schools. Though rivals on the Big East basketball arena and for those top Catholic students, the two schools approach their religious identities very differently. Specifically, Catholicism is a very public and ostentatious part of life at Notre Dame. At Georgetown, Catholicism can be a very present part of students’ lives, but normally I think the school keeps it rather reserved. If you don’t look for it, you might never even realize it existed. At Georgetown, Catholics, especially practicing ones, don’t even make up a majority. At Notre Dame, they completely dominate. These different student pools represent a huge divide. The vast majority of Catholics at Georgetown are white, and I think it’s safe to say the same for the Notre Dame (perhaps the least diverse of the top American universities) Fighting Irish. I’d even guess that I think Hispanics are underrepresented within the Catholic sphere, but I can’t support this with any data. Georgetown admissions is only trying to find more diversity and I’d imagine that there is a mentality that we don’t want to be seen by minorities as a big white Catholic enclave. Furthermore, Georgetown also fancies itself as a setting for interreligious dialogue. There is a strong Muslim community, who are well supported by the school including a communal living area in Village B. I know that some Muslim kids chose to come to Georgetown because they heard from the older students they met that Georgetown was a good place to practice their faith. The way Georgetown incorporates students of different faiths is a great embodiment of their mission to promote intercultural understanding as well as Jesuit ideals of tolerance and peace.

Greg tells me that evening Mass is one of the bigger social events on campus and that bringing a date to that Mass spawns a lot of gossip. Georgetown has a few Masses that are an important part of a social calendar, notably what became the 7:30pm Mass, and a lot of people do go with friends or in groups. For me though, I was generally more comfortable going alone. I was also used to going to Mass in the morning, and Sunday mornings at Dahlgren Chapel surprisingly have as many adult outsiders as students. I never found one set Mass that I consistently went to, kinda jumping around. I did sometimes sit with my friends when I saw them too and in my last 2 years I would arrange to go with a friend or two more often. But I don’t believe that going solo was too unusual, simply from observing the congregations. There were also plenty of times that I’d make a surprising discovery that a friend was Catholic. So basically while I may not represent the norm, I don’t think my experience was too unusual.

The turning point of my Catholic experience at Georgetown was clearly Junior spring when I went on an Agape retreat. I had been aware of these retreats (Christian in nature, though open to all faiths) for some time but I had never seriously considered going. Weekends at Georgetown are always so packed with events too. Nevertheless, my friend Karina Ramirez, a leader on that trip, urged me to go (bribing me with a chocolate chip cookie). You could say she caught me the right time – not only was that weekend free except for the Super Bowl that we’d be back in time for but I was also struggling to readjust back to Georgetown at the time. I really wanted to reexamine what was important to me as well as meet new people. Agape did not disappoint.

It’s extremely difficult for me to write about the Agape experience because it felt like a different world. We broke into smaller groups and talked about our faith, our different experiences, our shortcomings, our triumphs, our hopes. I met many fellow students who were very willing to discuss to faith and how it affected their very relatable lives. Some of the people on the retreat described spiritual journeys unlike anything I had ever heard of. From the retreat center is rural Maryland, everything at school seemed so simple. I saw that I wasn’t living the way I wanted and I saw that I could change that. I’d treat my friends better, I’d waste less time and get my work done and I’d act much less selfish because God always came first. It was very easy to be so idealistic there, and if I’d measure the rest of my college career from that, then it was a complete failure. Getting back into the daily grind of the college work week, the lessons and guilt trips from Agape gradually faded.

Yet it did leave a significant imprint on my life. I recognized when I was being selfish, when I wasn’t being grateful enough for all I had, and I admitted that I had been living too much like a hedonist. I also knew that that simply wasn’t who I was. I wasn’t raised to take the easy path, nor to neglect people who deserved love, nor to live without a care. Though I may rarely mention His name in company, God is a very important part of who I am. Subconsciously I think I became a much better person senior year.

Honestly I’m surprised how much I was able to write on this subject.