This time, as many media savvy handlers of dignitaries are programmed to do, the staging was set to create a generic presidential background for the news images: bright presidential blue curtain, flags, and the popular President. Except for the announcer or ticker perhaps mentioning that Obama was speaking at Georgetown, there was no indication for the average news viewer that he was anywhere other than a generic White House stage.
Behind him, above the blue curtain, was rich wood paneling and stained glass windows, just like one finds on many historic college campuses. Throughout the Hall, visible only to audience participants, were hundreds of symbols that identified the venue as Georgetown's premiere stage, a space rich with historic Catholic and Jesuit imagery. The blue curtain stood just short enough so that only the very top of an ornate wood installation was just visible. In normal circumstances, that wood piece looks like an altar standing at the front of a Church. In the news photos, the triangular crown of the altar had a black void. No one would notice this in the camera's frame, as was intended.
Except some people did notice. Behind the black panel was the historic symbol for Christ, I-H-S in bright gold lettering. Immediately came the riotous backlash as bloggers and commentators--eager to find ways that schools like Georgetown have fallen from their faithful mission--charged that this was a shameful but predictable capitulation to secular culture. Far worse were commentators in the blogosphere and the "news" programs who saw the White House's request to create a generic stage by covering the symbol of Jesus as yet another sign that Obama hates Christians and is a hidden Muslim.
As for Georgetown, we are supposedly overrun by liberal hatred for religion in our political correctness run amok, ashamed of our Catholic identity, and too inept at standing up for the Christian faith we purportedly believe in. "Better to be true to God than to Caesar" said one professor commenting on the affair. "I fear the University sought the favor of the wrong King - shame on us."
Yet imagine the alternative: President Obama comes to Georgetown and delivers his address on economic recovery. He cites the Sermon on the Mount as teaching us that the economy must be rebuilt on a solid foundation so that all human dignity can be protected. Behind the audaciously hopeful secular messiah's head is a golden halo of three potently illuminated letters.
I-H-S.
One can easily imagine the frenzy. Bloggers and radio hosts screaming: "How dare Georgetown invite the fallen, life-destroying Barry Hussein Obama to stand on the stage under the symbol of Christ!" "The messiah has come to Georgetown, and those liberal professors have endorsed his socialist (or is it fascist?) message!"
Damned if we do, damned if we don't.
I contend, contrary to some of these commentators, that as a policy matter, Georgetown could be very wise at times in creating a neutral stage when foreign and domestic policy leaders speak. This would preserve the University's main stage as a venue for the exchange of ideas--some of which constituents of the University may oppose--without worry that the University appears to be condoning those ideas merely by hosting the speaker. Such staging choices save us from the charge that we are baptizing some policy choices with the blessing of the Jesuit, Catholic tradition we strive to uphold.
Creating a neutral stage is certainly not necessary, and it would have been perfectly fine to have no imagery covered. However, in this instance, I predict the backlash would have been far worse had news images circulated with the golden letters of Christ shining down on the President's head, when the rest of the stage's imagery was washed out in a sea of plain blue. Just wait until next month, when Obama is photographed at Notre Dame's commencement, with touchdown Jesus or a statute of the Blessed Mother behind him. Surely some will proclaim these photos as signs of the impending apocalypse.
More profoundly, Georgetown's identity does not rise or fall by the visibility of a symbol behind the President's head in a two second news clip. This commitment to Divine truth, human knowledge, and social justice is lived out everyday by the tireless work of students, faculty, staff, and alumni and their commitment to bettering themselves, their neighbors, and the world around them. The whole community strives to be a shining beacon of God's hope and human dignity on the Hilltop.
If anyone should be ashamed, it is the commentators who arrogantly assume that they can judge the quality of any community's faith on the basis of a choice of staging.
