As a son of Georgetown University, I laughed at the pathetic Irish of Notre Dame when they made news for putting on their board Roxanne Martino, who gave a measly $27,000 to EMILY’s List, a group that works to elect pro-abortion politicians. That’s a trifle by Georgetown’s standards.

All sarcasm aside, the Notre Dame story recalls a scene from a few years back, during my White House days. At a meeting on other subjects, the retired head of a prominent “ecclesial community” mentioned a new international group he was forming. He wanted to have a prestigious Catholic onboard, but one must, you know, be careful. So the gentleman was pleased he had persuaded Jack DeGioia, president of Georgetown, to join: “There won’t be any trouble from him.”

Indeed.

I winced and thought back to my own years on the Hilltop, when I briefly crossed paths with then-grad student DeGioia. He was serving, believe it or not, as teaching assistant to Hadley Arkes, the professor whose powerful moral teachings – based on reason, not revelation – led my younger, atheist self to oppose abortion.

Which only makes things sadder today, because one rather doubts that DeGioia will ever be able to plead invincible ignorance regarding the Church’s moral teachings – teachings which receive scant respect from DeGioia’s supposedly “Catholic and Jesuit” university.