Gonzaga's Not-So-Social Media

According to Merriam-Webster, social media (Facebook, Twitter, etc.) is defined as a form of electronic communication where users create online communities to share information, ideas, personal messages, and other content. What a great way in which to have a conversation. So why did Gonzaga’s President apparently block the Twitter account of 1887 Trust from receiving his tweets? Dear @Gonzaga_Prez, that doesn’t seem very sociable.

1887 Trust used to “follow” Gonzaga’s President on Twitter. These days, however, the 1887 Trust account is greeted with this message: “You have been blocked from following this account at the request of the user.” Why would the President take that action? We do admit to having reached out via Twitter one time to ask a question of Gonzaga’s President. And, yes, we also plead guilty to being a bit cheeky. Here was our tweet:



We were inviting a dialogue between Gonzaga stakeholders and Gonzaga’s President about Gonzaga’s absence from the National Catholic Register’s list of faithful Catholic colleges. It is a dialogue Gonzaga’s administration does not seem eager to have. Sometime shortly after this tweet, we were blocked from following the President’s Twitter messages.

While we don’t mean to make a mountain out of a Twitter molehill, we do wonder whether the unwillingness to engage in dialogue is symptomatic of an isolation that prevents Gonzaga’s administration and Board from seeing the decline in Catholic identity at Gonzaga for what it is: a sad, continual slide over the past several years. Gonzaga seems to be moving in the direction of the Catholic identity debacle that is represented most conspicuously by GU’s Jesuit peer Georgetown. At that formerly great Jesuit institution, the train has run so far off the Catholic tracks that Georgetown alum and author of the The Exorcist, William Peter Blatty, has filed a canon law petition asking the “Catholic Church to require that Georgetown implement Ex Corde Ecclesiae, a papal constitution governing Catholic colleges.”  Blatty’s formal petition to the Vatican suggests that Georgetown should not be allowed to be called “Catholic” if it won’t reform. We believe there is still hope for Gonzaga, but only if decisive action is taken soon.

It is not that 1887 Trust’s Board of Directors has not tried to communicate with Gonzaga’s administration. Before the launch of our non-profit group, we asked for a meeting with Gonzaga’s President to express our concerns. President McCulloh, in consultation with the Board of Trustees, refused to meet with us as a board, citing the need to protect Gonzaga’s religious freedom by not allowing “intrusions by an entity with no ecclesial standing—much less, formal, governmental status.” GU’s President and his advisors evidently sincerely believed that taking a meeting with us to hear our concerns posed a threat to the religious freedom of the University. We are heartened to hear that Gonzaga’s administration has a high level of concern to protect the religious freedom of the University. If only they had felt that the HHS mandate had posed the same threat to the University’s religious freedom that the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops understood it to pose, they might not have caved in to the government so quickly while so bravely defending against the “intrusion” of a conversation with 1887 Trust.

We hope Gonzaga’s administration and Board of Trustees will one day begin a serious dialogue about GU’s Catholic identity. We think the goals that 1887 Trust has suggested are a good place to start that conversation.

Meanwhile, if you want to be in the conversation, you can like 1887 Trust on Facebook or follow us on Twitter. We promise to talk back.