GW Interfaith Encourages Students to Engage in Anti-Catholic 'Act of Resistance'

Nathaniel Thomas, NY - Writer

Screenshot of email sent to students by D'ana Downing

This past Feb. 18 was a solemn and sacred day for billions of Christians, especially Catholics, at GW and around the world, as it marked Ash Wednesday, the beginning of the holy season of Lent. However, for the GW Center for Interfaith and Spiritual Life, Ash Wednesday was apparently a day to attack Christianity while wearing it as a costume.

Thurston Hall residents received an email simply titled “ASH WEDNESDAY - IN THE LOBBY 8-10 AM.” However, any Catholic who may have believed this to be a legitimate Ash Wednesday Mass, such as the ones the Newman Center held in the USC throughout the day, was instead met with a direct insult to their faith.

The email sent was actually for an event administered by Thurston Hall Chaplain D’ana Downing, who goes by the pronouns “She/They/Queen,” titled “Glitter and Ashes.” The name of the event is already arguably insulting by comparing a deeply emotional reminder of sin and mortality to glitter, but the contents of the email were far worse.

Instead of a solemn reminder of our limited time here on Earth and the need for repentance, Reverend D’ana described Glitter and Ashes as being “a public showing of your faith, an active act of resistance to those who have been harmed by church spaces, and a reclamation of faith.”

Encouraging non-believers, specifically those actively hostile to the church, to receive this symbol on a holy day is blatantly sacrilegious and an absolute slap in the face to GW’s Catholic community. The fact that GW’s Center for Interfaith and Spiritual Life felt it acceptable to use Ash Wednesday to encourage people to “resist” against the Catholic Church shows that there is far too much comfort in attacking Christians in their faith.

Despite the beginning of Ramadan also falling on Feb. 18, there was no official event, for example, encouraging non-Muslims to feast after sundown as “an act of resistance” against Islam. This event was an open insult to the large, vibrant Catholic community at GW, and must be condemned in the harshest of terms. No religion should be used as a costume, and no ritual should be used to “resist.”