Project Rebirth Dinner

Remarks by John J. DeGioia
Project Rebirth Dinner
Riggs Library
Georgetown University
September 10, 2008


It is my pleasure to welcome you all again, and to thank you for your on-going participation this evening in our Project Rebirth event.


We are now seven years from the tragedy of September 11th. And there is no better time to examine how we can best assist a collaborative and creative healing process.


But to do this we must ask ourselves:

- How have the 9/11 victims rebuilt their lives?

- How can we help foster individual, and national, reconciliation and healing?

- How has our society reacted to and remembered the tragedy?

- What progress have we made in quelling the influence of violence in religion?

- How can we increase dialogue and understanding between Muslim societies and the West?

- And how might the lessons we draw from 9/11 assist our efforts to promote interreligious and intercultural dialogue and understanding?


Jim and his team’s landmark film—an effort truly in the service of healing— is also a helpful tool for sparking discussion about these questions. And as you enjoy your dinner, I hope you will share your perspectives…and engage with one another…on the issues and themes we’ve been highlighting this evening.


After dinner, I will speak briefly about Georgetown’s relationship to Project Rebirth, and then provide Jim Whitaker and Brian Rafferty an opportunity to talk to you directly about their work.


But first, to offer the blessing this evening, I welcome Reverend Jane Holmes Dixon. Before her 2002 retirement, Reverend Dixon served as Episcopal Bishop of Washington, pro tempore. As many of you know, Reverend Dixon has dedicated herself to improving interfaith dialogue by organizing the 1998 conference, "Two Sacred Paths: Christianity and Islam: A Call for Understanding," and by working as a Senior Advisor for the Interfaith Alliance.


In 2001, Washingtonian magazine named her Washingtonian of the Year for her work promoting “tolerance and togetherness” in the wake of the 9/11.


Reverend Dixon…

* * * * *

I hope you all enjoyed your dinner. I’d like to share some of my thoughts on Project Rebirth and how it relates to our mission as a university.


Three aspects merit particular attention:

First, the relationship between Project Rebirth and our university;

Secondly, the development of the film studies program at Georgetown;

And lastly, the responsibility we all share in working for interreligious understanding.


Relationship GU and Project Rebirth

Project Rebirth’s unique coalition of Hollywood, government, business, academic and medical representatives have united to record, educate and expand thinking about the September 11th tragedy…its causes and effects. Creating, in its own words, “a living history of the human spirit coping with disaster,” the Project Rebirth documentary both records the history of the event and expands the narratives that make up that history.


Additionally, to balance the need to record and to recreate life, Project Rebirth will establish a library of materials gathered during the filming process at the Project Rebirth Center. Accessible for visitors, it will be a spring-board to conversation and reflection. The Center will create a place of knowledge and encourage its participants to expand their own understanding.


If knowledge is the first step to understanding, then this film—and the Center—may hopefully aid efforts to promote interreligious and intercultural understanding. And that is why we are so pleased to have this relationship with Project Rebirth.


These are ideals that resonate deeply with us at Georgetown…and are reflected in the very motto of our university, “Utraque Unum.” Taken from St. Paul’s Letter to the Ephesians and meaning, “Both into One,” it speaks not only to the joining of faith and reason…of the arts and the sciences…of the blue and the gray, but of the synthesizing of ideas; the ability and capacity to manage differences; and the building of bridges of understanding between faiths and cultures. It is an idea that we try to instill in our students…and it lies at the crux of our mission.


Film Studies

In concert with our mission and with the momentum of Project Rebirth, we are also taking steps to expand our film studies program and that program’s relationship to social justice. As the role of media in society diversifies, it becomes increasingly vital to enhance film and media studies within a 21st century liberal arts education.


Currently our media students study how media relates to justice, to reality, to political power, and to community in a range of courses. Supported by our 2005 Film and Media Studies Initiative, we are forging greater connections with media as a way to engage the world, creatively and critically.


Shared Responsibility

Hippocrates wrote in his Precepts in the 5th century, “Healing is a matter of time, but it is sometimes also a matter of opportunity.” In this situation, taking advantage of the opportunity for healing requires each of us to be active participants in the process. Your presence here tonight shows great support for the Project Rebirth, and it underlines the potential that the media has to benefit our society—and the global community. Thank you for joining us.


Now, I'd like to again introduce Jim Whitaker, the Founder and Director of Project Rebirth.


Jim…

* * * * *

Thank you Jim. We greatly appreciate your insights and your service. Please welcome Brian Rafferty to the podium. Mr. Rafferty serves as Chairman of the Board for Project Rebirth. Also a distinguished alum, in 1982 he co-founded Taylor Rafferty, a leading global investor relations firm specializing in cross-border relations and international markets.


Currently, he is a member of the New York Society of Security Analysts, is on the Board of Tulchan Communications in the U.K., and is on the Board of Regents here at Georgetown.


Brian…

* * * * *

Thank you Brian. To Jim, Brian and the Project Rebirth team, we thank you for your work on such an important issue, and we look forward to the completion of the Project Rebirth documentary. We are grateful for the opportunity to participate in this process with you. To all of you here tonight, it has been a pleasure sharing this evening with each of you. Thank you for your interest and your active participation in Project Rebirth. You are now a part of the living history that is Project Rebirth.


Thank you and goodnight.