What Some "Catholic" Universities Allow (Warning: Graphic Language; Don't Read If You Don't Want to be Upset)

With great reluctance, I reprint a portion of an opinion column by David Brooks that appeared in the Op-Ed section of the N.Y. Times on Thursday, October 5, 2005. I say great reluctance because I have a strong distaste for the vulgar. But I also have a strong distate for denial. Catholicism in America is shot through with great denial of many highly dysfunctional realities. That's why we got the explosive scandals that, in my opinion, have been addressed internally only because of the financial pressure of lawsuits. You could write a treatise and a research project on the roots of this strong strain of psychological denial in U.S. Catholicism.

For years now, several Catholic colleges and universities have hosted the performance of a pornographic play by Eve Ensler called "The Vagina Monologues." Most famously, Rev. John Jenkins, the current president of Notre Dame University, viewed the play and decided to let it continue to be shown on campus. Here is a description of the situation at Notre Dame from the school's own website:

In February [2006], Jenkins attended a student performance of “The Vagina Monologues” and a student-faculty panel discussion that followed. “These panels taught me and perhaps taught others that the creative contextualization of a play like ‘The Vagina Monologues’ can bring certain perspectives on important issues into a constructive and fruitful dialogue with the Catholic tradition,” Jenkins wrote April 5. “This is a good model for the future,” he said. “Accordingly, I see no reason to prohibit performances of ‘The Vagina Monologues’ on campus, and do not intend to do so.” The permission for future performances drew immediate criticism from Bishop John M. D’Arcy of Fort Wayne-South Bend who said he was “deeply saddened by the decision.” He had previously asked that performances be ended.

From Notre Dame University website at this link: http://newsinfo.nd.edu/content.cfm?topicid=16904 (from an article dated April 14, 2006).

Other "Catholic" colleges and universities, including D.C.'s Georgetown University (the oldest Catholic college in the U.S.), also host the play (see this April 3, 2006, article [PDF file] in Catholic World Report). You need to know what these so-called Catholic institutions are hosting. If you don't want to be upset, stop reading this post now. Here is the description of the play, with no further comment by me, straight out of the nation's premier daily newspaper:

[The play includes an approving scene about a predator,] a secretary, who invited a 13-year-old girl [the play has since been revised to make the girl 16 years old] from her neighborhood into her car and kissed her. Then she invited the girl up to her apartment, gave her some vodka, took off her underwear and gave her a satin teddy to wear. Then she had sex with the girl, which was interrupted when the girl's mother called. Then she made the girl masturbate in front of her and taught her some new techniques.

"A Tear in Our Fabric," by David Brooks, N.Y. Times, Op-Ed
Section, Oct. 5, 2006 (available free in print version only).