Catholic Group Criticizes Notre Dame Official's Response to 'V Monologues'
by Jim Brown
April 13, 2006
(AgapePress) - - A conservative Catholic group is criticizing the University of Notre Dame for once again allowing a homosexual film festival and a vulgar feminist play on the Indiana school's campus.
Notre Dame's President John Jenkins recently stated that he saw "no reason to prohibit performances of the V Monologues on campus." His position comes as a surprise to some who object to the play's content, which includes profanity and graphic descriptions of lesbian sexual relationships.
The prestigious Catholic school near South Bend, Indiana, has hosted the V Monologues for the last five years and a "gay and lesbian" film festival for the last two years. Patrick Reilly, president of the Catholic watchdog group the Cardinal Newman Society (CNS), says he is not surprised the university is continuing to allow homosexual activism on its campus.
"What is surprising," the CNS spokesman notes, "is that Father Jenkins had made it very clear a few weeks ago in a public address to the university that he found these events to be totally inconsistent with the Catholic identity of the institution."
For Jenkins now to "turn around and not impose even the slightest restriction on these events, smacks of hypocrisy," Reilly asserts. However, he acknowledges that that very hypocrisy could be part of a larger trend: he points out that a majority of Notre Dame's faculty employed over the past few decades were hired without the administration expressing any expectation that they support the school's Catholic identity.
In fact, the president of the Catholic watchdog group believes most Notre Dame faculty are strongly resistant to any idea of restoring the school's faith-based identity. And he feels it is disingenuous for administrators like Jenkins to claim Notre Dame is not endorsing the V Monologues and other pro-homosexual events when it is obviously funding them.
In light of the school's apparent indifference to its church roots, Reilly wonders whether some sort of official sanction may be in order. "A bishop does have a right to declare an institution no longer Catholic," he says, and "this certainly ought to add to the evidence, at least, of such a concern."
But as far as how individual Catholics should respond to a production like the V Monologues goes, "The question is just whether it's sinful, whether this is scandalous, whether we're leading people away from the church," Reilly contends. "And I think there's no doubt that these events clearly scandalize the faithful."
The Cardinal Newman Society has led several national protests against productions of the V Monologues over the past few years. The group's efforts have dramatically reduced the number of Catholic campus performances and readings of the play from 32 in 2003 to 22 this year.
Jim Brown, a regular contributor to AgapePress, is a reporter for American Family Radio News, which can be heard online.
