Benedict XVI

"There is much in Christianity which can be subjected to exact analysis. But the ultimate things are shrouded in the silent mysteries of God." --Hans Urs von Balthasar (1905-1988)

Blogger

E-Mail Catholic Analysis: sobrino95@hotmail.com

New Book: Catholic Analysis 2006

New E-Book: Unpopular Catholic Truths

Academic Book Series: Point to Covers to See Titles

List of All Available Sobrino Books

Opus Dei Message of the Day

Recent Headlines:

Decaying Church, Vibrant Church
Cardinal Newman Society Rejects South Bend University's Embrace of the "Vulgar Monologues"
Concerning the 'V. Monologues'
"Notre Dame's President Allows 'Monologues' and Gay Films"
Another Gnostic Gospel
The "Brokeback Mountain" Subculture Breaks Out
Fortitude & Losing One's Life
True Christian Humility

Catholic Analysis Audio Podcast

Spanish Blog Link

Links below do not necessarily imply blanket endorsement of their contents or sponsors.

Google Custom Search

Comment Policy:
Comments are welcome. Please note that the posting of your comment will be delayed until the moderator has first reviewed it. Comments using inappropriate language, making personal attacks on anyone or any group, or judged immature will be rejected.

Good News China Blog

Chariscenter USA

Check Out CatholicExchange.Com

DeFide.com: Canonical Petition Against Pro-Abort Politicians

Catholic Analysis Book "Unpopular Catholic Truths" Available:

For LOWEST PRICE at Virtualbookworm.com Publishing, click here.

Barnes & Noble

Amazon.com

Book Review: "a fine work of Catholic apologetics" -- Theotokos.org.uk

E-mail Catholic Analysis

E-mail Someone about This Site

In his address to faculty on January 23, Fr. Jenkins rightly described “The Vagina Monologues” as antithetical to the University of Notre Dame’s Catholic identity. He said:

[I]n “The Vagina Monologues” discussion of female sexuality, and in the community and culture it strives to create, there is no hint of central elements of Catholic sexual morality. The work contains graphic descriptions of homosexual, extra-marital heterosexual, and auto-erotic experiences. There is even a depiction of the seduction of a sixteen year-old girl by an adult woman. The experiences are often portrayed as leading the characters to the sort of positive embrace of the woman's body, sexuality, and self that the narrator wants to encourage. Yet these portrayals stand apart from, and indeed in opposition to, the view that human sexuality finds its proper expression in the committed relationship of marriage between a man and a woman that is open to the gift of procreation. Moreover, the repeated performance of the play and the publicity surrounding it suggest that the university endorses certain themes in the play, or at least finds them compatible with its values. (emphasis added)

In today’s statement, Fr. Jenkins simply ignores the facts. He imposes no restrictions on future performances of “The Vagina Monologues,” while still acknowledging the need for some exception to limitless campus free speech: “The only exception I can imagine would come in the case of expression that is overt and insistent in its contempt for the values and sensibilities of this University, or of any of the diverse groups that form part of our community.” Inexplicably, Jenkins now argues, “This sort of expression is not at issue in the current debate, nor do I expect it to be an issue in the future.”

Without any explanation, Fr. Jenkins has either come to a radically different perspective on “The Vagina Monologues,” or he has simply abandoned Notre Dame’s Catholic mission. “The Vagina Monologues” and its author Eve Ensler exhibit obvious contempt for the Christian values that the University of Notre Dame once fearlessly embraced, only a few decades ago. With his inauguration speech and campus addresses in January, Fr. Jenkins gave Catholics around the world false hope that Notre Dame would come to the same appreciation for its Catholic identity that has prompted leading Catholic institutions like the Catholic University of America, Marquette University, Providence College and Seton Hall University to halt performances of “The Vagina Monologues” this year. Fr. Jenkins has now given Catholics around the world reason to believe that the University of Notre Dame, “Our Lady’s University,” will remain substandard as a Catholic institution for the foreseeable future.

Where did Fr. Jenkins go wrong? We believe that his original instincts about “The Vagina Monologues” were correct and sincere, but he fell into the trap that has paralyzed so many other Catholic colleges and universities in the United States—he has insisted on defining “The Vagina Monologues” and arguably everything else that occurs at Notre Dame within the context of “academic freedom.” This is a play, a piece of entertainment and one-sided advocacy. It is not an academic event; it does not in itself offer substantial information or reasoned argument that would contribute to a discussion of sexual morality or violence. The academic departments sponsoring the play have little or no sincere interest in the play in relation to their coursework; instead they have sponsored the play as a way of getting around a ban on university approval for a student-sponsored production. Banning this play would in no way inhibit free discussion of the topics the play purports to address. Rather, banning the play is a means of demonstrating genuine commitment to reasoned dialogue on important issues, without the vulgarity, obscenity, disrespect for human dignity and one-sided demagoguery that prevent true academic discourse.

We conclude by citing statements made this year by two other Catholic university presidents and Notre Dame’s bishop, whom Fr. Jenkins has pointedly snubbed today. By their words, these individuals demonstrate a dedication to Catholic identity in higher education that is lacking in Fr. Jenkins’ statement today. Together with faithful alumni of Notre Dame and Catholics worldwide, we will pray that Fr. Jenkins will be filled with the Holy Spirit and have a change of heart.

I find the play crude, ugly, vulgar and unworthy of staging or performing at CUA in any manner whatsoever. I believe that CUA, its excellent Drama department, and the cause of promoting the dignity of women deserve much better than this play and can find much better expression than this play presents. In addition to the affront and offense posed to Catholic teachings and values by some aspects of the play, it has become a symbol each year of the desire of some folks to push Catholic campuses over the edge of good and decent judgment. Sooner or later, someone has got to simply say ‘enough,’ I am saying ‘enough’ and I’ll take whatever criticism is hurled my way as a badge of honor for CUA, its mission, its values and all that it represents. I took this position last year, this year and I’ll take it again next year and every year I am here.

Very Rev. David O’Connell, CM
President, Catholic University of America
Statement to CUA’s student newspaper The Tower, 1/20/06

The “Vagina Monologues” is “not appropriate for a school with our mission. ...First, far from celebrating the complexity and mystery of female sexuality, ‘The Vagina Monologues’ simplifies and demystifies it by reducing it to the vagina. …Second, the description of the play as a ‘new bible’ is an indication that its depiction of female sexuality is meant to displace the traditional Biblical view that inspires the teaching of the Roman Catholic Church.” Answering critics who claim such productions on Catholic campuses are protected by academic or artistic freedom: “But artistic freedom on a Catholic campus cannot mean the complete license to perform or display any work of art regardless of its intellectual or moral content. Any institution which sanctioned works of art that undermined its deepest values would be inauthentic, irresponsible and ultimately self-destructive.”

Rev. Brian Shanley, O.P.
President of Providence College
Statement released 1/19/06
www.providence.edu/Administration/Presidents+Office/Vagina+Monologues.htm

Pope John Paul II, a longtime professor in a Catholic university, explains that freedom must always be linked to the truth and the common good. The same principles apply to artistic freedom. As a university professor, the future pope presented a series of lectures on human love and sexuality in which he reflected how artistic freedom must always be linked to the whole truth about human love and sexuality. …Let us all turn to Mary, the patroness of Notre Dame and of our diocese, asking her to help Father Jenkins and her university through this difficult and historic moment, towards the light that is Jesus Christ who said, “I am the way, the truth and the life.” I regret the sponsorship of this play by Notre Dame again this year, and pray it will be the last time.

Most Rev. John D’Arcy
Bishop of Fort Wayne-South Bend
Statement released Feb. 2006
www.diocesefwsb.org/COMMUNICATIONS/vm2006.htm

Bishop John M. D'Arcy regrets Notre Dame sponsorship

Once again, many Catholic universities and institutions of higher learning are allowing the presentation of something called “The Vagina Monologues.” Alas, our beloved Notre Dame is presenting it for the fifth successive year under the sponsorship of two academic departments.

The bishop is the teacher in his diocese and has the serious responsibility of bringing the light of the Gospel of Christ and the teachings of the church to bear on the moral issues of the time. This obligation takes on a special seriousness when the souls of the young are in danger of being drawn into a state of moral confusion.

What is wrong with the text of this play? It distorts the beautiful gift of human sexuality, clouding its richness so it becomes merely the seeking of pleasure. Sexuality in the Catholic tradition is always related to the gift of self to another. “Sexuality is an enrichment of the whole person — body, emotions and soul — and it manifests its inmost meaning in leading the person to the gift of self in love.” — “Familiaris Consortio,” Pope John Paul II

In contrast, the play in question reduces sexuality to a particular organ of a woman’s body separate from the person of the woman, from her soul and her spirit. It alienates woman from man whom God has entrusted to her as friend and companion. It separates sexuality and the human body from love. How opposite from our tradition which says, “A woman’s dignity is closely connected with the love which she receives by the very reason of her femininity. It is likewise connected with the love she gives in return.” — “On the Dignity of Women,” Pope John Paul II.

While some will find it hard to believe, it is true that this play depicts in an approving way a sexual relationship between an adult woman and an adolescent girl, a minor. Such an action, which is a crime in both civil and church law, is also considered a serious sin in Christian moral teaching. The play also contains explicit depictions of masturbation and lesbian sex, portrayed in a positive light.

In this first encyclical letter, Pope Benedict XVI, theologian and pastor, speaks to this cultural phenomenon with striking clarity.
“Nowadays Christianity of the past is often criticized as having been opposed to the body; and it is quite true that tendencies of this sort have always existed. Yet the contemporary way of exalting the body is deceptive. Eros, reduced to pure ‘sex,’ has become a commodity, a mere 'thing' to be bought and sold, or rather, man himself becomes a commodity. This is hardly man’s great ‘yes’ to the body and his sexuality as the purely material part of himself to be used and exploited at will. Nor does he see it as an arena for the exercise of his freedom, but as mere object that he attempts, as he pleases, to make both enjoyable and harmless. Here we are actually dealing with a debasement of the human body: no longer is it integrated into our overall existential freedom; no longer is it a vital expression of our whole being, but it is more or less relegated to the purely biological sphere. The apparent exaltation of the body can quickly turn into a hatred of bodiliness. Christian faith, on the other hand, has always considered man a unity in duality, a reality in which spirit and matter compenetrate, and in which each is brought to a new nobility.” — “Deus Caritas Est,” Pope Benedict XVI, Dec. 25, 2005.

The question of freedom
The Book of Genesis contains the biblical account of the origin of humanity and informs us about the centrality of freedom as a gift of God who has created us in his image. Freedom in the Catholic tradition has never been understood as the right to do whatever one desires. Freedom in the Catholic tradition is seen as the capacity to know the good and having the strength to do it. The opposite understanding of freedom would say that each person determines what is good or evil. This kind of subjectivity is in total opposition to the Scriptures. We receive our understanding of what is good and what is evil from God through the Commandments given to Moses, from the Scriptures, from the teachings of the church and the law written in our hearts, identified by St. Paul and the long tradition of church teaching. Pope John Paul II succinctly expressed this truth rooted in sacred Scriptures and tradition when he observed, “Every generation of Americans needs to know that freedom consists not in doing what we like, but in having the right to do what we ought.” Oct. 8, 1995, Baltimore, Maryland

Academic and artistic freedom
Pope John Paul II has made clear that a Catholic university “guarantees its members academic freedom so long as the rights of the individual person and the community are preserved within the confines of the truth and the common good.”
— “Ex Corde Ecclesiae.”

Here, Pope John Paul II, a longtime professor in a Catholic university, explains that freedom must always be linked to the truth and the common good. The same principles apply to artistic freedom. As a university professor, the future pope presented a series of lectures on human love and sexuality in which he reflected how artistic freedom must always be linked to the whole truth about human love and sexuality.

“Art has a right and a duty, for the sake of realism, to reproduce the human body, and the love of man and woman, as they are in reality, to speak the whole truth about them. The human body is an authentic part of the truth about man, just as its sensual and sexual aspects are an authentic part of the truth about human love. But it would be wrong to let this part obscure the whole — and this is what often happens in art ... Pornography is a marked tendency to accentuate the sexual element when reproducing the human body or human love in a work of art, with the object of inducing the reader or viewer to believe that sexual values are the only real values of the person, and that love is nothing more than the experience, individual or shared, of those values alone.” — “Love and Responsibility,” Karol Wojtyla

Such an analysis brings clarity. The play, which is being sponsored, does not portray the whole truth about human sexuality; and by this separation, it violates the truth about the body, the truth about the gift of sexuality, the truth about love, and the truth about man and woman.

As the president of Providence College recently wrote when he explained his reasons for banning the play, “Any institution which sanctioned works of art that undermined its deepest value would be inauthentic, irresponsible and ultimately self-destructive.”
— Letter to the Community of Providence College, Brian Shanley, OP, Ph.D.

As Notre Dame, with our prayers, weighs its response to this question, the common good of the university and of the wider community, as well, should be considered.

A new development
For 21 years as bishop of this diocese, I have entered into respectful dialogue with three presidents of Notre Dame. In that spirit, I have spoken to Father John Jenkins, CSC, on the matter at hand, always keeping in mind the instruction given to bishops and university presidents in “Ex Corde Ecclesiae”, which urges that there should be “close personal and pastoral relationships between university and church authorities, characterized by mutual trust and consistent cooperation and continuing dialogue.”

Father Jenkins, in an act of leadership, has chosen to go before the Notre Dame community to make a serious presentation on this matter. Those of us who are outside the governance of the university should view this decision with respect.

A final word
In preparing these remarks, I have consulted others, including women who are graduates of Notre Dame. One is the mother of seven children; along with her husband, she has worked with me for 20 years to promote the pastoral care of the family. Together, they have prepared hundreds of couples for marriage. She shared with me these comments.

“I have been reflecting since we spoke the other night on the fact that there is an enormous difference between exposing evil and endorsing it, and a Catholic university should be in the business of the former, not the latter. In order to expose evil, it is necessary to examine it, to analyze it, to explore its assumptions and arguments so as to be better able to refute them and to explain to others how and why they fall short of what our human dignity demands. A Catholic university should bring faith and reason, as well as human experience and reflection to bear on the issues raised by the monologues, so as to respond to them in a way that safeguards and promotes the dignity of the human person. The monologues have become, in fact, a cultural phenomenon, and a Catholic university could have a fine contribution to make in analyzing why that has happened, what the appeal of the play is, and why the answer to the desecration of women that sexual abuse and violence constitute cannot be the perhaps less obvious but more insidious desecration of women that many of the monologues depict.” — Lisa Everett, in a letter to Bishop D’Arcy, Feb. 1, 2006.

I am always impressed when I visit the Grotto of Our Lady at Notre Dame by the many students, who pause there in prayer. Let us all turn to Mary, the patroness of Notre Dame and of our diocese, asking her to help Father Jenkins and her university through this difficult and historic moment, towards the light that is Jesus Christ who said, “I am the way, the truth and the life.”

I regret the sponsorship of this play by Notre Dame again this year, and pray it will be the last time.