1887

Gonzaga University celebrates the value of diversity. When it comes to one of GU’s most important lecture“the Flannery Lecture is intended to further excellence in theological study and teaching at GU. The lecture is delivered each year by an outstanding Catholic theologian and is prepared and presented to benefit as wide an audience as possible.” This important lecture series might well reach the hoped-for wider audience if the invited speakers represented something other than what one professor I spoke with called “a celebration of radical ‘Catholicism.’ ”  As the years have rolled by, the Flannery Lecture series has offered a steady parade of theological liberals who, in many cases, oppose Church teaching on important matters. In fact, judging by the records of past speakers, the Flannery Lectures over the last 10 years have been a decidedly one-sided affair.

series, however, viewpoint diversity has been lacking for at least a decade, and orthodoxy has been hard to find. According to a GU news release,

As the GU professor mentioned above put it when asked about the Flannery Lectures, “It is something that I have tended to avoid like the plague. I have gone to a couple of them, but for the most part all they are is a celebration of radical ‘Catholicism.’ ”

This week, in an article published at 1887Trust.org, background on each of the Flannery Lecturers since 2003 is provided and sourced. One finds lecturers who have supported pro-abortion political candidates, and others who are associated with groups that support same-sex marriage. The list includes a professor suspended from teaching theology because of dissent from Church teaching, and a lecturer whose work has drawn scrutiny from the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops for what they called “statements that, unless properly clarified, are not in accord with Catholic teaching.” One past Flannery Lecture presenter, according to First Things Editor R.R. Reno, “presumes that the Church’s current teaching on sexual morality is unworkable, and in some cases unjust.” The list of past lecturers includes a professor refused a platform by an Illinois bishop because the professor “called into question the authentic teachings of the magisterium of the Catholic Church.”

Link (here) to The Gonzaga Bulletin to read the full article

Bing At Gonzaga

In 1910 Crosby was forever renamed. The six-year-old Harry Lillis Crosby discovered a full page feature in the Sunday edition of Spokesman-Review, The Bingville Bugle. The Bugle, written by humorist Newton Newkirk, was a parody of a hillbilly newsletter complete with gossipy tidbits, minstrel quips, creative spelling and mock ads. A neighbor, 15-year-old Valentine Hobart, shared Crosby's enthusiasm for The Bugle. Noting Crosby's laugh, she took a liking to him and called him Bingo from Bingville. The last vowel was dropped and the name shortened to Bing, which stuck.

In 1917 Crosby took a summer job as property boy at Spokane's "Auditorium" where he witnessed some of the finest acts of the day, including a blackface performer named Al Jolson who spellbound Crosby with his ad-libbing and spoofs of Hawaiian songs that brought down the house. Crosby would later say that, "To me, he was the greatest entertainer who ever lived."

Bing enrolled in Gonzaga College in the fall of 1920 with the intent to become a lawyer. While in Gonzaga he sent away for a set of mail order drums. After much practice he soon became good enough and was invited to join a local band called the "Musicaladers"which was mostly made up of local high school kids. He made so much money doing this he decided to drop out of school during his final year, to pursue a career in show business.

Link (here) to Gonzaga University

Father Patrick Hartin A Professor At Gonzaga On Dante’s Hell

Link

After reading the Bulletin Friday morning, I’m convinced that I’m living in Alice’s Wonderland! Instead, it’s “Wonderland” – more like Dante’s “Hell”! …. To protect themselves and others in the neighborhood, the students defended themselves by pulling out a gun (one with a legal permit). Then the students called the police (as any law-abiding GU student would), informing them they had a legal gun with a permit. The police congratulated them on their whole mature behavior and response to this incident. There, the incident should have ended (if we were in the real world). But, we enter GU’s “Wonderland” or Dante’s “Hell.” 2:00 a.m. next morning: GU’s campus security breaks into the students’ apartment and their bedrooms and seizes their weapons…. Tragically, in GU’s “Wonderland,” these young gentlemen are turned from victims into criminals….
no

What about the cura personalis that is the bedrock of GU’s ethos? We could have been mourning “Two funerals and a rape” this weekend. Instead, the heroes who avoided such a catastrophe are punished as villains. What a far cry from our Jesuit ethos! 

In the Catholic tradition, to which I ascribe, every person has a right to defend him or herself and to use appropriate means to save their lives.

Go (here) to read the full piece, Fr. Hartin is Professor of Religious Studies at Gonzaga, and an ordained priest of the Diocese of Spokane, Washington.

Jonathan Taylor Breaks Into Gonzaga Dorm Students Defend Themselves

A "mug shot" of Jonathon Taylor

In case you missed it, administrators at Gonzaga University have decided to place four students on probation, with the possibility of expulsion on the table. Their crime? Defending themselves against a six-time felon Jonathan Taylor inside their university owned apartment by brandishing a firearm (for which they have a permit). Naturally in typical academic fashion, officials are punishing their own students for fighting back and protecting themselves from a violent criminal with a long rap sheet.

The details of this story have already been covered, but what's missing is the scrutiny against the so-called "intellectuals" in this situation.

The actions taken by Gonzaga officials to punish students for a) owning a firearm and b) using that firearm in self-defense, shows us exactly how far they're willing to go in the name of their own partisan ideology. Officials at Gonzaga are clearly more interested in upholding their anti-gun agenda than keeping students safe.

Think the case of a felon on Gonzaga's campus is an isolated incident? Think again. In 2007, a young woman named Amanda Collins was raped at gunpoint just 50-feet from the campus police station at The University of Nevada-Reno. The University of Nevada-Reno is a gun free zone. At the time of the attack, Collins was in possession of her concealed weapons permit but was not in possession of her firearm due to university policies prohibiting carrying concealed weapons on campus. Her attacker, a serial rapist, went on to rape two more young women, killing one of them. Red-tape and university policies empowered her attacker while she, the victim, was punished. 

Link (here) to the full story at Townhall.com

“Commitment To Nondiscrimination.”

The president of Gonzaga University has reversed an earlier decision and now says a campus chapter of the Knights of Columbus can receive official club status. The Catholic university in Spokane first denied that recognition because the Knights do not admit women or non-Catholics.

President Thayne McCulloh's decision allows the Knights of Columbus council to use the university's name in its title, use school facilities and fundraise on campus. Official club status also makes the group eligible for money from the university and student fees.

The initial denial of official status received a quick response. Parents, alumni and members of the wider Catholic community accused the university of religious intolerance toward the school’s own faith.

Gonzaga spokeswoman Mary Joan Hahn says this summer, the university plans to revise its criteria for recognizing campus organizations. “I think one of the things that's happened through this process is a deeper appreciation that we need some clarity around these things.” The director of student activities originally denied the Knights of Columbus club status in March, citing the university's “commitment to nondiscrimination.”

Link (here)

Using Them As Recruiting Tool

A professor at Gonzaga University has countered claims by the school that it supports the campus' Knights “Honestly I don't see that they're supported in any way,” Dr. Eric Cunningham, assistant director of Catholic Studies and faculty adviser to the university's Knights council, told CNA April 15. On March 7, the university's student life division denied the council's application for recognition as a “student organization,” according to an April 5 report by the Cardinal Newman Society. The Knights of Columbus is a Catholic charitable fraternal organization with 1.8 million members globally. “If they've been denied club status, the only way they exist here is that the members of the Knights of Columbus council are enrolled here,” Cunningham stated. On April 10, Gonzaga's community relations director, Mary Joan Hahn, told CNA that “the Knights of Columbus College Council is on-campus and is supported by the University currently.” This year the council has met at a seminary attached to the university, but has not been affiliated with the university, according to university paper “The Gonzaga Bulletin.”  Cunningham has noticed that the council is “listed in our advertising materials,” specifically in a brochure “that goes out to parents” showing the group listed as a student organization.

of Columbus Council after the group's application to be a student organization was denied.

“So in other words, we're kind of using them as recruiting tool, telling parents that we have a Knights of Columbus council that their sons can certainly join if they come here.”

The Cardinal Newman Society posted excerpts from a letter from the vice president for student life at Gonzaga, Sue Weitz, saying that the Knights of Columbus could not be recognized as a “student organization” because the group is closed to women and to non-Catholics.

“These criteria are inconsistent with the policy and practice of student organization recognition at Gonzaga University, as well as the University’s commitment to non-discrimination based on certain characteristics, one of which is religion.”

Weitz wrote that the decision is not “some kind of litmus test of Gonzaga's Catholicity,” according to The Gonzaga Bulletin.“It is a decision about social justice, equity, and the desire of the University to create and maintain an environment in which none are excluded,” she wrote. Cunningham understands that roughly $1000 of the council's funds had been frozen by the Gonzaga student body association, and he said that “what I hear from the membership, is that hasn't been returned yet.”

“Not only are they not being supported, they haven't had their money returned to them. There's no official support.”

Cunningham has been associated with the council since 2006, and noted that he has made available to them the Catholic studies house, after “they were asked by the director of university ministry to stop meeting there.”

“They don't have a chapter house, they were actually asked to stop meeting in the house they had been using. So I'd really love to know what Gonzaga is defining as support for the campus council.”

Catholic identity, Cunningham added, is neither well understood nor promoted at Gonzaga University. The school was founded in 1887 and describes itself as a “Catholic, Jesuit, and humanistic university.” Although during his pontificate Benedict XVI emphasized the importance of Catholic identity in Catholic higher education, “there was no ground for anything Benedict said to gain any traction,” according to Cunningham. The decision to deny the Knight's application to be a student group on the basis of non-discrimination policy “epitomizes the condition” at Gonzaga University, and that those who made the decision are “very much representative of the current governing climate of Gonzaga.” Cunningham lamented that this is typical of numerous Catholic universities, saying that “there's nothing new about this” and that it “goes on I'm sure at every Catholic college campus in America, that hasn't made its decision to reform itself as a more 'Magisterial' school.”

“They just embrace a view of Catholicism that deviates wildly from any objective understanding of Catholicism that we might want to call 'Magisterial' or 'orthodox,' for lack of a better word.”

According to Cunningham, “Catholic universities are leading the way in turning Catholicism into a purely secular discourse and are restricting a serious intellectual engagement with what it means to be Catholic.” Gonzaga University president Thayne McCulloh will be reviewing the school's Student Life Office decision, and is expected to come to his decision shortly after the academic year ends. As faculty advisor to the Knights' council, Cunningham hopes to preserve the council as an “independent agent” rather than placing it under student ministry or the student life office at Gonzaga. “We understand that Gonzaga considers the Knights of Columbus a discriminatory agency, and...they're going to be better off as an independent, free-standing club.”

Link (here) to CNA

Francis J. Beckwith, "Gonzaga Effectively Marginalizes These Students, Suggesting To The Wider Public That Their Religious Interests Are Illegitimate"

Francis J. Beckwith

Gonzaga University was founded by an order of priests known as the Society of Jesus, the Jesuits. Although , but not amended, to allow the hiring of the university’s first lay president, the Jesuits remain an officially recognized campus group with its own residence aptly named “Jesuit House.”

Gonzaga’s bylaws were temporarily suspended

Nevertheless, the Society of Jesus requires its members not only be male and Catholic, but celibate as well. Oddly, then, if Gonzaga cannot “yet endorse a group based on faith exclusivity,” the school’s Jesuit community has failed to win the endorsement of the school it founded.

Second, Gonzaga’s University Ministry “provides a wealth of opportunities for students to participate in retreats, liturgies and events that illustrate the connections between faith and life. . .in support of Gonzaga University's mission as a humanistic, Catholic and Jesuit institution of education. . .” These opportunities include the celebration of Catholic Mass on campus. The Catholic Mass, however, requires that those receiving the Eucharist be in full communion with the Catholic Church, which means that both non-Catholics and lapsed Catholics are forbidden from participating in the Lord’s Supper. Thus, if Gonzaga is committed to “non-discrimination based on certain characteristics, one of which is religion,” its own University Ministry, since it offers Catholic Masses on campus, is dissenting from the school’s commitment. Whatever these two points reveal about the deep fissures in Gonzaga’s self-understanding, they do not disclose the most egregious problem with the university’s policy as applied to the Knights of Columbus: it is an instance of the passive aggressive tyranny trick. As with any college campus, Gonzaga includes among its students serious religious believers, including Christians, Jews, and Muslims. Because they take their faith seriously – that is, they believe that their faith is not only true but its communities and practices essential to moral and spiritual formation – they desire fellowship with others within their tradition and strive to become better examples of authentic faith. Because of the nature of the religious faith embraced by these students – and the differences between men and women that most of these faith traditions rightfully acknowledge and celebrate – certain types of spiritual and moral formation simply cannot be accomplished in settings that are ecumenical and/or in mixed company. By not offering these students an opportunity to organize groups that accomplish these ends, 

Gonzaga effectively marginalizes these students, suggesting to the wider public that their religious interests are illegitimate, not worthy of being part of the Gonzaga community and its conversation about the good, the true, and the beautiful.

Consequently, although one of its vice presidents states that the university desires “to create and maintain an environment in which none are excluded,” it in fact excludes, and it does so by implying that those who are excluded harbor antipathy toward social justice and equity.

This is the passive-aggressive tyranny trick in all its glory.
Link (here) to read Francis J. Beckwith's full article at The Catholic Thing

St. Ignatius Of Loyola Could Not Start The Society Of Jesus At Gonzaga Under The Current Rules

The chief reason for my confusion is that as an organization, the Knights of Columbus is, by these criteria, identical to the Society of Jesus. 

How strange it is to think that if Ignatius of Loyola and his companions, who were students at the University of Paris when they established the Society, had tried to apply for club status at Gonzaga, they would have been denied. I can’t help but wonder if it is the intention of the Office of Student Life to dissociate itself from Gonzaga University because of the Jesuits’ long-standing practice of such “discrimination,” or will Student Life instead choose to initiate action to remove the Society of Jesus from its affiliation with the Gonzaga community?

This may strike you as an absurd inquiry, but it is actually a logical response to the rationale in your decision. As you noted, the revival of the Catholic Daughters on campus would solve the “gender-exclusivity” problem, but alas, the Catholic Daughters are Catholic too, and that seems to be central problem.

It would appear that the Knights of Columbus have been denied recognition as a club on this Catholic campus specifically because it is a Catholic group. Is that not the only conclusion one might draw? 

Link (here) to read Carl Olson's full article at The Catholic World Report

The Knights Of Columbus Cannot Be Recognized At Gonzaga

Gonzaga University, a Jesuit-run institution in Spokane, Washington, has announced that the Knights of Columbus cannot be recognized as a student organization because the group admits only Catholics. The Knights of Columbus were told that they could not be formally affiliated with the university because their rules for membership are “inconsistent with the policy and practice of student organization recognition at Gonzaga University, as well as the University’s commitment to non-discrimination based on certain characteristics, one of which is religion.” 

Link (here) to Catholic Culture

Gonzaga And Birth Control

Gonzaga University President Thayne McCulloh has announced to faculty and staff that in response to the HHS mandate it will begin covering contraceptives starting next month. While many Catholic colleges and dioceses are battling the HHS mandate on religious liberty grounds in court, Gonzaga, a Jesuit University, announced to faculty and staff that even while they vow to clearly communicate the Church’s position on contraception, they are “compelled by the federal government to fulfill our legal obligation under the mandate.” According to the memo, the university will begin covering contraceptives on December 1st, 2012:

Link (here) to the Cardinal Newman Society

Abortion Supporter And Protestant Tutu To Speak At Gonzaga University

Gonzaga University will honor Anglican Archbishop Desmond Tutu with an honorary doctor of laws degree, and he will speak at the commencement ceremony on May 13. (The Cardinal Newman Society previously reported this here, and also reported on student and alumni opposition here.)  

Tutu endorsed a constitutional amendment in South Africa to legalize abortion and even reportedly endorsed the work of the Marie Stopes abortion chain. 

He also reportedly said, “Planned parenthood is an obligation of those who are Christians. Our church thinks we should use scientific methods that assist in planning of families.”

Link (here) to The Cardinal Newman Society to read the full report.

Tutu Rejection

Gonzaga University is rejecting calls by social conservatives to find a new commencement speaker because of Archbishop Desmond Tutu’s support for abortion rights and gay marriage. Critics say the apartheid era hero and Nobel laureate’s social views contradict Catholic teachings, and more than 700 Gonzaga alumni, staff, faculty and students have signed petitions protesting Tutu’s campus appearance in May and the university’s plans to award the Anglican archbishop an honorary Doctor of Laws degree. “It goes against Catholic teaching and so much of what Gonzaga stands for – or at least should stand for,” Spokane attorney Patrick Kirby said in a letter to GU President Thayne McCulloh. 

Link (here) to The Spokesman-Review to read the full story

Tutu has posed for a picture on behalf of and endorsed the “invaluable work” of Marie Stopes International, the world’s largest abortion provider. The endorsement, which was discovered by pro-life activist Peter Thorp as he logged one of his more than 1,200 hours of prayer in front of the Cape Town abortion clinic, praises Marie Stopes South Africa for “empowering people” and “giving people the opportunity to make informed decisions about their future and a choice.” Neither Marie Stopes nor the Archbishop Desmond Tutu Foundation would confirm whether Tutu had been paid for the statement. However, his support for abortion spans decades. He said in the 1990s that it is “immoral” for the law to protect unborn children conceived by rape or incest.

Link (here) to Contact Online

Zags Learning About Business, Ethics, And Life From Billionaire Warren Buffett

Warren Buffet with President Obama

Twenty Gonzaga University entrepreneurship students will spend a day this fall in Omaha learning about business, ethics, and life from billionaire Warren Buffett, the “Oracle of Omaha," one of the most innovative and influential business leaders in the world. Buffett is chairman and CEO of Berkshire Hathaway, an Omaha-based conglomerate of more than 70 companies with nearly a quarter-million employees that also invests in numerous companies and investment vehicles. Buffett invites a select number of universities to Omaha every year. Todd Finkle, Gonzaga’s Pigott Professor of Entrepreneurship, initiated the visit with the assistance of Paul Buller, the School of Business Administration’s Kinsey-Robinson Professor of Business Management. Finkle wrote an in-depth case study on Buffett and Berkshire before coming to Gonzaga. Buffett read the case and invited Finkle and 27 students from University of Akron, where Finkle taught before coming to Gonzaga. They spent a day in Omaha at Berkshire Hathaway’s world headquarters and two of his subsidiaries.
Link (here) to Jesuitbusinessschools.net
Read about Warren Buffets Support of Planned Parenthood and Catholics for Choice (here)

Ice Cream And Pizza

Fr. Craig Hightower, S.J. the Director of University Ministry at Gonzaga University, reportedly anchored the panel, and gave a Jesuit interpretation of sex in college by saying that “the Catholic Church is not a rulebook, but more of a recipe book. It provides different ways to combine ingredients, but, much like ice cream and pizza, you can’t always combine certain ingredients.”

Link (here) to the Cardinal Newman Society

Better Ways To Engage Contemporary Culture

"Are Events Such as the Vagina Monologues Essential to Gonzaga's Mission and Identity?"
Fall Family Weekend at the Gonzaga Socratic Club

(summary handout / video / Calhoun remarks)
In April 2011 Gonzaga University officially hosted a performance of Eve Ensler’s Vagina Monologues.  The University placed some constraints on the performance of the play, such as restricting play attendance to University students, staff, and faculty.  Further, the organizers and administrators placed the play into an academic context by holding several related events during the week of the performance and a lecture one week later.

Sponsoring faculty, university officials, and others argued that performance of the play not only was permissible in the light of Gonzaga’s Jesuit, Catholic, humanist identity and mission, but that such a performance was central to or even necessary for an institution with Gonzaga’s identity.  For example, one commentator suggested that John Paul II’s call for “an impartial search for truth” (Ex Corde Ecclesia §7) demanded that Gonzaga address controversial questions and events with scholarly charity, and several defenders of the event cited Pope Benedict XIV’s charge to inhabit the place where the gospel confronts contemporary culture (Address to the 35th General Congregation of the Society of Jesus).

At the October meeting of the Gonzaga Socratic Club, held in concert with Fall Family Weekend, Gonzaga philosophers Doug Kries and David Calhoun will argue that the official events surrounding the performance of the Vagina Monologues were academically deficient, because they avoided genuine dialogue about the strengths and weaknesses of the play as a vehicle for advancing Jesuit, Catholic, humanist identity and mission.  While acknowledging that there is reasonable disagreement about the mission value of events like the Vagina Monologues, Kries and Calhoun will argue that there are much better ways to engage contemporary culture and issues from a Jesuit, Catholic, humanist standpoint.
Link (here) to the  Gonzaga Socratic Club website
What is the Socratic Method? (here)

A Wonderful Jesuit Priest

Lynn Nordhagen

I had left the Catholic Church not just once but twice. I had grown up Catholic, before and during Vatican II. I enjoyed sixteen years of Catholic schooling, living close enough to walk to school all the way through college.

Our parish was known in town, deservedly or not, as the “Holy Land” because of having the grade school, two convents, a high school, a Jesuit university, 

and a very high percentage of Catholic families in the neighborhood. I loved the Latin Mass, and in high school and college, I attended daily Mass and Communion. I was young enough to accept gracefully the changes of Vatican II, but not without some sadness. A wonderful Jesuit priest formed a group for a few of us interested high school students to study the documents of Vatican II. We loved our Church.
 

Link (here) to read the conversion story of Lynn Nordhagen at Marcus Grodi's Coming Home Network

Lynn Nordhagen was born and raised in Spokane, Washington, and graduated from Gonzaga University. She and her husband, Marvin, now live in Chattaroy, Washington. They have four children and six grandchildren. Lynn is editor of the book When Only One Converts (Our Sunday Visitor, 2001).

The Enemy Acts Like A Woman

This week of events opened April 4 with a forum entitled "Voices on ‘The V@gina Monologues,' Catholic Tradition, and Jesuit Identity." According to Meghan Yee, a senior political science major at Gonzaga  University and one of the student organizers and directors of the event,

this particular dialogue was intended to prompt discussion on the Monologues and their place in a Jesuit community. "This topic is typically the big topic of controversy when discussing an on-campus production of ‘The V@gina Monologues,'" Yee said. 

This was followed on April 6 with "Learning to Speak: The Power of Narratives," an exploration into the power of personal narrative and the authentic identity one may experience through participation in personal narrative. Yee notes that both these panel discussions were controversial and at times inflammatory.  "The earlier panel discussions did get pretty heated at some points," she said.  However, she further explained that such controversy is necessary in order to accomplish the goal of Monologues, Dialogues, & Stories.  "‘The V@gina Monologues,' and perhaps Monologues, Dialogues, & Stories as a whole, raises dissenting voices," Yee said. 

Link (here) to read the full article at Gonzaga Bulletin
The Twelfth Rule. "The enemy acts like a woman...." (here)
A detailed Catholic criticism of the play (here) by Helen Hull Hitchcock at Women for Faith and Family

Baptist Professor At Gonzaga Explains Why The V@gina Monologues Has No Place In Academia

Gonzaga's Foley Center

"The V@gina Monologues," as a particular expression of ideas, is not necessary to explore questions of violence against women, or indeed of human s@xuality and female self-image.  Not only is it not necessary, good arguments can and have been made that it is a poor vehicle for exploring these ideas.  It does not speak univocally against violence against women, insofar as it depicts sympathetically female-on-female s@xual abuse of a minor.  

Despite Eve Ensler's brilliant marketing campaign, the play is not even so much about violence against women as it is a celebration of polymorphous s@xuality.  Beyond its poor literary quality, the play features unnecessary vulgarities which amount to vicarious live s@x demonstrations. 

There are further reasons for rejecting "The V@gina Monologues" as an occasion for academic inquiry at a Jesuit, Catholic institution.  The play ignores the multifaceted nature of female experience by eliminating entire ranges of human s@xuality from its purview.  It offends against human dignity by reducing human personality to s@xuality, and female dignity to s@xual activity.  It completely ignores the rich literature and vocabulary of Catholic and Christian s@xual teaching.

Link (here) to Gonzaga professor David Calhoun's full letter (here) at the Gonzaga Bulletin

Hat Tip to Insight Scoop (here)

Licentiousness Now Considered Academic Exploration By Jesuit Run Gonzaga University Vice President

Dr. Patricia Killen

Gonzaga University Academic Vice President Dr. Patricia Killen sent an email to students after approving the play? The V@gina Monologues, noting that the play “contains raw language and explicit descriptions of s@xual behavior” but will be “performed in the context of an interdisciplinary academic exploration.” The development was picked up by the Catholic watchdog group Cardinal Newman Society (CNS), which has tracked the popularity of the play among several Catholic institutions of higher learning. Last year, CNS notes, then-Interim President Thayne McCulloh rejected the play because he “could not ignore the historical context that informs review of the current proposal.” Gonzaga has become the fourteenth Catholic campus to welcome the Monologues, ten of which are Jesuit institutions. 

Link (here) to Lifesite

What is licentiousness? Go (here)

P@rnographic Play At Jesuit Gonzaga University Called, "Movements Toward Social Justice"

There will be a panel presentation and discussion on April 4 at 6:30 p.m. at the Foley Teleconference Center that will feature Dr. Patsy Fowler, Dr. Cate Siejk, Fr. Tim Clancy, and student Drew Pollom, entitled "Voices on ‘The V@gina Monologues,' Catholic Tradition, and Jesuit Identity." "Learning to Speak: the Power of Narratives" will be April 6 at 6:30 p.m. at Foley Teleconference Center, and is an "exploration of the power of storytelling and the place of stories in movements toward social justice." Dr. Linda Schearing and Dr. Ann Ciasullo will lead the discussion.

Link (here) The Gonzaga Bulletin 

Jesuit Father Timothy Clancy, professor of philosophy at Gonzaga, in his opinion column, "Embrace Identity":

The banning of the Monologues has been justified on the grounds that their performance would violate the Catholic mission of our school. I would like to place the 'V@gina Monologues' in a spiritual context and argue that their performance rather embodies precisely what it means for us to be a Catholic University".

He says that Eve Ensler's "rhetorical device" of having women's s@x organs "speak" enables women to embrace their own identity:

"And as they talk and audiences listen, people across the country and around the world have found shame turn to compassion, and rage turn to solidarity. Everyone involved comes to learn that we are not alone in our shame, and that together we can heal and liberate what we may have thought to lie in ruins beyond even God's saving reach".

Father Clancy explains (copiously using anatomical terms) that Freud "scandalized society" by giving male s@x organs a voice, but until now women had no comparable champion.

"Now what does any of this have to do with Catholicism? Catholicism has never understood itself as something separate from the rest of life", Father Clancy says. And this is life?

Jesus "heralded a new Kingdom of the impure" deliberately choosing as his disciples the sick, sinners, outcasts, prostitutes, the possessed, "even a terrorist", in order to "bear witness that this is where God calls holy people to be, for these are the ones most in need of God's saving word and healing touch".
Father Clancy concludes:

"V@ginas are not used to speaking in public, and so once given the chance to have their say, everything comes out at once, pride and shame, rage and fear, ridicule and relief. But above all I suspect that what comes out from these performances will be relief, relief at having finally received a hearing. What could be more Catholic?"

 Link (here) to the full 2002 article by Helene Hull Hitchcock at Women for Faith and Family