Apr 18, 2006
According to the Commonwealth Fund, nearly one-third of American women (31%) report being physically or sexually abused by a husband or boyfriend at some point in their lifetime. Just as this statistic reveals, violence against women is all too prevalent in our society today. Pope John Paul II recognized this disturbing fact and declared that “the time has come to condemn vigorously the types of sexual violence which frequently have women for their object.”
In response, many Catholic college campuses have created educational programs that inform students on the gravity of sexual violence, while also teaching them how to prevent abuse and help survivors heal. These programs are needed. They help to create awareness about sexual assault and strengthen community efforts to combat violence in all areas of society. Recently, however, a sexually enlightened agenda is accompanying the need for factual and honest education on Catholic campuses. This is most evident in the contemporary “educational project” entitled The Vagina Monologues.
The Vagina Monologues is a collection of monologues based on interviews with over 200 women about their memories and experiences of sexuality. It surfaced in New York in the late 1990s as a theatre production aimed at informing the public about sexual violence, but in actuality does little to effectively educate the audience. The production’s raw and irreverent approach to female sexuality, along with the choreographed use of profanity merely for the sake of alarming the audience, reveals more of its radical feminist agenda than its desire to educate. Honestly, what sense does it make to oppose all acts of violence that turn women into sexual objects, but then oppose the violence by reducing women to a sexual object: a vagina. Does anyone else see the irony?
The Catholic Church recognizes that violence, especially against the vulnerable and defenseless, is abhorrent. In addition, the Church believes that female sexuality is a beautiful and precious gift from the Creator. She also desires to protect and uphold the dignity of all women by teaching that women are more than just body parts. Women should be valued for their tremendous intellectual, artistic, moral and spiritual capacity as well. The Vagina Monologues negates this entire premise and instead is vulgar and reductionist in its approach.
When asked why he would not allow The Vagina Monologues on his Catholic campus, Reverend Brian J. Shanley, O.P., the President of Providence College in Rhode Island, stated that “precisely because its depiction of female sexuality is so deeply at odds with the true meaning and morality that the Catholic Church’s teaching celebrates, The Vagina Monologues is not an appropriate play to be performed on our campus.” Similarly, his statement reiterated that the performance “simplifies and demystifies” female sexuality by reducing it to a vagina. Shanley also pointed out that the so-called “new bible” for women, as the play is often referred, is “deeply and diametrically opposed” to the truth regarding human sexuality that inspires the teachings of the Roman Catholic Church and the true Bible.
Unfortunately, other Catholic campus leaders across the country are not as courageous as Shanley. For instance, Reverend John I. Jenkins, C.S.C, the President of Notre Dame University is justifying the performance under the guise of “artistic” and “academic freedom.” In his Closing Statement on Academic Freedom and Catholic Character, he remarked, “we are committed to a wide-open, unconstrained search for truth, and we are convinced that Catholic teaching has nothing to fear from engaging the wider culture…our goal is not to limit discussion or inquiry, but to enrich it.”
I applaud his efforts to engage a culture that does not know Jesus Christ and challenge the secular worldview, but how exactly does sponsoring an event that undermines the intrinsic nature of the human person actually enrich the student body of a Catholic institution?
This guise of “tolerance” parallels the thought process that “pornography is pervading all of society, so let’s expose ourselves to it in an effort to better understand how and why society is addicted to it.” No, this approach is inherently flawed. Never should “academic freedom” permit Catholic institutions to support and promote ideologies that utterly oppose the teachings of our Mother, the Church.
Again, it is necessary to combat sexual assault, abuse, and violence against women in our day and age. But we, as lay faithful, and our Catholic institutions must support and defend women in their entirety: body, mind, and soul. The Vagina Monologues does not do so.