Posted on 10/03/2024 9:06:43 PM PDT by ConservativeMind
John Patrick Shanley’s superb 2005 drama “Doubt: A Parable” explored the scandal of abuse within the Catholic priesthood through the lens of a suspicious and determined sister in charge of a Catholic school in the Bronx in New York. The supremely concise play took place entirely through the lens of what for children are authority figures: a principal, a priest, a parent, a teacher. Kids were neither seen nor heard. Just discussed.
The new play by Omer Abbas Salem, “Happy Days are Here (Again),” which is set at a Catholic elementary school in Chicago in about 1980 and had its world premiere Friday night from Chicago’s ever-courageous Steep Theatre at Steppenwolf’s 1700 Theatre, pays homage to that precursor, not least in its portrayal of how abusers can be careful to groom their victims and to cover up their tracks with charm. But the big difference here is that the main focus in on the students.
We see them in class; we see their attempts both to continue with their normal lives and get away from all of this; we see how fear courses through their young bones when the intercom crackles with a demand for one or the other of them to go to someone’s office, or to “confession,” or whatever other pretense is being employed by those who should be invested only in student wellbeing.
It’s been haunting me all weekend as I write.
The strengths of this piece of theater are many but the one that initially impressed me the most is how carefully and slowly Salem builds the level of horror inside this school, even as he articulates its apparent normalcy. The play has scenes that could be in “Mean Girls” or “The Breakfast Club” as the kids fight for the right to be teenagers.
(Excerpt) Read more at chicagotribune.com ...
Were you abused by a priest?
It seems to be a topic on which you often post.
We have FReepers that were.
Seems you don’t care.
No. Its just hard to tell the difference between real concern, and anti-Catholic propaganda.
Morgana properly posts Protestant child abuse articles, and these are taken well.
This issue needs to come out, from all sides.
Billy Graham’s Grandson Says Protestants Abuse Kids Just Like Catholics
How Protestant Churches Hid Sexual Abuse
A History of Sex Abuse in the Protestant Imagination
Abuse in the Protestant Church
Sexual abuse also a problem in European Protestant churches
Protestant abuse history has been swept under the carpet
Data Shed Light on Child Sexual Abuse by Protestant Clergy
Protestant Churches Grapple With Growing Sexual Abuse Crisis
Evangelicals ‘worse’ than Catholics on sexual abuse
Thousands of children sexually abused by German Protestant Church: study
German Protestant churches riddled with sexual abuse and cover-ups, report finds
Please stop spamming me—especially with the same post, all the time.
You’re posting Catholic issue threads. I have right to respond.
Someone should make a play about the physical and emotional abuse the nuns inflicted on students. It is a major reason why I am no longer Catholic.
CM - you do realize that those articles were posted as a tit-for-tat against a spam of articles about Catholics, right?
Both of these are just perpetuating the vicious cycle of one-upmanship
There is a small group of anti-Christians that post their “stuff” many times a day to make any other domination that is not theirs look bad.
It is getting worse and worse, and is starting to pollute this website.
They are also very touchy if someone calls them out on their hypocrisy, and can’t see their own flaws...
They obviously also don’t like following JimRob’s rules he has posted several times before.
This play could be about any clergyman or teacher or coach because homosexuals preying on minors are everywhere. Parents also need pay attention because nobody is above suspicion. My husband knows this all too well because his father and his brother both spent time behind bars in the 90s for abusing relatives and he was clueless.
Have I seen this somewhere before? A searing new play, through which another corrupted, Leftist, fallen-away, modernist Catholic with amoral and heretical beliefs is shocked to discover that the priests who agree with him in his political Leftism and rejection of his faith turn out to be as amoral, spiritually weak, and demented in their daily lives as he is?
How ground-breaking and original--to convict others of the crime of behaving like you!
In all things, confusion has consequences. Shockingly, we discover at the link (https://www.3arts.org/artist/Omer-Abbas-Salem/) that the playwright is a "they."
Pray for him.
I remember our middle-school principal (a nun) weeping real tears when she happened to overhear us teen boys using foul language on each other, as kids in our neighborhood often did. "How can my boys do this?! How can souls so young be so corrupted?!" she cried.
It made an impression on me. At the time, I thought it was strange, and felt she was so foolish and naive to react in such a way.
Only later in life did I appreciate that she was one of the very few adults in our lives who actually believed that we could be holy and righteous.
Heck, it’s just balancing out all the anti-Protestant propaganda and hit pieces posted here several times a day by a certain Catholic.
Stop with the do as I say not as I do.
Besides, you also have a claimed Catholic posting some of the most anti-Catholic threads I have seen, ones that would get a Prot banned if they posted as many anti-pope, anti-Catholic church hit pieces per say as some alleged Catholics do.
It’s hysterical and hypocritical of you to complain about Catholic issues threads when you’re by far the most prolific anti-Catholic, anti-pope thread poster going.
You’re doing a far better job of destroying your own church’s reputation and credibility than anything any non-Catholic could point out.
Keep up the good work, ebb.
Do you have a life besides posting anti-church and anti pope threads?
You post a lot of them and monitor them.
After posting threads myself, I know how much time it consumes to search out material to post.
Don’t you work for a living? Or have any better hobbies than constantly criticizing Catholicism? Such a negative, dark mindset. It’s really pathetic to be in bondage to that much darkness and negativity.
Comments from a bitter ex-Catholic do not bother me.
Carry on.
CONSERVATIVEMIND is anti-Catholic bigot.
MM, I am surprised at you. I didn’t know you were a bitter ex Catholic. 😀😂😊 Would I be correct in assuming, you don’t lose any sleep over it? 😀🤔🙌😇 Carry on. 👍
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