Also, I recently had an interesting discussion with Bud Macfarlane, the author of this article, and he had read this thread and asked me to pass along the following comments:
Message From Bud MacfarlaneI was told about your discussion of my article, "Our Lady Weeps: the V-Monologues Comes to Notre Dame," and I've truly enjoyed reading your comments. I especially admire the intelligence and charity in which you carry on your discussion. Here are a few of my own comments:
1. A couple of months ago, before I heard about the Monologues coming to ND, my wife Bai started a group for ND Alumni called the Notre Dame Society. Our mission is to help support devout students on campus who are doing positive things for the faith. The network has grown very quickly, and we've set up a core group of students to keep us informed and let us know what they need. It seems like a few of you Freepers are our kind of ND alums, and would want to get involved. If so, email Rachel Richmond (ND '00) and she'll plug you in. No money involved: it's all done through the Net. E-mail here
2. Yes, ND76 was right that the ND Law School and Architecture schools are still solid (though Ave Maria School of Law, which I've been involved with, is going to run rings around it eventually. The faculty is cream of the crop and their first students are choosing Ave Maria over ND Law and UVA Law, I hear, and have the LSATs to get into just about anywhere). But I would send my sons to ND Law or Architecture. And yes, Texas A&M is a good school with one of the best Newman Centers in the country.
3. FYI: Practicing--and I emphasize "practicing"--Catholics (25% of the U.S. population are baptized Catholics) tend to vote conservative in large percentages. Bush pulled 10% more of the Catholic vote than did Dole--the single largest demographic shift in large voting blocks from 1996 to 2000--and the margin of victory. Deal Hudson of Crisis Magazine helped Bush realize that Republicans can't win without getting the Catholic vote. Whether you like Bush or not is besides the point: pray for the Catholic counter-revolution to triumph. Unfortunatley, only 40% of baptized Catholics actually attend Mass regularly. If that can go to 60%, the whole political landscape will shift in the U.S. dramatically and permanently. The Depression Era FDR Catholic Democrat is dying off, finally, so every new devout Catholic means a conservative vote. Aslan: let's roll!
Thanks. Keep fighting the good fight.
Bud Macfarlane Jr., MI
You can visit Bud's website at www.catholicity.com
This deserves to be repeated - - as it is the key to a pro-life victory.
Pray and Fast for the Unborn!
And have you heard about the new evangelization effort taking place in the Catholic Church with materials from Paulist National Catholic Education Association. [PNCEA} Maybe I have the words wrong, there.
It is a wonderful program and following it many Catholic communities are choosing to run a "Welcome Home, Catholics" program.
To the sender:
Thank you for your e-mail concerning the performances of "The Vagina Monologues" at Notre Dame. The performances were under the sponsorship of the the Gender Studies Program and the Department of Film, Television and Theatre, and proceeds from ticket sales were donated to Saint Joseph County Sex Offense Services, a local women's shelter, and a national fund to aid Afghani women.
This is one of those occasions when the discordance of contemporary culture and Catholicism becomes very publicly apparent, but the fact is that the University's faculty and students confront this discordance continually in the course of examining the modern world. It certainly is true that the language of "The Vagina Monologues" is often crude and vulgar and that its world view is at odds with Catholic teaching, but could the same not be said for any number of modern novels, plays and films our students encounter --James Joyce's "Ulysses," for example? Should it not be read or taught or discussed at Notre Dame because of its sexual content, crude language, and rude treatment of Catholicism? Should Norman Mailer's novels, or John Updike's or Philip Roth's, or the plays of Edward Albee or the films of Martin Scorcese not be studied here? How much indeed of all modern literature, drama or film could stand up to a test of conformity with Catholic teaching?
Our contemporary culture certainly is not Catholic, nor even, many would argue, Christian; it is aggressively secular and routinely mocks the very notion of belief. A Catholic institution will not embrace that culture, but neither can a Catholic educational institution ignore it. "The Vagina Monologues" has become the centerpiece of a national movement to raise awareness and lessen the incidence of sexual violence against women. Along with the content that many find offensive, the Monologues include statistics and accounts of child sexual molestation, the systematic rape of Bosnian women, and female genital mutilation in Africa and elsewhere in the world. The movement that has grown up around the Monologues has attracted especially strong support on college campuses, including Notre Dame. How should a Catholic university community react to a phenomenon such as the Monologues? How should individuals react from the standpoint of their faith? Can one support the Monologues' positive aim, i.e., condemning sexual violence against women, while abhoring its moral confusion?
That is the debate taking place now in the Notre Dame community. It has filled the campus newspaper's Viewpoint pages over the past week and has been very much a "Catholic" argument, with students and others on both sides of the issue arguing from the standpoint of their faith. Whatever one may think of the content of the Monologues, is this not precisely the kind of debate that should take place at a Catholic university in a time and culture that render our beliefs so resoundingly countercultural?
Obviously, people of good will--and good faith--can argue the answer to that question.
Peace,
Dennis Moore