Drunken pedophilia, adulterous rape, encouragement of masturbation and lesbian seduction are a few of the repulsively tasteless acts performed in the play, The Vagina Monologues, written by Eve Ensler. This performance has no place on the campus of a Catholic institution whose mission is to promote the teachings of Christ as passed on through tradition and scripture. The Marquette Administration should be applauded for banning this performance from campus.The university mission explains that our Catholic identity is expressed in our “sponsorship of programs and activities devoted to the cultivation of our religious character” and our “support of Catholic beliefs and values.”
As such, Marquette should encourage moral behavior in accord with Catholic teaching. More specifically, Marquette should teach the dignified sexuality of a woman partnered with her husband. As an internationally acclaimed model of Christ, this Catholic institution should not, under any circumstance, be endorsing promiscuous sexual activity, as the Monologues do.
It is only fair to note that one intention of the play is to raise awareness about sexual violence toward women. However, this goal is executed in an inappropriate and ineffective manner that is lacking a clear and defined mission. For one example among many, the act of an adult woman molesting a young girl is not a fitting way to end sexual violence toward women.
As a Catholic institution, we should be encouraging our community to produce love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness and faithfulness. When a student puts down a deposit at a Catholic school, he or she does so with both the knowledge and expectation that a Catholic mission will be employed. Students invest in a Marquette education because they expect the Catholic perspective will extend beyond Sunday morning Mass. Due to this expectation, an endorsement of promiscuous and self-gratifying sexual activity has no place on our campus.
Marquette has an obligation to support the Church’s teaching on a woman’s sexuality that is dignified by the holy sacramental union of flesh. The Monologues, however, expose and encourage a self-gratifying sexuality that is contradictory to Catholic teaching. Consider the 72 year-old woman in one monologue who is encouraged by her therapist to masturbate. By placing so much emphasis on a woman’s sexual gratification, the Monologues implicitly reduce a woman’s sexuality to her genitalia and separate it from the matrimonial union.In On the Dignity and Vocation of Women, Pope John Paul wrote, “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 which she gives in return.” Her dignity is found in generous giving and receiving of love as exemplified by and through Christ; it is not found in her illicit sexual activity or in the intensity of her orgasms as the Monologues suggest.
Performing these monologues on a Catholic campus associates the mission of the Church with the themes of the play. As part of the Body of Christ, we are called to the notion of ad majorem de glorium. We are to manifest His glory at all times. Certainly the Monologues do not glorify sexual dignity expressed through the Catholic explanation of marriage and sexuality.
Banning the performance on campus is just that - a ban on campus. Although I do not encourage it, any member of the Marquette community is free to buy a ticket to the play or check out the script to read at his or her leisure. Marquette’s ban on the play is a necessary affirmation of Catholic teaching that should be emulated by any university that desires to act in accordance with its mission.
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