Cathy and Rick on the Perfect Storm

Cathy Kaveny's new piece in America, "The Perfect Storm," linked  and commented upon by Rick below, is terrific, as usual, and raises an important challenge to all of us in Catholic schools. In observing the debates over The Vagina Monologues at Notre Dame and Loyola MD, and thinking about the issue's significance for my effort to develop a meaningful Catholic identity for the law school where I am dean, I am left with the conclusion that debates such as that one, while unavoidable, are a major distraction from what should be our real goals and purposes. In the public mind, and on many campuses, the question of whether an institution of higher education is authentically Catholic is defined primarily in terms of what it should NOT do, ie, permit the performance of the Monologues, allow pro choice speakers etc. Now, sometimes we must not do certain things -- those familiar with my career here at Villanova will remember that there have been circumstances in which we have not done certain things because they involved strongly endorsing unacceptable positions -- although Catholics of good faith can disagree about what those things are and when we should not do them. I would argue, however, that the performance (for example) of the Monologues at many Catholic schools is problematic not so much in itself, but because it is performed in a setting in which its point of view is not questioned, challenged or criticized from a thoroughly informed, sophisticated and well articulated Catholic perspective. We have voices saying "ban it," but how many voices do we have on our campuses willing to confront specifically and through reasoned criticism the challenges that it (or other arguments, points of view, beliefs etc.) pose to Catholic values? In other words, when something like the Monologues is presented on a Catholic campus can we respond to it through distinctively Catholic intellectual and moral discourse and criticism as an artifact of contemporary culture? Are our faculty and students able to understand its presumptions, values and procedures any differently than those in a secular school would?  If the answer to that is no, then we really are in big trouble.  So, for me, the question is not so much what we should exclude or not do, but what we should  do affirmatively to develop faculties and students who are able to engage critically with the culture and its artifacts in a way that expresses the Catholic world view and imagination. If we are not able to do that, then banning offensive productions from campus would be of little importance; the campus would already be lost. Our important task thus is building capacity for critical engagement with culture, which is what Cathy is challenging us to do. And I am glad to see Rick and Paolo essentially agreeing with her.

--Mark