March 2003 Alert: Sample Letters Protesting The Vagina Monologues

Please write to the president of the U. S. Jesuit Conference about the member schools featuring the lewd play, The Vagina Monologues. We encourage you to write also and to copy your letters to the Apostolic Nuncio and the Sacred Congregation for Catholic Education. It is essential that we put pressure on these institutions to tow the line on Catholic teaching. You may copy the letters below omitting the parts that do not apply and send them, or write your own expressing your own concerns. But please write. The scandal to our children is too great to ignore.

Letter to the President of the U. S. Jesuit Conference, Fr. Brad Schaeffer, S.J.

Letter to institutions which allow VM on their campus

Sample Letter to the
President of the Jesuit Conference

Fr. Brad Schaeffer, S.J.
President, U.S. Jesuit Conference
1616 P St. NW Suite 300
Washington D.C. 20036-1420

Dear Fr. Schaeffer:

I am writing to express my concern over the Jesuit schools featuring VM (The Vagina Monologues). According to the VM website and the Cardinal Newman Society these include Georgetown, Fordham, Holy Cross, Boston College, Loyola of Chicago, Regis College, University of Detroit Mercy, Xavier, John Carroll, St. Louis University, Creighton, Gonzaga University (production off campus), and the University of San Francisco.

No doubt you are aware, Father, that the play is a celebration of the lesbian lifestyle which incorporates all types of vulgarities into the script. It not only violates modesty, but borders on the blasphemous when a 16-year-old character calls her lesbian seduction her “salvation.” (This scene replaced an earlier controversial scene where a 13-year-old described her seduction as a “good rape.”) While the play ostensibly raises money for programs that fight violence against women, it glorifies lesbianism, a lifestyle where violence and seduction are common. For Catholic schools to support this is shocking and scandalous.

The Church document, Ex Corde Ecclesiae, gives a beautiful explanation of the function of a Catholic University. “[B]esides the teaching, research and services common to all universities, a Catholic university, by institutional commitment, brings to its task the inspiration and light of the Christian message. In a Catholic university, therefore, Catholic ideals, attitudes and principles penetrate and inform university activities in accordance with the proper nature and autonomy of these activities… A Catholic university pursues its objectives through its formation of an authentic human community animated by the spirit of Christ. The source of its unity springs from a common dedication to the truth, a common vision of the dignity of the human person and, ultimately, the person and message of Christ, which gives the institution its distinctive character.” [Emphasis added.] Father, The Vagina Monologues conflict with “Catholic ideals, attitudes, and principles,” with the “spirit of Christ” and with the promotion of the “dignity of the human person.” The lifestyle is one that incorporates masturbation (both alone and mutual) and promiscuity, serious sins against chastity. For Catholic colleges and universities to feature voices that glorify immorality is to violate the very essence of what it means to be a Catholic school educating the young..

I speak as a mother and grandmother as well as the president of an organization that advances an authentic vision of womanhood in imitation of the Blessed Mother. Promoting this type of filth, colleges violate the trust parents place in them. We should be able to expect that the virtue will be promoted and that our children’s hearts and minds will be raised to the true, the good, and the beautiful. What a tragedy when instead they are filled with evil and corruption.

The Vagina Monologues has become so common on Jesuit campuses over the past few years, that the order is becoming ridiculous. I believe it to be a serious problem that your organization needs to address among its member schools. There were a number of other schools that planned to feature the play including Wheeling Jesuit (which two of my brother-in-laws attended). Some cancelled because of protests. You can only expect these to increase as time goes on and more people become aware of this serious breach of responsibility by Jesuit schools.

I would appreciate being informed of what action the Jesuit Conference will take on this very serious matter, so we may transmit this information to those who receive our newsletter. Thank you for your attention to this matter. Be assured of our prayers.

Sincerely yours in Christ,

Mary Ann Kreitzer
President, Les Femmes
www.lesfemmes-thetruth.org

Copy to:
Most Rev. Gabriel Montalvo, Apostolic Nuncio , 3339 Massachusetts Ave., NW, Washington, D.C. 20008; His Eminence Cardinal Zenon Grocholewski, Prefect of the Sacred Congregation for Catholic Education,
S.J., Piazza Pio XII 3, 00193 Rome, Italy

Sample Letter to Colleges

Dear Father Malloy:

As a mother who has sent five children to college, I'm appalled at your permitting The Vagina Monologues to be shown on campus. Even the title of the play violates modesty, not to mention the content which is not only lewd, but promotes lesbianism and masturbation. Really, Father, aren't you embarrassed to have this material associated with a school named after the chaste and holy Mother of God? I know that "academic freedom" is the canard usually aimed at those who protest obnoxious material, but I really doubt you would allow a play treating Martin Luther King with contempt. Giving the devil a forum is never an option at a Catholic college.

I have a number of friends who graduated from Notre Dame and I plan to ask them to express their concern also. We are also sending the names of the Catholic schools supporting this to our readership.

May God pour out his Holy Spirit upon you as the spiritual father of the students under your care.

Sincerely in Christ,

Mary Ann Kreitzer
Les Femmes
www.lesfemmes-thetruth.org