AWARDS
Lamplighter Award given to those fostering the light of truth in a dark world:
We thank President Shanley for his courageous position and beg St. Genesius,
patron of actors, to intercede for him. St. Genesius taught the truths
of the faith through drama. Legend says a performance on baptism and conversion
so enraged the pagan Emperor Diocletian he had Genesius tortured and beheaded.
May the intercession of this great saint inspire a renaissance in the
arts at Providence College.
To
Providence College President Brian Shanley, who
nixed the obscene play, The Vagina Monologues with an eloquent
defense of women’s dignity: “Far from celebrating the complexity
and mystery of female sexuality, The Vagina Monologues simplifies and demys-tifies
it by reducing it to the vagina. In contrast, Roman Catholic teaching sees
female sexuality as ordered toward a loving giving of self to another in
a union of body, mind and soul…. [A]ny institution which sanctioned
works of art that undermined its deepest values would be inauthentic, irresponsible
and ultimately self-destructive.”
Millstone Award given to those who through ignorance or malice scandalize God's people:
To
Catholic News Service, for consistently
undermining the faith in their articles, movie reviews, and interviews.
The poisonous influence of CNS affects Catholics all over the country,
because their articles run in most diocesan newspapers. CNS claims their
mission “is the mission of the Church itself – to spread the
Gospel through contemporary means of communication.” However, regular
readers of their material know CNS is liberal and politically correct.
They fosters dissent. We invoke the intercession of St. Francis de Sales,
patron of journalists for both CNS and those they scandalize. May this
brilliant Doctor of the Church intercede for all Catholic journalists
and writers, particularly those using their talents to mislead others
and distort the truth.