In the “Weekend” section of the September 18th edition New York Times, several plays were advertised on one page. Four of them deal with Catholicism, one way or another: “Corpus Christi”; “Tony n’ Tina”; “Nunsense A-Men!”; and “Late Nite Catechism.” Their treatment of Catholicism, as even reviewers have noted, ranges from ridicule to blasphemy.
The Catholic League issued a news release on this subject:
“The play ‘Tony n’ Tina’ features an Italian Catholic wedding in which a pregnant bride on drugs interacts with a drunken priest. ‘Nunsense A-Men!’ is an adaptation of the play ‘Nunsense,’ only this time the characters are in drag; the nuns use drugs and hawk a Blessed Virgin Mary cookbook that contains sexual innuendo. ‘Late Nite Catechism’ ridicules the pre-Vatican II church in a way that its fans would label outrageous had the script targeted ‘progressive’ nuns. ‘Corpus Christi’ is Terrence McNally’s contribution to hate speech.
- “Reporters often ask me which segment of society harbors the greatest animus against Catholicism. They frequently think I will finger the media. No, I believe it is the artistic community that hates Catholicism the most; the higher education community is a close second. Why this is so has much to do with sex: our elites sponsor a libertine notion of sexuality while the Catholic Church preaches the virtue of restraint. Want to know which version liberates? The statistics kept by courts and morgues provide the answer.”
