No, that’s not the spirit of Halloween we had in mind.
According to the University Calendar on the Loyola University Chicago website, an event titled “The Queens of Drag” was held last night (10/28) at the Centennial Forum Student Union on campus. The event page reads:
Taj Mahal, Dida Ritz, and the DGK Kings take to the stage to show the Loyola campus some gender-bending at its best! Performance to be followed by half hour Q&A with the performers.
Is the Q&A session an attempt at making the drag show vaguely academic? According to the flawed logic of some, events like this or The Vagina Monogogues are acceptable for a Catholic university if a panel of theologians discusses the event through a Catholic lens afterwards. But this is a Q&A with the performers!
“When Catholic parents send their children to a Catholic university they should be able to expect at least basic standards of decency and morality,” writes CNS President Patrick J. Reilly in a letter to Loyola President Fr. Michael J. Garanzini, S.J. “Events like this not only undermine the sacred trust parents have in Loyola University, but may lead to serious personal and social problems caused by confusion about sexuality. Drag shows debase the human person and are an affront to Catholic teaching on the dignity of the human person.”
This isn’t the first time a drag show has been held on LUC’s campus. In 2008, LUC’s “Official GLBTQ Organization” held a Costume and Drag Show which asked students to “Bring your dollar bills”. The Student Diversity and Multicultural Affairs journal reveals that the 2008 event was “Loyola’s first ever Drag Show”. The LUC Residence Life Herald from 2009 lists “Annual Drag Show” on a list of upcoming dates.
We alerted members a few months ago that another Jesuit institution, Santa Clara University, had held a drag show on campus last semester. When we brought the matter to University’s attention, the PR deparment informed us that they are reviewing the drag show’s “appropriateness in meeting Santa Clara’s educational objectives and respecting the University’s Catholic heritage.”
Adam Wilson
CNS Staff
Matthew Archbold
Charlotte Hays
14 Comments
I’m glad my kid chose Texas A & M. I was surprised when, after a year or so, she left the campus ministry for a Catholic parish elsewhere, but then I learned how the campus ministry trivializes the Faith. I am proud of my daughter for refusing to indulge such nonsense as bring-your-cell-’phone-to-Mass Sunday.
Even so, there were no cross-dressing events of which I am aware.
@Mack Hall
I don’t know what your daughter’s experience was, but Texas A&M’s Catholic ministry is the last place I could imagine finding a trivial approach to the faith.
In 2005, students at A&M took in members of my family when we were fleeing from hurricane Rita. While I was there for a month I saw the following at the campus parish:
* Students prayerfully protesting outside of the local abortion mill every hour that it was open, every day of the week.
* Students in scheduled Eucharistic adoration throughout the day, every day.
* Priests praying the Liturgy of the Hours with the students.
* Confessions provided daily.
* Scores of students at daily mass.
* 4000 students attending Sunday Masses each weekend.
* Students helping their peers through organized on-campus Bible studies.
* Homilies that didn’t pull any punches about Church teachings.
I was floored to see so many faithful students striving for holiness, not “feel-goody-ness”.
Our faith is not trivial, and Catholic Aggies don’t treat it that way. Next time you “learn” about something, consider taking your lessons from someone with more than 18 years under her belt before you bad-mouth folks you’ve clearly never had any dealings with.
The only light approach I see here is your understanding of “gossip”. Perhaps you ought to revisit that one in the Catechism.
goodbye good men by michael rose
If this were say, a Dominican university, that’s news. As it is Jesuit, meh.
Unfortunately, Patrick is correct. Keep your children away from the jesuits.
That should never be allowed. It is a form of anti Catholicism to have a show like that. Catholic students and their families had better begin to protest this sort of thing. It flies in the face of everything that is Catholic, including God Himself.
When will parents figure out that colleges like Loyola and Notre Dame are NOT CATHOLIC?? Maybe they used to be, but they haven’t been for many years. Wake up and smell the dissent, people!
As Brad said: find a copy of “Goodbye Good Men”.
My Dad is an alum and gives major $$$ to anything with the word Loyola. He won’t when he reads this!
The bottom line:
Catholics have more accountability before God since they have squandered the most graces.
For those who support pro-abortion, pro-corruption of family, pro-anything immoral, don’t fool yourselves. You are at risk of suffering hell-fire.
That is not an opinion.
Hell is definitely reality seen too late.
I love you all, and hence I share this message.
Alberto
Catholic
The headline did not surprise me. The fact that Boston College was not the institution in question did.
Consider infidelity an intra-Jesuit competition. Boston is in the lead, but Loyola is certainly giving them a run for their money. Marquette is lagging behind, ever since failing to seal the deal for a lesbian activist as Dean of Letters and Sciences.
I am a Loyola U alum and I stopped giving to them a long time ago because of their flagrant disrespect of the teachings of the Church. Why don’t these institutions wake up and see that faithful Catholic colleges are thriving while the unfaithful ones are failing? Also, something needs to be done about the Jesuits!
I should know better than to think that this comment will be received by anyone who reads this, but I still feel the need to say it. I am a student at Loyola. I study theology. I am a devout Catholic.
That being said, I am more appalled by the responses to this article than by the article itself. Since when is being Catholic synonymous with tearing down people for being who they are. Didn’t Jesus teach us to love one another, not to judge them ruthlessly? I’m pretty sure acceptance and love despite differences makes us more Catholic than protesting a drag show.
Whether or not you agree with the fact that some people are made by God to be different than others does not permit you to be so cruel. The Church does not teach that you can’t dress in the clothing of another gender. The only teachings the Church really has on homosexual actions is on sex itself. And this article says nothing about sex. It is a drag show, not an orgy. It is an opportunity for people to learn that others are made different. I would encourage each of you to sit down with someone and talk about their experiences. You may just learn something!