I'm glad you called attention to father Jenkins's excellent initial statement, Jack. The case against the Vagina Monologues could hardly be put more succinctly and yet powerfully. It brings back to mind the great disappointment that so many of us felt when he reversed his position in the face of strong faculty opposition. Now I'd like to reproduce the reason he gave: "Thanks to the efforts of some faculty members, this year's performance of The Vagina Monologues was brought into dialogue with Catholic tradition through panels that followed each performance. Panelists presented the Catholic teaching on human sexuality, This is a good model for the future. Accordingly, I see no reason to prohibit performances of The Vagina Monologues on campus, and do not intend to do so." This is simply not the case. Only one panelist, a priest, said a word about the collision between the play and Catholic teaching, and he was not even present at all of the performances. His brief observations were met for the most part with silence, except for one panelist who said she will wondered how the church got to those positions. Almost all of the panel discussions consisted of heaping praise on the play and discussing issues entirely unrelated to "Catholic tradition " and "Catholic teaching on human sexuality." The tone was set by one of the professors' comparison of the play with St. Augustine's Confessions. lIn short, Father Jenkins's expressed reason for his reversal of field was a rationalization, not a sustainable rationale. One must look for some other explanation, and it seems plain enough that that explanation lies in the force of faculty opposition and the apprehension that a decision to ban the play would be portrayed in academe as a benighted "Catholic" suppression of academic freedom and free speech. Thus, we are brought once agan to the secularization of the faculty as the root cause. (There is a full description of the discussions on our website for anyone who cares to explore the matter in some detail.)