Carnegie-Mellon: Community Bankruptcy?

By Dr. Jeff Mirus ( bio - articles - email ) | May 02, 2013

Then there’s this from our Catholic World News service yesterday:

“At a campus parade sponsored by the Carnegie-Mellon art department, a female undergraduate marched wearing a costume meant to resemble that of the Pope, while naked from the waist down. She distributed condoms along the parade route.”

The bishop of Pittsburgh lodged a protest. Carnegie-Mellon responded:

“We are continuing our review of the incident. If our community standards or laws were violated, we will take appropriate action.”

If?

If it is perfectly all right for “art” to be used as a cover for personal, community and religious degradation? If sexual activities are intrinsically both public and non-moral? If all attacks on the Catholic Church are justified? If the morality of an action is always determined by the good intention of the agent? If, in reality, anything (that is not politically incorrect) goes?

Now consider an alternative scenario: In the same parade, a young man dresses as a priest and carries a trash can which bears a sign. The sign reads: “Freedom now! Throw off your slavery to sexual passion. Use your sexual powers only in the family context of procreation and irrevocable love. Begin by depositing your condoms here.”

Does anyone else sense that, in this case, there would have been no “if”?