State of the Prfoession: Dante Comes to Kansas
By Martin D. Snyder
One can find real comfort in Dante's Inferno, where malefactors and ne'er-do-wells get the punishments they deserve. Scores of the rich and powerful from Dante's world appear in Hell's concentric rings, and not just political leaders. Peruse any illustrated Inferno, and you will find, among the pictured thieves, usurers, murderers, and traitors, numerous tonsured pates, episcopal miters, and papal tiaras. The ecclesiastical establishment was not spared Dante's spleen.
As Garry Wills has noted in his book Papal Sin, criticizing church officials with vigorous acerbity was scarcely unusual in earlier times. Today, many consider criticism of the clergy and hierarchy offensive. Hypersensitivity to clerical sacrosanctness occasionally reaches ridiculous depths, as it did in Kansas not long ago.
Washburn University, a public institution located in Topeka, has hosted a privately funded outdoor sculpture exhibition for the past eight years. Last fall, the Campus Beautification Committee selected five winners from ninety competitors. Among the five works on loan until July was Jerry Boyle's Holier Than Thou. The piece depicts the upper body of a corpulent clergyman wearing a bishop's miter. Critics of the sculpture claim that the miter is distorted to resemble a penis. (A photograph of the sculpture appears on page 17).
The base of the sculpture bears this inscription: "The artist says, 'I was brought up Catholic. I remember being 7 and going into the dark confessional booth for the first time. I knelt down, and my face was only inches from the thin screen that separated me and the one who had the power to condemn me for my evil ways. I was scared to death, for on the other side of that screen was the persona you see before you.'"
Holier Than Thou, although displayed without controversy around the country for more than ten years, rubbed Kansas Catholics the wrong way. The sculptor has been accused of Catholic bashing, and the piece has been called a blasphemous insult to the Catholic Church. In January, a student and a professor from Washburn filed suit to have the sculpture removed.
Testifying in federal court, James Keleher, archbishop of Kansas City in Kansas, characterized Holier Than Thou as "a mockery of our teaching and our faith and the authority of our church." University president Jerry Farley countered that art displays—even controversial ones—are an important part of educating students. Farley argued that colleges need the freedom to discuss and present a variety of ideas. He noted that college campuses are the places where "controversial issues can be discussed and perhaps should be discussed." Ronald Wasserstein, Washburn's vice president for academic affairs, echoed Farley's testimony. Removing the art work, he said, would have a "chilling effect" on the university. In February, the court decided in favor of the university.
The Washburn University chapter of the AAUP and the University Council supported the administration's position, as did the editorial page of the Topeka Capital-Journal. It stated: "A university is a place people go to learn how to think, to learn to discern between good ideas and bad ideas, to develop creativity." It went on to say that "controversy is actually a valuable part of the educational process. It teaches Washburn's students a valuable lesson about the real world: it often is difficult to stand by your principles when the easy thing would be to cave in to outside pressure."
Even as the judicial hearing continued, Catholics kept the pressure on. The archdiocese of Kansas City and the dioceses of Salina and Wichita banned Washburn recruiters from visiting their high schools. In a bizarre turn of events, the Wichita board of education voted 4 to 3 likewise to bar Washburn recruiters from its eleven public high schools. Lawyers for the Kansas Department of Education made the preposterous claim that the school district could ban Washburn's recruiters as long as it banned recruiters from all universities with offensive statues!
Washburn University officials expressed regret that the controversial sculpture offended some, but they defended the university as a marketplace of ideas. "Just as the plaintiffs object to this work of art, others might also object to what is being taught in the classroom or housed in the library," the Washburn statement said. And that brings us back to Dante. Though incontestably one of the authentic geniuses of the Catholic tradition, is hierarchy-bashing Dante the next artist to be deemed offensive in Kansas? Will recruiters from colleges and universities where the Divine Comedy is taught find themselves barred from Kansas high schools? Will right-wing practitioners of political correctness seize veto power over curricula at Kansas colleges and universities? Dante beware!
Martin Snyder is AAUP director of planning and development.
|