NEWS & VIEWS
from a CATHOLIC perspective

      NEW YORK (CWNews.com) - The controversial play "Corpus Christi" opened in New York on Tuesday, fulfilling the worst fears of Christian critics who feared it would portray Christ and His apostles as homosexuals.

      The play, written by award-winning playwright Terence McNally, portrays a modern-day Christ-figure, Joshua, and his apostles with whom he engages in homosexual activity. The Catholic League for Civil and Religious Rights has opposed the play since it was made public in May, and has called it "sick beyond words."

      Catholic League president William Donohue led hundreds of protesters outside the Manhattan theater, denouncing the play as hate speech. But counter-protesters said the performance was a free-speech issue. "Given how radical Jesus was, there is no doubt which side he'd be on tonight," Episcopal priest the Rev. Richard McKeon said. "He was always annoying the church elders, and would probably be equally glad to anger the Catholic Church," an institution McKeon said "can have extreme power to control what people see and cannot see."

      In the scenes most offensive to critics, Jesus maintains a homosexual affair with Judas, a cigarette-smoking Virgin Mary advises against listening to the advice of nuns, the Last Supper degenerates in a drunken stupor, and Jesus performs a same-sex wedding between the apostles James and Bartholomew while denouncing a critical Jewish rabbi as a bigot.