The Horrors of Diversity

Originally published in The Gonzaga Bulletin's 'Rear End', February 1, 2002.

It has come to my attention that your school is going through somewhat of an identity crisis. "Are we Catholic, are we not Catholic, should we be, and why?" seem to be the questions swirling about in your undergraduate noggins. Well, being nothing but my helpful self I decided I'd lend ol' GU a hand and clear things up a bit. I like to give back, that's all.

Anyway I think the best way to find out what a Catholic university is will be to take a look at what a Catholic university is not and go from there. This age-old debate has become a skid mark on the underwear of Catholic education, and since I now go to a "public" school in a lawless state, I believe I can shed some light on this greasy party and maybe even clear out some of the stench.

I go to law school at a large state university, and it is anything but Catholic. Each and every day at any given time there are hundreds and thousands of students having sex with each other. Not only that, but they are having protected sex. A shuddering thought, I know. Yes, there are condoms in the classrooms, birth control pills in the bathrooms and diaphragms in the depositories. Each day in the dorms gallons of bodily fluids are loosed upon the populace with reckless abandon. Saddening, yes. Shocking, yes. Real? Unfortunately, yes. Truly, this is a place of fornicating heathens.

But the saturnalia of sinfulness doesn't end there. Sometimes, and there are documented cases, students skip class to participate in sinful behavior. A friend of mine, let's call him Lucky Stiff, received a note in a psychology class from a girl who said she "was feeling horny" and to meet her outside of class. They then proceeded to use the remainder of the class period to perform a critically acclaimed re-enactment of the scene in Titanic where Jack and Rose get sweaty in a model T. He never even knew her name. Outrageous!

Here, dorm life is that of cheap '70s porn flicks. The RAs promote community not through service projects, but "service" projects, if you get my drift. The halls are lined with shag carpeting and mirrors on the ceiling. Clean-up rags hang from the bathroom walls disguised as "paper towel dispensers." The orgies have become epidemic and the STDs are rampant. Here, people get Hepatitis shots instead of Flu vaccines and an awkward silence is heard campus-wide every time that Aldera commercial comes on. Sure there's SEARCH, but from what I've heard they revolve around a search for someone known only as Poon and I'm told I have to sign up before I can learn any more details. All I know is that most people come away from the weekend looking extremely satisfied.

Then there are the retreats. Apparently these retreats are nothing more than a tag-team sex-a-thon, complete with mud wrestling and jello puddin' perversion. The sad part is that students are encouraged in these endeavors by past participants in an endless cycle of cult-like cants.

The student newspaper is nothing but a porn rag. Graphic depictions of campus life abound with reckless disregard as to who might be viewing it. Full spreads of the "Be Nude to Be Free" rally and "Co-ed Naked Twister" highlight the debauchery. Almost as dirty as the pictures are the words themselves: Words like (censored) and (censored) litter the pages of the campus publication.

The hardcover yearbook is a masterpiece in smut-gathering. An entire year's worth of sin is compiled for the perverted voyeur to drool over all summer long. In class, "group projects" become a swinger's paradise as students are selected at random to "work together" for a semester, a month, or sometimes just one class period. Shameful. Don't think the professors aren't in on it too. Just what do you think "office hours" here are all about? "See me one at a time, or in groups," one professor said. "My door is always open." Despicable! Some professors even go so far as to induce students to come talk to them "about their grade." I couldn't believe what I was hearing.

Then there are the weekends. Oh, the weekends, when the true hedonism begins. On Saturday, of course, are the day-long sacrifices to Satan and drinking of blood from pigs' heads, but that's no different than GU so I guess we can rest easy there. On Sundays a great many students do the unthinkable: They work! And of those many, a percentage of them work for heretical organizations like Planned Parenthood, Victoria's Secret and Starbucks. Some even work for a coffee stand called "The Loose Caboose". Unbelievable.

Here, anyone can come to campus and say what they want about anything. Abortions are mentioned along with the day's weather. Gays frequent the same facilities as the rest of the students and sometimes even gather to — gasp — sponsor campus activities!

Yes, being a Catholic at a "public" school sure has my mind reeling. The drugs, the sex and the orgies have taken their toll. It's a little hard to concentrate when you're sitting next to a Protestant in study hall and your professor is Taoist. What really sucks is when I'm headed for a drinking fountain and all of a sudden one of these heathens cuts right in front of me and takes a big swig. Then I have to go all the way home with cotton mouth rather than drink from the tainted spigot. The same thing happens in the bathroom, though the consequences can be a bit more dire.

The bottom line is there is no escaping these sinners and their sinful ways. They have infiltrated the entire campus, from the administrators right down to the food and beverage people. Can I eat beef stew if it's stirred by a Hindu? Can I really eat a hamburger cooked by a Jew? Can I sit in the dark with a Buddhist named Clark?

These are questions that I grapple with day in and day out but that, hopefully, you all won't have to answer until you enter the horrible, secular shock that is "the real world". Well, I hope this helped you in your noble quest for truth and Catholicity. Until next time, kids, don't forget to shun the heathens!


Copyright 2006 The Gonzaga Bulletin