California Catholic Daily is scandalized, but I see it as a cause for celebration: a priest who can turn his dramatic talents to consider issues affecting real lives, that the rule-book Catholics prefer to ignore.
Since at least August, 2010, masses at Most Holy Redeemer have frequently been celebrated by Father Harry Cronin, CSC. Father Cronin is a published dramatist. He has won awards for his work, including a fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts. Father Cronin’s works include “Blind Faith,” “Dooley,” “Dark Matter,” “Exclusive,” and “Memoirs of Jesus,” which was performed at Most Holy Redeemer on March 20. A number of Father Cronin’s plays revolve around homosexuality.
But wait: are these “gay themed”, or Catholic-themed? The evidence seems clear – the plays named have some obvious gay content, as we can surmise, even without access to the text.
In 1986, Los Angeles’s Celebration Theater presented two one-act plays by Father Cronin: “Love of Comrades” and “In Love with Night.” The plays are not in print,(but they are included) in the ONE National Gay and Lesbian Archives and their performance at the Celebration Theater, (which was) “…incorporated in 1982 as a community theater to celebrate the positive creative and cultural aspects of the gay and lesbian community of greater Los Angeles.”
But unlike some outspoken opponents of homoerotic relationships, gay men themselves are interested in much more than simple genital acts. In its discussion of another of Fr Cronin’s plays, California “Catholic” Daily focuses on a single sexual incident in the life of the protaganist, Tom Dooley. I (and I suspect, Fr Cronin) am much more interested in the substantial Catholic theme running through Dooley’s life as a whole:
Tom Dooley: gay. Catholic - modern saint?
Father Cronin’s 1997 play “Dooley” is centered on the case of Dr. Thomas Dooley, a same-sex-attracted naval officer.
Somewhat oddly (but perhaps not surprisingly), this “Catholic” website completely ignores the more interesting part of the real life Tom Dooley – a Catholic whose humanitarian work has led to attempts to have him canonized as a Catholic saint. These attempts were not successful – but then, for the genitally fixated social conservatives, once a person has been fingered as same-sex attracted, nothing else in her/his life can possibly be of any value.
This is what I found interesting about Tom Dooley:
He was born on 17th January 1927 and died from cancer on 18th January 1961 at the age of 34. He became famous for his humanitarian and anti-communist works inSouth-East Asia in the 1950′s.
He was schooled at St. Louis University High Schooland attended college at the University of Notre Dame in 1944 and went to work in a naval hospital inNew York. After he returned to college and graduated he reenlisted in the navy and in 1954 he was assigned to the USS Montague and travelled toVietnam to help evacuate refugees.
In March 1956 he left the navy and travelled toLaos, North-East Thailand, to establish medical centres with the help of the International Rescue Committee. He founded MEDICO (Medical International Cooperation Organization) under which he built various hospitals across the region.
He returned to the US in 1959 for treatment of cancer and died in 1961 from a malignant melanoma. He was awarded the Gold Medal of Honour and there were failed efforts to have him canonized as a saint of the Catholic Church. He also inspired American President John F. Kennedy to set up the Peace Corps.
But California “Catholic” Daily is only interested in the salacious bits:
The play is described, “Dooley, lecturing in New York, picks up a young sailor named Carroll, later revealed as an agent for the U. S. Navy. They go to Dooley’s lavish hotel room. A dance of fear and seduction follows, in which Dooley attempts to seduce Carroll, despite his conflicted feelings. Dooley knows his Navy career will be over if his homosexuality is revealed, as sodomy is illegal. Carroll, on the other hand, openly responds to Dooley’s subtle invitations, hoping to get him to admit his homosexuality. The contest of sex and danger reveals Dooley’s innermost conflicts as well as the cruelty of the Navy’s attitude towards homosexuals.”
In fairness, the homoerotic encounter is obviously part of Fr Cronin’s play. But is it the only part? I have not read it, so cannot comment with complete authority – but I cannot believe that a Catholic priest, writing about a Catholic who was so celebrated for his humanitarian work that he was almost proposed for sainthood, should have ignored all of this, as CCD, does, to focus solely on the genital acts.
Another play by Father Cronin is “Exclusive.” The Dollee.com playwright’s website describes the 1997 work: “Tony Corvina has gone to interview fading Hollywood star Mark Trakman. Mark, knowing that Tony is gay, seductively only wears a short bathrobe.”
“Blind Faith” premiered at the 2009 New Conservatory Theatre Pride Season in San Francisco. The Coming Out Support News website’s Gay Agenda section has a description of the play: “Two teen boys fall in love in conservative Colorado Springs.” On March 30, 2009, “Blind Faith” was also performed at the First Stage theatre in Hollywood. First Stage’s blurb for the play: “The difficulty with ‘coming out’ to a conservative community.”
>Cronin’s most celebrated play is probably “memoir of Jesus”, but CCD does not want you to know that – perhaps they fear that such a disclorure might lead to the reasonable conclusion that a story about Jesus is also queer-themed?
