St. Joe’s joke not taken lightly

By Mark Costello
Collegian Editor
April 18, 2007

Time and time again, the American media prove that all mole hills can be made mountains with just the right amount of spin, false moral repugnance and controversy mucking. The paternity of Anna Nicole Smith’s kid was of the utmost importance for the longest time, and more often than not, the featured story on the Philadelphia Inquirer’s home page is a sentimental special interest story. Recently, the Philadelphia media has honed in on the student newspaper of St. Joseph’s University, The Hawk, whose yearly April Fool’s edition, The Squawk, made some jokes that offended rather than entertained.

The April 1 Squawk contained, amongst other absurd material, an article that described the divorce of Cardinal Justin Rigali, Archbishop of Philadelphia, from an anthropomorphized Catholicism, citing the cause of the divorce as Rigali’s coming out as gay (“Cardinal Rigali: ‘I’m gay’”). The editorial drew a comparison between Jesuits, the priestly order that runs St. Joe’s, to Nazis (“Jesuits: Nazis?”), and elsewhere in the issue, a fake ad promoted The Ignatian, “the first ever condom that combines unbridled lust with Jesuit spirituality.”

“Remember,” says the ad, “it’s the Catholic Condom.”

The ad also had a picture of Rev. Timothy Lannon, president of St. Joe’s, with a fake endorsement reading: “I approve of this product.”

The response from St. Joe’s decidedly conservative administration reminds us that condoms, Nazis and homosexuality are all rather un-Catholic, the reaction seemingly equating all three, placing them with equal weight in the figurative hellbound hand basket. April 4’s issue of The Hawk has on its front page an apology from The Hawk’s editor in chief David Spain, saying: “The Hawk, as well as its staff, strives for truth, fairness and respect. The Squawk did not reflect that integrity.”

He goes on to take full responsibility for the issue. Also on the front page is an apology from Vincent Jackson, Sam Narisi and Kevin Phillips, the students “responsible for developing, writing and printing the content of The Squawk,” apologizing to the offended parties, as well as to The Hawk staff.

“The Squawk,” reads the second apology, “is a yearly April Fool’s edition written and produced by departing seniors on The Hawk staff. It is traditionally meant as harmless fun, but we have abused the tradition. We regret our lapse in judgment.”

According to an April 5 article in the Philadelphia Inquirer (“College journalists apologize for satire”), the issue sparked a chain of apology, from the students to the school and from Lannon to Rigali. Spokespeople for Rigali express that he has accepted the apology and is impressed with how the school has handled the situation.

Untangle your panties, my friends and sensible readers. The Squawk was an intentionally senseless piece of satire, intended to humorously and shockingly cross the line. Anyone who read the aforementioned pieces with a rational eye would see the ludicrousness of the claims made. The Rigali article goes out of its way to concoct a sort of bitter sorority of world religions to which the Catholic ex-wife can run to after the divorce. The Jesuitical Nazi article merely uses the word Nazi without ever actually making any even semi-serious connection between the Jesuits and the hate group; the ad is too ridiculous to invite a serious reading. The issue as a whole goes out of its way to discourage people from taking it seriously, but that’s just what local media has done. By misconstruing a handful of pieces and ripping them from the context of a farcical, satiric newspaper, they present the articles and ad as irresponsible attacks on orthodoxy and upstanding members of the community—but this is precisely what makes the humor work. Rigali, Lannon and the Jesuits are such respected members of the St. Joseph’s—and Philadelphian—community that ludicrously unfounded and unsupported attacks on their character elicit a laugh. Will Ferrell, impersonating Harry Carey, once claimed Mother Theresa’s death wasn’t tragic to him because he, personally, wasn’t a big fan of hers. The humor here works because of course she’s loved by nearly the entirety of people who know who she is.

I make no claims as to the quality of The Squawk, the effectiveness of its humor or the methods of its editors and writers, nor do I advocate the position that satire has to offend to be funny. However, the media reaction to The Squawk illustrates a misunderstanding of the nature of its satire and demonstrates the media’s desire to milk even the smallest bit of controversy on a Catholic campus for all that it’s worth.

Calm down, everyone. A joke’s a joke, just as a joke paper is just a joke paper. Aside from Nazis, the true offensiveness of the situation may lie in the community’s outrage over the intermingling of Catholicism, homosexuality and contraception. Sensibility and rationality have been co-opted by the desire to be indignant, offended and self-righteous.

Just take the joke like grown-ups and, yes, quit your Squawking.

costellom4@lasalle.edu