Baylor, Baptists and Catholics

Here at the News, we met this afternoon with Dr. John Lilley, the new president of Baptist-affiliated Baylor University. At the end, I asked him what he thought of a recent controversy in which a campus satirical group, the NoZe Bros., paraded a member in a university ceremony dressed as a pregnant Catholic nun. Some Catholics on Baylor's campus were offended, and wrote to the campus paper to say so. What does he think? I wanted to know.

Dr. Lilley talked at length about how the NoZe Bros. are wacky and outrageous and sometimes take things too far. I asked him if he thought they'd gone too far this time. Well ... he never did take a position, though he did say he thought the best way to handle things like this was to laugh at them.

He might be right, and I strongly disagree with the letter Austin, Texas Bishop Gregory Aymond sent to the Waco Tribune-Herald, in which the bishop wrote, "While we have freedom of speech, this does not mean freedom to offend or to ridicule another person or his religious tradition." Of course it does! The bishop should have been more careful in choosing his wording. The point to be made here is that just because you have the legal right to do something doesn't mean it's morally right.

I would have hoped that Dr. Lilley would have defended the right of the NoZe Bros. to do their vulgar skit, but at the same time disapproved of it. This is Texas, after all, and Baptists do not historically have good relations with Catholics. A close friend who is now Catholic told me that growing up in Dallas as a Baptist, she often went on mission trips to bring the Gospel to all the lost Catholics -- Catholics who were lost because they were Catholic, and therefore not Christian. I'm pleased that relations have gotten a lot better in recent years, and I often feel that I have more in common with Southern Baptists than with some of my own co-religionists.

If the Baylor president thinks it's merely a laughing matter to have Catholics mocked in this vulgar fashion, then I applaud him for at least being honest with the Dallas Morning News editorial board, and not saying the politically correct thing. Still, I wonder if he'd say the same thing if the NoZe Bros. dressed in blackface, or mocked Jews or Muslims. On second thought, I don't wonder at all.