Traditionalists' video charges 'distorted': panel upholds school; talk radio trashed it

National Catholic Reporter, July 14, 1995 by William Bole

Last spring, talk radio in Baltimore and some other parts of the country rumbled with the startling story of a Catholic high school for girls that allegedly spread hard-core pornography, taught 10th-graders how to masturbate and recruited students to become lesbians.

At the center of the talk-show tempest was Notre Dame Preparatory School, run by a teaching order of nuns in the Maryland suburb of Towson. Lending credibility to the strange news was the Baltimore Sun newspaper and, with a hurried and alarming response, Baltimore Cardinal William Keeler.

Several months later, an investigation ordered by Keeler has turned up pretty much what the sisters said it would -- nothing.

"In the course of the assessment, it became clear that many statements were based on inaccurate information and, sadly, took the form of innuendo and in some cases deliberate distortion," Keeler said in a letter to the school that accompanied the investigative report.

"A great disservice has been done to dedicated educators by tactics of gossip and slander contrary to the gospel way that Jesus teaches and that gives guidance to the law of the church," Keeler said. He was alluding to a campaign against Notre Dame Prep by a small group of self-described "traditional Catholics."

What Keeler failed to mention is that he helped stir the media excitement last March. Through a spokesman, he denounced a video documentary on pornography shown each year to graduating students, calling it "appalling" and "inappropriate." Keeler said he was distressed after viewing the tape.

The video, titled "Not a Love Story," was part of a workshop on sexual violence in the media, coordinated by the school's religion department. It contained graphic and disturbing scenes from hard-core pornographic films, in the context of a strong anti-pornography message.

The film was shown at evening workshops. Attendance was voluntary and required parental permission. Students also had to agree to stay afterward to discuss the movie's contents.

Administrators acknowledged that the parental permission slip sent out before last year's showing omitted a description of the film's explicit content, but noted that the nature of the film's content was discussed in classes leading up to the workshop.

Under the headline, "Notre Dame Prep ordered to stop using video on sex: Cardinal responds to parents' outcry," a Baltimore Sun article referred to the "controversial sex video used in religion instruction."

For a week or more, talk of a pornographic video shown to Catholic school girls dominated radio call-in shows in Baltimore, including the nationally syndicated Alan Keyes program, "America's Wake-Up Call: The Alan Keyes Show." In its continuing coverage of the affair, The Wanderer, a national conservative Catholic weekly published in St. Paul, Minn., has described the documentary as a "XXX-rated video."

And, in an anonymous spate of telephone calls to parents and unsigned flyers tucked under windshield wipers in parish parking lots, the dissemination of hard-core pornography was only one of the alleged offenses of which teachers at Notre Dame Prep were accused.

On talk radio shows, lurid accounts of life at the suburban school were called in by unnamed accusers, like "Bob in Essex," "Mary from Towson," and "Bill on a car phone," as the Baltimore Catholic Review newspaper later noted in an editorial criticizing the airwave anonymity.

Students who phoned in to refute the accusations said they were treated brusquely by talk radio hosts. Erin Howe, a sophomore at Notre Dame Prep, for example, said that when she called to say the school teaches only Catholic doctrine, the host ridiculed her for acting as "a puppet" of the Notre Dame sisters.

The controversy at Notre Dame Prep, which continues despite exoneration by the archdiocese, reflects, in part, how today's coarse quality of social debate -- talk radio being a ready example -- can intrude upon the religious realm as well as the secular. It highlights division over the goals of Catholic education, sex education in particular, and it also serves as an indicator of the increasing discontent of some Catholics who consider themselves orthodox.

Critics say the truth of what is happening at Notre Dame Prep has been covered up or distorted by the School Sisters of Notre Dame who run the school and by the archdiocese. An investigative team appointed by Keeler, president of the National Conference of Catholic Bishops, gave the school a glowing evaluation.

Paul Van Sant, an investment counselor who pulled his daughter out of the prep school in March, said those raising concerns about Notre Dame Prep have remained mostly anonymous because they fear retaliation by school authorities.

"They (the sisters) have tried to stonewall. They have tried to intimidate the parents for even speaking their minds," said Van Sant, one of the few critics who has spoken out publicly. Van Sant said he plans to start a "traditional Catholic school" that would operate independently of the institutional church.