August
20, 2002 3:00
p .m. Lewdness
Abounding
Some
fancy people are responsible for sex at St. Patrick’s.
he incident
is not easy to read about. At Lexis/Nexis one tries, "Sex at St.
Patrick's Cathedral" and draws a blank. A newspaper account, reaching
for taxonomic neutering, spoke of "lewdness at St. Patrick's."
But the police, accustomed to direct language, told the story of what
had actually happened.
A couple, he
37, she 35, entered into a contest which paid premium points for having
sex in venerable quarters. The actors colluded with a broadcaster, advising
him where it was they intended to do their scandal. The prizes were very
specific, intending to reward the derring-do of progressively august sites.
Doing it at Rockefeller Center was worth 30 points, doing it with a cop
or a fireman, microphone standing by, got a whooping 100 points. Doing it
in a church got you 25 points. Not as big a deal as Rockefeller Center,
but 25 points is not nothing, you'd agree.
Well, the two exhibitors
lined up their broadcaster who followed them to St. Patrick's on a day
(the Feast of the Assumption) when it was crowded with worshipers, and
proceeded to fornication, the studio "comedian," as described,
standing a few feet off providing running on-air commentary of the act.
This was a high-act venture in coitus interruptus, because the cops swarmed
in. The exhibitionists were arrested, charged with public lewdness, and
released on $500 bail each, their lawyer insisting that her clients had
never removed their clothes, so how could they have had sex?; the comic
broadcaster, Paul Mercurio, was charged with acting in concert with public
lewdness; and the whole thing quickly recedes from memory, with the encouragement
of Lexis/Nexis. But it shouldn't be so. This was not an itinerant team
of street artists.
The whole operation was a part of a regular program called Opie and
Anthony, which has now been at least temporarily suspended. The radio
station that gleefully reported on the scene through its broadcaster Mercurio
wasn't a gypsy station. WNEW-FM is a part of the Infinity Radio network.
The Infinity Radio network is not an arm of Playboy, Inc. It is an arm
of Viacom. This is a giant corporation which owns not only New York radio
stations that sponsor pornography in church, but also huge divisions of
entertainment at large, including MTV and Blockbuster Video. The CEO of
Viacom is one Sumner Redstone, who is most directly answerable for WNEW's
exhibitionists, and the president is Mel Karmazin. Viacom has impressive
board members. They include a former congressman and minister, William
H. Gray III, who is head of the United Negro College Fund. Also Ivan Seidenberg,
CEO of Verizon, and David McLaughlin, former president of Dartmouth and
current chairman of the American Red Cross.
Now these fancy people
have a public responsibility, everybody agrees. That function isn't to
review every tape offered for sale by Blockbuster, or examine every video
broadcast by MTV.
But we have to assume
that public people should own up to public responsibility for studied
attempts to assault that which people hold sacred. We have had many reports
in recent years of desecrations of synagogues. None comes to mind that
was sponsored by a radio station owned by a corporate colossus. It is
inconceivable that were such a thing to happen, the highest officials
of the corporation would do less than express their profound sorrow, embarrassment,
and regret. As president of Dartmouth, Mr. McLaughlin dealt very severely
with undergraduates who, in his judgment, had trivialized shanties associated
with the South African liberation movement. McLaughlin knows the importance
of symbolism.
The program was Firing Line, the guest, Archbishop Fulton Sheen.
Question. "Bishop Sheen, you've got the reputation now of being remarkably
permissive. Is there any sin for which you would call for instant excommunication?"
"Yes. The desecration of the Blessed Sacrament."
That was done a few
feet from where Bishop Sheen gave the most celebrated sermons in 20th
century history.
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he incident
is not easy to read about. At Lexis/Nexis one tries, "Sex at St.
Patrick's Cathedral" and draws a blank. A newspaper account, reaching
for taxonomic neutering, spoke of "lewdness at St. Patrick's."
But the police, accustomed to direct language, told the story of what
had actually happened.
