Catholic high schools in California continue to host presentations of the condom-promoting play Secrets. The play is a promotion of the Kaiser Educational Theater program. It was written by homosexualist dramatist Patricia Loughery. Performance of the play seems to have become an annual ritual in some Catholic high schools, particularly in the archdiocese of San Francisco.

In the 2012-2013 autumn and winter season, according to the Kaiser Educational Theater calendar, Secrets was performed at San Jose’s Notre Dame high school on November 6, and at San Francisco’s Sacred Heart Cathedral Preparatory high school on November 19, and is scheduled to be performed at San Francisco’s St. Ignatius College Preparatory high school on February 12, 2013.

 

While the Kaiser Permanente informational webpage for Secrets notes that abstinence is the only safe option, Secrets offers condom usage as an acceptable practice, in violation of the teaching of the Catholic Church.

Beginning in 2009 CalCatholic has been drawing attention to the schools hosting the anti-Catholic play. On October 13, 2009, we reported “The play depicts a teenager who is HIV positive. Some content in Secrets was considered, by the Fremont, California Unified School District, to be sufficiently graphic to require that a permission slip be signed by parents before their child would be allowed to see it.” We reported Secrets was scheduled to be performed at Sacred Heart Cathedral Preparatory high school, Sacred Heart high school in Atherton, Mercy high school in Burlingame, and at St. Ignatius College Preparatory high school in San Francisco. The article also noted that the webpage of St. Ignatius indicated that performance of Secrets would be an annual event at the school.

On April 16, 2012, CalCatholic published a follow-up article. In the 2011-2012 winter season, performances of Secrets were down to only two schools in the archdiocese of San Francisco: Sacred Heart Cathedral Prep and St. Ignatius. But the web calendar of Sacred Heart Cathedral Prep stressed that attendance at the play was “Mandatory for ALL Freshman.”

The policy of mandatory attendance at a Catholic school contrasts with the policy of the public Fremont Unified School District. Fremont has published an extensive online imformational brochure for parents about Secrets. It includes a general description, describes certain scenes, and includes an opt-out form, should parents not want their children exposed to the play. While Sacred Heart’s web calendar listing for the most recent performance of Secrets no longer insisted that freshman attendance was mandatory, neither did they indicate that a parental “opt-out” was available.

Secrets was written by Patricia Loughery. A number of her other plays (Dear Harvey about homosexual San Francisco Supervisor Harvey Milk or The Daddy Machine about a girl with two lesbian mothers) seek to normalize homosexuality. From 2006-2011 Loughery coordinated the Queer Theatre — Taking Center Stage program of at San Diego’s Diversionary Theatre.

Contact:

Maureen Huntington, superintendent of Catholic Schools Superintendent’s phone is (415) 614-5660

Office of the Archbishop, San Francisco: 415-614-5500