About 80 Catholics gathered Thursday night outside Spirit Square in a prayer vigil to protest the performance of a play that they consider blasphemous.
David Hains, spokesman for the Catholic Diocese of Charlotte Diocese, said parishioners from St. Patrick, St. Matthew, St. Gabriel, St. Mark and St. Ann were outside the theater to pray the Rosary and hold a "Holy Hour of Reparation" - or prayers offered up in the face of a wrong they feel is being committed.
The play is "The Most Fabulous Story Ever Told," an off-Broadway hit comedy written by Paul Rudnick. It opened Thursday night in Charlotte and is being staged through Feb. 18 by the Queen City Theatre Company.
The play opens with two homosexual couples at the time of creation, and ends in modern-day Central Park in New York.
Bishop Peter Jugis, who heads the Charlotte diocese, has not seen the play. But based on his reading of a 1998 interview with Rudnick, Hains said, Jugis objected to what he considers a mocking of the Virgin Mary during the play, when one of the lesbians asks God for a child.
"The implication that the Blessed Virgin Mary is a lesbian is gravely offensive to Catholics, and to all Christians, who hold Mary in the highest regard," Jugis wrote in a Jan. 31 letter to the Blumenthal Performing Arts Center.
But a statement released by the Queen City Theatre Company said that is a misreading of the play: "It is obvious that (people who make that claim) have not read nor have they seen the play. (The character) Mabel is Mabel. She is not The Virgin Mary. She is a woman, whether gay, straight, or whatever, that is experiencing the divine gift and miracle of a child."
In recent years, the production of "The Most Fabulous Story Ever Told" has drawn complaints from a few religious groups. In Austin, Fort Lauderdale and Cincinnati, groups released statements and sent post cards condemning the play and announced plans to protest the productions.
In Charlotte, Hains said parishioners will gather in chapels or in homes every night the play is performed here to hold Holy Hours of Reparation.
Hains has also not seen or read the play, but he said he has read many reviews of it. "For a Christian, this play is very objectionable," he said.
But the Queen City Theatre Company, in its statement, said the production will "celebrate love, faith, belief, God, and the right to question why we exist and why are on this earth. This production will not be stopped out of fear or pressure."
