The Heritage Square Museum Church, in Los Angeles California, will premier a blasphemous, anti-Catholic opera Sancta Susanna, on October 24 and 25. This play, written in 1921, was so scandalous at the time — with its perverse, anti-Catholic message — that it took nearly a year to find any theater willing to perform it.
The opera centers around a nun, named Susanna, who is praying in a chapel. When another sister tells her of a renegade nun who had acted in an immoral fashion by stripping in front of a crucifix, Susanna repeats the act. According to a synopsis of the play: “Susanna falls into ever-intensifying mystic raptures, removes her clothes, tears the loin cloth from the crucified Jesus in a state of intense ecstasy, falls to her knees and looks up at the cross.” (Source: www.Schott-Music.com) When the other nuns enter the chapel, they encourage Susanna to repent of breaking her vow of chastity and confess her sins. She refuses, and asks to be buried alive like the previous renegade nun.
A recent rendition of the same play in Germany, and its subject matter and graphic nature were the cause of emergency illnesses from the audience. A description of the play in Los Angeles warns of “sexual themes” (source: onthestage.tickets/show/source
Whatever the graphic nature of the play, the performance is an offense against morality and a mockery of the Church. We cannot remain silent in the face of this sacrilege. Please sign our petition, demanding that Heritage Square cancel this blasphemous opera.