Editor’s Note: The following is an article originally published on the College Fix on May 30, 2025. With edits to match Minding the Campus’s style guidelines, it is crossposted here with permission.
A doctoral student at the University of Nebraska (NU) recently orchestrated a drag performance appropriating the Catholic Mass for the final recital of his musical degree.
The performance imitated various parts of the Mass, including the Kyrie, Gloria, Credo, Sanctus, and Agnus Dei. It was hosted by Our Saviour’s Lutheran Church of Lincoln, Nebraska.
Two Catholic and conservative advocates told The College Fix that this “mockery” of their faith reveals a double standard in singling out Christianity and highlights a significant lack of academic rigor in university programs.
Doctoral student Joseph Willette said in an Instagram video that the performance “truly feels like the culmination of [his] past couple of years studying music composition as well as gender, sexuality, and queer communities.”
“At the core of this work lies the juxtaposition of the holy and the profane, the sacred and the sinful,” he said.
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The “sacred” is represented by the traditional Mass, while the “sinful” is shown in “the queer imagery and art forms,” Willette said.
A video of the performance was posted on YouTube, in which a drag artist can be seen performing near the front of the church while instrumentalists play on stage.
“Mass of Perpetual Indulgence for chamber orchestra, electronics, soprano solo, and drag performer was written to bridge the gap between queerness and spirituality, to sanctify queer people and celebrate our lives and communities,’’ the video description states.
“Amalgamating musical styles ranging from disco to opera, art song to EDM, this appropriation of the traditional Mass blurs the lines between the sacred and the profane,” it states.
Willette earned a doctorate of musical arts in composition at the Glenn Korff School of Music following the performance, according to the school website.
However, conservative critics condemned the performance as a bigoted mockery of the Catholic faith, arguing it should not be accepted by the school.
Peter Kwasniewski, a music composer and former Catholic seminary professor, told the Fix via email that the NU academics “who approved this mockery or applauded it should be called upon to resign their positions.”
“What we’re seeing at work is a double standard, rooted in the old anti-Catholic bigotry that stains the history of the United States of America,” he said.
“We know that in any other context whatsoever, a public mockery of anyone’s religion — let’s say, Islam, or Judaism, or Buddhism — would have been vetoed by the faculty and, if not, would have created instant furor and demands for apologies and retributions,” he said.
He also told the Fix that anti-Catholic sentiments on campuses “likely stem from a broader anti-Christian and anti-Western bias driven by revisionist progressives in politics and academia.”
These progressives “perpetuate debunked myths or ‘black legends’ to secure cultural dominance—though they tend to misuse whatever influence they gain,” he said.
Similarly, Minding the Campus’s Managing Editor Jared Gould told the Fix that “the student’s choice to mock a Catholic Mass through a drag performance, rather than, say, reciting a surah of Muhammad in drag, raises questions about selective targeting.”
“Why is Christianity, and specifically the one, holy, Catholic, and apostolic Church, so often singled out for such provocations? This disparity suggests a lack of equal scrutiny across religions, undermining the intellectual honesty universities should champion,” he said.
Further, the Western university system only exists because of Christian churches and the early guilds that cultivated intellectual communities rooted in both faith and reason, Gould told the Fix.
He also said tax dollars should not be funding public institutions that reward such “cliché and intellectually shallow acts” that “add little to the arts or free speech.”
“Universities debase their own legacy by credentialing fools with the highest degrees for such trivial displays,” he said.
Finally, Gould said these courses need to be thoroughly reviewed for their clear lack of academic rigor.
“Universities that endorse such nonsense have abandoned their purpose, choosing cultural vandalism over wisdom and failing to uphold the standards of the civilization they claim to serve,” he said.
The Fix reached out to the University of Nebraska media relations office, the Glenn Korff School of Music, and Willette via email multiple times in the last week for more information on the performance. None responded.
Image: “University of Nebraska” by Warren LeMay on Flickr
“Further, the Western university system only exists because of Christian churches and the early guilds that cultivated intellectual communities rooted in both faith and reason, Gould told the Fix.”
No Jared — the University of Nebraska is the result of a merger between a Normal School (teacher’s college) and a Land Grant College. Massachusetts’ Horace Mann started the Normal School (Teacher’s College) movement to train elementary school teachers and Vermont’s Justin Morrill’s efforts to teach “scientific agriculture and mechanical arts” so as to enable Vermont’s children to obtain a living from the rocky soil of Vermont (and not move out to Nebraska).
This is an important point when we discuss student loans because the very purpose of this institution was (and arguably still should be) to provide vocational training. Of course there was an interest in also making good citizens, but the primary purpose was the professional training for educators, scientists, and engineers.
That said, what I don’t understand is that if this “performance” was his doctoral dissertation, how he was able to avoid a public defense of it. At least at UMass, any professor with “Graduate Faculty Status” — in *any* field — could show up and ask me any question that he/she/it damn well pleased. None did, it was only my committee, but any professor could and in something like this — the check on something like this, is the professor of something else (e.g. Polymer Science) showing up and asking the questions that you did. Which should be asked for all the ones you asked and one more:
“Exactly what artistic merit does this have?”
It’s not just that it’s “cliché and intellectually shallow” but that it’s nothing but intentional inflammatory. Would you get a doctorate for shouting “Fuck Mohammed” at the top of your lungs?
And the worst part of all of this is that this schmuck, with his doctorate in music, is likely to wind up as the Director of Music at some K-12 school system where he can exhibit such judgment as he demonstrated here. And some rural Nebraska district will be glad to get him. Sad…..