Controversy Erupts Over Play Which Explores Gender and Religion

The main image from the poster which caused the controversy

A poster for a theatrical production at a Catholic university in Lima, Peru has sparked national controversy because of its title and the way a poster for the production depicted the Blessed Mother.  

Crux reported that the play, María Maricón, explores the “conflict between religion and gender through the deconstruction of several Catholic virgins and saints.” The play’s poster, which featured a man dressed in Marian drag, went viral, resulting in widespread outrage. 

Maricón is a non-translatable Spanish slur for a gay man, weighted with the same linguistic violence as “fa**ot”, but deriving from an entirely different etymology: likely from the name María itself, since calling a boy or man by an archetypical female name is intended to convey his effeminacy.

The play was planned as part of the Pontifical Catholic University of Peru’s (PUCP) theater festival. Despite the controversy, the school postponed the festival, originally planned for January, until March, but did not make a comment about the play and whether it will still be included.

Both ecclesial and political figures condemned the production, including Lima’s conservative Catholic mayor, Rafael López Aliaga. Carlos Waite, the man who posted the image of the play’s poster online, led several groups in a 500-strong demonstration on the university’ campus, and said that “Every Catholic in the country saw it as a blasphemy, It insulted millions.”

The Archbishop of Lima, Cardinal Claudio Castillo, who is also PUCP’s grand-chancellor, took an interesting position about the play.  He denounced what he called the poster’s “insulting publicity towards our Christian faith.” However, the cardinal, who is seen as a progressive protege of the late theologian Gustavo Gutiérrez, used the event to focus on a totally separate national Catholic controversy.  In his statement about the play, the cardinal added that “while there are at PUCP people who trivialize our faith,” there are also in the Peruvian church “sectors that name themselves Catholic that transformed faith into an ideology to dominate and destroy people” — an apparent reference to the now officially suppressed Sodalitium Christianae Vitae (SCV): the once-powerful lay association of Catholic elites whose abuse-driven downfall has rocked Peruvian society. 

Theologian Veronique Lecaros, the chair of the PUCP theology department, explained that the poster touched a nerve of popular piety and prejudice:

“Even people who don’t attend the Mass. . .are devout of the blessed hearts. That poster touched on a very sensitive element among the people.. . . [I]n Peru, homosexuality is a theme that is even more disturbing for many Christians than abortion, for instance. Traditionalist Catholics have taken advantage of the confusion to advance their ideas.”

The María Maricón controversy coincides with the imminent Peruvian bishops’ conference elections and might influence the outcomes. 

—Jeromiah Taylor, New Ways Ministry, February 24, 2025