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Hastings College hired M. Joseph Willette after performance mocking Catholic Mass
A University of Nebraska-Lincoln doctoral graduate had no problem getting hired by a Christian college, despite a national controversy over his thesis project.
Hastings College, a Presbyterian school in Hastings, hired M. Joseph Willette to teach composition lessons during the last school year. However, a school official said he is not currently employed there this year.
All references to Willette were subsequently scrubbed after The College Fix started asking questions. However, his biography, archived by The Fix, specifically references his background. “With a doctoral cognate in musicology, their additional interests lie in the intersection of drag performance and gender identity in music and performance,” the bio states. Willette uses “they/them” pronouns.
Willette previously created a drag show “Mass” in 2025 to earn his doctorate in musical composition. Following College Fix reporting, and criticism from Lincoln Bishop James Conley, the school launched a secretive task force to review the matter. University leadership eventually apologized.
The performance, called the “Mass of Perpetual Indulgence,” drew widespread criticism both from the Diocese of Lincoln and national Catholic civil rights groups.
According to its abstract, the “Mass of Perpetual Indulgence” for chamber orchestra, electronics, soprano solo, and drag performer was written explicitly as an “appropriation of the traditional Mass,” intended “to bridge the gap between queerness and spirituality, to sanctify queer people and celebrate queer lives and communities.”
“Amalgamating musical styles ranging from disco to opera, art song to EDM”, the thesis states that the work “blurs the lines between the sacred and the profane.”
The piece utilizes traditional Catholic Mass prayers for its song names—including the Kyrie, Gloria, Sanctus, Credo, and Agnus Dei.
It features original text by librettist Caroliena Cabada responding to the “narrative of the Mass Ordinary from a queer perspective,” aiming to celebrate “the queer body as a holy body, queer community as a sacred communion, and carnal pleasure as a consecrated sacrament.” Cabada is currently an English instructor at UNL.
The libretto includes explicit references to the Catholic Sacrament, such as the line: “If there’s no wine, I’ll take your touch that feels like saving more than souls,” making parallels to the wine Catholics believe is transubstantiated into Christ’s blood.
Neither Willette nor Cabada responded in the past week to an emailed request for comment from The College Fix regarding the artistic goals of the work, the public controversy surrounding it, or Willette’s academic career.
Willette previously called The Fix a “conservative higher ed news tabloid” and said he “feels no need to defend myself or my work.”
.@UNLincoln graduate student Joseph Willette REALLY doesn’t like that the College Fix, which he calls a ‘tabloid,’ called attention to his anti-Catholic ‘Mass of Perpetual Indulgence.’ https://t.co/1ZAznOsi3t
— The College Fix (@CollegeFix) June 9, 2025
Willette is currently not on the payroll of the college, according to communications director Michael Howie.
“As is common with specialized music instruction, we hire instructors on a term-by-term basis depending on student demand,” Howie said in an email. “Dr. Willette taught individual composition lessons for a few students last year, but no students required those lessons this year.”
When asked for Dr. Willette’s contact information, Howie told The Fix that the professor’s college email is inactive, leaving “no way to get in touch.”
Hastings College did not respond to questions regarding whether the search committee evaluated the public controversy surrounding the “Mass of Perpetual Indulgence” during the hiring process, or how the institution balances artistic expression with sacred religious beliefs held by its own community members.
A Catholic education leader criticized the appointment.
Patrick Reilly,president of The Cardinal Newman Society, said Hasting College has drifted from its historical roots. Reilly referenced the biography of Cyrus Hall McCormick, a devout Presbyterian and founding donor to Hastings College, who wrote of his own concerns regarding societal trends: “I see a great deal of profanity and infidelity in this country, enough to make the heart sick.”
Reilly said appointments of faculty associated with provocative artistic expressions targeting religious traditions highlight a greater ideological shift among colleges that are supposedly faith-based.
“We live in very strange times, when for some people ‘man’ means woman, ‘scholar’ means radical activist, ‘higher education’ means ideological fanaticism, and ‘Christian education’ means juvenile immorality,” Reilly told The Fix.
“Hastings is one of many religious colleges in America that have abandoned their mission,” he said. “It was founded by devout Presbyterians for Christian formation, but today it promotes a vague ‘spiritual well-being.”
“Not only is it ludicrous that Willette would be awarded a Ph.D. for composing a subversive ‘mass’ clearly intended to offend Catholics, but to be hired to teach at an allegedly Christian college ought to offend Hastings students and benefactors,” Reilly said.
He pointed out that contemporary religious institutions are losing their distinct identity to ideological shifts.
“The joke’s on Hastings’ leaders, however. Ambiguous Christian colleges like Hastings probably can’t survive the increasingly tough college market, because they appeal to neither devout nor secular students.”
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