Lex Anteinternet: Friday, November 6, 1942. The Church of England does away with the requirement that women wear hats in Church.

Lex Anteinternet: Friday, November 6, 1942. The Vichy French Surren...: The Church of England abolished its rule requiring women to wear hats in church.

This is an oddly controversial topic among a select group of people even today.

Catholic female factory workers attending a Palm Sunday Mass after getting off work, 1943.

I wasn't aware of the Church of England rule, nor why it was abolished at this point in time.  That it existed, however, isn't surprising, as even though "High Church" Anglicans are critical of the Catholic Church in some ways, they very much lean into it as well.  Indeed, attending a High Church Anglican service gives a glimpse of some of the things that existed in the Catholic Mass long ago, and most older Anglican Churches retain their alter rails.

At any rate, while this may surprise some, in the Latin Rite of the Catholic Church it was a custom, not a law, that women wear head coverings up until the promulgation of the 1917 Code of Canon Law, which required women to wear a head covering and precluded men from wearing hats in church.  While this was the Canon Law, as of 1917, it was also the custom at the time as well, in any event.  Also, contrary to what some may suppose, it was only the Latin Rite that imposed these conditions, not hte Catholic Church as a whole.

The 1917 Code remained in effect until 1983, when a new one was promulgated. The 1983 Code removed the requirement that women wear head coverings. By that time, however, the practice had fallen completely away in much of the Western World anyhow.  I can't recall at all a time in which women generally wore head coverings in church, although a review of old photographs of weddings and the like shows that they certainly did well into the early 1960s.  Perhaps they were a casualty of the trend towards ever-increasing informality in the west, or perhaps it was something that the "spirit" of Vatican II reforms brought about, or both.

Oddly, however, in recent years, in Catholic circles, it's seen a bit of a revival.  There were always some who regarded female head coverings as Biblically mandated, citing St. Paul's letter to the Corinthians, in which he states, in part:

But I want you to know that Christ is the head of every man, and a husband the head of his wife,and God the head of Christ.

Any man who prays or prophesies with his head covered brings shame upon his head.

But any woman who prays or prophesies with her head unveiled brings shame upon her head, for it is one and the same thing as if she had had her head shaved.

For if a woman does not have her head veiled, she may as well have her hair cut off. But if it is shameful for a woman to have her hair cut off or her head shaved, then she should wear a veil.

 A man, on the other hand, should not cover his head, because he is the image and glory of God, but woman is the glory of man.

For man did not come from woman, but woman from man; nor was man created for woman, but woman for man; for this reason a woman should have a sign of authority on her head, because of the angels.

Woman is not independent of man or man of woman in the Lord.

For just as woman came from man, so man is born of woman; but all things are from God.h

Judge for yourselves: is it proper for a woman to pray to God with her head unveiled?

Does not nature itself teach you that if a man wears his hair long it is a disgrace to him, whereas if a woman has long hair it is her glory, because long hair has been given [her] for a covering?

St. Paul is, truly, the most ignored Apostle and the one most likely to make almost everyone in the modern world uncomfortable.  At any rate, some people have read this to mean that women must wear head coverings in church.

I'm not really qualified to comment on it, but I'd note that this was the subject of an article relatively recently in US Catholic, which stated, in part:

A hairy problem

Personally, I think it’s a no-brainer that the changes in the 1983 Canon gave us all freedom of choice about headgear. But a simple Google search convinces me this a matter that still isn’t settled in the minds of some Catholics.

Msgr. Charles Pope addressed this issue in a blog called “Community in Mission” on the Archdiocese of Washington’s website. It’s interesting that he calls the piece, dated May 19, 2010, “Should Women Cover Their Heads in Church?” Like it’s still a matter of debate.

It’s even more interesting how he starts out: “Now be of good cheer. This blog post is meant to be a light-hearted discussion of this matter.”

While admitting that the church currently has “NO rule” on hat wearing, he offered his thoughts to “try and understand the meaning and purpose of a custom that, up until rather recently was quite widespread in the Western Church.” He explains that even before the 1917 mandate, it was customary in most places for women to wear some kind of head covering.

He also tries to explain how the church got tangled up with this hat stuff in the first place. The reasoning is not easy to understand. He points to tradition and custom as well as feminine humility and submission.

I’m not weighing in on this one; I’ll defer to Msgr. Pope. He notes that in biblical times Jewish women often wore veils or mantillas in public worship. This custom got carried over to the New Testament by virtue of St. Paul’s letters, particularly 1 Corinthians 11:1–11, which takes up the topic of head coverings for women and men:

“For if a woman does not have her head veiled, she may as well have her hair cut off. But it is shameful for a woman to have her hair cut off or her head shaved, then she should wear a veil. A man, on the other hand, should not cover his head, because he is the image and glory of God, but woman is the glory of man.”

Msgr. Pope calls this a “complicated passage” with “some unusual references,” and goes on to say that Paul sets forth four arguments in it as to why a woman should cover her head. “Argument 1—Paul clearly sees the veil as a sign of her submission to her husband.” A second argument, based on custom or accepted tradition, is pretty straight forward and reasonable. Don’t ask me to explain the two remaining “arguments.” Even Pope concedes that Paul’s claims in the passage—that women should wear veils “because of the angels” and “nature”—are more “difficult references to understand.”

Heading forward

So who knows? Whether it was due to custom, a fascination with Victorian mores, or thinly-veiled patriarchy, the fact remains: After centuries of ignoring the matter, the church decided to codify regulations on head coverings in 1917 and to say nothing about them when it changed its own rules in 1983. For 66 years, milliners had a good run.

Of course, with the women’s liberation movement, most women had stopped wearing hats to church anyway. The whole idea of covering the head was a sign that had lost its meaning and even taken on a negative connotation in mainstream society. Besides, in the 1970s, in a document titled Inter Insigniores (On the Question of Admission of Women to the Ministerial Priesthood), the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith had already linked wearing chapel veils with customs that were “scarcely more than disciplinary practices of minor importance” and obligations that “no longer have a normative value.” The 1983 Code change just put the nail in the coffin.

Of course, some may still beg to differ. You have to wonder why church leaders like Cardinal Burke and Msgr. Pope would even feel the need to take up this issue. Chalk it up to the fact that old habits die hard and no one likes change but a wet baby. Today, traditional Catholic blogs advocate not only a return to the Latin Mass but pre-Vatican II accouterments like vintage attire for priests and nuns. Could a push for veils in the pews be the next big thing?

I wouldn’t bet on it.

I wouldn't either.

Let's take a look at the Msgr blog entry.  It states:

Should Women Cover Their Heads in Church?

Now be of good cheer. This blog post is meant to be a light-hearted discussion of this matter. The bottom line is that the Church currently has NO rule on this matter and women are entirely free to wear a veil or a hat in Church or not.

I thought I’d blog on this since it came up in the comments yesterday and it occurred to me that it might provoke an interesting discussion. But again this is not meant to be a directive discussion about what should be done. Rather an informative discussion about the meaning of head coverings for women in the past and how such customs might be interpreted now. We are not in the realm of liturgical law here just preference and custom.

What I’d like to do is to try and understand the meaning and purpose of a custom that, up until rather recently was quite widespread in the Western Church.

With the more frequent celebration of the Traditional Latin Mass, the use of the veil is also becoming more common. But even at the Latin Masses I celebrate, women exhibit diversity in this matter. Some wear the longer veil (mantilla) others a short veil. Others  wear hats. Still others wear no head covering at all.

History – the wearing of a veil or hat for women seems to have been a fairly consistent practice in the Church in the West until fairly recently. Practices in the Eastern and Orthodox Churches have varied. Protestant denominations also show a wide diversity in this matter. The 1917 Code of Canon Law in  the Catholic Church mandated that women wear a veil or head covering. Prior to 1917 there was no universal Law but it was customary in most places for women to wear some sort of head covering. The 1983 Code of Canon Law made no mention of this requirement and by the 1980s most women, at least here in America, had ceased to wear veils or hats anyway. Currently there is no binding rule and the custom in most places is no head covering at all.

Scripture – In Biblical Times women generally wore veils in any public setting and this would include the Synagogue. The clearest New Testament reference to women veiling or covering their head is from St. Paul:

But I want you to know that Christ is the head of every man, and a husband the head of his wife, and God the head of Christ. Any man who prays or prophesies with his head covered brings shame upon his head.  But any woman who prays or prophesies with her head unveiled brings shame upon her head, for it is one and the same thing as if she had had her head shaved.  For if a woman does not have her head veiled, she may as well have her hair cut off. But if it is shameful for a woman to have her hair cut off or her head shaved, then she should wear a veil.  A man, on the other hand, should not cover his head, because he is the image and glory of God, but woman is the glory of man. For man did not come from woman, but woman from man; nor was man created for woman, but woman for man;  for this reason a woman should have a sign of authority on her head, because of the angels. Woman is not independent of man or man of woman in the Lord. For just as woman came from man, so man is born of woman; but all things are from God.  Judge for yourselves: is it proper for a woman to pray to God with her head unveiled? Does not nature itself teach you that if a man wears his hair long it is a disgrace to him, whereas if a woman has long hair it is her glory, because long hair has been given (her) for a covering? But if anyone is inclined to be argumentative, we do not have such a custom, nor do the churches of God. (1 Cor 11:1-11)

This is clearly a complicated passage and has some unusual references. Paul seems to set forth four arguments as to why a woman should wear a veil.

1. Argument 1 – Paul clearly sees the veil a woman wears as a sign of her submission to her husband. He also seems to link it to modesty since his references to a woman’s  hair cut short were references to the way prostitutes wore their hair and his reference to a shaved head was the punishment due an adultress. No matter how you look at it such arguments aren’t going to encourage a lot of women to wear a veil today. It is a true fact that the Scriptures consistently teach that a wife is to be submitted to her husband. I cannot and will not deny what God’s word says even though it is unpopular. However I will say that the same texts that tell a woman to be submitted tell the husband to have a great and abiding love for his wife. I have blogged on this “difficult” teaching on marriage elsewhere and would encourage you to read that blog post if you’re troubled or bothered by the submission texts. It is here: An Unpopular Teaching on Marriage. That said, it hardly seems that women would rush today to wear veils to emphasize their submission to their husband.

2. Argument 2 – Regarding the Angels– Paul also sees a reason for women to wear veils “because of the angels.” This is a difficult reference  to understand. There are numerous explanations I have read over the years. One of the less convincing ones is that the angels are somehow distracted by a woman’s beauty. Now the clergy might be 🙂 but it just doesn’t seem likely to me that the angels would have this problem. I think the more convincing argument is that St. Paul has Isaiah in mind who wrote: I saw the Lord seated on a high and lofty throne, with the train of his garment filling the temple. Seraphim were stationed above; each of them had six wings: with two they veiled their faces, with two they veiled their feet, and with two they hovered aloft.(Is 6:2-3). Hence the idea seems to be that since the angels veil their faces (heads) it is fitting for women to do the same. But then the question, why not a man too? And here also Paul supplies an aswer that is “difficult” for modern ears: A man, on the other hand, should not cover his head, because he is the image and glory of God, but woman is the glory of man. For man did not come from woman, but woman from man. In other words a man shares God’s glory immediately whereas a woman does as well but derivatively for she was formed from Adam’s wounded side. Alas this argument too will not likely cause a run on veil sales.

3. Argument 3 – The argument from “nature” – In effect Paul argues that since nature itself veils a woman with long hair and this is her glory that this also argues for her covering her head in Church. What is not clear is that, if nature has already provided this covering, why then should she cover her covering? I want to take up this notion of glory in my conclusion.

4. Argument 4-  The Argument from Custom–  This argument is pretty straight-forward: Paul says it is customary for a woman to cover her head when praying and, other things being equal, this custom should be followed. Paul goes on to assert that those who insist on doing differently are being “argumentative.” In effect he argues that for the sake of good order and to avoid controversy the custom should be followed. However, in calling it a custom, the text also seems to allow for a time like ours where the custom is different. Customs have stability but are not usually forever fixed. Hence, though some argue that wearing veils is a scriptural norm that women “must” follow today, the use of the word custom seems to permit of the possibility that it is not an unvarying norm we are dealing with here. Rather, it is a custom from that time that does not necessarily bind us today. This of course seems to be how the Church understands this text for she does not require head coverings for her daughters.

Conclusions –

1. That women are not required to wear veils today is clear in terms of Church Law. The argument that the Church is remiss in not requiring this of her daughters is hard to sustain when scriptures attach the word “custom” to the practice.

2. I will say however that I like veils and miss women wearing them. When I was a boy in the 1960s my mother and sister always wore their veils and so did all women in those days and I remember how modestly beautiful I found them to be. When I see women wear them today I have the same impression.

3. That said, a woman does not go to Church to please or impress me.

4. It is worth noting that a man is still forbidden to wear a hat in Church. If I see it I go to him and ask him to remove it. There  a partial exception to the clergy who are permitted to wear birettas and to bishops who are to wear the miter. However, there are strict rules in this regard that any head cover is to be removed when they go to the altar. Hence,  for men,  the rule, or shall we say the custom, has not changed.

5. Argument 5 – The Argument from Humility – This leads me then to a possible understanding of the wearing of the veil for women and the uncovered head for the men that may be more useful to our times. Let’s call it The Argument from Humility.

For both men and women, humility before God is the real point of these customs. In the ancient world as now, women gloried in their hair and often gave great attention to it. St. Paul above,  speaks of a woman’s hair as her glory. As a man I am not unappreciative of this glory. Women do wonderful things with their hair. As such their hair is part of their glory and, as St. Paul says it seems to suggest above  it is appropriate to cover our glory before the presence of God.

As for men, in the ancient world and to some lesser extent now, hats often signified rank and membership. As such men displayed their rank and membership in organizations with pride in the hats they wore. Hence Paul tells them to uncover their heads and leave their worldly glories aside when coming before God. Today men still do  some of this (esp. in the military) but men wear less hats in general. But when they do they are often boasting of allegiances to sports teams and the like. Likewise, some men who belong to fraternal organizations such as the various Catholic Knights groups often  display ranks on their hats. We clergy do this as well to some extent with different color poms on birettas etc. Paul encourages all this to be left aside in Church. As for the clergy, though we may enter the Church with these ranked hats and insignia, we are to cast them aside when we go to the altar. Knights organizations are also directed  to set down their hats when the Eucharistic prayer begins.

I do not advance this argument from humility to say women ought to cover their heads, for I would not require what the Church does not. But I offer the line of reasoning as a way to understand veiling in a way that is respectful of the modern setting, IF  a woman chooses to use the veil. Since this is just a matter of custom then we are not necessarily required to understand its meaning in exactly the way St. Paul describes. Submission is biblical but it need not be the reason for the veil. Humility before God seems a more workable understanding especially since it can be seen to apply to both men and women in the way I have tried to set it forth.

There are an amazing number of styles when it comes to veils and mantillas: Mantillas online

This video gives some other reasons why a woman might wear a veil. I think it does a pretty good job of showing some of the traditions down through the centuries. However I think the video strays from what I have presented here in that it seems to indicate that women ought to wear the veil and that it is a matter of obedience. I do not think that is what the Church teaches in this regard. There can be many good reasons to wear the veil but I don’t think we can argue that obedience to a requirement is one of them.

As noted, I'm not qualified to opine on this, and I'm loath to not take St. Paul at his word, but in some ways what I think St. Paul is instructing on here is simply to "dress decent".  That changes, quite frankly, over time, and varies by culture.

Indeed, on this, I heard awhile back an interview of an Easter Rite icon painter who was disturbed by the rich Renaissance art in Latin Rite churches.  His view was that the paintings bordered on indecency (well, he thought they were indecent but was too polite to say so) as seeing the naked or mostly naked body of a woman was strictly limited to her spouse.  St. Paul is saying something that's sort of in the same ballpark, a bit.  Having lived through the wrecking ball of the late 70s and early 80s in clothing standards, I can get that, as there was a time in there in which I'd see clothing at Mass that was occasionally indecent.  It might be the case that St. Paul is instructing people not to put themselves on display, and as recently as a few months ago I was at a Mass at which an attractive young woman with very long hair was constantly addressing it, for lack of a better way to state it.

No, she wasn't being indecent.  Yes, it was hard not to notice, but not in an indecent way.

Anyhow, as the articles above note, veils and even rarely hats at Mass are making a little bit of a comeback, but when you see them, they're making, usually, a bit of a statement. The women wearing them is usually some sort of Catholic Traditionalist.  That can be a bit distracting in its own right, but I don't mean to criticize it either.

Indeed, again by way of an example, some time ago I attended an early Holy Day Mass in which two young women, either on their way to work, or maybe to school, sat in front of me.  One was very well turned out, but in a modern fashion.  A nice wool seater paired with a nice leather skirt. She was wearing what we call inaccurately a veil.  Her friend in contrast was wearing jeans, etc. The veiled young woman also cut, in her apparel, an attractive presence.

Where am I going with this?  

Well, nowhere really.  I'm just noting another clothing change here that's taken place over time, the second in one day, really.

Before closing, I'd note that the "veil" or "chapel veil" is a "mantilla".  I know that my mother had some, as all Catholic women did.  No idea what happened to them.

A friend of mine actually recent got his wife, a convert from the Baptist faith, one.  He was asking me about it at the time, and I had no advice of any kind.  I don't know where you get them, etc.  He wasn't sure how she would take it, and I never followed up to find out.

By the way, my wife wouldn't wear a veil at church.  No way.

Also, back when head coverings were required, mantillas weren't required, just a head covering.  I recall my grandmother wearing a hat, usually of the pillbox type, and occasionally my mother doing so as well.

Churches of the West: Pope Francis' Urbi et Orbi blessing 2022

Churches of the West: Pope Francis' Urbi et Orbi blessing 2022:   Dear brothers and sisters, Happy Easter! Jesus, the Crucified One, is risen! He stands in the midst of those who mourned him, locked behin...

Lex Anteinternet: Cliffnotes of the Zeitgeist Part XXVII. The Pope Francis Followup Edition.

Lex Anteinternet: Cliffnotes of the Zeitgeist Part XXVII. The Pope F...: 

Cliffnotes of the Zeitgeist Part XXVII. The Pope Francis Followup Edition.

Pity poor Pope Francis, whatever he says, he makes people mad.

Recently I posted on Durveger's Law and American politics.  A similar law, it seems, applies to people's views of whatever the Pope is doing, even though only the College of Cardinals cast a vote on his election, and there's no "first past the post" type system.  Americans, or at least Americans, having divided themselves into liberals and conservatives, try to pigeonhole everyone else into the same left/right divide.  And this includes American Catholics.

Pope Francis just won't go there.

Early in his papacy, he issued Laudato si', which addressed a lot of issue, including economics.* While what he said wasn't really that much different from earlier Popes, and various Popes have been critical of capitalism as well as socialism, this has somehow been missed in recent years by Americans.  Indeed, while the Papacy has been very hostile to communism, and quite hostile to socialism, its treatment of capitalism has been far from praiseworthy.  It's worth remembering that distributism came about due to a Papal Encyclical.  Most Americans, including most American Catholics, don't know what distributism is, however.

The year before last, he followed up on his economic comments with an epic length letter on economics, called Fratelli Tutti.  Maybe because of other events, that one was largely missed.

Anyhow, his economic comments convinced some American conservatives including Catholic conservatives that the Pope must be a hard left socialist, even though there was certainly no evidence of that.

Problems really ensued, however, when the Pope issued Amoris Laetitia, which contained some vague language and which resulted in the issuance of a Dubia by several cardinals seeking clarification. The reason for this is that the encyclical could be read to suggest, maybe, that the Pope seemed to be taking a position contrary to earlier Popes in regard to the Sacraments and couples that were outside marital norms of the Church, or not.  At least the very careful Catholic intellectual Fr. Hugh Barbour suggested that it was being misread and reflected certain European conditions rather than those outside of Europe, and had to be carefully considered, but others were not so convinced.

The Pope, to the consternation of many, never answered the Dubia but, interestingly enough, it seems that Pope Emeritus Benedict actually may have, something that's been missed.  That this happened might, or might not, be an indication of a soft message from Pope Francis, and if so it would be a very conservative one.

Indeed, while not really recalled much now, the Pope's early comments on homosexuality were certainly very conservative, and have continued to be.

Anyhow, late last year and then again early this year, the Pope clearly had enough of Rad Trads who were being aggressive about everything and he has acted to enormously restrict the Tridentine Mass.  And he also sent the Church into a Snyodal process, both of which have arched up the backs of conservatives, although I suspect the latter is a way of taking the wind out of the sails of the German bishops who seem to be headed towards a liberal schism.

So, just when people think they have him figured out, he makes a blunt statement about childish couples, suggesting they're selfish.  

And now he's commenting on "cancel culture".

The part of his statement making waves is the following one.

The diminished effectiveness of many international organizations is also due to their members entertaining differing visions of the ends they wish to pursue. Not infrequently, the centre of interest has shifted to matters that by their divisive nature do not strictly belong to the aims of the organization. As a result, agendas are increasingly dictated by a mindset that rejects the natural foundations of humanity and the cultural roots that constitute the identity of many peoples. As I have stated on other occasions, I consider this a form of ideological colonization, one that leaves no room for freedom of expression and is now taking the form of the “cancel culture” invading many circles and public institutions. Under the guise of defending diversity, it ends up cancelling all sense of identity, with the risk of silencing positions that defend a respectful and balanced understanding of various sensibilities. A kind of dangerous “one-track thinking” [pensée unique] is taking shape, one constrained to deny history or, worse yet, to rewrite it in terms of present-day categories, whereas any historical situation must be interpreted in the light of a hermeneutics of that particular time, not that of today.

Hmmm. . . some things in there are pretty liberal. . . and some quite conservative.

And predictably it enraged some on the far left, who amusingly dragged out the same historically ill-informed diatribes used by Protestant "reformers" during the Reformation, an interesting example of how fake history never goes away.

Will conservatives take a second look?

My guess is not.

Here's his most recent address, the wave making parts highlighted

ADDRESS OF HIS HOLINESS POPE FRANCIS
TO THE MEMBERS OF THE DIPLOMATIC CORPS ACCREDITED TO THE HOLY SEE

Benediction Hall
 Monday, 10 January 2022

________________________________

Your Excellencies, Ladies and Gentlemen!

Yesterday concluded the liturgical season of Christmas, a privileged period for cultivating family relationships, from which we can at times be distracted and distant due to our many commitments during the year. Today we want to continue in that spirit, as we once more come together as a large family which discusses and dialogues. In the end, that is the aim of all diplomacy: to help resolve disagreements arising from human coexistence, to foster harmony and to realize that, once we pass beyond conflict, we can recover a sense of the profound unity of all reality.

I am therefore particularly grateful to you for taking part today in our annual “family gathering”, a propitious occasion for exchanging good wishes for the New Year and for considering together the lights and shadows of our time. I especially thank the Dean, His Excellency Mr George Poulides, the Ambassador of Cyprus, for his gracious address to me in the name of the entire Diplomatic Corps. Through all of you, I extend my affectionate greetings to the peoples you represent.

Your presence is always a tangible sign of the attention your countries devote to the Holy See and its role in the international community. Many of you have come from other capital cities for today’s event, thus joining the numerous Ambassadors residing in Rome, who will soon be joined by the Swiss Confederation.

Dear Ambassadors,

In these days, we are conscious that the fight against the pandemic still calls for a significant effort on the part of everyone; certainly, the New Year will continue to be demanding in this regard. The coronavirus continues to cause social isolation and to take lives. Among those who have died, I would like to mention the late Archbishop Aldo Giordano, an Apostolic Nuncio who was well-known and respected in the diplomatic community. At the same time, we have realized that in those places where an effective vaccination campaign has taken place, the risk of severe repercussions of the disease has decreased.

It is therefore important to continue the effort to immunize the general population as much as possible. This calls for a manifold commitment on the personal, political and international levels. First, on the personal level. Each of us has a responsibility to care for ourself and our health, and this translates into respect for the health of those around us. Health care is a moral obligation. Sadly, we are finding increasingly that we live in a world of strong ideological divides. Frequently people let themselves be influenced by the ideology of the moment, often bolstered by baseless information or poorly documented facts. Every ideological statement severs the bond of human reason with the objective reality of things. The pandemic, on the other hand, urges us to adopt a sort of “reality therapy” that makes us confront the problem head on and adopt suitable remedies to resolve it. Vaccines are not a magical means of healing, yet surely they represent, in addition to other treatments that need to be developed, the most reasonable solution for the prevention of the disease.

A political commitment is thus needed to pursue the good of the general population through measures of prevention and immunization that also engage citizens so that they can feel involved and responsible, thanks to a clear discussion of the problems and the appropriate means of addressing them. The lack of resolute decision-making and clear communication generates confusion, creates mistrust and undermines social cohesion, fueling new tensions. The result is a “social relativism” detrimental to harmony and unity.

In the end, a comprehensive commitment on the part of the international community is necessary, so that the entire world population can have equal access to essential medical care and vaccines. We can only note with regret that, for large areas of the world, universal access to health care remains an illusion. At this grave moment in the life of humanity, I reiterate my appeal that governments and concerned private entities demonstrate a sense of responsibility, developing a coordinated response at every level (local, national, regional, global), through new models of solidarity and tools to strengthen the capabilities of those countries in greatest need. In particular, I would urge all states, who are working to establish an international instrument on pandemic preparedness and response under the aegis of the World Health Organization, to adopt a policy of generous sharing as a key principle to guarantee everyone access to diagnostic tools, vaccines and drugs. Likewise, it is appropriate that institutions such as the World Trade Organization and the World Intellectual Property Organization adapt their legal instruments lest monopolistic rules constitute further obstacles to production and to an organized and consistent access to healthcare on a global level.

Dear Ambassadors,

Last year, thanks also to the lessening of the restrictions put in place in 2020, I had occasion to receive many Heads of State and Governments, as well as various civil and religious authorities.

Among those many meetings, I would like to mention that of 1 July 2021, devoted to reflection and prayer for Lebanon. To the beloved Lebanese people, who are working to find a solution to the economic and political crisis that has gripped the nation, I wish today to renew my closeness and my prayers. At the same time, I trust that necessary reforms and the support of the international community will help the country to persevere in its proper identity as a model of peaceful coexistence and brotherhood among the different religions.

In the course of 2021, I was also able to resume my Apostolic Journeys. In March, I had the joy of travelling to Iraq. Providence willed this, as a sign of hope after years of war and terrorism. The Iraqi people have the right to regain their dignity and to live in peace. Their religious and cultural roots go back thousands of years: Mesopotamia is a cradle of civilization; it is from there that God called Abraham to inaugurate the history of salvation.

In September, I travelled to Budapest for the conclusion of the International Eucharistic Congress, and thereafter to Slovakia. It was an opportunity for me to meet with the Catholic faithful and Christians of other confessions, and to dialogue with the Jewish community. I likewise travelled to Cyprus and Greece, a Journey that remains vivid in my memory. That visit allowed me to deepen ties with our Orthodox brothers and to experience the fraternity existing between the various Christian confessions.

A very moving part of that Journey was my visit to the island of Lesbos, where I was able to see at first hand the generosity of all those working to provide hospitality and assistance to migrants, but above all, to see the faces of the many children and adults who are guests of these centres of hospitality. Their eyes spoke of the effort of their journey, their fear of an uncertain future, their sorrow for the loved ones they left behind and their nostalgia for the homeland they were forced to depart. Before those faces, we cannot be indifferent or hide behind walls and barbed wires under the pretext of defending security or a style of life. This we cannot do.

Consequently, I thank all those individuals and governments working to ensure that migrants are welcomed and protected, and to support their human promotion and integration in the countries that have received them. I am aware of the difficulties that some states encounter in the face of a large influx of people. No one can be asked to do what is impossible for them, yet there is a clear difference between accepting, albeit in a limited way, and rejecting completely.

There is a need to overcome indifference and to reject the idea that migrants are a problem for others. The results of this approach are evident in the dehumanization of those migrants concentrated in hotspots where they end up as easy prey to organized crime and human traffickers, or engage in desperate attempts to escape that at times end in death. Sadly, we must also note that migrants are themselves often turned into a weapon of political blackmail, becoming a sort of “bargaining commodity” that deprives them of their dignity.

Here I would like to renew my gratitude to the Italian authorities, thanks to whom several persons were able to come with me to Rome from Cyprus and Greece. This was a simple yet meaningful gesture. To the Italian people, who suffered greatly at the beginning of the pandemic, but who have also shown encouraging signs of recovery, I express my heartfelt hope that they will always maintain their characteristic spirit of generosity, openness and solidarity.

At the same time, I consider it essential that the European Union arrive at internal cohesion in handling migration movements, just as it did in dealing with the effects of the pandemic. There is a need to adopt a coherent and comprehensive system for coordinating policies on migration and asylum, with a view to sharing responsibility for the reception of migrants, the review of requests for asylum, and the redistribution and integration of those who can be accepted. The capacity to negotiate and discover shared solutions is one of the strong points of the European Union; it represents a sound model for a farsighted approach to the global challenges before us.

Nonetheless, the migration issue does not regard Europe alone, even though it is especially affected by waves of migrants coming from Africa and from Asia. In recent years, we have witnessed, among others, an exodus of Syrian refugees and, more recently, the many people who have fled Afghanistan. Nor can we overlook the massive migration movements on the American continent, which press upon the border between Mexico and the United States of America. Many of those migrants are Haitians fleeing the tragedies that have struck their country in recent years.

The issue of migration, together with the pandemic and climate change, has clearly demonstrated that we cannot be saved alone and by ourselves: the great challenges of our time are all global. It is thus troubling that, alongside the greater interconnection of problems, we are seeing a growing fragmentation of solutions. It is not uncommon to encounter unwillingness to open windows of dialogue and spaces of fraternity; this only fuels further tensions and divisions, as well as a generalized feeling of uncertainty and instability. What is needed instead is a recovery of our sense of shared identity as a single human family. The alternative can only be growing isolation, marked by a reciprocal rejection and refusal that further endangers multilateralism, the diplomatic style that has characterized international relations from the end of the Second World War to the present time.

For some time now, multilateral diplomacy has been experiencing a crisis of trust, due to the reduced credibility of social, governmental and intergovernmental systems. Important resolutions, declarations and decisions are frequently made without a genuine process of negotiation in which all countries have a say. This imbalance, now dramatically evident, has generated disaffection towards international agencies on the part of many states; it also weakens the multilateral system as a whole, with the result that it becomes less and less effective in confronting global challenges.

The diminished effectiveness of many international organizations is also due to their members entertaining differing visions of the ends they wish to pursue. Not infrequently, the centre of interest has shifted to matters that by their divisive nature do not strictly belong to the aims of the organization. As a result, agendas are increasingly dictated by a mindset that rejects the natural foundations of humanity and the cultural roots that constitute the identity of many peoples. As I have stated on other occasions, I consider this a form of ideological colonization, one that leaves no room for freedom of expression and is now taking the form of the “cancel culture” invading many circles and public institutions. Under the guise of defending diversity, it ends up cancelling all sense of identity, with the risk of silencing positions that defend a respectful and balanced understanding of various sensibilities. A kind of dangerous “one-track thinking” [pensée unique] is taking shape, one constrained to deny history or, worse yet, to rewrite it in terms of present-day categories, whereas any historical situation must be interpreted in the light of a hermeneutics of that particular time, not that of today.

Multilateral diplomacy is thus called to be truly inclusive, not canceling but cherishing the differences and sensibilities that have historically marked various peoples. In this way, it will regain credibility and effectiveness in facing the challenges to come, which will require humanity to join together as one great family that, starting from different viewpoints, should prove capable of finding common solutions for the good of all. This calls for reciprocal trust and willingness to dialogue; it entails “listening to one another, sharing different views, coming to agreement and walking together”. Indeed, “dialogue is the best way to realize what ought always to be affirmed and respected apart from any ephemeral consensus”.  Nor should we overlook “the existence of certain enduring values”. Those are not always easy to discern, but their acceptance “makes for a robust and solid social ethics. Once those fundamental values are adopted through dialogue and consensus, we realize that they rise above consensus”. Here I wish to mention in particular the right to life, from conception to its natural end, and the right to religious freedom.

In this regard, in recent years we have seen a growing collective awareness of the urgent need to care for our common home, which is suffering from the constant and indiscriminate exploitation of its resources. Here I think especially of the Philippines, struck in these last weeks by a devastating typhoon, and of other nations in the Pacific, made vulnerable by the negative effects of climate change, which endanger the lives of their inhabitants, most of whom are dependent on agriculture, fishing and natural resources.

Precisely this realization should impel the international community as a whole to discover and implement common solutions. None may consider themselves exempt from this effort, since all of us are involved and affected in equal measure. At the recent COP26 in Glasgow, several steps were made in the right direction, even though they were rather weak in light of the gravity of the problem to be faced. The road to meeting the goals of the Paris Agreement is complex and appears to be long, while the time at our disposal is shorter and shorter. Much still remains to be done, and so 2022 will be another fundamental year for verifying to what extent and in what ways the decisions taken in Glasgow can and should be further consolidated in view of COP27, planned for Egypt next November.

Your Excellencies, Ladies and Gentlemen!

Dialogue and fraternity are two essential focal points in our efforts to overcome the crisis of the present moment. Yet “despite numerous efforts aimed at constructive dialogue between nations, the deafening noise of war and conflict is intensifying”.  The entire international community must address the urgent need to find solutions to endless conflicts that at times appear as true proxy wars.

I think first of Syria, where the country’s rebirth does not yet clearly appear on the horizon. Even today, the Syrian people mourn their dead and the loss of everything, and continue to hope for a better future. Political and constitutional reforms are required for the country to be reborn, but the imposition of sanctions should not strike directly at everyday life, in order to provide a glimmer of hope to the general populace, increasingly caught in the grip of poverty.

Nor can we overlook the conflict in Yemen, a human tragedy that has gone on for years, silently, far from the spotlight of the media and with a certain indifference on the part of the international community, even as it continues to claim numerous civil victims, particularly women and children.

In the past year, no steps forward were made in the peace process between Israel and Palestine. I would truly like to see these two peoples rebuild mutual trust and resume speaking directly to each other, in order to reach the point where they can live in two states, side by side, in peace and security, without hatred and resentment, but the healing born of mutual forgiveness.

Other sources of concern are the institutional tensions in Libya, the episodes of violence by international terrorism in the Sahel region, and the internal conflicts in Sudan, South Sudan and Ethiopia, where there is need “to find once again the path of reconciliation and peace through a forthright encounter that places the needs of the people above all else”. 

Profound situations of inequality and injustice, endemic corruption and various forms of poverty that offend the dignity of persons also continue to fuel social conflicts on the American continent, where growing polarization is not helping to resolve the real and pressing problems of its people, especially those who are most poor and vulnerable.

Reciprocal trust and readiness to engage in calm discussion should also inspire all parties at stake, so that acceptable and lasting solutions can be found in Ukraine and in the southern Caucasus, and the outbreak of new crises can be avoided in the Balkans, primarily in Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Dialogue and fraternity are all the more urgently needed for dealing wisely and effectively with the crisis which for almost a year now has affected Myanmar; its streets, once places of encounter, are now the scene of fighting that does not spare even houses of prayer.

Naturally, these conflicts are exacerbated by the abundance of weapons on hand and the unscrupulousness of those who make every effort to supply them. At times, we deceive ourselves into thinking that these weapons serve to dissuade potential aggressors. History and, sadly, even daily news reports, make it clear that this is not the case. Those who possess weapons will eventually use them, since as Saint Paul VI observed, “a person cannot love with offensive weapons in his hands”. Furthermore, “When we yield to the logic of arms and distance ourselves from the practice of dialogue, we forget to our detriment that, even before causing victims and ruination, weapons can create nightmares”. Today these concerns have become even more real, if we consider the availability and employment of autonomous weapon systems that can have terrible and unforeseen consequences, and should be subject to the responsibility of the international community.

Among the weapons humanity has produced, nuclear arms are of particular concern. At the end of December last, the Tenth Review Conference of the parties to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, which was to meet in New York in these days, was once again postponed due to the pandemic. A world free of nuclear arms is possible and necessary. I therefore express my hope that the international community will view that Conference as an opportunity to take a significant step in this direction. The Holy See continues steadfastly to maintain that in the twenty-first century nuclear arms are an inadequate and inappropriate means of responding to security threats, and that possession of them is immoral. Their production diverts resources from integral human development and their employment not only has catastrophic humanitarian and environmental consequences, but also threatens the very existence of humanity.

The Holy See likewise considers it important that the resumption of negotiations in Vienna on the nuclear accord with Iran (the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action) achieve positive results, in order to guarantee a more secure and fraternal world.

Dear Ambassadors!

In my Message for the World Day of Peace celebrated on 1 January last, I sought to highlight several factors that I consider essential for promoting a culture of dialogue and fraternity.

Education holds a special place, since it trains the younger generation, the future and hope of the world. Education is in fact the primary vehicle of integral human development, for it makes individuals free and responsible. The educational process is slow and laborious, and can lead at times to discouragement, but we can never abandon it. It is an outstanding expression of dialogue, for no true education can lack a dialogical structure. Education likewise gives rise to culture and builds bridges of encounter between peoples. The Holy See wished to stress the importance of education also by its participation in Expo 2021 in Dubai, with a pavilion inspired by the theme of the Expo: “Connecting Minds, Creating the Future”.

The Catholic Church has always recognized and valued the role of education in the spiritual, moral and social growth of the young. It pains me, then, to acknowledge that in different educational settings – parishes and schools – the abuse of minors has occurred, resulting in serious psychological and spiritual consequences for those who experienced them. These are crimes, and they call for a firm resolve to investigate them fully, examining each case to ascertain responsibility, to ensure justice to the victims and to prevent similar atrocities from taking place in the future.

Despite the gravity of such acts, no society can ever abdicate its responsibility for education. Yet, regrettably, state budgets often allocate few resources for education, which tends to be viewed as an expense, instead of the best possible investment for the future.

The pandemic prevented many young people from attending school, to the detriment of their personal and social development. Modern technology enabled many young people to take refuge in virtual realities that create strong psychological and emotional links but isolate them from others and the world around them, radically modifying social relationships. In making this point, I in no way intend to deny the usefulness of technology and its products, which make it possible for us to connect with one another easily and quickly, but I do appeal urgently that we be watchful lest these instruments substitute for true human relationships at the interpersonal, familial, social and international levels. If we learn to isolate ourselves at an early age, it will later prove more difficult to build bridges of fraternity and peace. In a world where there is just “me”, it is difficult to make room for “us”.

The second thing that I would like to mention briefly is labour, “an indispensable factor in building and keeping peace. Labour is an expression of ourselves and our gifts, but also of our commitment, self-investment and cooperation with others, since we always work with or for someone else. Seen in this clearly social perspective, the workplace enables us to learn to make our contribution towards a more habitable and beautiful world”. 

We have seen that the pandemic has sorely tested the global economy, with serious repercussions on those families and workers who experienced situations of psychological distress even before the onset of the economic troubles. This has further highlighted persistent inequalities in various social and economic sectors. Here we can include access to clean water, food, education and medical care. The number of people falling under the category of extreme poverty has shown a marked increase. In addition, the health crisis forced many workers to change professions, and in some cases forced them to enter the underground economy, causing them to lose the social protections provided for in many countries.

In this context, we see even more clearly the importance of labour, since economic development cannot exist without it, nor can it be thought that modern technology can replace the surplus value of human labour. Human labour provides an opportunity for the discovery of our personal dignity, for encounter with others and for human growth; it is a privileged means whereby each person participates actively in the common good and offers a concrete contribution to peace. Here too, greater cooperation is needed among all actors on the local, national, regional and global levels, especially in the short term, given the challenges posed by the desired ecological conversion. The coming years will be a time of opportunity for developing new services and enterprises, adapting existing ones, increasing access to dignified work and devising new means of ensuring respect for human rights and adequate levels of remuneration and social protection.

Your Excellencies, Ladies and Gentlemen,

The prophet Jeremiah tells us that God has “plans for [our] welfare and not for evil, to give [us] a future and a hope” (29:11). We should be unafraid, then, to make room for peace in our lives by cultivating dialogue and fraternity among one another. The gift of peace is “contagious”; it radiates from the hearts of those who long for it and aspire to share it, and spreads throughout the whole world. To each of you, your families and the peoples you represent, I renew my blessing and offer my heartfelt good wishes for a year of serenity and peace.

Thank you!

So, one week the Pope suggests that furbabies aren't babies at all, and that it's selfish to avoid children, a very conservative, and very Catholic, position.  Now he follows it up with a suggestion that cancel culture is a bad thing, yet another conservative position.  

It's pretty hard to get radical left wing out of that.

And it's hard to really place him in that right/left divide. 

All of which suggests that he should get more credit than he does, and that his statements should be carefully watched, including by conservatives like me.

Lex Anteinternet: Cliffnotes of the Zeitgeist Part XXVI. Pets and Pope Francis, the man who can't get a break. Pangur Bán. Warped Hollywood. Ghislane? The return of Boston marriages. Khardasian Attention Disorder

Lex Anteinternet: Cliffnotes of the Zeitgeist Part XXVI. Pets and P...: 

Cliffnotes of the Zeitgeist Part XXVI. Pets and Pope Francis, the man who can't get a break. Pangur Bán. Warped Hollywood. Ghislane? The return of Boston marriages. Khardasian Attention Disorder

There's no such thing as "fur babies"

Pope Francis commented on childless couples and pets.

Before I go into that, I'm going to note that one of the things about Pope Francis is that he tends to be incredibly hard to pigeonhole, even though his fans and critics love to go around doing just that.  And here we have just such an example.  Only weeks away from making it pretty clear that the Latin Tridentine Mass needs to be a thing of the past, as far as he's concerned, and while he's the Bishop of Rome, he says something that's radically. . . traditional.

Here's what he said, in so far as I tell, as I can't find a full transcript of his remarks.

Today ... we see a form of selfishness. We see that some people do not want to have a child.

Sometimes they have one, and that's it, but they have dogs and cats that take the place of children.

This may make people laugh, but it is a reality.

[This] "is a denial of fatherhood and motherhood and diminishes us, takes away our humanity", he added.

Oh you know where this is going to go. . . 

Right away I saw predictable "I'm not selfish, it's my deep abiding love of the environment. . . "

Yeah, whatever.

Apparently there were a fair number of comments of that type, as a subsequent article on this topic found that, nope, most childless couples are childless as they don't want children, not because of their deep abiding concern about the environment.

Indeed, tropes like that are just that, tropes.  People tend to excuse or justify conduct that they engage in that they are uncomfortable excusing for self-centered or materialistic reasons for more ennobled ones, or even for ones that just aren't attributed to something greater, in some sense.  

Not everyone, mind you, you will find plenty of people who don't have children and justify that on that basis alone.  Indeed, in the 70s through the mid 90s, I think that was basically what the justification was, to the extent that people felt they needed one.  More recently that seems to have changed, although there are plenty of people who will simply state they don't want children as they're focused on what the personally want, rather than some other goal.  Others, however, have to attribute it, for some reason to a cause du jour.  In the 80s it was the fear of nuclear war, I recall.  Now it's the environment, although it was somewhat then as well.  I suppose for a tiny minority of people, that's actually true, but only a minority.

Whatever it is, the reaction to the Pope's statement will cause and is causing a minor firestorm.  Oh, but it'll get better.

The same Pope has already made some Catholic conservatives mad by his comments equating destroying the environment with sin.   And there's a certain section of the Trad and Rad Trad Catholic community that's unwilling to credit Pope Francis with anything, even though he says some extremely traditional things, particularly in this area.

A comment like this one, if it had been made by Pope Benedict, would have sparked commentary on the Catholic internet and podcasts for at least a time.  There's no way that Patrick Coffin or Dr. Taylor Marshall wouldn't have commented on it, and run with it in that event.

Will they now?

Well, they ought to.

Am I going to? 

No, not really.

I could be proven wrong, but I doubt I will be.

The Pope's point will be difficult for the childless to really grasp.  I don't think I became fully adult until we had children, really.  People who don't have children don't really know what its like to, I think.  And I think that probably includes even those who grew up in large families.

At any rate, I have a bit of a different point, that being my ongoing one about the industrialization of female labor.  In no small part, in my view, childless couples in general have come about as our modern industrialized society emphasizes that everyone's principal loyalty should be to their workplace or a career, without question.  As put by Col. Saito in the epic The Bridge On The River Kwai, people are to be "happy in their work".

That means that they don't have time for children, they believe, and moreover the children are societal obstacles to the concept that the only thing that matters is career.  It's the one place that ardent capitalist and ardent socialist come together.  And, as its often noted, particularly by both working mothers and folks like Bernie Sanders, it's difficult to be both a mother and worker, with it being my guess that the more education that goes into a woman's career, the more this is the case.  Society, and by that we mean every industrialized society, has no solutions to this, and there probably aren't any.  About the only one that Sanders and his ilk can come up with is warehousing children sort of like chickens at the Tyson farms.

It's also a lie, of course.  Careers, by and large, don't make people fulfilled or happy, for the most part, although there are certainly individual exceptions.  Statistical data more than demonstrates that.

The Pope, by the way, is not against pets.

Messe ocus Pangur Bán,
cechtar nathar fria saindán;
bíth a menma-sam fri seilgg,
mu menma céin im saincheirdd

Caraim-se fos, ferr cach clú,
oc mu lebrán léir ingnu;
ní foirmtech frimm Pangur bán,
caraid cesin a maccdán.

Ó ru·biam — scél cen scís —
innar tegdais ar n-óendís,
táithiunn — díchríchide clius —
ní fris tarddam ar n-áthius.

Gnáth-húaraib ar gressaib gal
glenaid luch inna lín-sam;
os mé, du·fuit im lín chéin
dliged n-doraid cu n-dronchéill.

Fúachid-sem fri frega fál
a rosc anglése comlán;
fúachimm chéin fri fégi fis
mu rosc réil, cesu imdis,

Fáelid-sem cu n-déne dul
hi·n-glen luch inna gérchrub;
hi·tucu cheist n-doraid n-dil,
os mé chene am fáelid.

Cía beimmi amin nach ré,
ní·derban cách ar chéle.
Maith la cechtar nár a dán,
subaigthius a óenurán.

Hé fesin as choimsid dáu
in muid du·n-gní cach óenláu;
du thabairt doraid du glé
for mu mud céin am messe.

I and Pangur Bán, each of us two at his special art:
his mind at hunting (mice), my own mind is in my special craft.
I love to rest—better than any fame—at my booklet with diligent science:
not envious of me is Pangur Bán: he himself loves his childish art.
When we are—tale without tedium—in our house, we two alone,
we have—unlimited (is) feat-sport—something to which to apply our acuteness.
It is customary at times by feat of valour, that a mouse sticks in his net,
and for me there falls into my net a difficult dictum with hard meaning.
His eye, this glancing full one, he points against the wall-fence:
I myself against the keenness of science point my clear eye, though it is very feeble.
He is joyous with speedy going where a mouse sticks in his sharp-claw:
I too am joyous, where I understand a difficult dear question.
Though we are thus always, neither hinders the other:
each of us two likes his art, amuses himself alone.
He himself is the master of the work which he does every day:
while I am at my own work, (which is) to bring difficulty to clearness.

Pangur Bán, a poem by an unknown Medieval Irish monk.

The Seamus Heany translation, which I like better.  It really gets at the nature of the poem:

I and Pangur Bán my cat,
‘Tis a like task we are at:
Hunting mice is his delight,
Hunting words I sit all night.

Better far than praise of men
‘Tis to sit with book and pen;
Pangur bears me no ill-will,
He too plies his simple skill.

‘Tis a merry task to see
At our tasks how glad are we,
When at home we sit and find
Entertainment to our mind.

Oftentimes a mouse will stray
In the hero Pangur’s way;
Oftentimes my keen thought set
Takes a meaning in its net.

‘Gainst the wall he sets his eye
Full and fierce and sharp and sly;
‘Gainst the wall of knowledge I
All my little wisdom try.

When a mouse darts from its den,
O how glad is Pangur then!
O what gladness do I prove
When I solve the doubts I love!

So in peace our task we ply,
Pangur Bán, my cat, and I;
In our arts we find our bliss,
I have mine and he has his.

Practice every day has made
Pangur perfect in his trade;
I get wisdom day and night
Turning darkness into light.

The Values candidates

Jeanette Rankin of Montana, who was a pacifist, and voted against delcaring war in 1917 and in 1941. She's a hero, as she stuck to her declared values.

While I’m at it, I'm developing a deep suspicion of conservative candidates and figures that express certain highly conservative social positions but don't quite seem to adhere to them in their own lives.  This coming from somebody who is obviously highly socially conservative themselves.

This comes to mind in the context of "family values", "protecting the family" and the like.  I see and read stuff like that from conservatives all the time.  So if you are saying that you strongly value the family, and protecting the family, etc., why don't you have one?

Now, some people are no doubt deeply shocked by that question, but it's a legitimate one, and I'm not the first person to raise it.  If a person might ask if I seriously expect people to answer the question, well I do.

Now, in complete fairness, all sorts of people don't have children for medical reasons.  But more often than that, if a couple don't have them, they don't want them. That's what's up with that.  And you really can't campaign on your deep love of the family if you are foreclosing that part of the family in your own lives, absent some really good reason.  More often than not, the reason is money and career.

Recently I saw, for example, a statement that a person is deeply committed to family and loves spending time with their nieces.  Well, everyone likes spending time, for the most part, with nieces and nephews.  That's not even remotely similar to having children, however.  Not at all.

I'll go one further on this and note this as I do.

The person who is trustworthy in very small matters is also trustworthy in great ones; and the person who is dishonest in very small matters is also dishonest in great ones.

Luke, 16:10.

I note this as some of the conservative value candidates, if you look into their backgrounds, have question marks that should give pause for the reason noted above. If a person doesn't keep to their principals in small things, or basic things, why would they keep them on anything else?

One conservative candidate that I'm aware of, when you look up that person's background, was born of an ethnicity that's overwhelmingly Catholic and went to Catholic schools growing up.  That person was undoubtedly a Catholic. That didn't preclude, however, the candidate from getting divorced and remarried to another person who was divorced.

Now, that's quite common in our society, but it's completely contrary to the Catholic faith without some explanation.  Maybe there is one.  I don't know, but it's a fair question, just as it would be if a Jewish candidate grew up in an Orthodox household but operates a delicatessen featuring ham.  That may seem odd, but if you are willing to compromise on small things, you'll get around to the big ones, if the small ones also express a deep principle.

If you won't compromise on small things, or things that are represented as elemental to your declared world view, you are dependable in a crisis. On the other hand, if you participated in a faith, and were educated by it, and okay with its elements, and it formed part of your worldview . . right up until you had to do something difficult and chose the easier path. . . well, there's no real reason to believe that haven gotten there once, you won't do it again.

The candidate, I'd note, has been stone-cold silent on the insurrection.  From that, you can tell the candidate knows it was an insurrection, but is unwilling to say diddly.

The Primordal Connection

St. Jerome with lion.  St. Jerome is supposesd to have taken a thorn out of a lion's paw, and the lion thereafter stayed with him. While some might doubt some aspects of this, St. Jerome's lion is also recounted as having caused fear in the monestary in which he lived, and having adopted the monestary's donkey as a friend.

Back to pets for a second, one added thing I think about them is that for a lot of people, they're the last sole remaining contact with nature they have.

There are lots of animal species that live in close contact with each other and depend on each other.  We're one.  We cooperated with wolves, and they became dogs as they helped us hunt. Cats took us in (not the other way around) as we're dirty, and we attract mice.  We domesticated horses, camels and reindeer for transportation.  And so on.

We miss them.

One more way that technology and modern industrialization has ruined things.  Cats and dogs remind us of what we once were.

And could be, again.

Warped legacies

An awful lot of what the Pope is tapping into has to deal with the combined factors of moderns forgetting what, well, sex is for, and what its implications are, and that root morality and human nature remain unchanged.  There are probably more generations between modern house cats and Pangur Bán than there are between your ancestors who were waking up each morning in the Piacenzian and you.

Which takes us to men, behaving badly, and everyone turning a blind eye.

And, of course, Sex and the City.

She is fiercely protective of Carrie Bradshaw and livid that she and everyone else at the show has been put into this position, It is not about the money, but rather her legacy. Carrie was all about helping women and now, under her watch, women are saying that they have been hurt.

Sarah Jessica Parker on the scandal involving James Noth.

M'eh.

A note from Wikipedia regarding the series:

When the series premiered, the character was praised by critics as a positive example of an independent woman in the vein of Mary Richards. However, retrospective analysis tends to place more emphasis on the character's repeated and often unrepentant infidelities, with many critics instead viewing her as narcissistic.

Carrie was about helping women?  Well, excuse me if that was deluded.

Scary legacies

This news item came out the same day, I'd note, that Ghislane Maxwell was convicted of sex trafficking.  And by that we mean procuring underage girls for Jeffrey Epstein.

Eew, ick.

Connection? Well, none directly.

Or maybe.  More narcissism and obsession with unrestrained desire, or lust.  

It sort of seems that you can't unleash this without it oozing out as filth sooner or later.

On Maxwell, because I tend to get my news by reading, I'm left perplexed by how a person says her first name, Ghislaine.  I have no idea. I heard it on the nightly news the other day, but the spelling is so odd, I immediately forgot how to pronounce it.

Boston Marriages

Some recent headlines from the ill historically informed press department:

What is a Platonic life partnership? These couples are breaking societal relationship norms

And:

Platonic Partnerships Are On The Rise, So I Spoke To These Friends Who Have Chosen To Live The Rest Of Their Lives Together
"I don't think our love and commitment together should pale in comparison to romantic love."

Oh my gosh! This means that people don't always default to acting like their characters in Sex In The City or Sex Lives of College Girls!

Could this be a new trend?!?  Oh my oh my, what would it mean.

Well, maybe people are just defaulting back to normal, but we're unable to grasp that as we've been steeped in seventy years of Hugh Hefner pornification of absolutely everything. ^[1]  This isn't new.  Indeed, we've dealt with this here before in our  Lex Anteinternet: The Overly Long Thread. Gender Trends of the Past...

 post. Let's take a look:

But there is more to look at here.

Another extremely orthodox cleric but one of an extremely intellectual bent, and who is therefore sometimes not very predictable, is Father Hugh Barbour, O. Pream.  I note that as his comment on same gender attraction in women was mentioned earlier here and came out in a direction that most would not suspect in the context of a "Boston Marriage".  Father Barbour did not license illicit sexual contact, i.e., sex outside of marriage, in any context either, but he did have a very nuanced view of attraction between women that's almost wholly unique in some ways.  Like the discussion above, but in a more nuanced form, it gets into the idea that modern society is so bizarrely sexually focused that its converted the concept of attraction to absolute need, failing to grasp the nature of nearly everything, and sexualized conduct that need not be.  Barbour issued an interesting opinion related to this back in 2013, at which time there had just been a huge demonstration in France regarding the redefinition of the nature of marriage. 

Katherine Coman and Katherine Lee Bates who lived together as female housemates for over twenty years in a "Wellesley Marriage", something basically akin to what's called a Boston Marriage today.  Named for Wellesley College, due to its association with it, Wellesley Marriages were arrangements of such type between academic women, where as Boston Marriages more commonly features such arrangements between women of means.  Barbour noted these types of arrangements in a basically approving fashion, noting that its only in modern society when these arrangements are seemingly nearly required to take on a sexual aspect, which of course he did not approve of.

Hmmm. . . . 

Men and women who don't marry have always been unusual, but the sexualization of everything in the post Hefner world has made their situation considerably more difficult, really.  Society has gone from an expectation that the young and single would abstain from sex until married to the position that there must be something wrong with them if they are not.  This has gone so far as to almost require same gender roommates, past their college years, to engage in homosexual sex.  I.e, two women or two men living together in their college years is no big deal, but if they're doing it by their 30s, they're assumed to be gay and pretty much pressured to act accordingly.

Truth be known, not everyone always matches the median on everything, as we will know.  For some reason, this has been unacceptable in this are as society became more and more focused on sex.

At one time, the phenomenon of the lifelong bachelor or "spinster" wasn't that uncommon, and frankly it didn't bear the stigma that people now like to believe.  It was harder for women than for men, however, without a doubt.  People felt sorry for women that weren't married by their early 30s and often looked for ways to arrange a marriage for them, a fair number of such women ultimately agreeing to that status, with probably the majority of such societally arranged marriages working out. Some never did, however.

For men, it was probably more common, and it was just assumed that things hadn't worked out.  After their early 30s a certain "lifelong bachelor" cache could attach to it, with the reality of it not tending to match the image, but giving societal approval to it.  In certain societies it was particularly common, such as in the famed Garrison Keillor "Norwegian Bachelor Farmer" instance or in the instance of similar persons in Ireland, where it was very common for economic reasons.  

People didn't tend to assume such people were homosexual, and they largely were not.  Indeed, again contrary to what people now assume, except for deeply closeted people or people who had taken up certain occupations in order to hide it, people tended to know who actually was homosexual.

I can recall all of this being the case when I was a kid.  My grandmother's neighbor was a bachelor his entire life who worked as an electrician.  After he came home from a Japanese Prisoner of War camp following World War Two, he just wanted to keep to himself.  A couple of my mother's aunts were lifelong single women and, at least in one case, one simply didn't want to marry as she didn't want children, and the other had lost a fiancé right after World War One and never went on to anyone else.  Her secretary desk is now in my office.  In none of these instances would anyone have accused these individuals of being homosexual.

Taking this one step further, some people in this category did desire the close daily contact of somebody they were deeply friends with, in love with if you will, but that need not be sexual.  Love between women and love between men can and does exist without it having a sexual component.  Interestingly, it is extremely common and expected when we are young and up into our 20s, but after that society operates against it.  People form deep same gender relationships in schools, on sporting fields, in barracks and in class.  

Some of those people won't marry, and there's no reason that their friendships shouldn't continue on in the post college roommate stage.

Well, society won't have it as everything needs to be about sex, all the time.  Haven't you watched The Big Bang Theory?

Tatting for attention?

Kourtney Kardashian, I think (I can't really tell the various Kardashians from one another and don't really have a sufficient interest to learn who is who), apparently is now all tatted up now that she has a tattooed boyfriend or fiancé or something that is.  And by this, we mean heavily tattooed.

Like, enough already?

Apparently Salena Gomez has a bleeding rose tattoo.  I don't get that either, but I'm sure that piles of ink will be spilled on it.

Footnotes:

It would be worth noting here that early on a female researching on Hefner's early publications noted how much of it was actually in the nature of barely disguised child pornography, with cartoons particularly depicting this.  This lead to an investigation in Europe, and the magazine rapidly stopped it, but it's interesting in that the magazine was so debased that it not only portrayed women as stupid, sterile, top-heavy, and nymphomaniacs, but also underage.

The impact however had been created, and by the 1970s the full on sexual exploitation of child models was on.  As debased as society has become, it's at least retreated from this.