*Snort*
Why is it Catholic priests feel the need to put their feet in their mouths on a regular basis? Fr Rungi, founder of the 'nun beauty contest', had proposed putting pictures of nuns with 'profiles' on his blog and letting his readers decide the winner. Hair up or down, wimple or no, preferably naked...oh, sorry, no, he didn't say that.
I had to sit back, outraged yet amused, as I read his comments on 'inner beauty' with Sophia Loren as his prime example. Then, like Fr Voldemort halfway through a sermon, he torches his point by forgetting to place filter between brain and mouth and speaking the truth, rather than continuing to build up his false logic:
“Do you really think nuns are all wizened, funereal old ladies? Today it’s not like that any more, thanks to an injection of youth and vitality brought to our country by foreign girls.” He said there were nuns from Africa and Latin America who were “really very, very pretty. The Brazilian girls above all.”
Inner beauty, indeed, Father. You keep lying to yourself and everyone else, like so many of your colleagues.We all know what you're doing in the privacy of your bedroom when you think about those 'Brazilian girls' - or was that girls with Brazilians?
Mind you, a commenter at the Times made a very fair point:
"Makes a pleasant change to have a priest interested in the beauty of young women."
--Iain Rae, Tunbridge Wells
And despite the sexist pig nature of Rungi's idea, I have to agree. A Catholic priest interested in women who have attained the age of majority makes a refreshing change indeed.
5 comments:
Sad but true...
Ari.xx
but interested how?
exoticism for "foreign girls"?
celibacy without friendship and community seems pretty impossible to me, and not exactly easy with those things, so for secular priests, let it be an open choice, and thus perhaps a genuine one for some... can't bear to actually look at fr voldemort's blog, the digested highlights are enough for me!
"but interested how?"
A VERY good point, Ilwyfen.
"celibacy without friendship and community seems pretty impossible to me, and not exactly easy with those things, so for secular priests, let it be an open choice, and thus perhaps a genuine one for some..."
Absolutely. If you want to enter religious life and be celibate, examine your heart thoroughly and go for it. I also think proper safeguards need to be in place - rigorous examination by novice masters, etc., with NO ONE afraid to say, "You're running, you're not here for the right reasons, go away and sort yourself out." I've seen too much whispering that someone is in trouble and not enough confrontation.
Ixx
amen to facing the facts as early as possible.
it's all very well being nice, in an age where "novices are like gold dust", but who is it helping?
there's lots of beautiful stuff written about celibacy being a positive choice /gift for relationship with God and all people but that surely only works if you are comfortable with yourself and your sexuality and can look people - and God? - in the eye...
[there's lots of beautiful stuff written about celibacy being a positive choice /gift for relationship with God and all people but that surely only works if you are comfortable with yourself and your sexuality and can look people - and God? - in the eye...]
Absolutely.
A lot of people think I'm anti-celibacy per se, but that's not the case. I think it's inappropriate to make it a condition for becoming a secular priest (is it just me, or is there something coolly oxymoronic about that phrase?). I'm also far too aware that a lot of people choose it to run away from emotional issues, from admitting that they're gay, commitmentphobia - they're people who think that it will fix them, make them good.
But until you sort that out on the inside, it never works.
An endoskeleton will always be stronger and more flexible than a superficially imposed exoskeleton.
Ixx
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