Lex Anteinternet: What Western European cultures are fascinated by, and the rest of the world is not.

Lex Anteinternet: What Western European cultures are fascinated by, ...: 

What Western European cultures are fascinated by, and what the rest of the world is not.

Terry Mattingly's Get Religion blog, which have linked in here on the side, states something that we've already stated, but in a more in-depth article.

Or maybe it's something we've posed as a question.

Christianity is not a European religion.  Indeed, Europeans, in the form of Romans and Greeks, at first opposed it.

Christianity, and certainly the original form of Christianity, Apostolic Christianity, of which all the Orthodox and Catholics are part, came out of the Middle East and in fact it never left it.  The first Catholics, which is to say the first Christians, were at the very first all in the Roman province of Palestine.  Pretty soon they were in Syria, where they were first called Christians, and Egypt.  In the Apostolic Age Christianity, which again is to say Catholicism, made it all the way to India, and of course it also made it to Rome.  Rome was the early site of the head of the Church, because it was the center of the most powerful secular entity in the world, the Roman Empire, but other localities were major diocesan seats as well.  The last Apostolic Christian church in North Africa prevailed until the 1400s, the same century that the Moors were expelled from Spain, and the same century that the Church was established in Sub Sarah Africa.  Catholicism was so strong in Angola that pre Revolution slave rebellion in the Southern English Colonies of North America saw a Catholic Angolan band rise up and bolt for Catholic Florida.

So why, some of us have asked, is there so much attention on homosexuality in today's Church?

Seem unconnected?  It isn't.

Homosexuality is relatively rare in the world, but it is most common in European cultures.  There are a number of reasons for this.  For one thing, the Western world is rich, and it's used its wealth in pecular ways impacting living arrangements.  Basic aspects of adult life common throughout human history and in every culture have been badly warped in post World War Two, or maybe post World War One, or maybe as part of the Enlightenment, European cultured world.  While consumption of food, working, and the basic reproductive nature of humans is the same at an elemental level for people everywhere, and at all times, in the rich society of post 1945 Western Culture, there's an entertainment element to all of it.  People do these things to be "fulfilled", which in the end often tends to mean that their reproductive organs pretty much play the same role as a Nintendo joystick.  People have completely lost the connective and reproductive aspect to sex itself, which naturally leads to all sorts of bored playing with it.  We have, in this context, all become characters on MXC.

Additionally, as the West developed it got into warehousing of men, and sometimes women, for various reasons.  In the movie version of Pasternak's classic, Dr. Zhivago, the Orthodox Priest, in taking Lara's confession, warned her that sex was strong and that "only marriage can contain it".  As we've built societies that postpone marriage by operation of social pressure and economics, we can't be surprised that premarital sex became common.  Likewise, as we warehoused young men in various fashion. . .all male schools, all male institutions, etc., a certain percentage seek relief where they can find it.  Like most disordered behavior, the initial inclination probably isn't really very strong, but once people find relief in it, that takes over.  People don't take up drinking a quart of Jim Beam all in one setting.

So at this point the rich West has a pretty messed up relationship with sex in general, and for that matter, with nature and life in general.

And it's in a rocketing decline.

So why so much attention to the Fr. James Martin's of the world?  Why does the Papacy address this small demographic rather than, so far, addressing the effective schism of the German church, which has gone even further?

Mattingly notes:

"The Church of Africa is the voice of the poor, the simple and the small," wrote Cardinal Robert Sarah of Guinea, the former head of the Vatican's Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments. "It has the task of announcing the Word of God in front of Western Christians who, because they are rich, equipped with multiple skills in philosophy, theological, biblical and canonical sciences, believe they are evolved, modern and wise in the wisdom of the world."

Mattingly also notes:

Catholic debates over LGBTQ+ issues are crucial, he [ Rev. Chris Ritter] said, "because if you want to spot low-fertility, low-faith cultures in Europe and elsewhere, you look at how and when they legalized and legitimized same-sex marriage. That will give you a good idea of what is happening. … Just look for large numbers of secular old people."

And that gets back to what I noted the other day. The West, in every fashion, is in decline.  By mid-century that will be more obvious than it is now, and that's not long.  In our feebleness, we've become self obsessed and lost a grasp of the existential.

This won't last forever.  Our self extermination by confusing entertainment with living is assuring it will not.  And, by extension, the unique tragedy of homosexuality, and the related plagues that endorsing rather than sympathizing with that tragedy has brought on, won't last long as major issues much longer either.  Society really doesn't need to be wringing its hands so much over this.

For that matter, we can suppose it won't be long until the occupant of St. Peter's Chair was born in Africa once again. . .and that will not be a bad thing.

Lex Anteinternet: What the Young Want.* The Visual Testimony of the Trad Girls. The Authenticity Crisis, Part One.

Lex Anteinternet: What the Young Want.* The Visual Testimony of the...: 

What the Young Want.* The Visual Testimony of the Trad Girls.

Or maybe they're not.

At any one time, I have a bunch of posts in the works, some of which are on concurrent themes. This is one, basically, as it touches on a larger topic.

Something is going on.

A couple of years ago I started to see some women, by which I mean, let's say, women 40 years or older, resuming the wearing of chapel veils (mantillas).  They were clearly on the traditional end of things.

Recently, however, I'm seeing young women do this.

I shouldn't, probably, have used the term "girls" in the caption, but for whatever reason, culturally, we tend to use the term "girls" for young women well into their 20s.  Maybe somewhat beyond.  It seems to encompass women in their late teens on up to that point.

And that's what I'm referring to here.

I noticed it first the year before last, and at an early morning Mass on a Holy Day (All Saints Day, I think).  Two young women, probably very late teens or very early twenties, sat right in front of me.  One was dressed conservatively but contemporarily. She was wearing a leather skirt. . . and a chapel veil (mantilla).

Now, there was a young woman from a very trad family in the parish who dressed almost as if in a Medieval costume for young women every Mass. That's not what I'm talking about here.  This young woman was wearing a nice wool sweater, and a leather skirt, and a chapel veil.

It caught me off guard.

I'm seeing stuff like that all the time now.  Young women, often early twenties, dressed conservatively, but not in costume, who have adopted the mantilla.  Indeed, just yesterday, at the early morning Mass Sunday, the Church did the Ritual for the Elect for those who were coming into the Church.  They all have a sponsor.  One young woman coming in had, as her sponsor, another young women.  

Frankly, the sponsor was stunning.  And she was wearing a chapel veil.  Last Sunday across town there was another young woman dressed in that fashion who was eye catching as well, and the week before that there was another so dressed who was a head turner.**

I note that, as it was easy, when the only women who did this were let's say older, and otherwise dressed in a fashion that was old-fashioned, perhaps, or dour.  These young women aren't.   They're hard not to notice.

Indeed, yesterday, the young woman mentioned went from the front of the Church to the back with a very proud carriage, which is not to suggest sinful pride. Rather, she carried herself the way that people who are very self-assured, for very good reasons, do.

Something is going on.

And It's not just here.  A friend of mine in Oklahoma noticed the same thing at his local parish.  And it's crossed into other regions, or perhaps hit there first.  For example, notable Korean figure skater Yuna Kim is Catholic, and people like to snap photos of her at Mass wearing a chapel veil.

And it's interesting that this is going on at the same time that some members of the leadership of the Church, which tends to be up in years, seems to be trying to insert the liberal.  

I've often noticed that people who come up in particularly devise or stressed eras, and maybe more of us do than not, tend to form our view of the world in those times.  A lot of people in their upper 60s, 70s, and 80s assume that "what the young want" is what they wanted when they were young.  

The evidence for this is to the contrary.

There's a lot more to this.  It's interesting.

Footnotes

*It's important to note that categorizing what an entire generation, or generations, want is hazardous.  For example, at least superficially, here I'm noting a return to Catholic tradition among the same generation that is exhibiting such things as a belief that you can change your gender.

Well, a couple of things.

At any one time you can have an overall trend in a generation while individual members of it hold an opposite view.  There were, for example, more volunteers who served in Vietnam than there were conscripts, contrary to popular imagination, meaning that quite a few young men sought to serve in the war at the same time history informs us their generation had turned against it.  By the same token, you can find a few examples of Americans who were adamantly opposed to the country entering World War One or Two, and continued to hold that view after the country declared war.  Beatniks were a feature of the supposedly superconservative 1950s. 

Secondly, people are more complex than categorists and political parties may suppose, and as a result they can often hold contrary views, or views that seem to be contrary, or views contrary to the ones they themselves exhibit.  Indeed, I've heard some of the stoutest denouncements of tobacco from smokers.  They smoked, but wished they didn't. 

You get the point.

**For some reason, you're not supposed to say this. Well, noticing that a woman is attractive is not the same thing as engaging in Hefnereque behavior, and the fact that creeps have co-opted this entire aspect of communication is just evidence of how weird and pornified our culture is.