Haha don’t worry. The pope may present himself as some kind of lovable guy who just happened to bumble his kindly way up the hierarchy of an evil institution, but don’t worry, he’s still a patronizing clueless eyes-closed asshole about women. Whew, what a relief, right? He’s normal, and he won’t be giving all the expensive real estate away to some poor people.
The pope said women were “the most beautiful thing God has made”. And he added: “Theology cannot be done without this feminine touch.”
He agreed not enough was said about women and promised that steps were being taken to remedy the situation.
Because women are so priddy.
But when his interviewer, the Vatican correspondent of the Rome daily Il Messaggero, Franca Giansoldati, asked him whether he could detect an underlying misogyny in the Catholic church, Francis replied: “The fact is that woman was taken from a rib.” Giansoldati wrote that he then laughed “heartily” before saying: “I’m joking. That was a joke.”
The 77-year-old pontiff went on: “The issue of women needs to be gone into in more depth, otherwise you can’t understand the church itself.” But did he envisage, say, appointing a woman to head a Vatican department?
“Well,” replied the pope cryptically. “Priests often end up under the sway of their housekeepers.”
See? See how normal he is? Both as a Catholic and as an asshole? Patronizing contempt for women all the way; booya.
A priest who blogs has a good laugh about the whole thing himself. (I do love the tinkle of male laughter at women, don’t you? Such a cheerful sound.)
The Holy Father had an interview with the Italian daily Il Messaggero. It isn’t all that revelatory and I suspect that not too many people will be excited about it.
There is little more statism in it. One thing to note, however, is that our feminists are not going to be happy with this interview. Not one little bit.
Tee hee. Tee hee hee. Those feminists are so funny. Tee hee hee hee.
And there are comments, and all of them share his contempt and amusement. Stupid women, wanting to be treated as equals. Tee hee hee.
I’d like to give his ass a feminine touch with my boot heel right as he’s trying to walk down some stairs.
Yeah, the untouchable touch of the virgin Mary, up there on a pedestal, trodding on that pesky
penisserpent.Oh, that’s not so “cryptic”. That’s just popespeak for “Priests often end up boning their housekeepers. THAT’s the way women can contribute to the Church. That, and keeping their mouths shut.”
Why “brocialist”?
A. Noyd
To quote the most wonderful Sergeant Jackrum: I’m not a violent man…
I was more thinking of a feminine touch of my fist to somebody’s face. If they weren’t meant for occasionally flattening the noses of misogynists, why would god give us fists?
I fail to see what’s to cryptic about it. It pretty clearly means that they intend to keep women on to polish silver and empty chamberpots and whatever other 15th century chores need to be done, but there’s no need to appoint them to leadership roles because they can always relay their concerns through the man whose house they are keeping.
Blanche’s point at 3 is also very likely to be correct, although I think it’s a little bit harder to say in translation and without tone of voice.
Also “The issue of women needs to be gone into in more depth, otherwise you can’t understand the church itself.” Seriously? Because why would we want to understand women’s issues for what they are? That would clearly be pointless. Obviously the only reason to look into it is to deepen one’s understanding of “the church”.
My head hurts from banging it on my desk.
He is a Roman Catholic pope.
The “nice” stuff about women, and the rejection of capitalist individualism that sounds sort of like socialism but isn’t. All existing doctrine and not a departure from anything.
@4 rumleech
At the end of the article:
My thought upon seeing the title was Ophilia was combining “bro” and “socialist” (as I had seen the article prior), but then she didn’t cover that aspect of the article at all. That’s still my best hunch, though.
The man’s “progressivism” is as deep and abiding as the skidmarks in his gitch. 🙁
It’s the same pattern over and over. Don’t recognize the structural value and accomplishments of women to society, or the lack of power in affecting that structure for most women. Instead look at how pretty they make everything. Ignore what women are actually doing or trying to do, just talk about how they look, or shift the conversation to parenting. It looks like a social instinct to keep men creating and maintaining everything, and women playing a role accessorizing and decorating everything. You can make tons of connections to lots of stupid similar views all over the place that try to make excuses for and keep the system in place.
So what tension might be getting relieved with this joke? It’s never “just a joke”, the jokes are creating emotion for reasons that don’t always line up with professed intentions. What tension could be relieved by pointing out the myth (not “fact”) that women were created to be helpers and other things for men? I’m of the opinion that that it keeps a connection to their underlying theology in play because they are ever so obsessed with what they think is societies proper order.
Presumably just as long as they stay house keepers and they limit the stories to how good women are at cleaning up, cooking, or other ways of “accessorizing” the church. I’m predicting substance that essentially says “Look at how interesting they make the things that the men made and control.” Sure they will pull out a couple of examples of women that did make changes or play a strong role, but that always seems to be attached to a defense that never addresses that reality of these exceptions looking very different from the rule.
I’m convinced religion is a means of convenient social organization that enables maintence and transfer of power to organize. I’m sure when it was just myths explaining why fields got planted they way they did, or animals got hunted they way they did, or why you had to be careful with human waste and disease it worked well enough (despite the false positive rate for specific explanatory values). But damn the associated instincts can sure be badly used in practice.
“Our feminists”. “Our”. There’s no woman these bastards don’t claim to own.