Green beer flows, religious freedom triumphs
So if you're like me, you daren't let the word "holiday" cross your lips lest Bill Donohue and his ilk leap out and start whacking you with an Advent wreath, a copy of Left Behind or something even more holy. But where is the president of the Catholic League when the only saint's day most Americans celebrate (well, Valentine's, okay, but at least that's about love) is incarnated as Mardi Gras for cold weather? Getting all stoked about how he's allowed to eat meat on Friday. Could we change the name to Freedom from Snakes Day and see if we can get a rise out of anybody? And why does the media always assume everybody's going to be fascinated by the St. Pat's Lenten exemption? Do they just want to help justice be done by getting the good word out to Catholics? Anyway, go mairir is go gathair!
posted by Theologienne @ 11:54 AM
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2 Comments:
The real reason everyone writes about the St. Patrick's Day exemption is to, subtly, call attention to the fact that Catholics have all tnese weird, picky, arbitrary, non-Biblical self-mortifying customs, kind of like the Jewish dietary laws, except that in my opinion it's not PC to criticize those but it IS OK, even charming, to actually mock Lenten custom while reporting how slavishly we all embrace the "freedom" to eat corned beef on March 17, the saints be praised!
I agree exactly. The media sort of rotates through Catholic stereotypes--hyperpious, like you said, pedophile followed closely by homophobic, 180 rebel educated by nuns, etc. Sometimes I feel like I start agreeing too closely with the rhetoric of the Catholic League, and then I need to make like this guy in the picture and go lie down.
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