LOS ANGELES TIMES: Catholic bashers like to refer to priests as ‘men in dresses.’ It’s just another in a growing number of media cheap shots directed at Pope Benedict XVI.
"Men in dresses." That's who columnist Maureen Dowd blames for decay in "our religious kingdom."
Which men in dresses is she referring too? The ballerinas-in-drag of Les Ballets Trockadero? The Marilyn Monroe lookalikes marching in gay pride parades? Nope. She's talking about Catholic priests.
Lately Dowd, along with half the other columnists in America, has been speculating about what Pope Benedict XVI knew or didn't know concerning clerical abuse of minors back when he was Josef Ratzinger, acting as archbishop of Munich or as head of the Vatican's Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. And she and her gang seem to find it hilarious that Catholic priests and bishops often wear cassocks or other long traditional robes, especially on formal religious occasions and when celebrating Mass.
It's odd that no one ever uses the word "dresses" to describe the ankle-length liturgical garments worn by Episcopal priests. Nor are Protestant ministers or Jewish rabbis derided as cross-dressers when they don long robes for religious services. Has anyone ever called the Dalai Lama "a man in a dress"? Or Genghis Khan? Not unless you wanted to see your ribcage sliced into salami by a scimitar.
For most of human history long robes on men — whether the togas of Roman senators, the kimonos of Japanese samurai or the black gowns worn by judges and academics today — have been associated with status, dignity and, in the case of the clergy, the sacral separation of religious ritual from the ordinary activities of daily life. Indeed, so redolent of masculinity are those garments that when women enter the professions for which they are worn, they often soften and feminize them. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, for example, wears lace collars with her judicial robes[.] >>> Charlotte Allen | Sunday, May 02, 2010
