Elsewhere

Just a quick post for me today. Here are some interesting links from around the web today:

--New Catholic Manliness by Todd M. Aglialoro on InsideCatholic:

Common experience nonetheless bears out the point: We may yet have a male-only clergy and hierarchy, but where the rubber meets the road -- in those mundane areas of church life where laity and institution most commonly interact -- the flavor is feminine. Whether you want to speak in terms of liturgy, ministry (lay and clerical), religious education, or sheer congregational numbers, official ecclesial power may not rest in the hands of women, but considerable unofficial influence clearly does, and has for some time. And we in the Church have been subject to its effects.

Not all these effects, as we shall see, have been bad. But one of the worst has been a subjugation of traditional masculine virtue: the concept of distinctly and properly manly Catholicism repressed, stigmatized, covered up, or otherwise forgotten for lack of practice.

--Wathcing Couples Go By by Herbert Stein on Slate:

look particularly at the women in those couples. They are not glamorous. There are no Marlene Dietrichs, Marilyn Monroes, or Vivien Leighs among them. (It is a sign of my age that I can't think of the name of a single living glamorous movie actress.) Some of them are pretty, but many would be considered plain. Since they are on their way to the Kennedy Center, presumably to attend a play, an opera, or a concert, one may assume that they are somewhat above average in cultural literacy. But in other respects one must assume that they are, like most people, average. But to the man whose hand or arm she is holding, she is not "average." She is the whole world to him.

--Also, The Love and Fidelity Network, which reaches out to college students to encourage a life of chastity and support for marriage, has a new blog. And it's great.

--Finally, check out this wonderful homily by Archbishop J. Augustine DiNoia, O.P., on Genesis 2. It's all so good, I can't possibly quote it. Read it here.