The Anchoresses fumes over the latest “ordination” of a Catholic woman here. I cannot disagree.

One of the things most offensive to anyone with a Catholic sensibility is the women priests’ taste in vestments. These are not happy events. Ecclesiatical fashionista–Mantilla the Hon had a fair bit to say about it here.

One of the things I find most weird about Catholic dissenters–whether they be women priests or fuzzy wuzzy liberals is how they are always eager to describe themselves as “loyal Catholics” or “faithful daughters of the church.” It was the same with Gary Wills on Colbert the other day. He trashes the priesthood and publicly denies transubstantiation and then calls himself a “faithful Catholic”

To understand this mentality you have to see that they really mean it. For the dissenters see themselves as “courageous pioneers” who are prepared to “boldly go” where the old fashioned hide bound, rest of the Catholic church cannot yet go. Their favorite Bible passage is the one in Acts where the sheet of unclean things descended from heaven and Peter was told to break with tradition and do something new. This is how they are being faithful–to be faithful for them is to bold in their dissent. They see themselves as martyrs for this great cause.

Uh huh. The problem is,  they are invariably simply adapting to the spirit of the age–and usually they are about thirty years behind the spirit of the age. As far as I can make out most feminists have moved on from the “I want to do what all the guys get to do” and are more in favor of developing the fullness of their feminine gifts within their chosen professions. That the priesthood is not essentially feminine has escaped them.

Increasingly my attitude to such folks is that of Little Bo Peep: “Leave them alone and they’ll come home, wagging their tails behind them.”

…or not.