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The Vatican Issues a Special Statement in Honor of International Women's Day: Ladies, Love Your Maytag
There is a vast amount of stupidity in this world and an even vaster amount of self-righteous and willful ignorance. So, congratulations to the Vatican for releasing perhaps the most monumentally ridiculous statement of the decade. With Republicans running amok, that is some accomplishment. Says the (all male) Vatican:
Nothing has contributed more to the emancipation of women than the washing machine.
Oh, really? Nothing? Not property-owning rights? Not suffrage? Not education? Not birth control so that we don't have to wash the clothing of 10 children in the first place?
The Vatican. What a bastion of female understanding. What's next? A statement that nothing has contributed more to the economic freedom of women than Susan B. Anthony on the dollar coin? Keep 'em coming, boys. We need all the laughs we can get.
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Cross posted at Dagblog, where the economic crisis is making people cranky.
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I thought surely I would click on the link and find myself directed to some comedy skit starring Monty Python or something.
Instead, I found something even more comical - in a perverse sort of way:
"others go even further?" Yee Gads!
March 8, 2009 11:18 PM | Reply | Permalink
The only way that makes any sort of rational sense is if those "others" are lascivious in nature.
But since it's the Vatican, I'm guessing they're just functionally retarded.
March 8, 2009 11:23 PM | Reply | Permalink
two thousand years; actually more like 1700 when you think of formalities, and 'they' still feign power.
Not much power in the states. But South America, Mexico.....
It is so many years since 'they' had a hold on me.
But when you think that this institution, feigning 1.1 billion members, will not accept women as priests. Still against family planning let alone abortion. Still against divorce.
Again, the affect of the old teachings only hurts the poor, powerless and ill educated.
March 8, 2009 11:20 PM | Reply | Permalink
These people know nothing.
Obviously it's the Blender.
Remind me why I have to be tolerant of the pope again, willya O?
March 8, 2009 11:30 PM | Reply | Permalink
It's more what we put in the blender. Margaritas, anyone?
You have to be tolerant of the pope because it's good to have patience for the mentally disabled.
March 8, 2009 11:35 PM | Reply | Permalink
Look, I was baptized Catholic and attended a seminary in 7th grade after being trained in the rigors of a pre-vatican II orthodoxy; but as far as I'm concerned, that Mad Dog Ratzinger is belieing his Hitler Youth origins.
If anything, his great Fuhrer's foray into world domination caused more gains in the woman's movement than the washing machine. Since the vast wartime workforce in the US was made up of women like my grandmother who remained in the workforce and demanded parity, reproductive rights and the right to "no fault divorce."
So I guess Mad Dog Ratzinger, unknowingly has advanced something he abhors:
Human dignity!
March 8, 2009 11:35 PM | Reply | Permalink
Good point. Sometimes, unintended consequences can be positive!
March 8, 2009 11:37 PM | Reply | Permalink
Yeah, but not at the expense of 6 million-plus dead, alas.
I can't even bring myself to call him Benedict; since I always refered to him as Mad Dog Ratzinger from his administrating the orders of the old Department of the Inquisition.
And they made that person, Pope. Perfect! So much Liberation Theology!
And this last "missal" just proves the neo-luddite, flat-earth, keep the wimmin barefoot and pregnant wing of the "church" is firmly entrenched.
Mad Dog Ratzinger, indeed!
March 8, 2009 11:44 PM | Reply | Permalink
Alas, indeed.
And also, that was liberation for American women. I believe the pope was referring to all women. What a relief to women in Zimbabwe, for example, that the washing machine has freed them from their struggle.
March 8, 2009 11:51 PM | Reply | Permalink
Perhaps Albert Einstein put it best:
"Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former."
March 9, 2009 12:10 AM | Reply | Permalink
I'm sorry but wasn't Albert Einstein a man?
March 9, 2009 10:47 AM | Reply | Permalink
Perhaps, she says ponderingly, it's just that the Catholic Church "machine" is doing some "washing" of women's history.
After all, they've got some pretty damn dirty laundry now, don't they?
And maybe if they can convince us that a washing machine was so damn wonderful we won't notice all the blood stains the washing couldn't get out?
Nah.
They can spin and rinse and wring as much as they want.
It ain't gonna do their damn laundry for them.
March 9, 2009 12:58 AM | Reply | Permalink
Is this how we treat our liberators?
The Vatican is always wrong. Jeez. How long did it take them to apologize for Galileo?
March 9, 2009 6:49 AM | Reply | Permalink
I know the Tardis is the real reason that female emancipation exists. I know it.
March 9, 2009 6:51 AM | Reply | Permalink
um -- first link fixed. Jeeez.
If that is "emancipation," what will the Vatican think of this?
ok, morning and ciao.
March 9, 2009 7:04 AM | Reply | Permalink
I'd feel quite liberated if the Pope came and did my laundry. When can he start?
March 9, 2009 7:30 AM | Reply | Permalink
:)
March 9, 2009 1:16 PM | Reply | Permalink
HAPPY BIRTHDAY TOADIE!!!!
=D
March 9, 2009 4:03 PM | Reply | Permalink
It is your birthday Frizzle? Happy Birthday.
March 9, 2009 4:11 PM | Reply | Permalink
Thanks! I wonder what laundry detergent the Pope's cleaning ladies use? He could make a killing in endorsements.
March 9, 2009 7:22 PM | Reply | Permalink
Maytag..... let me tell you. There was a recall on them, before they went bust and folded up. We unfortunately got caught in buying the bad Matag washing machines. :(
March 9, 2009 9:04 AM | Reply | Permalink
I wonder if the pope has ever even laid eyes on a washing machine, the pampered little fop! Well, at least he didn't say "slaves." They were pretty damn liberating for all those southern belles!
I'd go all the way back to the wheel. It was awfully liberating to all of us.
March 9, 2009 10:19 AM | Reply | Permalink
LOL! Props to Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger for that illuminating look at the modern-day Vatican.
I'm sure His Holiness would love to expound on the issue more, but he's late for lunch with Cardinal Richelieu.
March 9, 2009 10:22 AM | Reply | Permalink
One good thing about the Vatican besides the statues and paintings, they have let scholars into their archives -well part of the, at least -and revealed some of their fine work over the centuries. Particularly informative in relationship to women and also men who participated in agrarian "pagan" rituals that continued into the 15th century and beyond (in many places to present times in watered -down forms) are the Vatican transcripts of witch trials of women (and men) as part of the age-old practice of burnings. The Protestants were no better as the events surrounding both Luther in Germany and Elizabethan culture in England demonstrate. Religion. The most oppressive societal force against women in history.
March 9, 2009 11:25 AM | Reply | Permalink
Well, if you include things like the Inquisition, the genocide in South America, the Middle East, I think you could conclude that religion has pretty much screwed males AND females -- and continues to do so.
Check out the latest repub diatribe against stem-cell research based on purely religious rather than scientific reasons.
March 9, 2009 8:03 PM | Reply | Permalink
?!@*#*! Reason # 1,598,232 why I am a recovering Catholic.
He's as clueless as that Maytag repairman.
March 9, 2009 11:30 AM | Reply | Permalink
Love the 'recovering catholic' term. I've long thought Catholicism was one of the most harmful and belitating addictions.
March 9, 2009 4:51 PM | Reply | Permalink
As useless, too.
March 9, 2009 4:54 PM | Reply | Permalink
But... Most of the places in the world where those things still are prohibited from women aren't Catholic.
March 9, 2009 5:15 PM | Reply | Permalink
They can be uglier, and just recently were. Can someone explain to me why a murderer can go to confession, be redeemed, and take communiion the next week, but why this qualifies for excommunication, i.e., above and beyond other mortal sins?
March 9, 2009 6:40 PM | Reply | Permalink
And why doesn't it say anything about the man who impregnated her (it's implied that might be her stepfather) being excommunicated? I am hoping the answer would be that he's not Catholic, but I'm not betting on it.
March 9, 2009 6:47 PM | Reply | Permalink
That borders on evil, IMHO, AA. There was more than one "innocent" involved, and I wonder why they had no consideration for her. None. At all. It's horrid!
I agree, very disturbing. I am glad I joined the 'reformed catholics,' although, I am no longer even a member there, truth be told. I got a little leery when the minister absconded with the new pew funds.
=(
March 9, 2009 8:45 PM | Reply | Permalink
bwakfat, (hoping you see this):
The problem for us "reformed Catholics" always is, just when you've convinced yourself once and for all that all, it's clear as a bell, all those Vatican farts are going to hell, an actual priest of actual Christian beliefs often shows up among them:
:-)
March 28, 2009 10:30 AM | Reply | Permalink
Why is it that you don't mention that the paper in question was written by a woman?
March 9, 2009 8:38 PM | Reply | Permalink
Um, because she provided a link? What does that have to do with anything? I am curious, really. I don't understand how the gender of the reporter is an issue.
March 9, 2009 8:42 PM | Reply | Permalink