feminine-genius

We've lost the “doyenne of decorum”

Letitia Baldridge has died at the age of 86. As Jacqueline Kennedy's social secretary, she was most visible in this country during the Kennedy presidency, but she's written much since then.

Above all she sought to preach the virtues of a little decorum as a brash new-money age of celebrity washed away the values of old. “Many people feel we’ve lost all sense of taste,” she noted in an interview with Women’s Wear Daily in 2007, making no secret of the fact that she was one of them. “Notoriety is what counts, and what sells. As far as excellence, half the people don’t even recognise it when they see it. These celebrity fashion icons, if they have screamingly bad taste, no one seems to care. When [Barbra Streisand] wears nightgowns for her fourth wedding and puts her bosoms in people’s faces, everyone thinks that’s the way to behave.” Jacqueline Kennedy, by contrast, “did not know a moment of bad taste.”

The obituary has some funny anecdotes, because despite being a little pretentious in her early years (which she readily admits) she did find a gracious ability to laugh at herself over her many faux-pas.

The catalogue of calamity began in June 1947, she admitted, when she was invited through her father to attend a garden party at Buckingham Palace. It was crowded and, turning from one conversation she stretched out a leg over which a large figure tripped and was sent flying. It was Winston Churchill. “I wanted to die,” she said.

Priceless! I did mention etiquette in the ACW book, since it is usually a constructive body of rules that are based on basic charity. Most etiquette is filled with lovely courtesies, but when there is no faith to keep it focused, it does have a tendency to devolve into meaningless trifles that become increasingly exclusive.

RIP, dear sister, and thank you for returning to your duties when President Kennedy was assassinated. Your strength and guidance helped the country through the crisis.

Domestic abuse and violence

The Crescat has an excellent post on domestic violence, based on a tragic situation that erupted very close to her. She brings her own experience into the piece, which gives her a tremendous amount of ethos concerning such scenarios. That said, I will add two cents more.

There are certainly questions of shame, self-esteem, embarrassment, isolation and fear. There are the imagined reactions of neighbours, the family, and co-workers to consider, which often hold people bound. There is also the sheer vulnerability of being weak, poor, and confused -- a person with very limited options. All of these must be surmounted in order to escape. But then what?

I touch on this in my new book -- Set Free: The Authentic Catholic Woman's Guide to Forgiveness. The next step (after grief and the meltdown that are only natural) is forgiveness. A snippet:

[P]rudence will help a woman to distinguish when to remain in a hostile environment and when to leave, or when to bear with the unkindness of others and when she is becoming an enabler—which is hardly Christian. So consider the case of a bitter woman who is tied to an abusive partner by her low self-esteem and no options. In her trapped state, the daily injuries that naturally accrue spiral into one enormous ball of pain. The anger beneath the surface often flares up and borders on rage—so much so that they are both being crushed under the weight of sin.

When forgiveness becomes habitual, prudence can be relied upon, illuminating how to proceed even in the most delicate circumstances. Interestingly, it may become clear that it’s not necessarily the choice but the disposition of the one making the choice; therefore, two women with similar circumstances may each discern a different response, and the same choice made by two women may be an occasion of sin for one and a path to sainthood for the other. That is why, in the introduction to the book, I insisted that I don’t know what the right choice for another may be—and in pretending otherwise I could trample on the Holy Spirit, who does.

Unless one forgives, one will always lack prudential judgment. I know it is counter-intuitive, but it has been proven over and over -- and it is foundational to our faith. When the woman is freed from a situation like this, she must be helped to forgive or she will continue to wander in the darkness.

Prayers for the victims in Kat's story, and let's pray for the gift of enlightenment when we're close to frightening situations like that one.

It's not just baby girls...

...that the Chinese Communist don't like. They also have a problem with elderly women who won't submit to their overlords:

Ms. Jiang, a [65-year-old] “healthy and strong-willed woman,” according to her family, had survived at least three years of forced labor in the past for practicing Falun Gong. When five police officers came to abduct her on September 7, her husband in his seventies, along with several neighbors, attempted to dissuade the police, but they were unsuccessful.

Her family was frantic to find her, but the government was uncooperative.

After several days, Ms. Jiang's son located her at a brainwashing center run by the 610 Office, a Party-based security force leading the campaign against Falun Gong. He was prohibited from contacting her until October 1, by which time Ms. Jiang was in critical condition. He rushed her to an emergency room where doctors identified bruises throughout her body, bleeding, and deteriorated organ function.

Ms. Jiang died the next day.

She had endured three weeks of torture. Such was the courage of her convictions--and such was the response of a government that cannot honour conscience. I don't understand the tenets of Falun Gong, but I know that China is not the only country with draconian policies against people of faith. May she rest in peace, and may we choose wisely in the coming election so that good may prevail.

War on Women

For all the ink spilled in the US, for all the blather about whether tax payers should pay for birth control for college students (unmarried, and evidently able to pay for cell phones, tuition, and beer money) the greater battle against women is still in China, where millions of pregnant women have been violently aborted, and girl babies are more often the victims.

In this particular case, we don't know if the baby was a boy or a girl, but it was still targeted, and the two sisters are now deprived of their mother -- who has had a mental breakdown.

On October 2^nd, Song was alone in her home in Zibo City (Gaoqing County, Heilizhai Town, Qiaojia Village)  while her family was out in the field bringing in the fall harvest.  A mother of 2 girls and nearly 6-months pregnant with their 3^rd child, Song had no reason to believe that she was in any danger.  After all, she had heard nothing from the Family Planning Police about her pregnancy, and it was a national holiday, when no government officials would be working.  Yet, at 5pm that evening, seven Family Planning officials arrived at her home, took her by force into a vehicle and drove her 100 kilometers away to Dongying Universal Love Women’s Hospital.

At the hospital, the officials violently tied Song down, confiscated her cell phone and stripped all of her clothes off.  Because she was so resistant, they forcibly injected her with a sedative, then pressed her finger to sign the voluntary abortion consent form.  They forcibly injected a needle into her womb with a poison to kill the baby and to induce labor. After this, they left her naked on the hospital bed and locked her in.

Now the baby is dead, the mother catatonic, the community anguished at a grave injustice, and the family emotionally shredded. I'm not seeing the Universal Love here.

Beyond the crime of murder and the injustice of intrusion into family family, the draconian state policy has caused a widespread demographic crisis, a toxic social landscape, and a devaluation of the human person. Furthermore, every child aborted is an intimate tragedy that touches the surrounding lives, and until each loss is mourned and repented, there can be no peace. 

Consider what Mo Yan, the recent Nobel laureate, said about his own collusion:

“When I was serving in the army, I was promoted to the rank of officer,” said Mo Yan. “There was another officer in the army who lost his rank…because he had a second child. I was afraid I would receive the same punishment, so I chose not to have another child. If it were not for my own selfish ambition, I would have let my wife have a second or even a third baby. I used a very high-sounding rationale to convince her we needed to abort the baby: we had to follow the Party’s policy and nation’s policy. This has become an eternal scar in the deepest part of my heart. …It became a big shadow in my heart.”

Congratulations to Mr Yan, prayers for Song's family (and all the rest), and let's remind those we meet that choice cuts two ways. If folks are serious about stopping the war on women, then we need to support authentic choice -- that of religious liberty in the West and the freedom to choose life in the East.

Voici!

The new book is officially out! It can be ordered here, and there's more information at the main site: feminine-genius.com

I'd love to share this good news with your women's groups, and am a reasonably cheap date (air travel being what it is). God's message of freedom through forgiveness should be shouted from the rooftops -- or blogs, or radio shows, and everywhere. I'm doing my part -- and count on your support.

Four new women saints

From Benedict's beatification homily today:

“May your love be upon us, O Lord, as we place all our hope in you” (Ps 32:22). With these words, the liturgy invites us to make our own this hymn to God, creator and provider, accepting his plan into our lives. María Carmelo Sallés y Barangueras, a religious born in Vic in Spain in 1848, did just so. Filled with hope in spite of many trials, she, on seeing the progress of the Congregation of the Conceptionist Missionary Sisters of Teaching, which she founded in 1892, was able to sing with the Mother of God, “His mercy is on those who fear him from generation to generation” (Lk 1:50). Her educational work, entrusted to the Immaculate Virgin Mary, continues to bear abundant fruit among young people through the generous dedication of her daughters who, like her, entrust themselves to God for whom all is possible.

I now turn to Marianne Cope, born in eighteen thirty-eight in Heppenheim, Germany. Only one year old when taken to the United States, in eighteen sixty-two she entered the Third Order Regular of Saint Francis at Syracuse, New York. Later, as Superior General of her congregation, Mother Marianne willingly embraced a call to care for the lepers of Hawaii after many others had refused. She personally went, with six of her fellow sisters, to manage a hospital on Oahu, later founding Malulani Hospital on Maui and opening a home for girls whose parents were lepers. Five years after that she accepted the invitation to open a home for women and girls on the island of Molokai itself, bravely going there herself and effectively ending her contact with the outside world. There she looked after Father Damien, already famous for his heroic work among the lepers, nursed him as he died and took over his work among male lepers. At a time when little could be done for those suffering from this terrible disease, Marianne Cope showed the highest love, courage and enthusiasm. She is a shining and energetic example of the best of the tradition of Catholic nursing sisters and of the spirit of her beloved Saint Francis.

Kateri Tekakwitha was born in today’s New York state in sixteen fifty-six to a Mohawk father and a Christian Algonquin mother who gave to her a sense of the living God. She was baptized at twenty years of age and, to escape persecution, she took refuge in Saint Francis Xavier Mission near Montreal. There she worked, faithful to the traditions of her people, although renouncing their religious convictions until her death at the age of twenty-four. Leading a simple life, Kateri remained faithful to her love for Jesus, to prayer and to daily Mass. Her greatest wish was to know and to do what pleased God. She lived a life radiant with faith and purity.

Kateri impresses us by the action of grace in her life in spite of the absence of external help and by the courage of her vocation, so unusual in her culture. In her, faith and culture enrich each other! May her example help us to live where we are, loving Jesus without denying who we are. Saint Kateri, Protectress of Canada and the first native American saint, we entrust to you the renewal of the faith in the first nations and in all of North America! May God bless the first nations!

Anna Schaeffer, from Mindelstetten, as a young woman wished to enter a missionary order. She came from a poor background so, in order to earn the dowry needed for acceptance into the cloister, she worked as a maid. One day she suffered a terrible accident and received incurable burns on her legs which forced her to be bed-ridden for the rest of her life. So her sick-bed became her cloister cell and her suffering a missionary service. She struggled for a time to accept her fate, but then understood her situation as a loving call from the crucified One to follow him. Strengthened by daily communion, she became an untiring intercessor in prayer and a mirror of God’s love for the many who sought her counsel. May her apostolate of prayer and suffering, of sacrifice and expiation, be a shining example for believers in her homeland, and may her intercession strengthen the Christian hospice movement in its beneficial activity.

Four lovely icons of Holy Mother Church -- our true teacher, our source of healing and consolation, the builder of authentic culture. Four new examples of the feminine genius that is only fully possible in the rich soil of our faith. Dear sisters, pray for us!

"Contracepting America"

Last night's presidential debate ended with both candidates assuring the voters that there would be full and ready access to birth control for all women. Such is the modern world, and such the unwavering American approach to human freedom. My thoughts are here, including this:

Given that no one can “impose” his personal religious views on another, and that morality must remain in the private sphere, how can we prevail on the culture to honor conjugal love without explaining that God's plan for the person requires chastity and self-control? I do agree with the bishops that we must defend religious liberty so that we have the freedom to make this truth known, but such a rear guard action at this point—without making a strong and spirited defense of authentic conjugal love—may be too little and too late to influence family policies in the only way that will restore a healthy culture.

I welcome your thoughts!

ADDENDA: Dr Taylor Marshall shared his own important concerns here.

George Weigel makes the case that economic health is essential: "A robust economy is not only an economic imperative; it is a moral and cultural imperative," but I can't  help thinking that he's got it precisely backwards. All his arguments are correct as far as they go, but he doesn't address the fundamental problem that a materialist view poses for those who try to prioritise the spiritual underpinnings to civic life. When the moral foundations to a culture are in order, the economics will take care of themselves. Remember that our word "economy" comes from the Greek word Oikonomia (οἰκονομία) + Nemein (νέμω) meaning "the management of one's household."

"a marriage tragedy"

A new book has been written on the Norwegian tragedy (the one in which Anders Breivik unleashed his arsenal on a youth camp, killing and wounding scores of young people). His was a tragic and twisted home, which culminated in a larger tragedy, one which perhaps could have been prevented if the social services agency had acted when called in.

Borchgrevink said it was this that had convinced him that he was right to publish.

"I've given more weight to the public interest. The fact is that he was actually caught by the system before the action, not by the security police, but in his childhood. He was within the system, but the system let him go."

Carolyn Moynihan reminds us of the statistics surrounding out of wedlock births and the dysfunction that often arises from broken homes; and there is no doubt that a child bears tremendous scarring from a mentally ill parent, especially if other, healthier forms of guidance are missing. To that end, Carolyn rightly suggests that this may have been "a marriage tragedy," (and a multi-generational one at that) since the system in place didn't support the father, who tried to rescue his son from the custody of the deeply troubled mother.

This reminds us also that--rather than a private arrangement--marriage is a social institution, and its health has a wider impact on society. What goes on "behind closed doors" will have its effects on the wider population eventually:

"The well-being of the individual person and of both human and Christian society is closely bound up with the healthy state of conjugal and family life" (GS 47 § 1).

[I didn't include the photo of Anders, because I find it disturbing -- I can't look at it too long, poor fellow.]