Tuesday, September 13, 2005

Today’s first reading (1 Timothy 3:1-13), which discusses married bishops and women deacons, will be much quoted in the coming years. A priest told me that the Vatican has ancient documents (not Romans 16:1) proving the existence of women deacons (or more?). These documents would have come in handy had Armand Veilleux been elected pope.

No doubt these questions will be answered in obedience to Canon Law 1752.

“I NEVER heard of a woman’s bein’ saxton.”
“I dun’ know what difference that makes; I don’t see why they shouldn’t have women saxtons as well as men saxtons, for my part, nor nobody else neither. They’d keep dusted ’nough sight cleaner. I’ve seen the dust layin’ on my pew thick enough to write my name in a good many times, an’ ain’t said nothin’ about it. An’ I ain’t goin’ to say nothin’ now again Joe Sowen, now he’s dead an’ gone. He did just as well as most men do. Men git in a good many places where they don’t belong, an’ where they set as awkward as a cow on a hen-roost, jest because they push in ahead of women. I ain’t blamin’ ’em; I s’pose if I could push in I should, jest the same way. But there ain’t no reason that I can see, nor nobody else neither, why a woman shouldn’t be saxton.”
—Mary E. Wilkins (Freeman), “A Church Mouse,” in A New England Nun and Other Stories, New York, 1891.

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Took part in the “Campus Run” at the State Office Building campus. MK and I walked the 2¼ mile course.

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Spengler on the Decline of the Roman Empire