Sometimes my world feels too comfortable, so I open the ol' Observer to find anger fuel. On September 30 I boiled a heckuva stew over the resultant bonfire, poetically speaking, with leftovers to last until graduation.
Responding to the question of the day, "What could possibly be worse than this weather?" one male sophomore responds, "Being a woman." I intend provocation: would anyone get printed for such pithy insights as "being in a concentration camp" or "being black?" How about "having special needs?" These sentiments do not deserve publication because freedom of speech does not protect publicly heckling "F- you" at every second person who walks past. But Mr. Monolith did not mean to be taken so seriously! Relax. His statement is more akin to "Muck Fichigan" than Nazi treatises on purifying the race.
Speaking of purity - a parallel Viewpoint column entitled "Trust the Church" by Dale Parker (Sept. 30) argued against the ordination of women based on a study showing that children of mass-attending fathers are 22 times more likely to become Mass-attending adults than children of Mass-attending mothers. The logic is simple. Clearly, who women are and what women do as women is of less consequence - whether laughably or pitiably - than the world of men. If a father affects his children, how much more might a liturgical father?
And of course measurable results prove orthodox doctrinal formulation, if getting nailed on a cross is any indication, or the difficulty men especially seem to find in keeping their fingers out of little children's underwear.
On the other hand, if the erudite Mr. Brooks Smith of Sept. 24 is any indication, female clergy may in fact simultaneously enlarge mass attendance and certain male bodily organs. Why not ordain women so that single dads will take their children to Church? This is absurd. I realize that it's simpler to think within a private box, to maintain comic privileges for misogyny, to confirm authority by infinitely contingent "results." Of course, this monologue comfort constitutes the ideological equivalent of masturbation; hooray. I'm glad The Observer has the space to catch and distribute the ejaculate.
Peter Hochstedler
senior
off campus
Oct. 1
