Some months ago there was a picture of young Legionaries of Christ walking on a beach in Kerry. It was a contrived picture – young men down on the beach in touch with nature and yet they were dressed immaculately. I live close to the Atlantic and am often at the beach, either swimming or walking. I have never ever seen people dressed in such attire on that beach or any beach.
Polished shoes are not for those beaches and any man who wears such shiny shoes on a beach has to be screaming out some message that cannot be in kilter with the world with which most of us inhabit. How come the Legionaries of Christ all dress in uniform-style clothing? They are not police or army personnel.
At the time the picture appeared the founder of the Legionaries of Christ was hitting the headlines for all he wrong reasons - allegations of child sex abuse.
What is this link between fundamentalist/hard line conservatism – maybe pseudo conservatism - and immaculate grooming? It is not just a clothes thing, there is something else about it that is simply repulsive to observe.
Shakespeare talks of how ‘the apparel oft proclaim the man’.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Featured Post
Technology is causing us to lose the run of ourselves
This week’s column in The Kerryman newspaper. Michael Commane Over the last few weeks there has been talk in the media about the misbehaviou...
-
In the current edition of the Irish Catholic David Quin writes about the controversy happening between US Catholic politicians and the US hi...
-
This is written by Episcopalian priest Andrew Thayer, rector at Trinity Church, New Orleans. I t was published in The New York Times. On Su...
-
The story below is from The Irish Times of yesterday. The article is written by Arthur Beesley. On face value this is a shocking story and i...
No comments:
Post a Comment