Melania’s Veil
This article in the Boston Globe caught my eye:
During the Trumps’ meeting with Pope Francis on Wednesday, first lady Melania Trump wore a long-sleeved Dolce & Gabbana black dress and a black veil, following a tradition of many first ladies before her to wear black when meeting the pope. The other women in attendance, including Trump’s daughter, Ivanka Trump, wore similar dresses and veils.
There was some confusion, however, over why the first lady wore a veil — or a mantilla — at the Vatican while she didn’t wear a headscarf in the Muslim country of Saudi Arabia.
I should mention at the outset that only a very few women at my Church wear veils during services. The beautiful and ancient practice has fallen into a shameful disuse. Apparently modern women do not care to look pretty, or show respect to the high and holy.
That the First Lady would abide by this tradition my own fellow Catholics in America neglect was very heartening indeed to me. I was frankly elated to see it.
Please note the careful use of language. ‘There was some confusion’ is a phrase in the passive voice that nicely avoids stating who was confused, or when, or on what grounds.
It also avoids stating whether such confusion took place inside or outside the confines of a padded cell in a madhouse.
I suppose that a raving lunatic in a straitjacket, who cannot distinguish between the traditions of Christendom and the traditions of Dar-al-Islam, might be confused. I suppose someone who cannot distinguish friends from enemies might be confused.
Someone who thinks the earth is hollow, the sun is a fried egg, his dog is Satan, the CIA are beaming messages into his molars from mind-control satellites, and who thinks his left foot is an outerspace enemy cunningly disguised as a body part but that must be chopped off with a fire ax might likewise be confused.
He might ask himself why the First Lady abides by the practice of all First Ladies who ever met the Pope, and does not abide by the practices of woman-hating rape-culture monsters from the Middle East, who just blew up teen-aged girls in Manchester, and with whom we are locked in a life or death struggle for survival.
He might ask himself why the First Lady, or any lady, is not eager to show open signs of submission to a culture that practices polygamy, abduction and sexual slavery of underage girls, genital mutilation of girls, honor killing, gangrape as an instrument of domination, and forbids women from owning property, working for wages, or driving vehicles.
On the other hand, the Roman Catholic Church, despite what her enemies might have said, is in fact the only institution in history that ever held women not to be spiritually inferior to men, held that a bride could not be wed against her will, or forbade polygamy or divorce, or allowed abbesses into positions of leadership.
A person who was truly psychotic, and had lost all touch with reality, might indeed be confused by the question of why the First Lady, in her capacity as a representative of our nation, if not of all women of the West, did not show proper submission and surrender to barbaric customs designed to humiliate and demean women.
But there is no such person. No one is confused. There is no confusion. The Boston Globe is fake news.
It should be noted that Jackie Kennedy, Pat Nixon, Betty Ford, Rosalynn Carter, Nancy Reagan, Barbara Bush, Hillary Clinton, Laura Bush, and Michelle Obama all wore black dresses and the mantilla when meeting the Pope. No one expressed confusion over any of them not wearing a hijab.
About John C Wright
John C. Wright is a practicing philosopher, a retired attorney, newspaperman, and newspaper editor, and a published author of science fiction. Once a Houyhnhnm, he was expelled from the august ranks of purely rational beings when he fell in love; but retains an honorary title.
