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Spinster archetype, Mary Bailey
It's A Wonderful Life
What's a colloquialism?
col·lo·qui·al·ismkəˈlōkwēəˌlizəm/Many people use colloquialisms - it's a 'folksy' way to express a thought. It's probable 'mature' Americans may be more accustomed to such words, or at least understand what they signify. I'm guessing most ordinary people understand them. Perhaps a colloquialism could be better understood as a sort of literary archetype, a word or phrase which contains a descriptive sense or meaning immediately recognized or understood by an ordinary person.
nouna word or phrase that is not formal or literary, typically one used in ordinary or familiar conversation.
the use of ordinary or familiar words or phrases.
The Pope uses that sort of language in his more casual speeches and feverinos or daily homilies - sometimes he uses it in more official addresses and the Wednesday catechesis as well.
For instance, last year when the Holy Father addressed 800 superiors of women religious, he told them: The consecrated must be mothers and not ‘spinsters’! More than one journalist found the admonition to be offensive to women, especially women who have given up marriage and family for religious life. (Part of the problem may be the general perception that the vocation to religious life is simply another career choice. It's not.) Within that same speech the Holy Father counselled against 'using the vocation for personal ambition or advancement.' A seasoned religious would understand exactly what the Holy Father meant - it echoes everything his predecessors have said about consecrated life, as well as that which more doctrinal documents have taught.
Journalists and careerists, academics and armchair theologians, may not get the use of simple colloquialism to convey a point - but I think an ordinary nun would. Before he was made pope, the Holy Father was very close to the Discalced Carmelite nuns, whose language and way of life is very ordinary and simple, and I am told the nuns loved him much. I'm just guessing, but I wouldn't be surprised the Holy Father speaks publicly in much the same way he spoke to enclosed religious as well as the ordinary people he joined around their kitchen tables in the slums. Maybe that is lost on the more sophisticated, aesthete Catholics in the West as well?
Sadly, it appears the Catholic 'faithful opposition' is just as quick as secular journalists to reject such 'patriarchal' colloquialisms from a Pope they seem convinced is their theological/doctrinal inferior.
What's 'spinster'?
spinster
a woman who is not married, especially a woman who is no longer young and seems unlikely ever to marry.
Note* A woman who never enters marriage contract is so smart.
"Spinster means a woman who can stand independently and doesn't need a man for her life" - Urban
Full Definition of SPINSTER
1
: a woman whose occupation is to spin
2
a archaic : an unmarried woman of gentle family
b : an unmarried woman and especially one past the common age for marrying
3
: a woman who seems unlikely to marry - Merriam Webster
Very few people ever use the term any longer, but it can be used as a colloquialism, and often in a derogatory sense - to make a point. It's become a loaded word in our rad-feminist, everyone-must-have-love-affairs-sex-and-partner(s) dominated culture. Hence my insistence it's use is colloquial. Yet Catholics today love to mince words, especially from a Pope they do not like.
One of the more ridiculous assertions that the Pope's language is offensive and distinctly derogatory to 'single' women comes from a Catholic blogger known for some pretty outlandish criticisms of Catholic priests and bishops, and now Pope Francis. Though the term itself is 'derogative' - the Pope was not suggesting single women are inferior - that was demonstrated in the use of the term in his address to women religious last year.
Nevertheless, the blogger took offense to the Holy Father's homily yesterday wherein he used the word 'spinster' once again:
“The joy of going out to seek the brothers and sisters who are far off: This is the joy of the Church. Here the Church becomes a mother, becomes fruitful”However, the Pope warned that when the Church closes in on herself, it becomes stagnant and disheartened. Without joy or peace, he said, it becomes "a Church that seems more like a spinster than a mother." - Zenit
The Church has always been understood as Mother, Holy Mother Church, a fruitful vine - the term 'spinster' suggests a barren womb - it is actually a very understandable - even traditional analogy - much like saying the weather outside is colder than a witch's tit. Forgive me, it's vulgar and derogatory, but it's descriptive.
The Catholic blogger I refer to deliberately misconstrues the Holy Father's words, deliberately reads into them something that is not there. She says she supports sound Catholic doctrine yet takes a rad-feminist approach to 'catch' the Holy Father in an error. She twists his words to make him look foolish and uses them to write a post which invites her followers to further scorn the Holy Father. She interprets his words to mean single women, unmarried women, are not welcome in the Church. While claiming to write her 'private' reactions on her blog, while insisting she supports the Catholic Church whose leader is the Vicar of Christ, she and her readers speculate upon the Pope's mental health, condescending to suggest and discuss that he may have developmental disorders: "His inability to filter the thoughts in his brain could well be Asperger's."
I waste my time on this, however. How can one even respond to the following remark the same blogger made on another post maligning the Pope?
It is obvious he is imposing his hillbilly style upon 2000 years of respect and dignity of that which is holy. Deconstructing marriage and the family, the Deposit of Faith and Sacraments--the army guarding the safety of our Popes is now under deconstruction. - Catholic Blogster
Really?
No wonder so many websites, as well as her home chancery no longer tolerate her.
