Tea at Trianon: Cardinal Siri Revisited, Again

John Wilson Croker on Marie-Antoinette

"We have followed the history of Marie Antoinette with the greatest diligence and scrupulosity. We have lived in those times. We have talked with some of her friends and some of her enemies; we have read, certainly not all, but hundreds of the libels written against her; and we have, in short, examined her life with– if we may be allowed to say so of ourselves– something of the accuracy of contemporaries, the diligence of inquirers, and the impartiality of historians, all combined; and we feel it our duty to declare, in as a solemn a manner as literature admits of, our well-matured opinion that every reproach against the morals of the queen was a gross calumny– that she was, as we have said, one of the purest of human beings."

~from History of the Guillotine by John Wilson Croker, 1844

Edmund Burke on Marie-Antoinette

"It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the queen of France, then dauphiness, at Versailles; and surely there never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision. I saw her just above the horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she had just begun to move in, glittering like a morning star full of life and splendor and joy. Oh, what a revolution....Little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disasters fall upon her, in a nation of gallant men, in a nation of men of honor and of cavaliers! I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards, to avenge even a look which threatened her with insult. But the age of chivalry is gone; that of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded...."

~Edmund Burke, October 1790

Saturday, March 20, 2021

Cardinal Siri Revisited, Again

I was going over some old posts which have grown with meaning over the years, especially those concerning the abandonment of traditional female attire for masculine clothing. Archbishop of Genoa Giuseppe Cardinal Siri made some excellent points in June 1960 when he composed his Notification Concerning Men's Dress Worn by Women. It was written as a guide for the pastors and teachers of the Archdiocese of Genoa but is still worthy of consideration nevertheless by all mature Catholics. The cardinal did not think slacks on women were immodest but feared they were a symptom of the eventual and overall masculinization of women to the detriment of their role in the family and in society. The cardinal was initially concerned about lady tourists wandering around Genoa in slacks and Capri pants during the summer of 1960 and influencing the women of who lived there to dress the same. The cardinal feared that masculine apparel donned by women would effect the psychology of women, saying: "The clothing a person wears...modifies that person's gestures, attitudes and behavior...clothing comes to impose a particular frame of mind on the inside." In many ways, his words were prophetic.

Cardinal Siri prophesied that the masculinization of women's attire would alter their relationships with men, since the attraction between men and women is due to their diversity; they complement and complete each other. "If then this diversity becomes less obvious because one of its major external signs is eliminated...what results is the alteration of a fundamental factor in the relationship." The de-feminization of women will diminish the relationships between men and women to "pure sensuality, devoid of all mutual respect or esteem." The cardinal insisted the male dress would also harm the dignity of the mother in her children's eyes. "What matters is to preserve modesty, together with the eternal sense of femininity which, more than anything else, all children will continue to associate with the face of their mother." He mentions how the violation of the natural order, even in small ways, leads to social disorder. "Aligned on the wrecking of the eternal norms are to be found the broken families, lives cut short before their time, hearths and homes gone cold, old people cast to one side, youngsters willfully degenerate and, at the end of the line, souls in despair and taking their own lives..."

All of the above has certainly happened since the sexual and feminist revolutions of the 1960's and 70's. Women wearing slacks to church was a minor change, although a cardinal of the Church seemed to think that female attire plays no small part in the general scheme of things.

Here is an excerpt from Cardinal Siri's Notification Concerning Men's Dress Worn By Women:

Male Dress Harms the Dignity of the Mother in Her Children's Eyes
All children have an instinct for the sense of dignity and decorum of their mother. Analysis of the first inner crisis of children when they awaken to life around them before they enter upon adolescence, shows how much the sense of their mother counts. Children are as sensitive as they can be on this point. Adults have usually left all that behind them and think no more on it. But we would do well to recall to mind the severe demands that children instinctively make of their own mother, and the deep and even terrible reactions roused in them by observation of their mother's misbehavior. Many lines of later life are here to be traced out and not for good in these early dramas of infancy and childhood.
The child may not know the definition of exposure, frivolity, or infidelity, but he possesses an instinctive sixth sense to recognize them when they occur, to suffer from them, and be bitterly wounded by them in his soul.
Let us think seriously on the import of everything said so far, even if women's appearing in man's dress does not immediately give rise to all the upset caused by grave immodesty.
The changing of feminine psychology does fundamental and, in the long run, irreparable damage to the family, to conjugal fidelity, to human affections and to human society. True, the effects of wearing unsuitable dress are not all to be seen within a short time. But one must think of what is being slowly and insidiously worn down, torn apart, perverted.
Is any satisfying reciprocity between husband and wife imaginable, if feminine psychology be changed? Or is any true education of children imaginable, which is so delicate in its procedure, so woven of imponderable factors in which the mother's intuition and instinct play the decisive part in those tender years? What will these women be able to give their children when they will so long have worn trousers that their self-esteem goes more by their competing with the men than by their functioning as women?
Why, we ask, ever since men have been men, or rather since they became civilized, why have men in all times and places been irresistibly borne to make a differentiated division between the functions of the two sexes? Do we not have here strict testimony to the recognition by all mankind of a truth and a law above man?
To sum up, wherever women wear men's dress, it is to be considered a factor in the long run tearing apart human order.

It seems the once unthinkable leap has been made from women causing consternation by wearing slacks to women now being able to become men, and vice versa. Not only adults, but small children can alter their gender at will. Confusion and mental illness reign, breaking down families, careers, communities.