And a Girl Shall Terrify Them - The bizarre case of Paige Sultzbach
and the all-boys team that forfeited a championship rather than play against her
In his invaluable What Jesus Meant, historian and author Garry Wills reminds us that, during his time as a thoroughgoing Galilean religious nuisance, Himself did not take the time to make priests, create a "Church," or, certainly, devise in his own memory an inflated medieval anachronism like the modern papacy. I have found this helpful to remember whenever "faith" is used as an excuse by elements of organized religion to treat other members of the human race as inferior. Find another excuse. The Gospels are not your alibi.
We had another little somethin'-somethin' in that regard this past week out in Arizona. The baseball team from Mesa Preparatory Academy made it all the way to the finals of the Arizona Charter Athletic Association's tournament, where the Monsoons — and how cool is that, by the way? — were scheduled to meet Our Lady of Sorrows, a Catholic charter school from Phoenix that is run by the Society of St. Pius X, about which much, much more anon. As it happens, the Monsoons have a freshperson second baseperson named Paige Sultzbach, who is slick with the glove around the bag and who is also a female person. (Just for the record, Mesa's archery team is coed as well.) Paige was a softball player in junior high, but, because Mesa doesn't offer a girls' softball team, she tried out, and made, the boys' varsity baseball team, which is a formidable accomplishment for a 15-year-old. Her coaches and male teammates supported her, and good on them for doing that, too. This is the kind of story that makes celebrating the anniversary of Title IX worthwhile. Except that her opponents in the title game disagree, and they've dragged Jesus in as an accessory before the fact.
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The most notable thing about the Society of St. Pius X is that they're a bunch of schismatics. Don't take my word for it. Hold a séance and talk to the late Pope Paul VI, who suspended the society's founder, renegade ultramontane French bishop Marcel Lefebvre, in 1975. Undaunted, Lefebvre consecrated four of the society's priests as bishops in 1988, earning him the not inconsiderable wrath of Pope John Paul II, who excommunicated him. The society is a radical rightist organization that has flirted not only with heresy, but with outright political fascism as well. Officials of the society have expressed support for, in no particular order, the French monarchy, the racist platform of Jean-Marie le Pen, and the Vichy government of the 1940s. One of the society's most prominent bishops, Richard Williamson, managed to put up a track record of public pronouncements that make Fred "God Hates Fags" Phelps sound like Francis of Assisi.
(SNIP)
This is an embarrassment to sport and to religion, the functional equivalent of bleeding statues and the face of Jesus on the side of the barn. This is the kind of thing of which Blessed John XXIII was trying to rid the Catholic Church when he called on the council to "throw open the windows" and release the stifling air of repression that had built up over the centuries. Our Lady of Sorrows doesn't want to play baseball against Paige Sultzbach because it's run by an organization that harbors an attitude toward women that differs very little from that of Bishop Williamson, its crackpot avatar. And, no, I don't have to "respect" the stand they took, or the beliefs that prompted it, unless I'm also prepared to "respect" the anti-Semitism and conspiracy-mongering that are at the heart of the beliefs in question. I'm not required to be as classy as Paige Sultzbach, state champion.
http://www.grantland.com/story/_/id/7929602/the-bizarre-case-paige-sultzbach-#8212-all-boys-team-forfeited-championship-rather-play-her
Another brilliant piece by the great Charles Pierce on what's becoming a fantastic sports website: Grantland.
= new reply since forum marked as read
Bishop Fellay in Rome as deal with SSPX appears close
The head of the traditionalist Society of St. Pius X (SSPX) was in Rome this past weekend for talks with the Ecclesia Dei commission, in what may have been the final steps toward a reconciliation with the Holy See, the Vatican Insider reports.
Bishop Bernard Fellay spoke with officials of the Ecclesia Dei commission about modifications of the “Doctrinal Preamble” that has been proposed as the basis for a reconciliation. That document will now be assessed at a May 16 meeting of the full Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. On the basis of that congregation’s report, Pope Benedict XVI is expected to make a final decision on the matter by the end of this month.
Bishop Fellay’s meetings with the Ecclesia Dei commission reportedly yielded a positive outcome, and Vatican officials have expressed a high degree of optimism that the SSPX will soon be reconciled. More worrisome, however, have been reports of severe divisions within the traditionalist group, which could precipitate an internal fissure within the SSPX if the agreement with the Vatican moves forward.
http://www.catholicculture.org/news/headlines/index.cfm?storyid=14312
