"None of their business"?

I am indebted to David Schutz for an article in an American magazine, apparently Jewish, called Tabletmag. The author is a Rabbi David Berger, who teaches in a Graduate School of Jewish Studies at Yeshiva University. It is highly intelligent, and an intelligent person will enjoy finding thought-provoking things in it with which creatively to disagree or even agree. (Notebook: Vatican II at 50: Assessing the impact of 'Nostra aetate' on Jewish Christian relations. December 15, 2015.)

Berger deprecates "the inappropriate dictation to others of what their own religion must teach", and goes on: " ... Jews active in interfaith affairs have not infrequently denounced the Christian belief that the entire world will recognise Jesus as the divine Messiah at the end of days. This, in my view, is none of our business, especially in light of the corresponding Jewish belief strikingly expressed in the High Holiday liturgy and the Aleinu prayer". (That particular "Christian belief" is of course precisely what S Paul teaches in Romans 11:25-26, and what Pope Benedict in 2008 took as the theme of his newly-composed Good Friday Prayer. Rabbi Jacob Neusner made a very similar point to Berger's some years ago in one of his own elegant defences of Joseph Ratzinger.)

He also reminds us that Maimonides, cited sometimes 'ecumenically' as a witness to a positive Jewish attitude towards the existence of Christianity, only saw it in a positive light as one step in the direction of the conversion of the whole world to Judaism, after which Christianity would be destroyed.

And, if I understand aright one of his faintly elliptic remarks, he delicately suggests that Christians who are anxious to describe Judaism as possessing a still salvific Covenant may accidentally be saying something rather embarrassing about the large numbers of Jews who do not live according to the Torah which expresses that Covenant (cfr. Ed Sanders' Covenantal Nomism). Had that thought occurred to you?

Berger thinks outside very many boxes!

As far as I can make out, none of the German or English bishops appears to have been in touch with Berger to explain to him how upset and confused he is by the Latin Prayer for the Jews used on Good Friday in the Extraordinary Form of the Roman Rite.

Barchester (2)

I had forgotten that Barchester was now twinned with a liberal Episcopalian diocese, thereby providing the reason why Bishop Armitage Shanks was accompanied into the Cactus House by some very obviously American women clergy of an extreme type. But I had little time to think; Shanks homed in on me with a manifestly malevolent intent. "My dear John", he cried. "I was so sorry there was all that trouble about your ordination in the Roman Church, and so terribly glad that you eventually managed to get it sorted out. And all for no better reason than your praise of Benedict XVI, Summorum Pontificum, and the Latin Mass! How incredibly unjust!". In plain English this translates as: "How amazingly amusing it was, after all those decades you spent agitating for union with Rome, that one or two members of the English Roman Catholic Church didn't want to be saddled with such a trouble-maker! What a laughing-stock they made of you! How we did all enjoy it!".

I dislike condescension; and my experience - I pass this tip on to juvenile readers for whom it might be useful - is that it is best dealt with by immediate verbal brutality. People who are accustomed to receiving deference and Yes Bishop or Yes Minister or Yes Headmaster have generally grown so unaccustomed to the rough and tumble of real life that it hits and hurts them all the more to get an occasional dose of it. "My dear Shanks," I said "I'm sure you're aware that I've never liked you. Would you like me to explain why? Shall we discuss what your nickname was at Staggers and how you acquired it?"

But, to do him justice, just for once my favourite tactic totally and dismally failed. The fixed and insincere smile on his beautifully groomed face never for one nannosecond faltered. He did his retaliation by addressing the clergywomen: "Sistren", he said, "these are a couple of loud-mouthed former Anglican clerical troublemakers whose crude and rampant misogyny and homophobia led them to become Roman Catholics. The shabbily dressed one with the badly tended beard is the worse ... he is even a pathological reader and admirer of ... Rat-zinger". A murmur of horror filled the Cactus House. I looked more closely at the ladies. Somehow ... you know the tricks memory plays upon one ... there came into my mind (I can't for the life of me place where from) ... some hexameters starting tristius haud illis monstrum nec saevior ulla / pestis .... Some of the clergypersons were wearing badges. One such badge showed the Obama in its Messianic pose; another had the inscription TRANSGOD YES CISGOD NO.  But one of them was wearing a much more interesting badge; "Gracious" I thought, "a fellow Classicist ... and a Patristics scholar ... and it's not often you meet a girl who keeps S Vincent's Commonitorium in her boudoir". It read "FOETICIDIUM SEMPER ET UBIQUE ET AB OMNIBUS".

Meanwhile, the Sisterhood had discovered that Jill was married to Colin, and were engaging polemically with her, urging upon her like Workshops and like Role Plays and like Group Massage Sessions to like sort of liberate her you know from like the Shackles of Patriarchy. Colin, feeling that he ought to protect his wife, was hobbling ineffectually about and bleating on the periphery of the melee ... dear friend that he is, I would have to admit that he is a trifle wet, even when not lamed. But he need not have troubled. After all, Jill did box for St Hugh's, and, I think, got her Blue in a year of particularly fierce competition. And she was the founding Chairman of the universally feared Oxford University Inter-Collegiate Women's Pancration Group (OUICWPG). Drawing herself up majestically, and enunciating clearly so that however dense their colonial patois they would at least assimilate the essential core of her message, she proclaimed "D*rty P*rv*rts".

"Oh dear", I thought. "I really had better dissociate myself from this. Not only is she jumping to totally unwarranted conclusions about the sexual orientation of these estimable ladies; she really has not understood the CDF documents, and the very definite utterances of the recent Magisterium - including the Catechism of the Catholic Church - about the total right of homosexual persons to full and unambiguous human respect, both from Society and from individuals, in thought, word, deed and omission. Such a clever girl ... after all, her doctorate on the Collyridians was supervised by dear Rowan himself before he changed his mind on the 'ordination' of women ... but very seriously off-message as regards correct Modern Catholic Attitudes. It will be terrible if the Tablet hears about all this. But who am I to judge?"

So, stepping carefully over Fr Colin's prostrate form, I motored off at a rate of knots towards the quieter if damp joys of the Tropical Rain Forest ... just as the less immovable of the cacti began to hurtle through the air. As the door closed behind me, a prolonged scream suggested that Bishop Shanks himself was undergoing a novel vegetable experience from which a full recovery might prove improbable. Girls will be girls!

A full account of the free-for-all that followed and the latest up-to-the-minute bulletin on Bishop Shanks' deteriorating condition can be read in The Barchester Chronicle incorporating the Hogglestock Times and Silverbridge Morning Examiner.

Barchester Diary

Last year, I printed the first half of this piece, as below, but never got round to getting the second half out of storage. I plan to unveil it in two days' time.


 "Be careful what you say to Jill", Fr Spikenard had murmured to me as his wife was out of the room and doubtlessly powdering her extremity. I had come down to Barchester to pay them a spring visit, and to see how the Barchester Ordinariate Group was flourishing. "She's in a foul mood ... some 'liberal' Catholic journalist has just written that the Ordinariate is a Damp Squib, and she wants blood". I was not surprised; even when we were all in the Church of England the womenfolk of our movement were combative far beyond us chaps. So, as we made our way, for a pre-lunch stroll, to the Botanical Gardens (constructed in the old Kitchen Garden of the Bishop's Palace: modern Anglican bishops, despite their impeccably 'Green' credentials, prefer the Waitrose delivery van to the employment of gardeners and under-gardeners), I let the other two do the talking. Jill was full of what, in her view, "the Ordinary should do" to put Catholic journals, Catholic journalists, Catholic basset hounds, Catholic whatevers, in what she noisily but imprecisely called 'their place'. "My dear", urged her spouse, "do be careful what you say. The Monsignore, poor chap, has to get on with these people". Jill swiveled gracefully on the heel of her left foot and, perfectly balanced, delivered with her right foot what I can only call a practised kick to her husband's left ankle. "Don't you mydear me, you ... you ... you ... husband", she purred. I felt that, whatever the risks, it was my duty to provide a distraction from this developing 'domestic'. So ...

"So how are you getting on with your three o'clock slot on Sunday afternoons in the the Sacred Heart?" I hastily and heartily enquired. Fr Spikenard let out a roar of laughter ... he always was noisy in his mirth, even when, as now, he was in acute pain. "None of that now. We've really fallen on our feet". We had got as far as the Carnivorous Plants House; he bent momentarily to examine a Drosera erythrogyne, which, red in tooth and claw, was terminating a small fly (and to rub his ankle). "Mercifully, the old Bishop of Hogglestock retired, and we got a new one. Another really alpha-plus Mennini appointment." "Anyone would have been better than that nasty old *  *." said Jill. She is not the easiest of women to please. Thank God that I ... er ... Her husband was less reserved. "Absolutely marvellous bloke. The first thing he did was to give us S Philomena's ... lock, stock, and barrel, church, presbytery, school, parish endowments, clerical stipend, and all." S Philomena's Barchester, as readers of Mgr Knox will know, is a glorious extravaganza in High Puginesque; the 'Mr Roodscreen' credited with its design is usually thought to be a pseudonym for old A W himself. "It needed a lot of work", said Jill. "We had to get back the roodscreen from some nice sensible high church Methodists who gave it a home when the Romans threw it out in the early seventies, and to reverse the complete vandalisation of the Sanctuary". "That must have cost you a pretty penny", I suggested. With a modest, triumphant smile, but withal a noticeable limp, Fr Colin remarked, as he led us on to the Cactus House, "As the Bishop suggested, I got together with the Latin Mass Society group in Barchester and we shared the costs. I'll show you the result after lunch".

"You see, this is how we divide up Sunday", he went on to explain. "9.30, I celebrate a Sung Mass in the Extraordinary Form for their lot. Then, at 11, I do the Anglican Use solemnly for our lot from S Gregory's. I don't think most of either congregation can spot much difference between the two rites ... the congregations are getting more and more interchangeable  ... E and B at 6 ... the Saturday Vigil Mass I retained as a 1970s retro period piece for those who like that sort of thing; it's celebrated for me by an aged retired monsignore ... claims to have been a peritus at the Council of Vienne ... all the authentic rituals of circa 1972 ... archaic ladies with jangly necklaces as Eucharistic Ministers ... sub-orthodox ditties chosen by a 'Liturgy Committee' all in their eighties ... girl servers ... ". "They have trouble keeping those", said Jill, with glee. Her bloodlust appeared to have abated. "The girls soon realise there are better things on offer and buy themselves mantillas and go to the Sunday Masses instead, so as to watch the rather nice-looking boys we have in our serving teams ... I think this year's Chartres Pilgrimage may result in our first engagement ... wonder what their children will be like ... S Pius V crossed with Thomas Cranmer ... ". "Mutual Enrichment", I helpfully suggested, first having checked that my ankles were out of her range.

At this point a most unwanted interruption broke in upon our idyll. From the other side of a large and undisciplined Agave americana 'Variegata' came the sound of a loud and confident voice. It was extremely arrogant, cut-glass and English Establishment; and had all the hallmarks of being an accent, and a timbre, picked up, not from m'tutor at a large school near Slough, but from an expensive elocutionist. The sort of accent Americans can't make up their minds whether they 'just love', or totally hate. The vegetable monstrosity itself seemed to shrink under the burden of the assertive decibels. Then emerged the dapper figure of a carefully groomed gentleman dressed as a bishop. He was accompanied by what was clearly a gaggle of American clergywomen. "Armitage Shanks" hissed Jill under her breath. Her foot (her right foot) began to quiver.

Can this really be the Right Reverend the Father in God the eighty third Lord Bishop of Barchester, Armitage Jefferson Millhouse Shanks, in propria persona? Continued after tomorrow.

Cuddly UPDATE

I wonder if there is a list available of the images illustrating Biodiversity which are being projected onto the facade of S Peter's ... the only pictures I have seen have been of the more "Attenborough" bits of fauna ... furry mammals ... graceful whales ... you know what I mean. What about the rest of God's creation? All of it, so Dogma informs us, is Good (or are you a Manichaean?).

I will believe that this show is about something more than childish sentimentality when I hear that an image of the Ebola Virus or of an advanced brain tumour has been 'screened'. Or Adolf Hitler. Or, as an example of the wondrous symbioses of Nature, the maggots on the decomposing corpse of a Black Rat.

(I invite readers to nominate their own varied and illuminating examples of Biodiversity.)

"The Papa Bergoglio Cuddly Pets Show" is my own private title for this daft misuse of a superb piece of baroque architecture.

UPDATE is it technologically possible to project three-dimensional images? So that, when the Holy Father makes his public appearance on Christmas Morning, he could appear to be wearing the Triregnum?

There is a thoroughly admirable section in our beloved Holy Father's admirable Year of Mercy Homily which will undoubtedly have the German and English Cardinals and Bishops dashing around frantically to "correct" what the Holy Father has said. His words: " ... the Church ... has set out once again, with enthusiasm, on her missionary journey ... *wherever there is one person, the Church is called to reach out to him and to bring the joy of the Gospel and the Mercy and Forgiveness of God."*. "No No No" Their Eminences will feverishly cry, the cry dutifully re-echoed by Their (conclamant suffragan) Lordships. "You mustn't get the wrong impression. It really is absolutely totally wrong even to think of converting Jews. When Francis said 'wherever there is one person' he most definitely never meant a Jewish person. Obviously, no sensible individual thinks of Jews as persons. Certainly not nowadays after Nostra aetate. We must never ever suggest that Jews might be brought the 'joy of the Gospel' or the 'Mercy and forgiveness of God'. Our Ecumenical Advisers would never forgive us".

Personally, I am a terribly simple sort of  ... er ... person. I assume that the Successor of S Peter meant precisely what he said, not least because what he said is totally at one with the teaching of Scripture and with the Church's Tradition. "Wherever there is one person". Pope Francis' words remind us of the Good Shepherd who wasn't content to have the 99 safe and sound but searched and searched for the One Sheep until he found it. And I think that, in their implicit disagreement with these words of Pope Francis, and with what Pope Benedict wrote, and with the teaching of so many Roman Pontiffs, the German and English Episcopal Conferences have recently given us the very best reason to be extremely apprehensive about the idea of allowing Bishops' Conferences a greater doctrinal competence. It pains me to have to say this, but they have demonstrated with the utmost clarity that this is not the time to entrust them with something so dangerous: I mean, with the capacity to impose upon the consciences of dutiful Catholics possibly dubious teachings which they would be supposed to receive with religiosum obsequium. 

In my - as ever - extremely humble opinion, Apostolos suos rules, OK. It settled the question of what such conferences are ecclesiologically, and what, consequently, their doctrinal status is. And the teaching of the John Paul II and Benedict XVI Magisterium on the integrally related question of the ontological priority of the Universal over the Particular Church, rules, too. The 24 years between the appointment of Joseph Ratzinger as Cardinal Prefect of the CDF, and his abdication as Pope, represented doctrinally and intellectually a most significant and satisfactory period in the Church's life. Hans Kueng's impotent fury and the pathetic figure of Walter Kasper whinging on the sidelines were, and are, deplorable irrelevances. So is the nastiness of those, of whatever rank in the Church, who attack Ratzinger and his legacy when he is no longer able to answer back.

(*-* Original text as delivered in Italian by the Holy Father: "Dovunque c'e una persona, la la Chiesa e chiamata a raggiungerla per portare la gioia del Vangelo e portare la misericordia e il perdono di Dio." The translations into the other three Romance languages have the equivalents of 'una persona'. The English translation which was put out reads ".. wherever there are people ...". A probable grammatical motive for the unfortunate change is that in English the word "people" can be resumed by the non-gender-specific pronoun "them", whereas "one person" forces a speaker into the politically-incorrect gender-specific "him". ~ ~ ~ What about the Arabic, German, and Polish versions?)

The BBC, Edward Stourton, and an ex-Jesuit mock and misdescribe Indulgences

In the December 20 'Sunday' programme, the presenter, 'Ed' Stourton, a Catholic who 'remarried' after divorce, invited 'Michael Walsh, a papal historian', to explain Indulgences.

He did not mention that Walsh is an ex-Jesuit with a history of attacking the Vatican and the previous pontificate; a Tablet contributor. 'A papal historian' sounds so much grander than 'a failed Jesuit who has attacked the Vatican in the Tablet.'

By the way ... I'm sure you don't need me to tell you this ... Stourton, inevitably, is a Trustee of the Tablet.

The first conspicuous feature of the episode was the laughter. The pair kept giggling together: I counted six pieces of mirth.

I wonder if either of this spiteful and malevolent pair would ever dare to deal with any other religion ... Islam, say ... by continually laughing as they talked about it. Or, if they did, how fast the Beeb would sack them.

And there were two major pieces of misrepresentation. (1) The 'papal historian' appeared unaware that, as long ago as 1967, the practice of attaching periods of time to partial indulgences was abolished. He described this practice using the present tense.

And, (2), either out of ignorance or mendacity, 'papal historian' Walsh went on to claim that Pope Francis "has never mentioned [indulgences]"; and "that's not where we are at the moment". The implication of the interview appeared to be that Indulgences are a load of old rubbish which Sensible Pope Francis is burying by very studiously not mentioning. So what is the truth of the matter?

"This practice [gaining indulgences] will acquire an even more important meaning [magnum pondus] in the Holy Year of Mercy." This is from a paragraph in the Bull of Indiction, in which the Roman Pontiff goes on to commend the practice. Furthermore, in a Letter dated 1 September 2015, our Holy Father set out at length the methods of securing Indulgences during the Jubilee Year of Mercy. And, in his Bull, he carefully explained their purpose: that Absolution remits sin, but "the sin leaves a negative effect [contradictionem]". An indulgence "frees us from even the residue [vestigia] left by the consequences of sin".

I fail to see why this weekly BBC programme, its 'flagship' religious slot, should be left in the hands of Stourton, a lapsed Catholic who, like so many of his type, seems to me to be very far from being neutral with regard to the religion which he once professed. And why, if it must give space to someone like Walsh, the Beeb doesn't balance him with somebody who will defend the Church, even if only by giving accurate information about her.

I thought 'balance' was supposed to be one of the BBC rules.

Christmas Cards (2)

 ... and, carrying on from the previous post, I would like to express my appreciation in hoc tempore Adventus et Natalis Domini to those who work in the Curia Romana, and especially in the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. I do so in advance of the Holy Father's imminent good wishes on Monday December 21!

I have no way of knowing what truth there is in the easy denigrations made so often of the Curia. I can only say that my own experiences have been invariably and unambiguously favourable. When we were formally applying to the CDF for the necessary dispensations to join the Presbyterate of the Ordinariate, I was impressed by the speed and efficiency and kindness with which they dealt with the necessary matters. It compared very favourably with the conduct at that time of some other Catholics. Friends with whom I have spoken have had the same good experiences as I did, both with regard to that particular period; and also on other occasions when they have been in touch with members of the Curia, both high and less high. Such members have often, I have been told, gone well beyond the call of duty to be as helpful as they could. And during the period of the gestation of the Anglican Use Missal, we have been dealt with in the kindest possible way, as well as with good sense and meticulous learning.

Journalists do not often clutter up their copy with the undramatic News of how hard, and how well, members of the Curia work. I would like to take the opportunity of filling this lacuna; and, not least, because this is a time when working in the Curia, and particularly in the CDF, may be accompanied by unusual complications.

So ... both humble thanks and dutiful best wishes to His Eminence Gerhard Cardinal Mueller; thanks to those highly important people in Ecclesia Dei; and to all the Cardinal's collaborators ... and especially to one particular worker who is due, I gather, in 2016 to leave Rome to return to America. I wrote that before his appointment was gazetted!

Ubicumque fueritis, fausta vobis precor tempora.

Christmas Cards (1)

Out of pure idleness, Pam and I stopped sending Christmas Cards some years ago. But I would like to thank all readers and correspondents for their kindness in reading what I write, and the additional kindness of ensuring that I get to know that there are people out there reading it! I do offer Mass for my readers.

 A Blessed Advent and a fruitful Expectation of the Lord's Coming.

ABSTINENCE

Since Canon 1251 makes clear that there is no Abstinence on Solemnities, today has been the last day you have an obligation of Abstinence until Friday 8 January.

Obcessions, obcessions

While some of you are obc{P}essed with reviving archaic orthographies, here am I working my socks off at the philological coal-face of logogenesis. I do this by combing through the undergraduate freebie newspapers. Here is a recent specimen of my discoveries (do not write in giving examples of the use of the following word as far back as 1464 or even 2014, or I may have to hurt you, as we schoolmasters say).

CISHET. (Substantive.) The syllables apparently divide between the S and the H. A combination of "cismale" or "cisfemale" with "heterosexual". In other words, a "cishet" is the sort of tedious and boring person whose physiology is surgically unmodified, and who also is forced to spend his or her life labouring under the burden of an incurable heterosexual orientation. I suspect it may be designed to supplant the now obsolete term "straight". (Readers who hobble on walking sticks to 'bus stops while clutching their 'bus passes in their arthritic fingers may remember a distant day when the word used to indicate this phenomenon was "normal". My assumption is that each term, after achieving acceptance and usage, gradually comes ... for whatever reason ... to be deemed politically incorrect. Rather as we always seem to be in need of a new term for Urinals.)

In case it might help, I invite you to consider the picture at the side of this blog.

This is what a cishet looks like. 

Father Tim ...

 ... has had a "cardiac episode", and I imagine that those who will remember him in their prayers will be very many. Dear Father, very best wishes.

George Weigel ... and Unresolved Juxtapositions

So some American neocon called George Weigel has assured us that 'supersessionism' is a heresy. A bit lordly; who is this inquisitorial individual that he has the competence to tell us that we are heretics? The Vatican Document on Catholic-Jewish relations which I have been discussing itself informs us that supersessionism was the teaching of many of the Fathers and of the medieval, not to say post-medieval, Catholic world. And the Document itself describes itself as non-Magisterial, non-doctrinal. But, if my memory serves me, this is the same Weigel who wrote a hagiographical extravaganza about S John Paul II, in which just about the only criticism he could bring himself to make is that the Holy Pontiff was insufficiently enthusiastic about neocon- and zionist- backed military adventures in the Middle East. And he's a tough man, Weigel, on anybody who doesn't accept his own favoured option with regard to the horns of the dilemma left to us by Dignitatis humanae (he had his reservations about rapprochement with the SSPX).

Most people who are into this sort of stuff know that the text of Dignitatis humanae of Vatican II began by saying that it changed nothing of the Church's previous doctrine about Religious Liberty; and then went on to give teaching that most people (both those who liked it and those who disliked it) thought contradicted that earlier Magisterium. And no hermeneutic was offered to guide anybody who wanted to fit these apparent polar contradictions into a unity.

My own instinct is that this is an unhelpful way of carrying on. But I accept that disagreement is possible here. Perhaps such teaching can helpfully impel theological practictioners towards a valuable new synthesis. I'm open to persuasion. You convince me.

The Vatican discussion Document on Catholicism and Judaism plays the same game. It asserts with ringing clarity that all men need Jesus for Salvation, and repudiates the idea that there can be two covenants, one for Jews and one for Gentiles. Those who put the Document together understand the fundamental grammar of the Christian Faith well enough for this. But they then place beside it the idea that God's covenant with Israel is not revoked. Realising the prima facie contradiction, they fall back upon invoking Divine Mystery.

S Paul, also, believed in both of these truths. But he did not leave the matter dangling between unresolved polarities. For him
(1) Israel is God's Olive Tree.
(2) When the Messiah came, most of Israel did not believe, while a few did.
(3) This is within the familiar Old Testament theme of the small Faithful Remnant.
(4) So the unbelieving Jewish branches are broken off the Olive Tree and thrown aside.
(5) And wild olive branches, believing Gentiles, are grafted into the old stem in their place.
(6) But at the End, when the fulness of the Gentiles has accepted God's offer, then the broken off branches, moved by jealousy at this Gentile success, will turn to God.
(7) And will be grafted back in.
(8) So that God will, indeed, have been true to his Covenantal promises to Israel.

What this means is that in the Now, the Age between Incarnation and the End, unbelieving Jews are in a broken-off state; not part of God's Olive Tree. God has certainly not revoked his Covenant; but unbelieving Jews have walked away from it and their privileges are occupied by the abiding faithful covenantal community composed of the Faithful Jewish Remnant and of Gentiles who by that same Faith have joined them; videlicet the Catholic Church. [In other words, the Vatican Document deftly hides (4) out of view like the hired conjuror at a children's party, and, having distracted you from it by sleight of hand, loudly trumpets a version of (8) which has been denuded of the logical and biblical substructure given in (2), (3), (4), (5), (6), and (7). This is the sort of jiggery pokery you always end up being served in 'ecumenical' documents. And it is the sort of slipshod game played by Weigel in his article.]

I imagine that the embarrassing conclusion I have printed above in red is the practical reason why the Vatican Document (not to mention Weigel) steers clear of S Paul's perfectly logical construction with all the fastidiousness of your maiden aunt giving a wide berth to a hippy orgy.

Or perhaps your maiden aunts are all liberated ladies.