Juxtapositions

This just in via email from a good friend in Canada,

Dear Hilary,

It has lately been the juxtapositions (shown or implied) on your blog that have been thought-provoking.

The Roman gay pride entry (which did go on and on...) was rather shocking because the first pictures of the event itself were only a little more edgy than the advertising you see everyday. The Roman pecs looked like a movie poster for an action pic. They were followed by the Carabanieri: the very visage of Power cooly enforcing the party line without blinking. And finally the "ordinary people" of the streets, who suddenly looked extraordinary and very beautiful indeed.

I was also intrigued by the line of apologetics you started that this exhibited a hatred of self and of sex. Now we all know that traddies are not so pleasant to be around either, and that there has been an unintelligent Jansenistic streak in Catholicism since before Jansenius, one by no means entirely repudiated in the traddie movement; nevertheless I think you are right, and I wish your line could be developed.

Today you had the SSPX video. Your introduction led me to the reflection that one has to admit the SSPX is somehow more likeable than the Legionaries and Opus Dei, even if it would not exactly fit in on Brompton Road. But why is it so benign? The air of romantic desperation? The fact that one knows they haven't got a hope in hell of remaking the church in their preferred image? Is a puzzlement.