Padre Pio and Pants

Women's pants. Comments from Enbrethiliel of Sancta Santis challenge me to post about a story — Bad Catholic Alert! — told on her blog:

A woman who sold pants in her retail store in Vancouver went to confession in Italy to Padre Pio and was refused absolution . . .

"He commanded her to return home to Canada and dispose of all this stock, and not to give any of the items to people who might wear them, and if she wanted his absolution, she could come back to Italy and receve it, only after she ruthlessly carried out his orders."

Like Enbrethiliel, "I theoretically admire St. Pio, [but] I've never had a strong devotion to him." And like her, I agree that "[h]e was wiser than I will ever be--and definitely more receptive to what his Guardian Angel would tell him." Also like her, "when it comes to what women should wear, I'd like an impersonal line of argument rather than a personal inspiration." Most importantly, like her, "I'm uncivilised--which isn't actually a sin, I think."

Call me a modernist stooge, but I, too, am unscandalized by women's pants. Sure, I'd love to go back to a time when only men wore pants, but I'm also a pragmatist. We have to choose our battles, and there are more important ones to wage in this day and age.

I love this line of Enbrethiliel's: "Yet it seems to me that I straddle the thin line between Bad Catholic and Mad Catholic, to the point where I can only hope that what is said of Father Andrew Greeley may one day also be said of me: 'Nobody ever left the Catholic Church because of a Sancta Sanctis 'blog post; but many have returned to the Catholic Church because of one.'"