Traddies as Pigs...

I said in a recent post that I thought all Roman Catholics were pigs feeding at the same trough, irrespective of any idolatrous idealisation of the Papacy on all sides. That is a position I am maintaining. But is this not rather a gratuitous denigration of pigs? George Orwell didn't like pigs because of his failure as a small farmer; hence the villainous pigs in Animal Farm. C.S Lewis disliked pigs too. In Prince Caspian, Lewis describes a class room of ugly little boys who looked (and acted) like pigs; Bacchus then gave his great cry euan, euoi-oi-oi-oi and the boys were never seen again; but it was said afterwards that a lot of fine little pigs were seen in the country who were never there before. Reminds me of the fate of the herd of swine in chapter viii of St Matthew's Gospel.

But when you take pigs out of the stifle and stench of the sty, they are intelligent, worthy beasts renowned for their cleanliness, care for their families and interaction with other pigs. It's only in the confines of the sty that they act like swines, so to speak. And I think the very same could be said of traditionalists. Together they are the vilest, most despicable people; look at Rorate Caeli! But I wonder if, isolated, they might actually be decent people? I am reminded of a rather bibulous and pleasant conversation to which I was privy some years ago at a certain prominent church in London. My friend said to the rector of this church: "why are you such a prat?" Whereupon the rector, himself drunk (and doesn't alcohol loosen tongues!), said: "oh, it's this wretched place!"

But that's just one old queen. I doubt the same could be said of one particularly awful woman on crutches who has substituted the love of God for the love of the monstrance and him that holds it aloft; a deep-seated, unsatisfied lust by proxy. You all know who I mean.