Month: May 2013

The Weekly Francis – 5 May 2013

 This version of The Weekly Francis covers material released in the last week from 24 April 2013 – 5 May 2013 (subscribe here; get as an eBook version for your Kindle, iPod, iPad, Nook, or other eBook reader):

Angelus/Regina Caeli

General Audiences

Homilies

Papal Tweets

  • “How marvellous it would be if, at the end of the day, each of us could say: today I have performed an act of charity towards others!” @pontifex, 29 April 2013
  • “Let us put our trust in God’s power at work! With him, we can do great things. He will give us the joy of being his disciples.” @pontifex, 30 April 2013
  • “Dear young friends, learn from Saint Joseph. He went through difficult times, but he always trusted, and he knew how to overcome adversity.” @pontifex, 1 May 2013
  • “My thoughts turn to all who are unemployed, often as a result of a self-centred mindset bent on profit at any cost.” @pontifex, 2 May 2013
  • “It would be a good idea, during May, for families to say the Rosary together. Prayer strengthens family life.” @pontifex, 3 May 2013
  • “Let us ask Our Lady to teach us how to live out our faith in our daily lives and to make more room for the Lord.” @pontifex, 4 May 2013
  • “Every Christian is a missionary to the extent that he or she bears witness to God’s love. Be missionaries of God’s tenderness!” @pontifex, 5 May 2013

The eBook version of The Weekly Francis

Pronoun Trouble

They're butchering the Swedish language! And it isn't the Swedish chef who's doing it!

Even Slate Magazine seems skeptical of a recent move in Sweden to introduce a genderless personal pronoun into the Swedish language:

Earlier this month, the movement for gender neutrality reached a milestone: Just days after International Women’s Day a new pronoun, hen (pronounced like the bird in English), was added to the online version of the country’s National Encyclopedia.

The entry defines hen as a “proposed gender-neutral personal pronoun instead of he [han in Swedish] and she [hon].”

The National Encyclopedia announcement came amid a heated debate about gender neutrality that has been raging in Swedish newspaper columns and TV studios and on parenting blogs and feminist websites.

It was sparked by the publication of Sweden’s first ever gender-neutral children’s book, Kivi och Monsterhund (Kivi and Monsterdog). It tells the story of Kivi, who wants a dog for “hen’s” birthday.

The male author, Jesper Lundqvist, introduces several gender-neutral words in the book. For instance the words mammor and pappor (moms and dads) are replaced with mappor and pammor.

Slate’s skepticism emerges in a subsequent passage noting the Orwellian attempt to force children to behave against their nature:

Ironically, in the effort to free Swedish children from so-called normative behavior, gender-neutral proponents are also subjecting them to a whole set of new rules and new norms as certain forms of play become taboo, language becomes regulated, and children’s interactions and attitudes are closely observed by teachers.

One Swedish school got rid of its toy cars because boys “gender-coded” them and ascribed the cars higher status than other toys.

Another preschool removed “free playtime” from its schedule because, as a pedagogue at the school put it, when children play freely “stereotypical gender patterns are born and cemented. In free play there is hierarchy, exclusion, and the seed to bullying.”

And so every detail of children’s interactions gets micromanaged by concerned adults, who end up problematizing minute aspects of children’s lives, from how they form friendships to what games they play and what songs they sing.

What to make of all this?