Are you a Sandalista?If you are a reader, a cantor, a psalmist, a Eucharistic minister, a children’s liturgy leader then you are.
The term was purloined by Telegraph journalist and blogger Damian Thompson to irritate those with whom he disagrees, although he appears to be the only person to use that term in this context.
Sandalista is applied to members of the Society of St Gregory. And it appears to be used with most venom against those priests who promote the comsumption of Fairtrade coffee after Mass.
I’m not quite sure of the opposite of Sandalista. Given some of the recent kickings handed out on Damian’s blog one is tempted to suggest something based on steel toe-capped footwear.
If you’re one of those people who keeps your parish going then Damian (hereafter Dame) and his cohort don’t like you. If you organise something then you’re a “busybody” and if you are some sort of minister (reader, musician etc) then you are really puffing yourself up with pride and ought to be stopped.
If you are a diocesan music advisor your salary (pitiful as its likely to be) should be axed. And if you have any sort of job at Eccleston Square then you can expect to be dragged on a hurdle to Tyburn.
The accusations thrown at we Sandalistas are at best laughable and at worst highly offensive. For example, those who are involved with music are responsible for “Colours of Day” and “As I kneel before you”. Child protection policy is being used to prevent celebrations of the Tridentine Rite in one diocese while in another the bishop deliberately appointed a female server at the cathedral to confound the Latin Mass Society.
If you are hurt by the comments of the Dame and his fork-tailed imps then there’s something wrong with you: hurt, it appears, is only felt by beardy-weirdy liberals who knit their own yogurts.
Sandalista, if I’m interpreting it properly, belongs to all those people who work tirelessly to keep our church ticking. Just like black and gay people before us, it is time to reclaim the name for ourselves.
11 comments:
You left out one category: if you're a bishop, then you're beyond the pale. :)
Not sure what DT and his screeching friends should be called. A competition seems in order.
You may be interested in the attempts at education that I am currently undertaking on another blog that was drawn to my attention recently: http://catholicrights.blogspot.com
whose author, one John Kearney, needs help with the accuracy of what he posts. Look at some of the comments over the past couple of weeks.
This just in:
A relevant excerpt from the 2012 edition of the Oxford Dictionary of the English Language:
A·'rin·zish [ә·rIn·zi∫] [After Francis Cardinal Arinze, (fl. 15th c.), prefect of the Divine Congregation of Worship of the Divine] adj. 1. Excessively concerned with details that one need not be excessively concerned with; more at non curat Jove de minimis. 2. Exquisitely arrogant with simultaneous supercillious self-righteousness. See also Assholy.
Welcome Cardinal – delighted to have one of such rank among our number. We're not in such a prominent place as Dame Thompson but where two or three are gathered we can drink Fairtrade coffee and discuss our Birkenstocks.
Dear Sandalista,
how wonderful to see your blog. Just what I have been waiting for. However you have left out the category Damian reserves his greatest vitriol for: readers. He refers to us as readers of 'the pill' or even the'bitter pill', and Tabletistas. I am proud to be included in their numbers.
O dear
A little confrontation with the keyboard....my previous comment ought to say.....greatest vitriol for readers of The Tablet.....
Has anyone else noticed that DT's blog recently carried another reference to sandalistas?
And John Kearney, poor dear, is so incensed that others might disagree with him, that he has taken to requiring all posts to be monitored by him before appearing. Those he does not like, he deletes.
Sandalista, it's time you started a few more threads, so that we can give some juicy facts about questions such as the proposed new texts for the Order of Mass. Have you been asleep?
I too am a proud sandalista. However as a musician I have an ambition that the current generation of children will grow up never having heard 'Colours of Day' and certainly not the American Eucharist and its companions. As I'm not stuck in 1975, am I letting the side down?
No. That's holding the side up. This is why Sandalistas need to speak up. Dame Thompson thinks we're responsible for all that is bad. Most of my musician friends would vomit at American Eucharist or Colours of Day.
Thank you for being a voice of reason in the midst of all the rants from Holy Smoke and other blogs. I was thinking of starting my own but now I can contribute to this one! I promise to drop in on a regular basis!
Sadly, Anonymous, fewer people see us tucked away here. But do spread the word.
Cardinal, your posting has spotted by John Kearney – six months on but who's counting! http://catholicrights.blogspot.com/2009/01/i-think-my-contributor-cardinal-really.html
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