Calendar Padres

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OK, so really, who is this for?

I mean when the local auto store sends calendars with buxom babes weilding powertools in bikinis, or the Fire Department issues the city’s bravest in monthly poses sans shirts, there’s a bit of suggestion on the part of the models that the buyers might, just might, mind you, actually wind up with Ms. or Mr. February. It’s softcore p0rn and the intended (if not eventual) audience is clear. After all, the subjects are not selected because of their IQs.

So, who, I ask again, is the intended audience for this calendar (Via Sullivan) issued by the Vatican?

Calendario Romano 2006

I mean really…what’s the message here and how is it consistent with the Vatican’s teachings? There must be an answer that’s not as scandalous as the ones that occur to me (being the decadent heathen I am).

18 thoughts on “Calendar Padres”

  2. Anyone who buys it is immediatley condemned.
    Ahh, so it’s a efficiency tool, making St. Peter’s job that much easier…I see.

  3. I recall reading about a certain Buddhist monk who mentioned that a number of women had joined his meditation program just because he was good-looking; but a fair number of these had actually heard his message and went on to be dedicated practitioners. He said something to the effect of, “as long as they’re on the path, it doesn’t matter what got them there.”

  4. I’m a little ambivalent about this, but then I recall that I used to look forward to Communion, because that’s when you got to check out every attractive female in the church. And when I was 13, that was pretty close to all of them. Except Mrs. Frank. And the nuns.

  5. Ken, it’s one thing if a priest draws a crowd because he just so happens to be good looking, and if he’s able to do God’s work better because his audience is entranced, all the better….
    It’s a totally different matter for the Church to exploit his looks toward that end, (or in this case toward an end that need not be even remotely connected to God’s work), no?

  6. Oh, I wasn’t defending it necessarily, just riffing on it. It does seem rather odd, but maybe no more so than having all that glittery gold mammon in the Vatican museum.

  7. It’s Fun to Stay at the YMCA …

    Edward _ asks why the Vatican would issue a 2006 calender featuring dark, handsome young priests with smoldering looks and knowing, pouting, intense gazes. Some questions, I think, answer themselves, and this is one of them; someone in the Vatican

  8. I expect it’s basically intended to convey the message that priests don’t choose a celibate life because they have no other choice.

  9. for the edition of
    CALENDARIO ROMANO 2006
    appeal to single clergymen, seminaristi or members of the Religious Orders are made that appreciate to contribute with this initiative of information on Rome to contact the being followed author of the Calendar to deliveries:
    telefon +39.347.3724217
    e-mail: p.pazzi@libero.it
    This translation – direct from the calendar – is a classic of the form.

  10. for the edition of
    CALENDARIO ROMANO 2006
    appeal to single clergymen, seminaristi or members of the Religious Orders are made that appreciate to contribute with this initiative of information on Rome to contact the being followed author of the Calendar to deliveries:
    telefon +39.347.3724217
    e-mail: p.pazzi@libero.it
    This translation – direct from the calendar – is a classic of the form.

  12. I was going to say, this doesn’t look like it’s been issued by the Vatican at all, for various reasons, but then I noticed Sullivan has updated his post to say just that. So.

  13. To be specific James, Sully notes (Clarification: this isn’t an official Vatican calendar. It’s just sold in Vatican gift-shops. And elsewhere.)
    The Vatican gift-shops placement still leaves some questions here for me. To see why, just imagine the flip side: photos of pretty young nuns in a calendar. Would that be appropriate and why or why not?

  14. Yes, Edward, though I didn’t mention that because Sully doesn’t link to anything that backs up the assertion.
    So what we DO know is: the Vatican DIDN’T issue it. And it MAY be being sold in SOME gift shops, possibly in the Vatican, depending on what one’s definition of Vatican gift shops is.
    I don’t need the nun calendar to see your point, and I agree with it no matter where the calendar’s sold, and I think it misses and plays around with the point of Catholic celibacy among priests, so for reasons utterly unrelated to the Church’s stance – or indeed anyone’s – on homosexuality, I think it’s a bad idea. But we actually have only Sullivan’s word to back this up. And he originally seemed to think it was issued by the Vatican, so I don’t set much store by any of the story in the absence of citations.

  15. Truly Edward, I am seeing it in a new light now, but maybe not the way you intended. To quote Seanbaby, “there’s nothing hotter than a really hot nun.”
    Seriously — well, more seriously — it doesn’t seem this has any high level of official support, so it’s a bit unseemly, but I’m not sure that the blame goes anywhere of consequence.

  16. My question is, would the subjects of a “hot priests/hot nuns” calendar count as single?
    On a related note, I once heard about an employment form at Notre Dame that asked people to list their sex as male, female, or religious. Now there’s one to chew on.

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