Pontifical Council for Culture’s strange video about women #LIFEOFWOMEN

A while back the Pontifical Council for Culture (PCC) posted a video about women.  Actually, it is of a woman asking women to send photos, tweets, videos, social media stuff by women about women to the same Pontifical Council. The 2 minute long video is a plug for a conference in Rome in February on the theme“Women’s Cultures: Equality and Difference”.

The video caused a little stir because it was, frankly, a bit… strange.  I’m not the only one who thought so.  Here is one commentatrix at CWR.

What makes me post today is that the same PCC pulled the English language flick from Youtube while leaving the Italian version.  Same women in the video. Same text.  Different language.

What’s up with that?

I suppose they must’ve gotten flack from the Anglophone world, whereas no one in Italy really noticed.

So… my question is:

Does anyone out there still have the English language version?  Did anyone download it?  (Not that it’s … suggestive… or anything like that….)

As of today for the English version: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ioA8DCPTjOA

Screen Shot 2014-12-29 at 17.26.57

As of today for the Italian version:

Meanwhile here is the English text:

#LIFEOFWOMEN
At the Pontifical Council for Culture, in the Vatican, they have taken inspiration from Pope Francis’ openness and are reflecting on women’s cultures and the place for women in societies today, between equality and difference.
At what point are we today, as women?
I am sure you have asked yourself many times, who you are, what you do, what you think about your being a woman, your strengths, your difficulties, your body, and your spiritual life. If you want to, you can share your vision.
Why not tell it with a one-minute film, or in a photo. Put your work online with the hashtag #LifeofWomen, and send a link to lifeofwomen2015@gmail.com
It could be chosen to be part of the opening event of a great meeting of cardinals and bishops in Rome in February 2015 and as part of a crowd-sourced film on YouTube.
You have until 4 January to send in your materials.
You are important!

I wonder what a parallel video about men for men would look like? Could it possible involve, I dunno, an unshaven guy in a wifebeater shouting “Stellllaaaaaa” at a second story window? I am straining here. Would it be some metrosexualized guy who does things with wax? What age would be be? Would he have “product” in his hair? Would he have a shaved head, which is popular in Italy now? What would be the male equivalent of false eyelashes and puffy lips?

Screen Shot 2014-12-29 at 17.56.15A really smart women to whom I spoke to about this, at first asked if the person in the video was really a woman or someone in drag. Then, after she saw it, she commented that she might have taken it more seriously had she had dark hair (the woman in the video, that is). And then she offered that the women in the video looks like Dharma from the TV series Dharma and Greg. I don’t know that show, but I am informed that that Dharma is the antithesis of what the PCC was looking for… probably. I don’t know what the PCC was looking for. But, hey! Who am I to judge?

To my interlocutrix, the video seemed, at first, like a parody.

Perhaps that’s why the English version was pulled? Everyone thinks of Dharma from the TV show and, therefore, doesn’t take it seriously? Is that why the Italian version is still there?

Talk about cultural differences!

The moderation queue is definitely turned on for this one!

I will let some comments stack up before I release them, lest you just start a feeding frenzy.

UPDATE:

Someone sent me a link to an active video in ENGLISH:

About Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

Fr. Z is the guy who runs this blog. o{]:¬)
This entry was posted in The Drill, You must be joking! and tagged , , . Bookmark the permalink.

67 Comments

  1. iPadre says:

    It is kind of weird. The first time I saw this, I felt like I was on an airplane preparing for takeoff and she is the stewardess explaining the safety card. [Right! She reminded me a bit of the Delta girl, “Deltalina”, who wags her finger and says “Smoking is not allowed!” HERE How many times did I have to see this, I wonder. In any event, there was a second, retro version, where a younger version of the same waves her finger too. Clever. And the newest from Delta are actually pretty funny. There is a “Holiday” version these days that has some variations on the newest, cut-up editions. They keep you watching! And then there is the Middle Earth version… But I digress.]

  2. When I watched the English version I was pretty stunned by it! I immediately tweeted at Greg Burke that “Surely, we can do better than this?” They’ve got actual English language media professionals working there … and I’m sure they never would have cleared that for publication.

  3. Bosco says:

    http://www.harvestingthefruit.com/lifeofcatholics/

    Louie Verrecchio posted the English version (above) on his “Harvesting the Fruit of Vatican II” blog. This link worked when I viewed it an hour ago.

  4. acardnal says:

    I found an English language YouTube video HERE

  5. (X)MCCLXIII says:

    Dear Father,

    I was, er, lucky enough to see this before it was taken down, thanks to a Christmas present from a saved pusson: http://ecclesandbosco.blogspot.co.uk/2014/12/calling-all-women.html I don’t have much to add to what Eccles had to say, but I do think you have missed a better translation. The subtitles here use the apprved ICEL metholodology: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L7Lb1gUH_FY

  6. vox borealis says:

    OK, so my comment is probably not really worth publishing, so I will understand if it gets screened out in moderation. But all I can say is, that was very strange.

    Maybe the English version was pulled because someone realized that the woman appeared…a little…awkward? She obviously is not a native English speaker. Maybe she plays better in Italian, or to an “international” audience?

    Or maybe it’s just…weird.

  7. jacobi says:

    I have commented on this elsewhere to the effect that it is verging on soft porn. Now I am as far as I know just an average bloke. Lets leave it at that.

    That this has been produced by a Vatican office, I am assumming it’s not a con?, is, how shall I put it, worrying.

    We all know there is a lot wrong in the Church and Vatican at present, but this is, eh, well lets just say worrying!

  8. Franklinwasright says:

    From the sound effects to the way she looks at the camera, to the way she said the date, this video does not translate well culturally for Americans. I think that is why they took it down, it looks like an SNL digital short.

  9. Broggi66 says:

    The actress in the Italian version is Nancy Brilli [Thanks for that. Well done.] and she is most definitely a woman, although she has had a lot of work done. She had been popular on TV but has now fallen into the middle aged abyss of women in show business. They rolled her out for this ridiculous video. Can someone please tell me why we are supposed to contemplate being women? I am a woman. It is who I am and I don’t care why. I love my husband and my children and that is enough for me.

  10. Suburbanbanshee says:

    So in Italian she’s an alto or contralto, but in English she speaks in an unnaturally high voice? I guess that’s the effect of uncertainty. Either way, I don’t like her makeup scheme. Makes her look too pale.

    Not so much a bizarre video, as a video made on the cheap. With typography and flipping images instead of using any lively backgrounds. On the bright side, it’s not a Powerpoint slideshow.

  11. kimberley jean says:

    Before she spoke I thought it was a female impersonator or perhaps a CGI creation.

  12. Rich says:

    The makers of this video seem to be fishing for certain types of data which they can cherry pick and then use as premises for certain propositions they have already decided to make.

  13. Jerome Vincent says:

    Well THAT’ll get ’em to finally start taking the ol’ Church seriously.

  14. Thomas S says:

    A bit condescending, no? Encapsulate your womanhood in a one-minute video, and maybe you’ll be lucky enough to have yours chosen to be shown at a great meeting men in Rome! You lucky gals, you!

    Lord, this kind of stuff is embarrassing.

    And by the way, what the hell is “women’s cultures” apart from men anyway? Is there a new Lemnos somewhere I haven’t heard of yet?

  15. poohbear says:

    I think it seems a little strange, but I can’t put my finger on exactly what it is. Maybe because it seems she is reading a script? Maybe someone with English as their first language would have been better. No offense to people who speak other languages, but it seemed like there was no inflection in her voice, just reading words that had no meaning to her. There is something else, still can’t define it though.

  16. Elizabeth D says:

    I viewed the original English video and the numerous comments on it which were ALL negative. I don’t know the TV show Dharma and Greg but I commented saying they would have done better to go to a typical weekday Mass or better yet a Confession line and pick an ordinary natural Catholic woman from there, and coach her to make their video. Another comment which I found hilarious: “Life of Women… by Dove.” I suspect they may have received some sarcastic video submissions, one of the commenters who obviously did not like the video claimed she made a video of things like herself vacuuming, the stack of bills to pay, her son’s messy room, the freezer stuffed with the enormous amount of food she had to cook for Christmas the next day etc. Some thought the woman was reading lines but did not speak English and they should have found an American. I thought this was a little rude but the awkward diction does exacerbate the video’s problems.

    I’ve never been to Europe; is the cultural Catholicism there such that a lot of semi-practicing Catholic women are worldly “fashionable” types like this? The video was not keyed to the Catholic culture in English speaking countries. The bizarre church architecture and weird liturgical things that happen in Europe are also obviously oriented to way different tastes than Catholics I know.

  17. I watched the original before it was pulled. It was very clearly a direct translation from Italian to English, complete with gestures, facial expressions, and props (OH, those glasses and the tablet!) that simply did not translate well to the Anglophone world. It came across as patronising and a bit bizarre.

    For example, at this bit, ‘Put your work online with the hashtag #LifeofWomen, and send a link to lifeofwomen2015@gmail.com‘, she has put her GLASSES on, because of course she’s doing something BRAINY. And she taps away so carefully at her tablet, like she’s worried about mussing her nail polish.

    Two sets of thoughts ran through my mind:

    1) Those of us who have dated men of Italian extraction might find a few bells of recognition ringing here.

    2) It’s clear from the mainstream media that modern Italy struggles with the idea of competent women in the workplace.

    Soooooooooo – I suspect this is what you get when you employ an Italian advertising agency to make your short clip …

  18. jameeka says:

    Is this a marketing strategy? And if so, by whom? Extremely embarrassing.

  19. jameeka says:

    Also the Italian version is different, mentioning Cardinal Ravasi at the beginning.

  20. Traductora says:

    Hmmm…the Teatro Argentina? Just a coincidence…incidentally, the theatre was built over the site where Julius Caesar was assassinated by his curia…

    That said, this is bizarre. The Italian version didn’t sound much different from the English translation that was posted, so the text was the same. The actresses were pretty similar, except that the English speaker was probably older, so I think the reason the English version was pulled is that too many English speakers (as you say, most Italians don’t care) were listening to the text and its implications and getting a little alarmed.

    What exactly is in the works for next year – which starts only a couple of days from now?

  21. wecahill says:

    Here’s a video for #LifeofMen: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cGCUCuOuSU4

  22. Maximilia says:

    Personally, I think she looks and sounds a bit like Charo: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8KBiXurSxg8

  23. Legisperitus says:

    But how do you make an ashtag?

  24. Jenn~Henn says:

    Definitely weirded out. Sometimes I wonder what kind of women people interview in order to come up with stuff like this, which totally doesn’t appeal to me at all, as a woman. But, I might be an oddball.

    Though the questions raised are ones I’ve been pondering a lot lately, and hopefully they will get enough decent feedback from women who are actually trying to be the type of women God has called us to be, and not so much from the not so faithful ones.

  25. jhayes says:

    Here’s the blurb on the conference from the Council website

    4-7 February 2015 the Plenary Assembly looks at Women’s cultures: equality and difference.

    The theme has been chosen by Cardinal Ravasi. Access is limited to the members and consultors of the Pontifical Council. There will, however, be a Public Opening Event, and a consultation exercise has already begun identifying the following key areas:

    generativity, rights, poor and invisible women, women’s spirituality, equality and reciprocity, power and service, insights and vision, biology, women in the Church.

    The meeting has four sessions:
    1) Between equality and difference: the quest for an equilibrium
    2) “Generativity” as a symbolic code
    3) The female body: between culture and biology
    4) Women and religion: flight or new forms of participation in the life of the Church?

    http://www.cultura.va/content/cultura/en/plenarie/2015-women.html

  26. AvantiBev says:

    I prefer the Italian version. And I no more spend time thinking “what do I think about being a woman” anymore than I ponder having two arms.

  27. KateD says:

    How cool! I didn’t realize she was Catholic!

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bNg-xClEnqM

  28. What is it with girl power these days? Is the entire Western culture trying to live out the shows they watch in Sex and the City, Real Housewives, the Good Wife, and Desperate Housewives? Take the show Once Upon a Time, where all the men stand around watching the women solve all the problems. The suppression of manhood and the radical feminization of society is the kind of the thing that gives the West a bad name.

  29. 1) Between equality and difference: the quest for an equilibrium
    2) “Generativity” as a symbolic code
    3) The female body: between culture and biology
    4) Women and religion: flight or new forms of participation in the life of the Church?

    Oh MAN.

    [facepalm]

    This really could go either way, couldn’t it …

  30. Pingback: Pakistan: Living the Faith Is a Challenge Every Day - Big Pulpit

  31. JMJT says:

    It’s more than a bit condescending, yes. The whole project idea of 1 minute videos or a picture to address the concerns in women’s spiritual lives. How do you put in a 1 minute video a women and her family with the crosses of bearing the effects of the Culture of death…and if you do, I don’t get from the tone of the video that this is what they want.
    I re-read these titles of the sessions and tried to give the benefit of the doubt/to translate to some semblance of an idea for a good topic…but I am concerned and mistrustful of a misguided or bad agenda…I am perplexed and worried:
    1) Between equality and difference: the quest for an equilibrium
    my Translation: well, no idea where the equilibrium is between two things that are not opposed.
    2) “Generativity” as a symbolic code
    Translation: Giving back to larger society beyond one’s family unit as…symbolic…code, sorry, still no idea…are the cardinals going to be talking in symbolic code?
    3) The female body: between culture and biology
    Translation attempt: Ok, clearly…this means…the cardinasl are going to talk about the female body…great idea for a bunch of men..
    4) Women and religion: flight or new forms of participation in the life of the Church?
    Translation: flight must refer to leaving the Church V. being allowed to actively participate in “new forms ” that were previously considered masculine tasks or that did not previously exist. At worst it seems like code for women as priestesses…or at least, more of the ones like the passionate and theatrical female lector in the SNL Christmas Mass video who really really likes being a lector….Meanwhile in reality, isn’t it all the men are the ones leaving? That is, the more feminized everything at Mass gets, the more the men scurry off and fewer men in the seminary and a greater shortage of Priests.

  32. Eugene says:

    Being fluent in Italian I only watched the one version and could not bring myself to watch the English version.
    What does this nonsense have to do with the Church’s main mission which is to bring salvation to souls. As soon as I heard the part about women’s spirituality my mind drifted to those ladies who have moved beyond Jesus and His church.

  33. steveesq says:

    When I saw this last week, I laughed so hard I cried. It is very funny, and it became funnier as I realized it was not a parody. Reflecting on it after it finished, I became sad, knowing that this is the state of the Church at the Vatican: The “spirit of Vatican II” almost grown-up with globs of make-up, fake hair, insincere and feigned sincerity, syrupy voice, and a total disconnect from the reality of living as a true Catholic. The Virgin Mother then came to mind and I wondered what she would have sent them.

  34. Muv says:

    I’m worried sick about my generativity. I’m even more worried at the thought of a Pontifical Council convening to discuss the female body, which of course doesn’t sound the slightest bit perverted.

  35. jflare says:

    *chuckles*
    Oh my! I hadn’t thought about Dharma and Greg in a looong time!! I wound up watching the show several times around the summer of ’99 or thereabouts, mostly because I was overseas and had access to only one English-speaking channel of AFN. Therefore, I watched it, rather than be bored.

    Probably because it HAS been so long, I hadn’t thought of Dharma for this lady in the video, but the mentality fits. For those who didn’t catch it, Dharma and Greg was a rather strange show about a couple who’ve married, but are..not really meant for each other. He is more or less conservative and wealthy, with all the typical expectations following on. She is..not, in either case..and has the typical expectations following from that. His parents can’t believe he married her, her parents are too loopy to worry that their son-in-law likely wouldn’t notice them if he hadn’t married their daughter.

    It was moderately funny at times, but likely didn’t last too long. More viewers likely didn’t take kindly to the show’s not-so-subtle jabs at “establishment morality”.
    It made you think a bit on occasion, but not ultimately in a way that sought Truth.

  36. Gail F says:

    Still do not understand what the fuss was about this. She is obviously an actress, obviously reading a promo. And the problem is … she should be less obviously an actress? More like, say, Jennifer Aniston making a “The More You Know” PSA (because those are SO convincing)? The script should be better? What?

    Lots of people have gone on and on about her false eyelashes, which are over the top. Perhaps the current Italian fashion? I have no idea. Her lips seem gigantic, but then, so did Sophia Lorenz’s. So what? She’s a spokesperson reading a script, it’s not as if that’s never happened before. It’s, what, one minute long? And solicits video or photo comments — one of those useless contests that are supposed to make people feel “involved” but that, probably, will vanish unseen? This sparks international outrage?

    I don’t see this as a representative of Vatican attitudes toward women, good or bad, or as an insult to women of the 21st century. It’s just a woman in false eyelashes and a blue shirt reading a dumb promo, nothing more and nothing less.

  37. anamaria says:

    Father, I´m a spanish mother (I say this because lots of readers are asking if maybe this video fits culturally in Europe) and I´ll write to Cardinal Ravasi to inform him that this video made me sin!! It got me so mad!!

    Can the Vatican really fall so low?? It treats women as shallow (please, the way she types lifeofwomen), childlish (the way she pops onto scene is absurd), selfabsorbed (my body?) people… and that just to begin with.

    I specially loved the part where it says: taken inspiration on Pope Francis openness… in spanish there´s a word for this: PELOTA (I´ll let readers figure it out). And, it actually made me thank Pope Benedict´s closure on this issue. If this is what the Vatican thinks about women, I prefer not knowing about it.

    This is sad… very sad.
    Ana

  38. Indulgentiam says:

    Frankly between the excessive lip puckering and the tangle of mascara clumped lashes I was having a hard time following the poor woman. Bless her heart.
    Any woman who sits around asking herself “what do I do?” Is in desperate need of some quality time with a Rosary preferably a 15 decade. Kneeling at the feet of the One Perfect Female,The Blessed Virgin Mary, they’ll soon find the answers to all those questions and more.
    All the …”what you think about your being a woman, your strengths, your difficulties, your body, and your spiritual life”…you…you…you stuff is nauseating.

    That me…me…”me generation” poop is just boring.
    A better and far more interesting pursuit is to ask questions about GOD. Because if you don’t know who GOD is you certainly won’t know who you are.
    As a woman I resent her implication that I must surely be confused about who I am, what I am, and for pete’s sake…What I do ??Seriously??
    I think the fumes from her mascara are interfering with her synaptic transmissions. Either that or the swelling in her lips has gone to her brain. Saints preserve us from silly females.

    “Generativity” as in…coined by Erik Erickson the father of the “identity crisis” ??
    Ok what are they spiking the Pellegrino with over at the PCC?

    4) Women and religion: flight or new forms of participation in the life of the Church?
    “Flight or new forms”?? As in… If the feministas aren’t allowed to play wymnprist they’re leaving? Pffft! we should be so lucky.

    Yep February 7…Climb on in the pickup y’all the circus is in town…mercy

  39. jhayes says:

    At the end of the video, there is a credit to 27ORE, the blog at Corriere della Sera.

    Here is the blog article on the conference:

    HERE

  40. James C says:

    To up the weirdness quotient here: The Dharma actress is a Scientologist.

  41. Quanah says:

    Wow! That was weird. I can understand why they pulled the English version. Her lack of the natural rhythm of our language makes me wonder if she actually knows how to speak English. The questions were odd. Questions such as where women are at now in society do not strike me as a “women’s culture” question, but just culture in general. I think about femininity when I hear “women’s culture”.The way women relate to one another as opposed to how men relate to one another, and what makes women distinctive as women. If bishops, cardinals, pontifical councils, curial offices, and the Pope want to take the question of women seriously then they need to take seriously St. Teresa Benedicta of the Cross whose name, unfortunately, never comes up when anyone talks about the Church and women, or women in general.

  42. Gail F,

    Seems to me the problem here is not how the message is delivered, but what the message is. Not being a woman myself, I wonder whether the intended subliminal message is about The Pill (and worse). Like . . . Hey, the Vatican understand the lives modern women lead.

  43. Sonshine135 says:

    The video is just creepy. I half expected one of the transitions to have the lady standing on her head or drinking a glass of wine. Unfortunately, this is about as creepy as some of the teaching materials I used with 6-8 graders at my old church. We seem to have a penchant for the creepy and ludicrous at times.

  44. Fr. JPH says:

    I want to pull my hair out…

    Is this not still the Holy Roman Catholic Church? What are we doing?!?

  45. Salvelinus says:

    Can we please have something in the church today that doesn’t appear so utterly feminized?
    We need the masculine back into the church. The traditional practices, even the delivery back then and in the small pockets found, stress the differences in the sexes, by clearly drawing lines.
    These days, and generally worn the older folks, I see everything from Altar girl priesteses, to sappy music, and now a pontificate council for women? With a supposed woman sounding more like a feminist?
    No wonder men are leaving the faith in droves. We don’t feel welcomed anymore

  46. tzard says:

    What got me was the actress sliding in and out of the screen, and the “generic” music. It’s so much like IT conference intros or business mission statement videos. I don’t know, the music is annoying to me.

    The audio flows better in Italian – but the first thing that came to mind for me is “This was made by committee – what a strange collection of things they think women think about”. And what’s this about putting a hashtag on something and then sending a link?

  47. Patti Day says:

    Thanks to all who posted. I’ve had a good laugh reading them. I am thinking that these four days (Feb. 4-7) of discussing women will exceed the totality of time any has spent considering the subject during his ordination.

  48. Elizabeth D says:

    I think women here should submit faithful, non sarcastic submissions to the Pontifical Council for Culture (though I think one could quietly express dismay about the video). If they are asking for women’s voices they need to hear the way actual Catholic women think.

  49. jhayes says:

    Gail F wrote She is obviously an actress, obviously reading a promo.

    According to the 27ORE blog I linked above, Nancy Brilli (the woman in the video) is a member of the Consulta Femminile del Pontificio Consiglio della Cultura, which was involved in planning the conference. (She is also an actress).

  50. Salvelinus says:

    ” Muv
    30 December 2014
    I’m worried sick about….Pontifical Council convening to discuss the female body, which of course doesn’t sound the slightest bit perverted.”

    Somehow MUV, I don’t think anybody needs to worry about most of these men there these days

  51. marypatricia says:

    I saw this a couple of days ago and kept hoping it was just a spoof. I am ashamed and horrified that this was sent out by the representatives of the Catholic church. Is this talking Barbie robot what they think is Pope Francis ideal of Catholic womanhood? I am a 70 year old woman who has tried to live a good Catholic life and often made a mess of it like everyone else, but I’m still here by the grace of God, in spite of all the confusion and destruction. I am so sick and tired of hearing about women’s problems and their place in the Church etc. Doesn’t anyone care that there are men in the Church as well who are moving further and further away from it? Also on another note–how much money did this drivel cost? How much money are the members of the Commission earning? How much was the actress paid? How about the producer, the cameraman etc? Surely this money–our money as members of the Church–could be put to better use. Souls are being lost–I have only to look at my own family and nieces and nephews to see how the Faith is gone in many cases. There is something seriously wrong when time and resources are being squandered on shallow rubbish like this.

  52. pelerin says:

    The presenter says something like ‘I’m sure you’ve often wondered who you are.’ Good heavens – I’m 71 and I think I have always known who I am! I’ve certainly never asked myself ‘Who am I?’ Once that happens I shall begin to be very worried! Perhaps it sounds more intelligible in Italian? I don’t know but as a woman I do wonder why this particular woman was chosen – she is hardly typical.

  53. majuscule says:

    I wonder if they ran the Italian through Google Translate to get the English version?

    The woman’s bangs were too long. In some shots they looked different–better, shorter, out of her eyes.

    And her eyes…something about the dark liner and mascara made her look like she was squinting (used in the US English meaning, not cross eyed). Like the light was hurting her eyes.

    Perhaps if she had spoken her native language with subtitles…

  54. Kathleen10 says:

    I wish these men would think less about me and more about Jesus.

  55. VexillaRegis says:

    Embarrassing!!!! This lady seems to have some eye infection and also I don’t think it’s her own voice we are hearing. At her age (33?) she should’t have to use reading glasses either. Very weird – like an Italian or French make up-advertisement for house wives “silly little me”. She has an Italian or Spanish accent: Ash tag, for example.

    There must be a man behind this film >:-(

  56. Indulgentiam says:

    @Fr. JPH
    +JMJ+
    Dear Fr. JPH
    Please don’t let this upset you Father. There are so many ladies of my acquaintance who pray and offer daily penance for Priests. I know it is often very tempting to believe that there is no sanity left anywhere. That indeed the inmates are running the asylum. But I can not tell you the number of bleached blonde nutballs Our Lady has turned into skirt wearing, Veil hugging, penance loving, pray for every Priest on the planet like your life depends on it woman of GOD.
    Honest Father take heart. I know scores of lady’s who would willing with a song in their hearts and a smile on their face lay down their life for a Priest. Simply because without them we have not Our Lord.
    Sursum Corda Pater!
    The Lord bless you and keep you,…
    Our Lady guard you and guide you.

  57. pfreddys says:

    This just seems like another case where when Church authorities attempt to be ‘hip’ it’s always a disaster.

  58. acardnal says:

    If only Mother Angelica, founder of EWTN, was in good health. I’m sure she’d have some poignant remark to make about this video. In fact, she’d make an excellent Council Prefect.

  59. trespinos says:

    The Holy Father should eliminate the Pontifical Council for Culture. Based on the evidence shown here, it has jumped the shark.

  60. The Masked Chicken says:

    Oh, please. Lock the members of the Pontifical Council in a room and force them to read St. Teresa Benedicta a Cruce’s (Edith Stein) collected works compilation, “On Woman.” It would do them much more good.

    The Chicken

  61. alansides says:

    I honestly don’t get why this warrants so much negativity from “Christians”.

    Ok, she may have had to much eye lash make up or they were false and potentially bo-toxed lips, I can’t tell.
    If so, that’s vain but I’m still not going to judge her or anyone else rashly, lets be honest, what’s the big deal if that is indeed the case. Surely there was a make up artist on the production team and they do make up for filming.
    I’ve seen every response on this – from this poor girl being called a bimbo to the bishops and the Pope being called “stupid” [I don’t think here.] to blaming it on the errors of Vatican II by those who apparently have never read the council or understand how it works. That is hardly a proportionate response as facilitated by professional Catholics and is even more baffling, bizarre and embarrassing than any distaste in the production of an add about a meeting for Catholic women.

  62. Lin says:

    I wholeheartedly agree with Marypatricia’s post above! Much prayer and fasting is required.

  63. MrsMacD says:

    There really is a crisis of women. It’s the same crisis of Lucifer. Pride. This video seems to promote the crisis. Real women, who are at home with their families, who have consecrated their lives to God in the convent or in the world or who are still discerning, who are young and going to school, or old and struggling to hang on to their faith and build up a store of graces for heaven by prayer and work are, mostly, not going to take time out of their busy day to try and translate and respond to this unintelligible query. I’m not. It’s goofy. My gut reaction is to ignore it, the same as I ignore anything… weird.

    I sometimes ask God, in imitation of St. Francis, “Show me Lord what I am and what you are!?”

    This past Sunday I considered that having thrown myself (interiorly) at His feet, I was in essence casting dirt upon the sanctuary floor, and proceeded to apologize for the mess. I don’t think this is quite what they’re looking for.

    If we contemplate the Mother, we can see in woman, God’s greatest creation. She talks little, is unassuming, she serves, stands by her Man through thick and thin, she holds Heaven within her and remains humble, the crisis of woman is a lack of devotion to the blessed Mother. And maybe a lack of living role models.

  64. jhayes says:

    VexillaRegis wrote She has an Italian or Spanish accent: Ash tag, for example.

    She is Italian – and quite well known.

    See: http://www.famigliacristiana.it/articolo/locandiera.aspx

    As I mentioned above, she is a member of the Advisory Committee on Women’s Issues of the Pontifical Council for Culture

  65. Mariana2 says:

    That’s Nancy Brilli, an Italian actress, often seen on Italian TV. The style of this video is typical of Italian commercials, which nobody in takes seriously.

    Hash tag IS ‘ash tag’ in Italian. The rest of the English words were perfectly adequately pronounced.

  66. KateD says:

    Word of the Day: Omphaloskepsis

    It’s strange that the any representative of the Church would encourage navel gazing rather than inspiring women to emulate what we already know is most pleasing to God and the perfect expression of woman hood: Mary.

  67. chonak says:

    Perhaps this was all done as a volunteer effort by the organizations listed at the end. Considering what a great reputation Italy has for design, it’s too bad they were stuck using that outdated on-screen font. It added to the awkwardness of the presentation.

Comments are closed.