Josef Seifert

IS THE EASTER CANDLE A “PHALLLIC SYMBOL”?
Regarding this question and the extended interesting discussion between C. West, Father Geiger, Katie von Schaijik, and others, I must say that I sympathize with Fr. Angelo and others who find it disturbing to see the Easter Candle interpreted as a phallic symbol and this for several reasons, quite apart from the argument that it contradicts the tradition:
1. First, precisely because I agree with the many deep things Katie says about the beauty and depth of sexuality in marriage and also the need for a “theology of the body,” I think pure “phallic symbols” or depiction of “phalluses” (for example, in a horrible performance of Wagner’s Tristan in Bayreuth and in many pagan sculptures) as such isolate a part of the male body from the whole context of human love and thus precisely fail to express that unity of spirit and body and deep meaning we all Hildebrandians, Wojtylians, and personalists want to insist on and which is the center of the TOB. Precisely if we think of the loving sexual union of the spouses as a deep image of God’s love for us, as this is evident in the Song of Songs and many of Christ’s parables, and see the divine Bridegroom’s love for us symbolized in the Easter Candle, then we should consider that neither spousal love nor all these divine supernatural mysteries are phalluses and therefore images of it, and in particular the Easter Candle, are not “phallic symbols.”
2. Secondly, it seems to me evident that, as the richest interpretation of the Easter candle and Easter light, the magnificent Exsultet in the Easter night, has it, the Easter Candle symbolizes that new light of God which illuminates us, the light of our redemption, the light of grace that dispels the darkness of sin, the light of truth that shines into the darkness of errors, and also the light of divine love that made us from enemies of God estranged from him, into his bride, etc., and none of this (and also not the divine bridegroom) is “a phallus” and hence the Easter candle not a “phallic symbol.”
3. Thirdly, I think to see the Easter Candle, inasmuch as it is an image of Christ who, like his mother Mary, lived a perfectly virginal life, as a phallic symbol (which from antiquity on is rather a symbol of isolated sexual pleasure and Dionysian sex-orgies of the sort Hefner might like us to engage in) and even to refer to Playboy in this context, is to gravely mislead our fantasy into changing the holy sacred imagery of the Easter Candle: from one of the pure flame of divine love and of the risen transfigured Christ and his virginal mother the love between whom incorporates the redeemed Church (and also its true image, spousal love that expresses itself also in the sexual union of the spouses), into a kind of sex symbol, which might have a place in Muslim religion that has a carnal vision of heaven but misreads the Easter celebration in reference to Christ (who, while His is the archetype of spousal love, tells us that in heaven we will not even marry and get married and hence also for this reason is precisely not symbolized by an isolated “phallic sex- symbol.”)
4. Fourthly, the over-ample use Freudian psychoanalysis makes of vaginal and phallic symbols and the explanation of all spiritual things, not only of spousal love, from below, from libido and sexuality, instead, as Hildebrand and Wojtyla insist, on the reverse, explaining sexuality in the light of spousal love and spiritual love which gives it its beauty and without which it would be ugly, should not be in any way part of our Christian spirituality and hence it seems to be doubly problematic and disturbing when the holiest of holiest loves and mysteries is interpreted this way.
Therefore, notwithstanding my agreement with so many good things Jules and Katie and others say in their statements, I agree with those who feel disturbed by this interpretation of the Easter liturgy, not for prudish reasons, I trust. Therefore I think that in the defense of the theology of the body and in our explanation of the Easter Candle we should discard the idea that it is a “phallic symbol.”

Dear Lauretta,
you should certainly love Hefner and you should love Hitler and pray for both. But this does not mean that you should say that Hitler is similar to Saint Francis or that Hefner is like John Paul II - even not in their diagnoses of the world and its crises.
JS

I agree, for the reasons given before and her new evidences, with Susan’s assessment very much and hope that C West and all personalists and defenders of the theology of the body will bury and eliminate any (however faint and conditional) comparison between Hefner and John Paul II once and for ever. It would greatly help their case and remove what scandalizes very good people in West’s statements.

JS

My goodness - burqas
Goodness gracious! What did I get myself into with what I thought to be a defense of Muslim women and families against state interference! Now I appear to promote their oppression and to discuss for the rest of my few more years on earth their dress. One can’t be careful enough discussing women’s clothing,
Well, there is no way out any more. Be it then:

First I apologize to Katie that I sloppily overread her “if” and misrepresented her as if she claimed that all Muslim women veil their faces out of fear not to be physically mistreated and beaten up. Sorry! I should have known better and a priori - knowing your fine mind! This “if” refutes three quarters of what I wrote.

As to the aesthetic comparison between Hindu and Muslim women clothing, I must admit that I too find it much more beautiful to see the almost always beautiful faces of the Hindu women together with their beautiful colorful dresses than to see their faces completely covered.
Now as to the inherent aesthetic aspects of burqas and the question whether they per se entail acts of oppression:
I must admit that I find also the burqas beautiful and mysterious and in some sense poetic like the Arabian nights stories (the most beautiful and least indecent ones of which also show a very profound appreciation of women, of their femininity and high dignity - almost worshipped by men - and of the love between man and woman in Islamic culture). I recommend you to see the Bollywood movie “Ver and Sarah”?, which gives a wonderful portrait of two Moslem women and shows the kind of recognition of their dignity and courage which I think characterizes many Islamic families (wherefore I would be a bit careful with some of the autobiographies you have been reading).
Moreover, only very few Islamic countries seem to have a lot of the burqas, maybe Jemen? I traveled in Marocco, Egypt, Syria, and Tunisia and saw only approximately one out of a hundred women wear a burqa. And the other more traditionally clad women looked very decent and aesthetically attractive to me.
While I decry with you any of the countless acts of humiliating women and failing to recognize their dignity (a unique dignity which I passionately defended in several works), I personally find it exaggerated to speak of burqas as “portable prisons” and saw many young men behave extremely respectful to their completely covered wives, more expressing a spirit of guarding them as a thing of great value and “sacredness” from the irreverent looks of men, analogously to how we used to veil the Blessed Sacrament in order not to expose it to disrespectful looks, than in a spirit of enslavement.
I do neither deny nor belittle acts of aggression against Islamic women, but do not regard the wearing of burqas as such an act of oppression even if it can be one and often reflects a deplorable lack of recognizing the equal dignity of women.
I do perhaps react so strongly because I have many dear and noble Muslim friends and among them are beautifully and decently dressed Muslim girls (that do not veil their faces), and I felt unjustifiedly (largely because I overlooked your “if”) that you insulted them as a group.
Most important of all my points is: many of those who want to force Moslem women to take off their veils do so out of an idolization of Western pseudo-civilization and forget the horrors of our own libertarian and degenerate society. Compared with the acts of “legalized” crime and oppression (that alone the abortions here and the increasing threat to the freedom of conscience constitute), I find wearing burqas (even if I wish women replace them by other decent robes) not only completely harmless but in no way intrinsically wrong, and certainly nothing that our states should hypocritically forbid (in contrast to some of the other practices you mention: forced marriages, honor killings as well as schariah laws such as to kill one’s own child if he or she become Christian etc.), where of course the state has to interfere against crimes and grave oppressions of religious freedom of this nature.
I think we agree on most points now and politely ask to be released from the heavy burden of the burqa debate.
Josef

I understood what you meant by burqas since you had pictures of them. These are those feminine dresses that most literally correspond to the dress code of the Koran; there are two other forms, one that is more a veil for the head (which they forbade the Muslim schoolteacher in Germany to wear for school), another “middle one” leaves part of the face free.
Now, as I am not a Moslem, I do not think that God ordered women to dress this way through the prophet neither do I think that the Koran (in spite of the beautiful praise of Mary as the virgin mother of Jesus, Sura Maria, 19?, on which one of my Muslim students wrote a beautiful poem) implies a similarly deep appreciation of the dignity of women as the Jewish and most of all the Christian religion. Nevertheless I think that calling these dresses “a means of oppression” is incorrect and sounds Marxist or wildly feminist. They are similar to the beautiful Hindu dresses and almost identical to those of the Catholic order of the “slaves of Christ”. It seems to me that you are full of negative and generalizing judgments (about the Islam, Islamic men, the reasons why women wear certain dresses), for the truth of which there is no evidence and which contradict many experiences. Quite apart from the profound respect for the unborn, which made respresentatives of Islamic countries the best allies to the Vatican and to some of our pro life students in Cairo, there is also a lot of other values that are upheld more in Islamic countries than in the US or Europe. Attributing to the Islam quite generally an utterly negative and oppressive sort of slaveholder-attitude towards women is wrong. There are very different Muslims, good and evil ones (I have rarely seen a more respectful attitude towards women than in my young male Moslem friend and assistant in Liechtenstein).
Moreover, your analysis of the reasons why women wear the burqas seems quite apodictic and judgmental, and in this general form quite certainly incorrect (even though no doubt applicable in some, possibly in many, cases). How do you want to know whether many women do not wear these dresses out of a sense of religious devotion but only “out of fear of punishment…” from their husbands?  The German teachers whose veils the Bavarians outlawed were not even married. How do you know that in Islamic families there is more “domestic violence” than in an average of other families in the secular US, where countless women and children are mistreated?
Finally, I find in general both the Hindu dresses and the Muslim dresses of women - at least if we prescind from a totally veiled face and take the two other kinds of more “normal” Muslim dresses, but even if we include the burqas - aesthetically much more beautiful and feminine, not only as the countless indecent dresses of Western women, but also as the barbarian blue jeans and other ways in which women dress in the West. Just read Christopher Dawson on blue jeans and you will understand what I mean.
Therefore I cannot agree with your claim that there is not “any genuine respect for the mystery of the feminine body” in these dresses, which you like to call “portable prisons”  (which seems to be a disrespectful and insulting name for the traditional dresses prescribed by another religion and for which, I dare say, you ought to apologize to Islamic readers of your Linde-homepage).
Kind regards,

JS

Defending the Freedom of wearing Veils and Burqas
I think that not even the most literal interpretation of the Koran’s dressing codes for women, wearing burqas, ought to be outlawed in the West, let alone Muslim women covering of heads by normal veils (which are equally outlawed in many Western countries). It seems to me that any observance of a religious tradition that is not in any way in itself evil, or criminal, or offensive, ought to be permitted by the law and never be banished or outlawed, which does not exclude to persecute domestic crimes even if justified in the shariah.
Not only is there a sacred right to the freedom of religion and to the freedom of conscience to obey one’s positive religious mandates as long as they do not entail crimes or oppression bordering on crime (which wearing the nice burqa that underlines the mystery of the woman’s body, certainly does not). One may remind oneself that also Saint Paul demanded that women cover their heads in Church as sign of their submission to their husbands and of their respect for the angels. Should it be outlawed that women wear veils in our Churches (which is still being done in some places)?
The comparison with religious habits of nuns is not that far-fetched. There is a Catholic nun’s order of the “slaves of Christ” in Spain, and some other Eucharistic feminine orders, who wear almost the same veils that completely cover their faces. Should this be outlawed?
Moreover, in general the outlawing of any dresses that do not offend public morality is an assault against freedom, even if these dresses have nothing to do with religion.
Besides, to want to forbid pious Muslim or Hindu women (in the name of fighting oppression!) to wear veils or other dresses that correspond to their beliefs, while we do nothing to solve first our problems with women’s dresses, as an extremely witty Muslim Professor remarked when called to speak out in the veil-processes in England, seems doubly wrong.
There is another reason against this. It seems in general quite wrong to support any kind of pressure (as in Mexico for decades in regard to the Catholic priests and nuns and now increasingly in the West) that demands that nobody may wear in public places or private schools symbols of their religion.
Moreover, it is ludicrous, grotesque and utterly hypocritical that in Germany, France, England, or the USA, Muslim women should be forced to take off their veils against their conscience, while our women may wear the most offensive and unbelievably impure dresses in public, indulge in the most shocking public seduction, for example as naked prostitutes on TV commercials giving their phone numbers and “prices,” pose in offensive nakedness in Playboy and other magazines, without being outlawed!
Finally, a country that forbids burqas but “legalizes” the murder of one’s own children is in my opinion absolutely cynical and grotesque!

John Paul II, Hefner, and West
I heard the comments West and Healy made on the issue and, while I was always convinced that West had the best intentions in saying what he said, am happy that now West expresses how “horrific, horrific” he finds the way in which Playboy and Hefner isolate sex from the person and love and promote a “culture of death.”
Nevertheless, I continue to think, for the reasons I explained at length before in the Linde and do not wish to repeat here, that the suggestion that Hefner made or started a sexual revolution that Wojtyla completed, as well as the tone in which West said in his interview “I love Hefner” or the suggestion that the analysis of prudishness of Hefner and the one of John Paul II were similar, and only their “cure” different, etc. are profoundly misleading and should, I believe, not be defended but revoked and clearly corrected.
Of course, we should not deny any truth Hefner might have seen, but I think he well-nigh saw none, and certainly not more than any of the 100.000 other pornographers and heroes of impurity and depersonalized sex, all of whom might once have suffered from prudishness or from a simple appeal to purity. Therefore, I believe that any (even the faintest) suggestion that Hefner should merit praise for his (basically the same as Wojtyla’s) “analysis of prudishness” or for a “sexual revolution” that could in any conceivable way be regarded as a “first part” of John Paul II’s, only offering the right remedies for the same problem-analysis (on which both would agree) is simply so inappropriate that it should be abandoned and disavowed entirely.
Notwithstanding this remark, I commend West wholeheartedly on the positive mission he fulfills in an exemplary way to promote and explain this wonderful and glorious chapter in the history of the Church - John Paul II’s and Hildebrand’s discovery and profound explanation of the true spousal meaning of the body!

Dear Damian,

this is a wonderfully deep and fine phenomenological and personalist analysis. Thank you! I am proud and grateful to be your friend.

Josef

Thank you for your own comments that I wanted just to support and expand because I think that too little reflection on this is found - particularly among “personalists”.