Photo of the Week

Bikinis, the new WYD style for girls - II

In his homiliy of April 19, 2013, Pope Francis criticized the past teaching of the Church for being the result of "ideologues" who had "falsified the Gospel" and transformed Church doctrine into something that came from "intellectuals without talent and moralists with goodness." These men "interpreted everything in the sense of duty" and not in the sense of love. Francis stressed that "all those who follow the path of duty load everything on the shoulders of the faithful." To do away with this mentality, the Pope proposes to follow the path of love and beauty.

These words lead us to think that, for Pope Bergolgio, all past Catholic Morals is included in this category. As a matter of fact, Morals and a sense of duty regarding obedience to the Commandments are indissociable.

It seems that the Bishops and priests in charge of pilgrims to the WYD in Rio applied this new morality of love and beauty to the letter, without any worry about the duty to follow the 6th and 9th Commandments of God regarding purity and modesty.

Indeed, we see that the pilgrim-girls felt entirely at ease to expose their almost naked bodies by wearing bold bikinis, as shown on this page. How could they do this without the clear permission of their confessors and the religious authorities?

Above, we see a Chilean pilgrim in a bikini with the colors of her country making a movie-star-pose for a friend while nuns walk past her as if there were nothing scandalous taking place.

Below first row, Argentinian pilgrims run into the sea holding their country's flag; second row, a pilgrim wraps her arms in a Brazilian flag amid many indifferent nuns; third row, a sister shoots some photos of her friends reacting to the cold water; fourth row, two nostalgic sisters seem to be thinking: "Why did we abandon the world, since now everything that was immoral became acceptable?" Last row, three pilgrims in their bikinis getting a tan while their friends take pictures of Copacabana; in the background, the altar Pope Francis will use in a few hours.

If you want to see these photos in perspective to evaluate how many of the WYD youth were jumping into the water, click here and here.

We have received a few objections about our previous post, pretending that those women in bikinis were just the normal beach-goers and that we were assuming they were pilgrims because we are biased against the WYDs.

We believe that these objections have no base in reality. The regular beach-goers would not be comfortable among such a massive, intrusive and noisy crowd packed on a dirty and smelly beach lined with 4,000 always-occupied portable latrines. It would be a easy matter for them to go to another famous beach of Rio, the neighboring Ipanema, within walking distance from Copacabana.

Photos from O Globo, Rio

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Posted August 4, 2013

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