But the pope’s most recent statement doesn’t only remind us how out-of-touch and backwards the Roman Catholic Church is but also indicates that Pope Benedict is just old, as it’s one of the most classic old people statements he could have made. The statement goes something like this: “Names aren’t good today! Your new names are stupid! You should name your kids good, old-fashioned names like they had in Bible times!” That is it, basically, with the addendum that children given names not drawn from the Bible or the list of saints are missing out on the Holy Spirit, which apparently prefers Josephs and Margarets to your flash-in-the-pan Carters and Addisons.
i would totally take child-raising advice from this man
Of course, the pope’s statement focuses more on the religious nature of baby-naming, and on this subject I’ve always been curious: Isn’t it true that if all Catholic children were only named after full-fledged, canonized saints, then there would never be a new saint with a new name? And even if one of those weirdos with a crazy, “new” name — like, say, Jennifer — converted to Catholicism, she should logically drop her pagan name and take a good Catholic one. She could have Jeonilla! After St. Jeonilla! Who was hung by her hair, lacerated and finally beheaded!
Obviously, despite Jeonilla’s steadfast faith in the face of physical suffering, her name isn’t very pretty by today’s standards. And while your new daughter Jeonilla may have a church-sanctioned name, she might also grow into her name and become a plain, sad woman who ends up murdering her mailman, whom she deludedly thought would love her even though it turned out he never could. Not the way to salvation, Jeonilla. (My condolences.)
Which brings up my second point: A lot of saints’ names are pretty awful, and if you saddled your kids with them, you’d probably be doing more harm than good. Please have a look at a list of names that would likely (but not certainly) set children down darker paths:
- Odilio
- Fanchea
- Melchior
- Bartilla
- Canute
- Basilissa
- Reingold
- Otho
- Idea
- Felician
- Emerentiana
- Cadoc
- Haberilla
- Chrysostum
No exaggeration: That list represents just only the saints celebrating feast days in January, and therefore is only one-twelfth of the bummer names the church would be okay with you calling a child.
Lest Pope Benedict forget, unusual and decidedly non-Catholic names have been attached to many sainted and beatified people. Take Kateri Tekakwitha, a Mohawk-Algonquian woman who converted to Catholicism in the 1660s. Yes, she chose Kateri because approximated the Mohawk pronunciation of Catherine (as in St. Catherine of Siena), but the connection isn’t obvious and no one refers to her as Catherine Tekakwitha. (Also, she’s not St. Kateri yet, but Blessed Kateri, as she hasn’t yet passed the final stage of canonization.) It boggles me that Kateri could get the pope’s approval by virtue of a tangential relationship to Catherine while something like Jayden (lame and insubstantial as that name might be) couldn’t squeak by with the explanation that it’s a variation on James. And who knows: Maybe little Jayden will grow up to be a bringer of many miracles and a thousand years down the line the Robot Pope will be urging space parents to name their kid-pods after St. Jayden so they might always remember his sterling example.
In closing, I’d like to say that this would be a rare fumble in what we can all agree is a pretty terrific record that the church has as far as interactions with children.
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