Isn't it funny what a difference four centuries make? Today in 1858 a 14 year old girl, Bernadette Soubirous, claimed to have seen the Virgin Mary eighteen times in a grotto at Lourdes in the Pyrenees. The Pope sent emissaries to check her out and even today the place is a holy shrine where believers go to soak up its spirituality.
Back in 1431, when another French teenager, Jeanne d'Arc, claimed to hear voices from God, the Papacy accused her of heresy and the English burned her at the stake.
That's what I like to see; consistency.
In other news ...
An elderly aunt of mine was outraged today back in 1975 when Margaret Thatcher became the leader of the Conservative party. I was, frankly, surprised. Aunt Mathilde (not her real name) had been a suffragette, a flapper and a bra burner in her long and distinguished feminist career and I'd have thought she'd have been delighted to find the crusty old Tories (of all people) electing a woman to the top job. It was several weeks before I discovered why. Aunt Mathilde's eyesight wasn't what it had been and she's misread an editorial in one of the dailies. It said that Margaret Thatcher was a 'woman of strong conviction' but Auntie had read it as 'a woman with a string of convictions.'
Should've gone to Specsavers.
