There is no leg belonging to the foot that belongs to this shoe.

There is no leg belonging to the foot that belongs to this shoe.

So said Jack Black, the cobbler in Dylan Thomas's Under Milk Wood, as he tried to banish lust from his mind while at work.

I sympathise. Women are often very beautiful, their voices, their faces, their hands, their feet - I won't go on.

Over twenty years ago, in the village where we lived, the local Anglican rector one Holy Thursday washed teenage girls' feet. My daughters were outraged -"I wouldn't let that pervy old man touch my feet." I assured them that it would never happen in a Catholic Church.

And now it has, at the highest level, twice.

I cannot understand how any normal man, aged from puberty to very old indeed, could wash a young woman's feet without impure thoughts. Forget Krafft-Ebing. I am not talking about fetishism, just plain, normal lust.

For these reasons, I think that the washing of female feet by any man is utterly wrong in Church. 

And I worry about our Pope.

Note - I first posted this on Holy Thursday, and received a comment from a "Father *******" to the effect, as I understood him, that my thoughts were unfit for airing on a public blog and should remain private. I deleted his comment, and the entry.

On thinking about the matter I stand by what I wrote, and therefore repost.