Althouse: "The 2015 baby Jesus catalog features a dozen glossy pages of options.... If you're in need of money, you might dress your infant in the aqua blue 'Prosperity Baby Jesus' outfit."

February 1, 2015

"The 2015 baby Jesus catalog features a dozen glossy pages of options.... If you're in need of money, you might dress your infant in the aqua blue 'Prosperity Baby Jesus' outfit."

"If you're feeling ill, you could try the red and gold 'Health' gown. If there's drama in your life, your best bet is probably the 'Peace' frock, which comes in white and blue, with a miniature dove."

Dolls and doll clothes, for sale in L.A. — described in the L.A. Times. Described patronizingly, in my view.

12 comments:

robinintn said...: It's always a balancing act: Who Is today's propaganda designed to attack or protect? This time, the propagandist's loathing of Catholics overcame his love for a designated victim class (Hispanics).; 2/1/15, 9:47 AM
Wince said...: The LAT left out that Obama ordered a "Marxist Jesus".; 2/1/15, 9:59 AM
Eric the Fruit Bat said...: A lot of people seem to have trouble bearing in mind that Jesus is supposed to be God, or the Son of God, or an undivided one-third of God, or something along those lines.; 2/1/15, 10:00 AM
Robert Cook said...: None of this stuff is derived from the Bible; it's all heretical.; 2/1/15, 10:01 AM
Anonymous said...: Can't patronize the anti-GMO, gluten-free crowd, I'm guessing. At least not too obviously.; 2/1/15, 10:11 AM
Danno said...: The LA Times is just adapting to the state's longstanding changeover to be Mexifornia. If you have followed the writings of Victor Davis Hanson and his travails with his family's ranch in the Central Valley of California, this is pretty much what you expect in that state. VDH likens his drive from Stanford back to the ranch as a trip from an area with the world's most extreme affluence to basically a third world country. The state has no room for a middle class.; 2/1/15, 10:19 AM
YoungHegelian said...: I wonder where this particular "devotion" came from in Mexican Catholicism. Was there some sort of devotion in an indigenous religion that involved statuary (think also of the Mexican life-sized "santos" tradition) that got syncretically blended with Catholicism?

Traditional Catholicism does have a church-wide cultus of the Infant Jesus (e.g. the Infant Jesus of Prague), but this business of bringing in the dressed Infant Jesus to Candlemas, that's Mexican. Not that every other Catholic ethnic group doesn't have its own local traditions, but this one is uniquely Mexican.; 2/1/15, 11:20 AM
Phil 314 said...: We mock your religion

but we crave your votes.; 2/1/15, 12:29 PM
Phil 314 said...: Next up, black folk speaking in tongues.

How quant.; 2/1/15, 12:30 PM
Marc in Eugene said...: AA, Patronising a bit perhaps, but mainly just completely uninterested in the religious foundation/component of the baby Jesus business.

YH, I looked about and evidently the presentation of statues of the Infant on Candlemas happens throughout the Hispanic world, so am guessing there must be antecedent customs somewhere in Spain, having to do of course with the Presentation of the Lord and the Purification of His Mother in the Temple forty days after Christmas.

I have of course yet again forgotten to accumulate candles for tomorrow's blessing; have got precisely two-- next year. :-); 2/1/15, 2:19 PM
YoungHegelian said...: @MP,

Then the question becomes "how did this come about in Spain?". Is this a Mozarabic hold-over? I understand the "presentation" aspects of it, but this never really caught on elsewhere.

But, those Mexicans are special. I don't know if you've been in a Mexican church where there's a life sized santos being venerated, often depicted in all its martyred glory & splendor. If one comes from a more Anglo Catholic background, it's a wake-up for sure.; 2/1/15, 2:33 PM
Marc in Eugene said...: YH, I've spent time over the years in Oaxaca and out in the villages of that state, so I've seen what you're referring to, sure. One of my happiest memories is of being guided by folks from San Martín Toxpalan to a tiny chapel where, according to them, the sacred tilma of Our Lady was hidden during some stage of the persecutions under Calles and his fronde of atheists.

Having done more looking around on the Internet, I shouldn't have questioned your characterisation of the Mexican devotion to the Infant Jesus: while there are other and far earlier examples of customary devotion to statues or images of the Infant (13th c., the Canary Islands' indigenous people), I couldn't find any similar to the one featured in AA's post, the dressing of the statues and presentation in church at Candlemas. The Mexican genius, perhaps. :-); 2/1/15, 4:15 PM