A Little Cheeky

Amish.
A monk.
A rabbi.
A leprechaun.
A lumberjack.
A Greek Orthodox priest.
Jase from Duck Dynasty.
Jesus.
Santa Claus.*
(*Except, of course, that the beard is red
and the robe is white, instead of vice versa).

These are all things I've been told I look like with this year's (admittedly, much larger than in previous winters) edition of "the beard."



A parishioner handed me the following humorous newspaper clipping before Mass this morning from Britain's, The Tablet:

Bare-faced cheek

NOT SINCE the eleventh century, when the length of a man's beard was said to equate to the number of his sins, have the hirsute had cause to believe that the Church discriminated against them. But the Bishop of Portsmouth, Philip Egan, reignited the conflict last week when he suggested in a letter to the Equality and Human Rights Commission that its recent report on belief was offensive because it equated lifestyle choices like having a beard with the great religions.

"If anyone is being offensive here, it is the bishop," the Beard Liberation Front organiser Keith Flat shot back in a press release. "Of course, wearing a beard is not a religion but it can be a way of life and the bishop should respect that." The group added that all great religions have had bearded members, but observed that there had not been a bearded pope since 1700. In the eleventh century, canon law threatened with excommunication priests who wore a beard; Pope Alexander III ordained that clerics who grew a beard were to be shaved by their archdeacon by force, if necessary.

So it's been more than 300 years...
but I can see it...