The New Calendar of Saints

Do you know your World Mental Health Day from your International Pronouns Day?

Today is International Women’s Day, perhaps one of the most celebrated feasts in the secular calendar, a calendar that seems very busy this time of year. Last Friday was Zero Discrimination Day, while next Thursday, March 14, is Equal Pay Day, and Friday is the ‘International Day to Combat Islamophobia’; then comes the ‘International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination’ on the 21st, while March 25 is ‘International Day of Remembrance of the Victims of Slavery and the Transatlantic Slave Trade’ and on the 31st there is the International Transgender Day of Visibility.

Meanwhile, the whole of March is Women’s History Month, while February is Black History Month, although confusingly only in the United States; in Britain, February is LGBT History Month, so perhaps they need some of Synod of Whitby to decide which is correct and whether to follow the Californian Rite or the unorthodox Anglo-Celtic liturgical calendar.

The 1960s, as regular readers will know, saw a second reformation, or perhaps a rerun of the Christianisation of Rome. Just as the new Christian civilisation kept many elements of the old pagan faith, or adapted them, so has our new civilisation, including the formation of the young with books that read like the Lives of the Saints. They have also rerun the concept of the virtuous pagan, worthy figures from the old faith who can be recast as members of the new. Just recently, Lord Nelson was rebaptised as an LGBT hero, something which would be as baffling to him as some 17^th century English Puritan finding out they are now something called a ‘Mormon’.