Stuff Catholics Like

Not as in “The Knights who say NI!!!“, but the body part. Catholics like knees. More importantly, Catholics like being on their knees. It’s a sign of respect, humility, and in some rare cases, the opposite of humility, “God, I thank you that I am not like that politician…”.

Men have at times been known to compare their knees to find out who is holier: the man with less hair on his knees is almost always on them more, and therefore holier. In a contest of this sort a man is almost always disqualified if it is ascertained that his knees are naturally hairless. The only other option is to compare the callouses on the knees, which most contestants prefer not to use since it’s a better indication of the terrain that they kneel on, rather than the amount of time they spend kneeling on that terrain.

Over the course of the centuries, different kneeling and genuflecting postures have been accepted by the Church in order to distinguish between different levels of authority. When greeting God, for example, Catholics are encouraged to genuflect on their right knee. If God is visible, it is recommended to double-genuflect, which is getting on both knees, and then making a profound bow. This is the highest act of respect that knees can offer. The left knee is generally reserved for the bishops of the Church, and a formal greeting to one of these means genuflecting on your left knee while you kiss the bishop’s ring.

There isn’t an official knee-posture to assume when greeting a priest, but this is generally understood to be so simply because there isn’t another knee that maintains a position left of the left knee. If one has a great deal of respect for a particular priest, it is accepted that he can kneel before the priest to receive a blessing, but these blessings are usually received standing in this day-and-age.

So, if you want people to think that you’re “holier than thou”, just walk out of Church rubbing your knees. They’ll either despise you for being holier than they are, or they’ll think that there’s something wrong with you. They almost never suspect that you’re pretending. But whatever you do, don’t do the Charleston:

Guest post from Ethan.