These creatures, who dress up like vaginas and parade about, would not understand words like "privacy", "propriety", and so forth.

Miles probably has sexual relations with her girlfriend on public buses and in street crosswalks.

She hasn´t seen this:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1028888/Vatican-plea-uncover-Virgin-Mary-breast-feeding-baby-Jesus.html

Get a clue morons, in those days it was not decent to show such things. Yea, we know your new morality and it stinks!

Margaret: you don´t see those depictions because unlike you, Mary had DIGNITY.

All clear?

Or how about changing His diaper? So many things we missed because they didn´t have home movies or Facebook back in the day...

Modern people have so bought into the silly sexualization of breasts, it is convenient for the prudes among us to forget that there was only one way to feed human infants until fairly recently, and that was with human milk from actual human women. (Which involved, shockingly enough, women´s, exposed breasts, gasp, sputter.) This was in those dark ages before chemical companies came up with a superior alternative to what the Almighty thought up. Between them and lite-porn publishing companies who enlightened us to the fact that mammaries were playthings for presumably grown men, that sinful mother-infant bond was all artists had to work with. Now we know better.

The good Mr Gibson and Dr. Margaret Miles, the dean of Graduate Theological Union might want to check with some authorities on medieval art. There are a number of paintings depicting the Blessed Mother nursing the Infant Jesus.

Yo, Margie -- learn a little about the virtue of modesty and how that used to be a sign of maturity.

After reading this article it´s hard not to laugh at the irony of women like this criticizing men for being preoccupied with breasts. She seems to look at the world and history through mammatical lenses. Even the central meaning of the Paschal Mystery is about breasts to her.

But it looks to me like she´s just a big boob.

What did we miss by not seeing a picture of Mary breast feeding Jesus? In my long life of seeing Mary with Jsus in her arms I never thought of such a thing--never crossed my mind. Why is it crossing hers?

Obviously this Religion Writer is unfamiliar with the long-time tradition in Eastern Orthodox iconography to depict the Theotokos nursing Jesus with her breast exposed. Just Google for such icons and you can find images online of many of them. Jesus was fully human because he was born from a fully-human mother - breasts, milk and all.

I hope some Catholics read this area. Why is it that even Catholics don´t believe in the teachings of their church. Do you go to church out of habit or just for the bingo and socializing. I would really like to know. After hearing Biden, Polosi and Caroline Kennedy who claim that they are Catholic but do not adhere to the teachings. Anyone have an answer out there.
Thanks

I am Roman Catholic and attended Catholic schools for 12 years, so, I was exposed, so to speak, to many images of Mary and Jesus. I can attest that there is a lot of artwork out there with Mary nursing Jesus. I didn´t care for all of it, but I don´t care for all artwork. Mary was a real woman and she had a very real baby and He had to be fed. I think what most feminists find grating about Our Lady is her fiat.

Just want to be clear regarding Mary´s fiat: I am thankful every day to Her that she accepted. Merry Christmas everyone!

Okay, #11, I read the article. Just what am I supposed to get out of it? My belief in God and Jesus Christ has nothing to do with whether or not Mary did any breast feeding-in public or private.
Mrs. Cow

I´m guessing that there are a lot of people from different religions who claim to be religious but don´t always adhere to the teachings. But sure, go for the cheap shot against Catholics.

Love the line about the Holy Family on "holiday cards."

Also, interesting to see the observation of the shift of focus from the birth to the crucifixion, and the context. It shouldn´t be a surprise; Jesus is God, Mary is not.

There is art work out there that depicts Mary breastfeeding Jesus. If the author of the piece had done a bit of research (it took me all of 5 seconds) he would have discovered this.

Dummy. Everybody knows she fed him angel food cake for dinner with divinity candy for desert. It´s in the Bible. Or maybe I read it on the Internet.

I´m all for it!

Right after they produce a depiction of mohammad being breast fed or in a beaker of urine. heavy/s

Another ignorant liberal parading intellectual laziness -- just google "Mary breast-feeding Jesus" and you will find many, many images going back centuries.

Seriously there are hundreds of paintings of Mary breast feeding Jesus.

It´s called The Past. Learn it!

You also never see vividly detailed depictions of the actual vaginal birth of Christ. Perhaps that could be on the agenda after the chronic crones of the hypocritical "women´s" movement get their way over this one. That "Immaculate Conception" thingy might be even more lurid. What about explicit depictions of that?

Wow, some writer is pig-ignorant about Western art history.
Ms Miles, get thee to a cathedral.

Silly wench, everyone knows that Mary went into Mohammed´s $1 Acid Store and purchased Isomil for Baby Jesus. It was right next to the female genitilia mutilation supplies. You can look it up on the Internet!

Just for the record, my wife breast-fed my six kids and despite that fact, I almost never saw her bare a breast while feeding during that entire period of our lives. Women can almost always manage that particular job - even in public - in a discrete and modest manner.

What is it with people and their voyeuristic desires in this day and time? Even with nudity in movies - when does one ever see two people in bed making love? This isn´t realism - it´s voyeurism and should be discouraged.

One word: Modesty. Too bad the left has no understanding of the term.

That´s because Jesus was bottle fed.
He changed water into Similac formula.

Teaching moment for non-Catholics and poorly catechized Catholics: The Immaculate Conception does NOT refer to the incarnation of Jesus by the Holy Spirit, but of Mary´s own conception. Mary was conceived by St. Ann and St. Joachim in the normal human fashion, but by God´s special grace, Mary´s soul was created by God without the stain of original sin on her soul. (BTW, the word "Catholic" was never mentioned in the article as I recall, so the poster who brought up that issue was using an opportunity to slam the Catholic Church...)

What an ignorant boob! Fact is, large numbers of medieval and renaissance masterpieces, as well as earlier art than that, depict Jesus being breastfed. It´s common. But she doesn´t know it. This stupid women´s studies major who never learned a thing beyond that thinks history started with MTV.

PS: Despite what Ms. Miles might want people to think, the lactation-centric imagery was not principally about Mary, any more than the term "Mother of God" is.

The main point of the imagery was how God humbled Himself in coming as an infant, placing his care into human hands. And the term is a translation of Theotokos, which became the official title for Mary to put to rest notions that she should be called Christotokos -- that even in Mary´s womb, Jesus is fully divine, so Mary was the bearer of God, not just the bearer of Christ. (So "Mother of God" is really about the nature of Christ, not his mother.)

Truth be told, we never see depictions of Mary feeding Jesus, period. Or diapering him for that matter. That doesn´t mean it never occurred. Just the anti-Christian left making itself heard and grasping at straws. T don´t hear them bemoaning Mohammed´s penchant for pedophilia.