[drhogan]

"wearing all-white to meet the Pope, a privilege normally reserved for Catholic Queens."
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it sounds like only Queens who are Catholic have the "privilege" (not my words) to wear white. so queens who happen to be protestant or muslim don't get that privilege.
since white is often associated with purity in Christianity, and the color black is often symbolic of sin or death, i think this privilege speaks for itself.

[Conservative til I die]

it sounds like only Queens who are Catholic have the "privilege" (not my words) to wear white. so queens who happen to be protestant or muslim don't get that privilege. since white is often associated with purity in Christianity, and the color black is often symbolic of sin or death, i think this privilege speaks for itself.

I'm going to say you're completely wrong, considering that the etiquette about wearing black also applies to Catholics that are non-queens. You may have missed it, but the entire point of the article was that Cherie Blair who is Catholic wore white.

[marsh_of_mists]

"...since white is often associated with purity in Christianity, and the color black is often symbolic of sin or death, i think this privilege speaks for itself."

No. Only Catholic QUEENS get this privilege. Catholic noblewomen, nuns, and the Pope's own mother don't. Surely the Church doesn't mean to associate all those women with "sin and death". Catholic queens get the privilege simply because they are queens in the Church. Members of the Church get certain "privileges" for it, most importantly access to the sacraments, which, by the way, is not limited only to queens.