Posted on 06/11/2005 1:55:31 PM PDT by NYer
One of our catholic freepers attended an Indult Tridentine Mass in her community last year. She witnessed exactly the same thing. The freeper brought her children there to 'experience' the pre-Vatican II mass. They gasped when they witnessed this woman slap her infant across the face simply because he was crying. Amazingly, no one else even batted an eyelash. There are extremes in all religions.
Don't know if this is the story you're thinking of. Don't know that this one is traced to Portugal.
He is quite brilliant but quirky. He took up with a group whose faith is based on some odd notion. Such a waste of talent! He has always impressed me as lost and confused.
ping
You'll find this interesting.
Interesting quoate form the article, "She was as blue a woman as I ever saw."
'quoate'?
There are places in the US where the people have intermarried for more than 350 years. The same 30 families or so. Talk about needing "special" schools.
The Amish and Mennonites aren't the only communities with these problems. I can name at least two that are distinctly Catholic. And they aren't necessarily ultra-trads, either.
I was unaware the Dunkards still existed. The only reference I knew about them was their church along Antietam Creek in Maryland, which was a landmark during the Battle of Sharpsburg in 1862.
Thanks for the indirect update! :-)
Tay-Sachs is prevalent among certain communities that are descended from Eastern European (Ashkenazim) Jews.
Though the Orthodox are complex in certain ways.
The Satmar a very insular, but the Lubavitcher are very progressive in some ways.
I suppose both have problems with intermarriage, though to a much lesser degree.
After all, I don't think that you can convert into being a Mennonite or Amish, while Reformed and Conservative Jews can-theoretically-convert to Orthodoxy if they so desire.
Re: education: a very good point. It is true that they do not go to school past 8th grade. In PA where we live, however, you must have a minimum of a high school diploma to homeschool, and some Amish do homeschool, though most go to some kind of parochial school. This would be true of the "plainer" Mennonites as well. "Plainer" group such as the Eastern Mennonites and Horning Mennonites are very much against homeschooling but the more "liberal" ones do homeschool (mind you, these are still VERY conservative people! Except they do not by and large vote, though this is changing. Many Amish voted in the last election and voted for Bush.)
Many Amish use alternative medicinal treatments and seem to want to know about health issues so it surprises me they aren't more keen on this issue of inbreeding. But the point comes to this: what are you going to do when your daughter Anna Stolzfus meets her 3rd cousin Amos Stolzfus at a Sunday meeting and they fall in love? It has been done before, what is the big deal?
And actually, in most of people with defects that I personally know, the relationship between the married couples was not very close (not any cousins that they were aware of). My friends who are the 3rd/4th cousins have 6 healthy children although she did just have a miscarriage. (That can happen to anyone).
I just wonder if the genes of the original 1500 Anabaptist people (from whom I am also descended) just keep popping up genetically from time to time across the board with these people.
One of my friends has 10 children but she is VERY aware of the symptoms of MSUD (Maple Syrup Urine Disease) and has looked for signs and symptoms with each child. If you catch it within the first 24 hours, the child will not end up a brain-damaged vegetable. My one friend has 3 cousins in one family with MSUD. Imagine having three vegetable children to raise. THREE.
The real problme is that thes "quaint" people are in violation of the commandments of God by turning their backs on society and creating a world unto themselves, not bringing in new blood, literally and spiritually. They reap the consequences in their bodies.
Any isolated genetic group (for whatever reason) is going to have these problems cropping up.
In the old days (like the "Blue People") it was physical isolation. These days, it's most likely a cultish sort of isolation.
It may wind up being a Delayed Shaker Effect. The effect was pretty immediate with the Shakers, since they didn't believe in marriage or intercourse and practiced complete separation of the sexes. Since none of these children with the serious genetic problems are going to reproduce, it will take a little longer but the effect will be the same. Eventually the offspring will be unable to replace themselves. I think there's ONE Shaker left at Sabbathday Lake, Maine (a late convert).
This is true. When the Amish youth go out and party, they REALLY go out and party. It is called "wilding" (sound familiar?).
You are fine as long as (and until) you actually "join" the church. They assume you don't know better until then. After you join, they literally have your soul.
AND the problem lies in this: whom will you marry?Most Amish are not going to attract normal gals. They are usually nice but ignorant, smelly and weird socially. They will usually join the church so that they can get a spouse through the Amish community (albeit a cousin).
Their doctors and midwives need to educate them more on cause and effect.
Betcha their dynamite on the banjo!
It's that last phrase that's the kicker. No cousins they were aware of. If you go back into the family tree, you'll probably find multiple cousin marriages further up the line, say 6-7 generations back. Most are unknown to the descendants. My great aunt married her fourth cousin, and they did not know this until after she started researching D.A.R. stuff. They are both descended from the same Revolutionary soldier. They never had children. Probably no connection, because the rest of the family tree is generously out-crossed.
Problem is, if you have multiple cousin marriages even if very far back, the effect is exponential, not just simply cumulative. What you have is not just "double cousins" (where a couple are cousins through two different branches of the family tree) but triple and quadruple cousins. If there are only 1500 ancestors (not all of whom successfully reproduced) back in the 1600s, by now you have people who are, say, not just sixth or seventh cousins but five or six times over. In the genealogy trade, this is known as "pedigree collapse". Or, in more humble jargon, "the family tree don't fork."
We've seen this in cats and in dogs, when a popular bloodline starts cropping up all across the pedigree eight or ten generations later. Even if you don't have any in- or linebreeding in the five-generation pedigree, if there's multiple use of a single bloodline the defects will start to crop up.
they can sure cook, though...
You are absolutely right. It seems that the pedigree is collapsing pretty hard in recent generations because it seems I hear of health problems if one sort or another in almost every Amish or Mennonite family (if not THAT family, a cousin's family).
What I always tell my kids is, say hi to to the Amish because they are your cousins. Now, my it was my great-great grandmother who was the last Amish, but there have been Mennonites and Dunkard Brethren going back to the 18th century and I have traced our family tree back to the 1500's in Germany through one line. I tell my kids that we are cousins because if we go back that many generations we ARE related, we all have some common ancestor who came to Pennsylvania from Germany and Switzerland and intermarried for many generations. My mother's family eventually settled in Goshen, Indiana, another large Amish enclave but they all come from the original stock that settled in Lancaster and Berks counties in the 18th century.
Genetics is indeed a fascinating subject...
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