Papal Audiences
In the past strict dress codes had to be followed by those granted a papal audience. Men were required to wear a morning coat or white tie and tails, while women when meeting popes were required to wear full length black dresses and mantillas (black veils) unless they were Catholic queens, in which case they could wear white. Formal dress is now normally reserved for diplomatic audiences. In the 1990s, a Roman Catholic priest in Ireland provoked a controversy by claiming that then-President of Ireland Mary Robinson had breached protocol by wearing jewellery and by not wearing black nor a mantilla, for an audience with Pope John Paul II. The Vatican subsequently pointed out that the traditional form of dress worn for papal audiences was no longer obligatory.
Modern popes grant large audiences to crowds in St. Peter's Square or the Paul VI Audience Hall.
Read more about this topic: Audience (meeting)
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“Hollywood keeps before its child audiences a string of glorified young heroes, everyone of whom is an unhesitating and violent Anarchist. His one answer to everything that annoys him or disparages his country or his parents or his young lady or his personal code of manly conduct is to give the offender a “sock” in the jaw.... My observation leads me to believe that it is not the virtuous people who are good at socking jaws.”
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