Looking back over the posts I’ve done this year, I think I made some hits and misses in reporting on the biggest stories of the 2009 in regard to events in the Catholic Church. But I think I got the top six. In order:
5. Pope Benedict’s new social encyclicalCaritas in Veritate creates discussion about world events to secure social justice — and more ludicrous misunderstanding than you can imagine.
Other stories I covered: Pope Benedict’s trip to the Holy Land and the controversy over the film of Dan Brown’sAngels and Demons. And this may be “hometown” news for me, but it does have a great impact on the Church in the U.S. as a whole: New York got a New Archbishop, Timothy Dolan.
Others - controversy over the death of Ted Kennedy and this pro-abortion Catholic’s highly public funeral Mass, the new priestly sex abuse crisis in Ireland — I sort of missed. I certainly followed them while they were happening, but didn’t have time to blog about them.
Prolife leaders are urging everyone to make this year’s March for Life on January 22 in Washington D.C. the largest ever. Our presence is greatly needed as Congress gears up to pass a so-called “health” care bill that is really an enemy to the unborn, the elderly and the terminally ill. The date that commemorates the 37th anniversary of Roe v. Wade and Doe v. Bolton will be a great day to make our opposition to this bill heard.
I will be there and video blogging again. I’ll be attending the Vigil Mass at the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception, the Blogs4Life Conference, and of course the rally on the Mall and the March to the Capitol and the Supreme Court. I’m sure I’ll have interesting footage, so be sure to check back here. I’ll have more updates and links at January 22 approaches.
Today is the feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe, the pregnant Madonna of the Americas. She appeared 478 years ago to Juan Diego, a poor Aztec Indian on Tepeyac hill in Mexico. She told him that she was the “Mother of God, for whom we live,” and left a miraculous picture of herself on his tilma or cloak.
Rocco has more videos from across the country and videos. He notes that because of the increasing Hispanic population, this devotion is the future of the Church in the U.S.
The entire history of the apparitions and this devotion can be found here.
Here is some extraordinary video from the midnight celebrations in her shrine in Mexico.
On a visit to this sanctuary in 1999, Pope John Paul II entrusted the cause of life and unborn children to her care. In 1995 he composed this prayer.
Prayer of John Paul II for Life
O Mary,
bright dawn of the new world,
Mother of the living,
to you do we entrust the cause of life:
Look down, O Mother,
upon the vast numbers
of babies to be born,
of the poor whose lives are made difficult,
of men and women
who are victims of brutal violence,
of the elderly and the sick killed
by indifference or out of misguided mercy.
Grant that all who believe in your Son
may proclaim the Gospel of life
with honesty and love
to the people of our time.
Obtain for them the grace
to accept that Gospel
as a gift ever new,
the joy of celebrating it with gratitude
throughout their lives
and the courage to bear witness to it
resolutely, in order to build,
together with all people of good will,
the civilization of truth and love,
to the praise and glory of God,
the Creator and lover of life.
John Paul II
Pope John Paul II
Encyclical Letter “The Gospel of Life”
Given in Rome, on March 25, the Solemnity of the Annunciation of the Lord, in the year 1995.
Today her intercession is needed more than ever.
Our Lady of Guadalupe, Queen of the Americas, pray for us!
Sometimes it’s just so good to be alive! When Obama was elected president, I was almost in despair for the pro-life cause. Then came the nightmare of Notre Dame. Now things are looking up.
“And I was so ashamed. Just think of it: me, a Beta–having a baby: put yourself in my place.” (The mere suggestion made Lenina shudder.) “Though it wasn’t my fault, I swear; because I still don’t know how it happened, seeing that I did all the Malthusian Drill–you know, by numbers, One, two, three, four, always, I swear it; but all the same it happened, and of course there wasn’t anything like an Abortion Centre here. Is it still down in Chelsea, by the way?” she asked. Lenina nodded. “And still floodlighted on Tuesdays and Fridays?” Lenina nodded again. “That lovely pink glass tower!” Poor Linda lifted her face and with closed eyes ecstatically contemplated the bright remembered image. (Aldous Huxley, Brave New World, 1932)
I’ve been thinking a lot about Brave New World lately. Of course, a great part of Huxley’s almost 70-year-old novel is prescient of everything happening today. Huxley even said in 1958 that his Brave New World was coming to pass much faster than he had expected. And more now than ever before.
For those who have never read it — though I suppose there aren’t too many — or to refresh your memory if you have, Huxley’s dystopian novel takes place in 2540 (”the year of our Ford 632″) in a society under one world state, where the population is kept satisfied with promiscuous sex (”everyone belongs to everyone else”), where marriage is extinct, and the very idea of being a father or a mother is comic or obscene. Babies are fertilized in glass tubes from donated eggs and sperm, grown to maturity and “decanted” at the proper time. Children are raised in communal nurseries by doctors and nurses who “condition” them by sleep-teaching in accepting their caste (Alpha, Beta, Gamma, Delta) and their lot in life, which is to consume and keep industry and jobs going. Religion is unknown, whatever needs and frustrations constant sex doesn’t satisfy are soothed by the recreational drug soma, which unlike alcohol or cocaine, has no bad after-effects (”A gram is as good as a damn”). So everything is cool, right?
Of course, Huxley’s point is that this society is completely horrible and inhumane and its inhabitants cut off from their full humanity, the worst part being that most of them don’t realize it. It’s as oppressive as a fanatically religious theocratic state at its worst. And society today has come to resemble it more and more (even Huxley’s description of the virtual-reality entertainment or “feelies” could almost have been written yesterday). In fact, the novel is so timely that director Ridley Scott and Leonardo DiCaprio and making a new movie version, due out in 2011, just in time for the novel’s 70th anniversary.
However, one particular insight of Huxley’s perhaps hasn’t been noticed so much, and I began thinking of it the other day when some politician assured us for the umpteenth time that “we want to reduce the need for abortion” by pushing contraception on the young (it’s all right there in the health-care bill, even if massive efforts to keep abortion out have succeeded - temporarily).
You see, in Huxley’s society, there are still a number of fertile women with intact ovaries. (Eggs have to be donated by someone). So these women must do their daily “Malthusian drill” - that is, take the state-mandated contraceptive drug (presumably pills, though rather vaguely described. Keep in mind that this is some 30 years before the Pill became an actual reality).
It’s safe to say that never has there been a society with a more contraceptive mentality, enforced by months of sleep-taught drill, and the “regulation” Malthusian belts to carry the contraceptives that every woman was required to wear. But — there is sill that “lovely pink glass tower” of the Abortion Center. You see, in spite of the government’s most strenuous contraceptive efforts, the Malthusian drill failed, probably with some regularity. Women like Linda would seem to have visited the Abortion Center, perhaps even fairly often. (She eventually had a baby far away from civilization on an Indian reservation, only because there was no abortion there).
You see, Huxley realized, 30 years before the Pill was invented, and 40 or more years before the worldwide legalization of abortion, that abortion follows contraception as closely night follows day. It was just so logical.
So tell me again how you’re going to reduce the need for abortion?
Pausing to look at all the sights on our way to Jerusalem. . . Mainly about faith, the Church, film, writing, famous Christian authors, and anything else I'm interested in at the moment.
The photo above was taken at St. Peter's Basilica in Rome in March 2007.
Quote of the Month
"The history of the Catholic missions is by now a long road: at the beginning of that road is the Father of Mercy, who holds out his arms to all his children. All those who encounter the missionaries encounter the Father. And they also encounter the Son, the first missionary, who, obeying the Father, comes to earth, becomes flesh in human nature, is one of us, in solidarity with our misery (except for sin) and ends up dying for us in order to then return to heaven, carrying on his shoulders the human race his has won back.
Out of the same mold are the missionaries, who repeat, in some way, his journey. They too leave their fathers and families and depart to go among a foreign people. They too strip themselves of the refined culture they have acquired in their homelands; and of their native customs and habitat, of a hundred little comforts, in order to be in solidarity. With who? With a people who are on one hand naked and poor, and on the other rich in possibilities, which the missionaries intend to respect, value and elevate."
Albino Luciani (Pope John Paul I), to the people of his diocese of Vittorio Veneto, on his return from the diocesan missions in Africa in 1966
