Insight Scoop | The Ignatius Press Blog

No Room on the Lifeboat?

No Room on the Lifeboat? | Michael J. Miller | News from Europe, Catholic World Report

Proposed changes to French bioethics laws target Down syndrome children.

This spring the French parliament is scheduled to debate a bill proposing revisions to the national bioethics laws currently in force. In January 2010 the pertinent legislative commission published its report, which addresses questions about surrogate motherhood, assisted reproduction, human embryo research, pre-natal screening, and organ donation. The report relies heavily on recommendations issued on November 17, 2009 by the French national ethics committee, the Comité Consultatif National d’Éthique (CCNE). 

Pre-implantation diagnostic testing, although controversial, was allowed in strictly defined cases by the 1994 bioethics law. A couple with a family history of a “particularly serious” genetic disease was legally permitted to have their embryonic offspring (produced through in vitro fertilization) screened for that one disease; any embryos in which the genetic disorder was detected would be “discarded,” so as to implant only disease-free embryos in the mother. The CCNE recently recommended extending pre-implantation screening to include trisomy 21, also known as Down syndrome.

The press conference held by the CCNE on November 17, 2009 revealed that the French national ethics committee did not approve Recommendation #107 unanimously. Xavier Lacroix stated his opinion that “although we are not talking about the collective and coercive eugenics seen in recent history in some totalitarian regimes,” there is still “a liberal and individual eugenics movement that can lead to the same results as a collective policy.” The CCNE, he said, obviously based its proposal “on a pragmatic and utilitarian argument…but in ethical thinking the utilitarian bottom line shouldn’t always have the last word.” Another committee member, philosopher Pierre Le Coz, replied, “We don’t think that we are involved in eugenics…. As long as couples have freedom and there is no incitement by the state, there is no eugenics.” The proposed selection among human beings, he continued, has a “praiseworthy” motivation. “We spare people suffering…. This frees families from the burden of a calamity.”

Ironically, the CCNE recommended screening embryos for trisomy 21 just 50 years after the discovery of this chromosomal disorder by Dr. Jérôme Lejeune (1926-1994), a French geneticist and pediatrician who devoted his medical career to treating children with Down syndrome and did much to remove the stigma formerly attached to the condition. Then, on November 18, 2009, Dr. Ahmad Salehi of Stanford University announced a spectacular breakthrough in his study of the neural basis for the memory deficit that causes cognitive delay in children with trisomy 21.  His research team showed that increased norepinephrine (a neurotransmitter) greatly improves cognition in genetically engineered trisomic mice. Salehi expects that his findings can lead to a drug therapy to compensate for the memory deficiency in human patients. “If you intervene early enough, you will be able to help kids with Down syndrome to collect and modulate information.”

Read the entire article...

Hey, that's my state! Or: what is good for the Catholic goose...

Keeping with the headline theme and source material, here is part of the most recent column by Bishop Robert Vasa (Diocese of Baker, Oregon) in The Catholic Sentinel:

A further and very real sign of hope is the report’s counting of the number of new allegations received in 2009 for abuse that occurred last year. This number is 6. If this is at all accurate it would show that the Church has indeed taken the horrible trauma and scandal of child sexual abuse very seriously and that the efforts of the Church, its bishops, priests and laity, are bearing fruit. We do not deny the past but the efforts of the Church these past 10 to 20 years seem to be having a positive effect. I pray it is so. It is indeed most sad that the Church did not take these strong measures 40 years ago and for that we apologize to the people of God and most especially to those who have been harmed and often grievously harmed because evil and sinful priests were allowed to continue in ministry after their evil inclinations and actions were manifested and known by those who had the power and the duty to remove them.

In great contrast to this sign of hope in the Church I need only refer to the state of Oregon. According to an April 22 headline: “Change needed in abuse investigations.” In brief, the story points out that in 2009, Oregon state workers screened 67,885 reports of child abuse and neglect. These 67,000 reports generated 28,584 investigations. These 28,000 investigations revealed 11,090 children who were victims of abuse or neglect. The story points out that nearly half of these children were under 6.

This is an area that needs the same bright and unrelenting light of truth that has been focused so diligently on the Church these past 20 years. I do not at all defend the past negligence of the Church but I do commend her increasing vigilance these past 20 years. Where is the vigilance in our society? How can nearly 5,000 pre-kindergarten children be the victims of some form of abuse or neglect in Oregon in a single year? If we conservatively multiply this number (which would undoubtedly be much larger in many states) by a mere factor of 40 we come to the most shameful possibility that more than 200,000 pre-school age children in the United States may have suffered some form of abuse or neglect in 2009. Yet, the story will receive one day of coverage in the local paper and then pass again into oblivion until April of next year. In the meantime, every single report involving the Church will make national news for days and sometimes weeks. One could begin to wonder if the public concern is really about the welfare of children at all.

Well worth reading in its entirety, as is the case with all of Bishop Vasa's columns. We've covered this ground before, but I'm sure there are some folks out there who will say, "C'mon, this is just another attempt by a defensive Catholic to change the subject!"

And to such a remark, which is quite common, I would respond, "Well, what is the subject?" Put another way, is all of the media furor in recent weeks really about protecting children? About exposing child abuse, regardless of where it is being committed and who is committing it? If so, what is so bothersome about Catholics, or anyone else with a brain, asking, "Why such disproportionate focus on the Catholic Church?" And, again, if the answer to that is something like, "Well, the Catholic Church should be free of such abuse!", or, "Some bishops and others have covered up abuse!", I would simply say, "Yes and yes—absolutely!—but don't you agree that all institutions—religious, educational, etc.—should be free of abuse, and that anyone in any institution who covers up child abuse should be exposed and dealt with in a judicious manner?" Well?

Along those lines, Fr Timothy Finigan of "The Hermenuetics of Continuity" blog has an excellent post on the same issue:

An article in the New York Times today reports a proposal in New York to raise the statute of limitations for crimes of child abuse so that there is a 40 year limit starting from the age of 18. The NYTasks:

    Should it be possible to sue the city of New York for sexual abuse by public school teachers that happened decades ago? How about doctors or hospital attendants? Police officers? Welfare workers? Playground attendants?

Well yes. That's how it works. Have a chat with your local Bishop for the details.

The proposal was originally an effort to expand accountability for sexual abuse by Catholic clergy but has quite rightly extended to cover abuse by people in other walks of life. In this context, the NYT story is no longer one of cover-up and denial of responsibility but of "a collision of powerful civic values".

The excuses are all now tumbling out. The New York City Mayor is concerned about the potential impact for taxpayers. Welcome to the real world, Mayor. Catholics in the pews have seen billions of dollars, donated by them over decades, paid out in compensation to victims of clerical abuse and episcopal failure. It is tough but we have to recognise responsibility.

Do read it all. As many have rightly noted, the MSM did indeed provide a good and needed service, going back to the 1990s, in exposing scandals involving abusive priests and irresponsible (or worse) bishops. But those journalists and news outlets now trying to use the horrible sins of certain Catholics to attack the Holy Father or the moral authority of Catholic teaching are playing a dangerous game (I would even say it is reckless and infantile in some cases) that will, I trust, leave them hoisted with their own petard. If you can (rightly) accuse molesting priests as hypocrites and sinners for abusing children, what are we to think of those who act as if child abuse is only worth fighting or reporting when it is committed by a certain group, but not when it is committed by much larger groups?

Hey, that's my parish!

The Catholic Sentinel, newspaper of the Archdiocese of Portland, Oregon, has a piece each week about a different parish in the archdiocese. This week it features Nativity of the Mother of God Ukrainian Catholic Church, which my family and I have attended for about ten years (I worked for the parish for two years, 2000-02, as director of catechesis). Nativity (parish website) is actually a church of the Saint Nicholas Ukrainian Catholic Eparchy (Chicago), but it is very kind of the Sentinel to tell folks in western Oregon (and beyond) about it.

For more about Eastern Catholicism, see my article, "The Rite Not To Be Roman," in the January 2006 issue of This Rock magazine.

LATimes: Pullman's book about Jesus based on "hoariest of conceits", relies on "shtick"

Until now, I've never agreed with or cared for much of anything written by Tim Rutten of the L.A. Times. But his recent review (April 28, 2010) of Philip Pullman's book on Jesus (or is that "Jesus"?) has some good moments:

"The Good Man Jesus and the Scoundrel Christ" was commissioned by its publisher, Canongate, as part of a series in which the world's great myths "are retold in a contemporary and memorable way." This one comes up decidedly short of the mark. In part, that's because of Pullman's wholly unexpected ambivalence toward his subject. He's apparently fond — even admiring — of Jesus the defender of the poor and scourge of hypocrites. On the other hand, he loathes what Jesus' followers and the generations that came after them made of his teachings in the form of an institutional church.

Fair enough, but you'd expect a writer of Pullman's abilities to make something fruitful of the tension between his affection and his revulsion; instead, he falls back on the hoariest of conceits: the evil twin. In this version Mary bears twin sons. One is a healthy, rather impish boy who grows up to be a man's man and a fearless teacher, Jesus. The other, Mary's favorite, is sickish, bookish, reclusive and inclined to suck up to authority. She calls him Christ.

There's a sadly missed opportunity here, for one of the questions that has preoccupied Christian theologians has been how Jesus understood himself and his place in his community. It would have been interesting to watch an author of Pullman's talent engage that question from his outsider's perspective. Instead, readers are stuck with the "evil twin" shtick. Worse, Pullman sadly misuses the character he calls Christ, abusing him for didactic and polemical purposes. Thus, when Jesus goes into the desert to fast and pray for 40 days and nights, he is tempted not by Satan, as he is in the synoptic Gospels, but by his twin brother, Christ. The nature of that temptation is Christ's belief that Jesus' teachings must be housebroken so as to form the basis of a church that will last.

It's disappointing to have a committed secularist like Pullman, someone who, therefore, must be committed to historicism and factuality, ignore all this in favor of a melodramatic trick. Similarly, some of the most mythically powerful Gospel parables are abused in this retelling, including those of the prodigal son, Martha and Mary and the cleansing of the temple. Pullman gets the latter entirely wrong, since the offense that moved Jesus to violent anger wasn't the introduction of commerce into a place of worship, but the oppression of the poor who were charged excessive fees by the money changers who exchanged ritually impure Roman currency for the temple coinage.

Read the entire piece. I would go a step further and proffer that Rutten is giving Pullman too much credit as a man of reason, historical acumen, and objective thinking. Very little in Pullman's remarks and writings about religion in general and Christianity in particular suggests he has read widely or thought deeply (or well) about most matters theological and historical. Pullman, like so many of his enlightened, "bright," neo-Enlightenment skeptical brethren, is much more of a popular provocateur and sensationalist than he is serious thinker. Which is not to say he isn't intelligent or talented; he is obviously both. It is to say that he has not applied his intellect or talents, in addressing (and mocking) Jesus and Christianity, in a way that is helpful to anyone other than those who wish to thumb their noses at the Church.

A blurb for the book (found on the Canongate site) states:

In this ingenious and spellbinding retelling of the life of Jesus, Philip Pullman revisits the most influential story ever told. Charged with mystery, compassion and enormous power, The Good Man Jesus and the Scoundrel Christ throws fresh light on who Jesus was and asks the reader questions that will continue to resonate long after the final page is turned. Above all, this book is about how stories become stories.

This is either incredibly naive or knowingly subversive. Or a confused combination thereof. And nothing that I've heard about the book so far suggests otherwise.

• Which does Philip Pullman choose: Lord, Liar, or Lunatic? (April 8 2010)
• Philip Pullman apparently missed the entire 20th century (March 27, 2010)
• Chopra's Christ: The Mythical Creation of a New Age Panthevangelist | Carl E. Olson
• "The Self-Revelation of God's Reality in History": On the Final Chapter of Jesus of Nazareth | Fr. James V. Schall, S.J.
• "God Is The Issue" | The Temptation in the Desert and the Kingdoms of This World | Fr. James V. Schall, S.J.
• God Made Visible: On the Foreword to Benedict XVI's Jesus of Nazareth | Fr. James V. Schall, S.J.
• Further reflections on Benedict's "Jesus of Nazareth" | Various Authors
• A Shepherd Like No Other | Excerpt from Behold, God's Son! | Christoph Cardinal Schönborn
• Encountering Christ in the Gospel | Excerpt from My Jesus | Christoph Cardinal Schönborn
• Seeing Jesus in the Gospel of John | Excerpts from On The Way to Jesus Christ | Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger
• A Jesus Worth Dying For | A Review of On The Way to Jesus Christ | Justin Nickelsen
• The Divinity of Christ | Peter Kreeft
• Jesus Is Catholic | Hans Urs von Balthasar
• The Religion of Jesus | Blessed Columba Marmion | From Christ, The Ideal of the Priest

Hans Urs von Balthasar on "Unity, Plurality, and the Papacy"

Unity, Plurality, and the Papacy | Hans Urs von Balthasar | From the Introduction to The Office of Peter and the Structure of the Church

Pascal says in his Pensées: "If one contemplates the Church as unity, then the pope who is her head is also the whole. If one perceives her as plurality, then the pope is only a part. From time to time the Fathers of the Church thought of the Church in one way or the other... but they emphasized both; they excluded neither. A plurality that cannot be integrated into unity is chaos; unity unrelated to plurality is tyranny." (And he adds: "Only in France can it be said that the council is over the pope.") [6]

In this book we, too, will concern ourselves with unity and plurality, but we want to take a new approach. We do not claim to give practical directives in Church affairs, and because of this some readers may lose interest. Our main aim is to argue theologically, and adhering as closely as possible to the gospel of Jesus Christ, that the role of the office of Peter--even as defined at Vatican I!--is both indispensable and, at the same time, relative. The anti-Roman animosity rests, today more than ever, on a narrow view of those fundamental doctrines laid down in the New Testament which should be self-evident to Catholic eyes. More profound thinking will reveal the office of Peter as one of several indispensable elements in the ecclesiastical structure, thus freeing it from the pyramid-like isolation to which it consented, partly involuntarily, by permitting itself to be modeled on the pattern of Imperial Rome and, partly voluntarily, in reaction to the encroachments of medieval emperors.

The tension between primacy and collegiality seems to me insufficient to describe the force-fields that bear upon the Church. Translating these into categories of "monarchy" and "democracy" is even less satisfactory. Much deeper, more fundamental tensions are in play, and only by perceiving these--if Christian theology would deign to do so--can the atmosphere be rid of poison.

To be truly of service, our thinking should delve into the theological depth of ecclesial reality. It is not sufficient to survey the papacy in general, from a cultural-philosophical or sociological point of view. Nor can attempts to explain the reigning pope with a dose of depth-psychology clarify the situation and repair the damage done. Such personal "disclosures" can be sensational, but they are basically injudicious even if they are written in praise of the pope, as were the conversations of Jean Guitton with Paul VI, [7] in which the author admits that he put much into the mouth of the Pope which the latter had not said. Such publications may claim to provide informative criticism, as the book by the two authors who call themselves Hieronymus. [8] Or they can attempt to shed light on the tragedy of the papacy by applying a professional stethoscope to the souls of three recent popes, from the ivory tower of a world-historical viewpoint (as did Reinhard Raffalt). [9] Or, finally, as Fritz Leist did in The Prisoner of the Vatican, [10] they can stir up past historical trash to muddy the presently clear waters. We name these authors only to state emphatically that we will not do what they have done. What we want to do is to revive a theological understanding of the constellation given in the New Testament in which every pope--including the present one--has his ordained place; he can only represent this constellation together with the whole Church and can only fulfill his role in obedience to Christ.

Continue reading...

Celebrating Mother's Day and Our Blessed Mother during the month of May

Offer ends Tuesday, May 4th, 2010 at 12:00 midnight EST.

These prices are available online only through Ignatius.com


Celebrating Mother's Day & Mary during the month of May

In celebration of Our Blessed Mother during the month of May, Ignatius Press is offering 20% off on a great selection of Books, Films and Music CDs. With a wide selection of titles, any one of these would be the perfect gift to give your Mother on Mother's Day!

If you haven't seen The 13th Day yet, what are you waiting for? Now is your chance to get the film, plus a free t-shirt which normally sells for $15! Just pay $24.95 for the DVD (there is no 20% discount applied) and you will automatically be sent a free large size t-shirt.  This excellent, inspiring film and free t-shirt will make a very special Mother's Day Gift. Books, DVDs, and music below the fold!

The opening pages of "Catherine of Siena," by Sigrid Undset

The opening pages of Catherine of Siena | by Sigrid Undset, the Nobel Prize winning author of Kristin Lavransdatter | Ignatius Insight

In the city-states of Tuscany the citizens—Popolani—businessmen, master craftsmen and the professional class had already in the Middle Ages demanded and won the right to take part in the government of the republic side by side with the nobles—the Gentiluomini. In Siena they had obtained a third of the seats in the High Council as early as the twelfth century. In spite of the fact that the different  parties and rival groups within the parties were in constant and often violent disagreement, and in spite of the frequent wars with Florence, Siena's neighbour and most powerful competitor, prosperity reigned within the city walls. The Sienese were rich and proud of their city, so they filled it with beautiful churches and public buildings. Masons, sculptors, painters and smiths who made the exquisite lattices and lamps, were seldom out of work. Life was like a brightly coloured tissue, where violence and vanity, greed and uninhibited desire for sensual pleasure, the longing for power, and ambition, were woven together in a multitude of patterns. But through the tissue ran silver threads of Christian charity, deep and genuine piety in the monasteries and among the good priests, among the brethren and sisters who had dedicated themselves to a life of helping their neighbours. The well-to-do and the common people had to the best of their ability provided for the sick, the poor and the lonely with unstinted generosity. In every class of the community there were good people who lived a quiet, modest and beautiful family life of purity and faith.

The family of Jacopo Benincasa was one of these. By trade he was a wool-dyer, and he worked with his elder sons and apprentices while his wife, Lapa di Puccio di Piagente, firmly and surely ruled the large household, although her life was an almost unbroken cycle of pregnancy and childbirth—and almost half her children died while they were still quite small. It is uncertain how many of them grew up, but the names of thirteen children who lived are to be found on an old family tree of the Benincasas. Considering how terribly high the rate of infant mortality was at that time, Jacopo and Lapa were lucky in being able to bring up more than half the children they had brought into the world.

Continue reading...

Kenneth L. Woodward: "The New York Times isn’t fair."

Kenneth L. Woodward, who spent nearly forty years as religion editor of Newsweek (now known as Newsweak, at least on this blog), tears into the New York Times:

The New York Times isn’t fair. In its all-hands-on-deck drive to implicate the pope in diocesan cover-ups of abusive priests, the Times has relied on a steady stream of documents unearthed or supplied by Jeff Anderson, the nation’s most aggressive litigator on behalf of clergy-abuse victims. Fairness dictates that the Times give Anderson at least a co-byline.

Woodward makes a rather fascinating comparison between two religions: Catholicism and New York Times-ism (my term, not his). He then writes:

Every institution creates its own sheltering culture. The Holy See is larger, more complex, and much older than the Times, and the Roman curia is inherently more diverse than the newsroom of the Times, despite the latter’s periodic bouts of mandated diversity training. But as anyone who has covered the Vatican can tell you, its institutional culture is also inherently traditional, conservative, and self-protective. It is, after all, the last functioning Renaissance court.

As U.S. newspapers go, the Times is also a venerable institution and its hierarchy of editors, deputy and assistant editors, and copy editors is a match for the Roman curia. The paper has been controlled by the Ochs-Sulzberger family since 1896. To those who devote their lives to it, the Times has become “a place that will shelter you the rest of your life,” as Arthur Gelb wrote in his detailed memoir, City Room. I know what he means: Newsweek in the nearly four decades I worked there was also a sheltering institution. Moreover, with reporting flowing in from our worldwide news bureaus, we in New York felt as if we were operating at the throbbing center of the known and knowable universe. Given its exponentially larger work force, not to mention hourly input from the Internet, this illusion is all the more powerful at the Times. A journalist could spend a lifetime in its newsroom without encountering a dissenter from the institutional ideology.

Every journalistic operation generates its own newsroom culture. By that I mean an implicit set of assumptions about what cultural norms and attitudes the newspaper, magazine, etc. should reflect in its collective editorial outlook. As in the church, these norms are passed down from the top, becoming part of the air the composite Timesman breathes. For example, religion was well and routinely covered by Time magazine, because co-founder Henry Luce, the son of Presbyterian missionaries, considered the subject of major cultural importance. Religion was important at Newsweek because the magazine imitated Time’s template. Why is it then, that the devout of any religion should find the newsroom culture of the Times (Okrent again) “a strange and forbidding world”?

And, finally, in conclusion:

No, I am not suggesting that the scandal is merely media-driven, as some at the Vatican have argued. There would be no stories if there had been no history of abuses and cover-ups in the first place. But I am saying that the Times has created its own version of the scandal as if they had discovered something new. They haven’t. Until they do, I remain a dissenter in the pews of the Church of the New York Times.

Read the entire piece on the Commonweal site. I think that when it comes to dreck, it is better to be an apostate than a dissenter...

UPDATE (April 29, 2010): This April 24, 2010, piece, "Questioning the Pope," by public editor Clark Hoyt is a good example of how the NYT has sought to justify its approach to the stories discussed by Woodward:

Some readers say The Times is anti-Catholic. They wonder why it isn’t giving equal effort to sex abuse in the public schools, or in other religions. And Levada and others argue that Benedict improved the Vatican’s response to such cases, streamlining the procedures for hearing them and apologizing to victims.

But it would be irresponsible to ignore the continuing revelations. A day after the first article about Murphy, The Times published another front-page article that said Benedict, while archbishop in Munich, led a meeting approving the transfer of a pedophile priest and was kept informed about the case. The priest was later convicted of molesting boys in another parish. The paper’s critics have been mostly silent about this report.

Like it or not, there are circumstances that have justifiably driven this story for years, including a well-documented pattern of denial and cover-up in an institution with billions of followers. Painful though it may be, the paper has an obligation to follow the story where it leads, even to the pope’s door.

What Hoyt doesn't seem to get, or is unwilling to address, as Woodward rightly notes, is how fixated the NYT is on pinning something—anything!—on the Pope, even it means ignoring key evidence, skewing facts, making huge leaps of journalistic faith, and being quite sloppy. I don't know of any Catholics (although there are possibly some out there) who are opposed to abuses and scandals being exposed in a sober, responsible fashion. But reporting on evils committed by Fr. Murphy or other priests is quite a bit different from then saying, in essence, "Ratzinger/Benedict had something to do with this—trust us!", and then failing miserably to provide evidence. If such an approach had been taken in vetting candidate Obama, who knows what fascinating facts/"facts" the NYT could have discovered!

Incoming missal!

The Holy Father addresses members of the Vox Clara Committee, who have been translating and preparing a new English missal:

Dear Cardinals,

Dear Brother Bishops and Priests,

Members and Consultors of the Vox Clara Committee,

I thank you for the work that Vox Clara has done over the last eight years, assisting and advising the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments in fulfilling its responsibilities with regard to the English translations of liturgical texts. This has been a truly collegial enterprise. Not only are all five continents represented in the membership of the Committee, but you have been assiduous in drawing together contributions from Bishops’ Conferences in English-speaking territories all over the world. I thank you for the great labour you have expended in your study of the translations and in processing the results of the many consultations that have been conducted. I thank the expert assistants for offering the fruits of their scholarship in order to render a service to the universal Church. And I thank the Superiors and Officials of the Congregation for their daily, painstaking work of overseeing the preparation and translation of texts that proclaim the truth of our redemption in Christ, the Incarnate Word of God.

Saint Augustine spoke beautifully of the relation between John the Baptist, the vox clara that resounded on the banks of the Jordan, and the Word that he spoke. A voice, he said, serves to share with the listener the message that is already in the speaker’s heart. Once the word has been spoken, it is present in the hearts of both, and so the voice, its task having been completed, can fade away (cf. Sermon 293). I welcome the news that the English translation of the Roman Missal will soon be ready for publication, so that the texts you have worked so hard to prepare may be proclaimed in the liturgy that is celebrated across the anglophone world. Through these sacred texts and the actions that accompany them, Christ will be made present and active in the midst of his people. The voice that helped bring these words to birth will have completed its task.

A new task will then present itself, one which falls outside the direct competence of Vox Clara, but which in one way or another will involve all of you – the task of preparing for the reception of the new translation by clergy and lay faithful. Many will find it hard to adjust to unfamiliar texts after nearly forty years of continuous use of the previous translation. The change will need to be introduced with due sensitivity, and the opportunity for catechesis that it presents will need to be firmly grasped. I pray that in this way any risk of confusion or bewilderment will be averted, and the change will serve instead as a springboard for a renewal and a deepening of Eucharistic devotion all over the English-speaking world.

Dear Brother Bishops, Reverend Fathers, Friends, I want you to know how much I appreciate the great collaborative endeavour to which you have contributed. Soon the fruits of your labours will be made available to English-speaking congregations everywhere. As the prayers of God’s people rise before him like incense (cf. Psalm 140:2), may the Lord’s blessing come down upon all who have contributed their time and expertise to crafting the texts in which those prayers are expressed. Thank you, and may you be abundantly rewarded for your generous service to God’s people.

The National Catholic Register has this additional information:

The Congregation for Divine Worship and the Sacraments is to issue its formal approval of the new English translation of the complete Roman Missal later today.

The recognitio comes after nearly ten years of study and sometimes difficult consultation over the new translation of prayers for the Mass.

Today’s development will therefore mark a key step, although when the new Missal will be made available in parishes remains unclear.

Cardinal George Pell, chairman of the Vox Clara Committee, the international group of bishops advising the Vatican about the translation, told the Register yesterday that although formal approval will be given today, the new Missal certainly won’t be available before 2011.

The USCCB has a site with some information, Q&A, and so forth regarding the new translation and its implementation.

"There are so many of them, and they are so young."

Newsweak recently published an article, "Remember Roe!", that mostly served as an ad for NARAL. However, the piece does have some interesting bits of information about the state of pro-abortionists:

So if Democrats won't stand strong for abortion rights, who will? The predicament weighed particularly heavily on NARAL Pro-Choice America, the country's oldest abortion-rights group. Founded in 1969 as the National Association for Repeal of Abortion Laws, NARAL has helped protect Roe v. Wade, the 1973 Supreme Court case legalizing abortion, against countless legislative challenges. NARAL president Nancy Keenan had grown fearful about the future of her movement even before the health-care debate. Keenan considers herself part of the "postmenopausal militia," a generation of baby-boomer activists now well into their 50s who grew up in an era of backroom abortions and fought passionately for legalization. Today they still run the major abortion-rights groups, including NARAL, Planned Parenthood, and the National Organization for Women.

These leaders will retire in a decade or so. And what worries Keenan is that she just doesn't see a passion among the post-Roe generation—at least, not among those on her side. This past January, when Keenan's train pulled into Washington's Union Station, a few blocks from the Capitol, she was greeted by a swarm of anti-abortion-rights activists. It was the 37th annual March for Life, organized every year on Jan. 22, the anniversary of Roe. "I just thought, my gosh, they are so young," Keenan recalled. "There are so many of them, and they are so young." March for Life estimates it drew 400,000 activists to the Capitol this year. An anti-Stupak rally two months earlier had about 1,300 attendees.

That's a bit odd, since back in January this same mouth-piece for the pro-abort industry had a blog post titled, "Who’s Missing at the 'Roe v. Wade' Anniversary Demonstrations? Young Women." Go figure.

New NARAL research, conducted earlier this year and released exclusively to NEWSWEEK, only amplified Keenan's fears. A survey of 700 young Americans showed there was a stark "intensity gap" on abortion. More than half (51 percent) of young voters (under 30) who opposed abortion rights considered it a "very important" voting issue, compared with just 26 percent of abortion-rights supporters; a similar but smaller gap existed among older voters, too. Worse still for NARAL, the millennials surveyed didn't view abortion as an imperiled right in need of defenders. As one young mother in a focus group told NARAL, it seemed to her that abortion was easily accessible. How did she know? The parking lot at her local clinic, she told them, was always full.

Millennials are more likely than their boomer parents to see abortion as a moral issue. In the NARAL focus groups, young voters flat-out disapproved of a woman's abortion, called her actions immoral, yet maintained that the government had absolutely no right to intervene. As one young woman in Denver said, "I only get mad when [a friend] tries telling me, 'It is like nothing, oh well, it is just an abortion.'?" It wasn't the abortion itself that seemed to trouble the woman; rather, it was her friend's nonchalance. "Even if it was like nothing," the woman told NARAL, "it was something."

Is the glass half full or half empty? On the plus side, it appears, more young people recognize that abortion is a moral issue. On the negative side, it seems that most young people don't have the tools/ability to make sense of why it is a moral issue. Recognition of the deeply moral nature of abortion combined with a culture of narcissism might well lead not so much to recognizing abortion as immoral as providing the pregnant woman with an even more deeply ingrained sense of autonomy: "It's a big decision, so don't tell me what I should do!" The issue of objective right and wrong is deflected by the shield of self-importance at having to face such a major decision. So instead of seeking clarity, the impetus is to wallow in a sort of victimization shot through with talk of moral "complexity":

Instead, within the abortion-rights community there's a growing consensus on a promising path forward: start an open discussion about the moral, ethical, and emotional complexity of abortion that would be more likely to resonate with young Americans. "It's a morally complex issue that both sides have tried to make black and white," says Greenberg. "We have to recognize the moral complexity."

"Moral complexity," of course, is (almost always, in this context) a clever way of avoiding moral clarity. Instead of saying that abortion is no big deal, it says that abortion is indeed a big deal of such deeply personal nature that no one should dare to impart their moral beliefs on anyone else regarding whether or not an abortion is "right" for this or that woman. Therein lies a significant challenge in the fight against the culture of death.

Pope's audience focuses on two priests who worked with the poor, sick, youth

From Vatican Information Service:

PRIESTS: LIVE A LIFE COHERENT WITH THE SACRAMENT RECEIVED

VATICAN CITY, 28 APR 2010 (VIS) - Benedict XVI dedicated his catechesis during this morning's general audience to two Italian priests: St. Leonardo Murialdo (1828-1900) and St. Giuseppe Benito Cottolengo (1786-1842), "exemplary in the commitment to God and witness of charity which, in the Church and for the Church, they showed towards their needy brothers and sisters".

 St. Leonardo Murialdo, having overcome a profound spiritual crisis in his youth, became a priest of St. John Bosco who appreciated him greatly. Thanks to Don Bosco, Fr. Murialdo "came into contact with the serious problems of the poorer classes, ... maturing a profound social, educational and apostolic sensibility which led him to dedicate himself independently to initiatives in favour of young people", the Pope explained.

 "In 1873 he founded the Congregation of St. Joseph, which from its beginnings had as its apostolic goal the formation of young people, especially the poor and abandoned". In this context the Holy Father highlighted how "the central nucleus of Leonardo Murialdo's spirituality was his certainty of the merciful love of God: a Father Who is always good, patient and generous, Who reveals the greatness and immensity of his mercy through forgiveness".

 St. Leonardo, "highlighting the greatness of the mission of priests, 'who must continue the work of redemption', ... always recalled, both to himself and his confreres, the responsibility of living a life coherent with the Sacrament received".

 "The same spirit of charity" marked the life and work of St. Giuseppe Benito Cottolengo, founder of the "Little House of Divine Providence". This saint, "from his childhood showed great sensibility towards the poor". Following years of fruitful priestly ministry, his meeting with a young sick woman, mother of five children, whom he assisted on her deathbed, changed the course of his life.

 "The Lord always places signs on our path, guiding us according to His will to what is truly good for us", said Benedict XVI. From that moment Giuseppe Cottolengo "used all his capacities ... to create initiatives in support of the most needy. He involved scores of collaborators and volunteers in his enterprise, ... so as to face and overcome difficulties together. Each person in that Little House of Divine Providence had a specific task. ... The healthy and the sick all shared the same daily burden. Even religious life was organised over time in accordance with particular needs and requirements".

 "For the poor and needy", Giuseppe Cottolengo always defined himself as "the labourer of Divine Providence", the Holy Father recalled.

 "These two priest saints", the Pope concluded, "lived their ministry by totally giving their lives to the poorest, the most needy, the last. The profound root, the eternal source of their activity was always their relationship with God, drawing from His love in the profound conviction that it is not possible to exercise charity save by living with Christ in the Church. May their intercession and example continue to illuminate the ministry of the many priests who give themselves generously for God and for the flock entrusted to them, and help everyone to give themselves joyfully and generously to God and to others".

• What Is Success For a Priest? Presence and Not Production | Fr. Alvaro Delgado
• The Seminary as Nazareth: Formation in a School of Prayer | Dn. James Keating
• Ain't Talkin' 'Bout Love? Why This Gen-Xer Is a Priest | Fr. John Cihak, S.T.D.
• Becoming a Man of God | interview with Fr. Larry Richards
• Letter of His Holiness Pope Benedict XVI Proclaiming a Year for Priests on the 150th Anniversary of the "Dies Natalis" of the Cure of Ars
• St. John Vianney's Pastoral Plan | Fr. John Cihak
• The Blessed Virgin Mary's Role in the Celibate Priest's Spousal and Paternal Love | Fr. John Cihak
• Surrendering to the Healing Power of Christ's Own Chastity | Dn. James Keating, Ph.D.

The Novelist and the Great Story | An Interview with Michael D. O'Brien

The Novelist and the Great Story | An Interview with Michael D. O'Brien about Theophilos: A Novel | Ignatius Insight | April 28, 2010

Editor's note: Ignatius Press recently published Michael D. O'Brien's eighth novel, Theophilos (also available as an e-book), about the man to whom St. Luke addressed his Gospel and the Acts of the Apostles. In this interview, O'Brien discusses the inspiration for the novel and the various challenges he faced in writing it. An excerpt from the Afterword to the novel is included, containing further information about the writing of the novel.

---

Ignatius Insight: What was the inspiration for a novel about a man whose name is used just twice in the New Testament, both times by St. Luke?
 
O'Brien: I've always been intrigued by the mysterious figure to whom St. Luke addressed his Gospel and the Acts. However, I never considered writing a novel about him, and felt no need to supply an imaginary, speculative "life" for him. The inspiration actually came while I was praying before the exposed Blessed Sacrament three or four years ago. I was feeling unusually exhausted that night, quite brain dead and poor before the Lord, wondering if I would even be able to pray. In all honesty I had felt sure my adoration hour would be extremely dry, without lights or consolations. I'm ashamed to say, all I wanted to do was sleep.

From the moment I entered the chapel, completely to my surprise, a series of vivid images of the life of Christ poured into my interior "seeing." An extraordinary peace came with them, and the dissolving of all sense of time. The scenes were nearly visual and far beyond what I could have produced in my natural imagination. I have rarely if ever experienced anything like it in prayer. Perhaps the closest to it was my novel Father Elijah back in the early 1990s, and certain passages in Island of the World.

Ignatius Insight: Do you consider this a mystical experience?

O'Brien: I certainly don't think of myself as a mystic. I believe the scenes from that single adoration hour were lights, graces. Praying and pondering over them for more than a year before beginning writing, I felt there were serious questions that needed resolution.

Read the entire interview...

Fr. Barron and Fr. Pacwa discuss modern technology, sharing the Gospel

Fr. Robert Barron of Word on Fire was recently at EWTN and spoke with Fr. Mitch Pacwa, S.J., about evangelization and "The Catholicism Project":



Related Ignatius Insight Excerpts, Interviews, Articles

• We Are All Called To Be Evangelizers | Introduction to Good News, Bad News, by Fr. C. John McCloskey, III, and Russell Shaw
• Can Catholics Be Evangelists? An interview with Russell Shaw
• Evangelization 101: A Short Guide to Sharing the Gospel | Carl E. Olson
• Evangelizing With Love, Beauty and Reason | Joseph Pearce

Some handy stats

From Vatican Information Service:

VATICAN CITY, 27 APR 2010 (VIS) - The Vatican Publishing House has recently released a new edition of the Statistical Yearbook of the Church, comprising information on the main aspects of Catholic Church activity in various countries for the period 2000-2008.

 Over these nine years, the Catholic presence in the world has grown from 1,045 million in 2000 to 1,166 million in 2008, an increase of 11.54 percent. Considering the statistics in detail, numbers in Africa grew by 33 percent, in Europe they remained generally stable (an increase of 1.17 percent), while in Asia they increased by 15.61 percent, in Oceania by 11.39 percent and in America by 10.93 percent. As a percentage of the total population, European Catholics represented 26.8 percent in 2000 and 24.31 percent in 2008. In America and Oceania they have remained stable, and increased slightly in Asia.

 The number of bishops in the world went up from 4541 in 2000 to 5002 in 2008, an increase of 10.15 percent.

 The number of priests also increased slightly over this nine-year period, passing from 405,178 in 2000 to 409,166 in 2008, an overall rise of 0.98 percent. In Africa and Asia their numbers increased (respectively, by 33.1 percent and 23.8 percent), in the Americas they remained stable, while they fell by 7 percent in Europe and 4 percent in Oceania.

 The number of diocesan priests increased by 3.1 percent, going from 265,781 in 2000 to 274,007 in 2008. By contrast, the number of regular priests showed a constant decline, down by 3.04 percent to 135,159 in 2008. Of the continents, only Europe showed a clear reduction in priests: in 2000 they represented 51 percent of the world total, in 2008 just 47 percent. On the other hand, Asia and Africa together represented 17.5 percent of the world total in 2000 and 21.9 percent in 2008. The Americas slightly increased its percentage to around 30 percent of the total.

 Non-ordained religious numbered 55.057 in the year 2000 and 54,641 in 2008. Comparing this data by continent, Europe showed a strong decline (down by 16.57 percent), as did Oceania (22.06 percent), the Americas remained stable, while Asia and Africa grew (respectively, by 32 percent and 10.47 percent).

 Female religious are almost double the number of priests, and 14 times that of non-ordained male religious, but their numbers are falling, from 800,000 in 2000 to 740,000 in 2008. As for their geographical distribution, 41 percent reside in Europe, 27.47 percent in America, 21.77 percent in Asia and 1.28 percent in Oceania. The number of female religious has increased in the most dynamic continents: Africa (up by 21 percent) and Asia (up by 16 percent).

 The Statistical Yearbook of the Church also includes information on the number of students of philosophy and theology in diocesan and religious seminaries. In global terms, their numbers increased from 110.583 in 2000 to more than 117.024 in 2008. In Africa and Asia their numbers went up, whereas Europe saw a reduction.

• The First Vocation Crisis | Jeff Ziegler
• Year of the Priest website (Ignatius Press)

"Motherhood of the Entire Church" by Henri de Lubac, S.J.

Motherhood of the Entire Church | Henri de Lubac, S.J. | From The Motherhood of the Church

The foregoing leads us to a specific and fundamental principle: the Church is our mother. We would not be Christians if we did not acknowledge in her this essential characteristic. Even after their secession, the Reformers of the sixteenth century explicitly acknowledged it. [1] Calvin attached such importance to it that some reproached him for setting up in that way a divine "quaternity". In our own century, Karl Barth has gone even farther; he considers that Calvin did not really understand the full significance of the thesis expressed in this image of maternity. Why, he asks, does the author of the Christian Institute begin to speak of the Church only in his fourth book, as one of those externa media vel adminicula--of the highest importance without doubt, but still "exterior"--by which God invites us to and keeps us within the community of Christ? [2] Our traditional liturgies have also sung of this Mother. Witness this verse of a hymn from the Church of Paris for the Feast of the Dedication:

...Christus enim, norma justitiae,
Matrem nostram desponsat hodie
Quam de lacu traxit miseriae,
Ecclesiam. [3]

But finally, what is this Church? Is it necessary to consider her only in her shepherds, in those who, following the first apostles, perpetuate with authority the Word and sacraments among us? In other words, is it solely a question of that Church which we call today the hierarchical Church? No, or at least not always, and never exclusively. The hymn we have just quoted shows very clearly that it is a question of all those, without distinction, whom Christ has drawn "out of the lake of misery". And in fact it is precisely that which the most ancient patristic tradition has already declared and which all Christian centuries have repeated arid which is again declared today by those who do not consider it beneath themselves to contemplate this mystery. The Woman who, in the twelfth chapter of the Apocalypse, gives birth and escapes the dragon is the entire people of God. The whole Church, the entire Christian community is mother. But she is not mother in the human way. "In carnal marriage", Saint Augustine explains to us, "the mother and child are distinct; in the Church, on the contrary, mother and child are one." [4]

That is a teaching we must analyze closely.

Continue reading...

"Go get this book. Seriously."

Here is Sean Herriott, Host and Managing Editor of Morning Air on Relevant Radio, writing on his "Joe Convert" blog:

I interviewed Mary Eberstadt a few weeks back about her new book, The Loser Letters, and I did
something I rarely do with authors; I raved about how good I thought it was. I have a very simple rule when evaluating music, books, films, television, etc.– I don’t say things I don’t mean. I don’t go out of my way to trash things I didn’t like (with the exception of something like The Shack or HBO’s new Kevorkian movie, both of which merited comment because they were on the cultural radar, and were agenda-driven), but you’ll also never hear me celebrating mediocrity.

Having said that, I didn’t just think The Loser Letters was good; I thought it was remarkable. It’s the best religious fiction I’ve read in a long, long time–and I could drop the “religious” and say the same thing. This isn’t one of those books that’s good by the lowered standards of what we often expect of Christian music, film, or literature; it’s good, period.

Satire is hard to pull off, at least if you want to do it well. I’m convinced that religious satire must be nearly impossible to write any way but badly. There’s a reason so many works of Catholic or Evangelical fiction are compared with the works of C.S. Lewis, especially when they aspire to humor; since Lewis, there haven’t been many religious novels that have found the blend of humor, vivid characterization, coherent plot points and theological insights that make The Screwtape Letters and the under-appreciated The Great Divorce such wonderful books. I think Mary Eberstadt has performed a nearly impossible feat by writing a book that is reminiscent of Lewis for all the right reasons, yet entirely its own. ...

If you’re Catholic (or a non-Catholic Christian), you’ll appreciate the way Mary Eberstadt works through the logic of faith and proves it’s possible to believe in God without being a raving lunatic. She also does a fine job of underscoring the fact that Catholics should continue to have a place at the table when it comes to discussing morality and social issues–precisely because the Church is saying things that the world may not want to hear, but really needs to hear nonetheless. I think agnostics and atheists could also benefit from reading The Loser Letters; Eberstadt makes some compelling points about the strengths of faith and the weaknesses of atheism without being shrill or preachy.

Go get this book. Seriously.

Read the entire review.

You can get the book here. Read the first chapter here. Learn more about the book here.

Benedict XVI: "The Internet is by nature open, tendentiously egalitarian and pluralist..."

From Vatican Information Service, some of the Holy Father's thoughts on the internet and modern communications:

INHABITING THE DIGITAL UNIVERSE WITH A BELIEVING HEART

VATICAN CITY, 24 APR 2010 (VIS) - This morning the Holy Father addressed participants in the congress: "Digital Witnesses. Faces and languages in the multi-media age". The congress was organised by the Italian Episcopal Conference, the president of which is Cardinal Angelo Bagnasco, archbishop of Genoa.

 "The time in which we are living is seeing an enormous expansion of the frontiers of communication", said the Pope. "The Internet is by nature open, tendentiously egalitarian and pluralist, but at the same time it also represents a new gulf. Indeed, we talk of the 'digital divide', which separates the included from the excluded, and this must be added to other separations which already divide nations, both from one another and within themselves".

 Benedict XVI also noted "the dangers of conformity and control, of intellectual and moral relativism, which are already evident in the diminution of the spirit of criticism, in the truth reduced to an interplay of opinions, in the many forms of degradation and humiliation of individual intimacy. We are witnessing a 'pollution of the spirit which clouds our faces and makes them less prone to smile'.

 "And yet", he added, "the aim of this congress is precisely to recognise faces, and therefore to overcome those collective dynamics that can lead us to lose a sense of the depths people have, to remain on the surface. When this happens those people become bodies without a soul, objects to be exchanged and consumed".

 "And how is it possible to return to people's faces today?" the Pope asked. In this context, quoting from his own Encyclical "Caritas in veritate", he explained how the media can have a civilising effect "not only when, thanks to technological development, they increase the possibilities of communicating information, but above all when they are geared towards a vision of the person and the common good that reflects truly universal values.

 "To achieve goals of this kind, they need to focus on promoting the dignity of persons and peoples, they need to be clearly inspired by charity and placed at the service of truth, of the good, and of natural and supernatural fraternity".

 "Only in these conditions can the epoch-making change we are experiencing be rich and fruitful in new opportunities. ... More than by our technical resources, necessary though they are, we wish to identify ourselves by inhabiting the [digital] universe with a believing heart which helps to give a soul to the endless flow of communications on the Internet".

 And the Holy Father concluded: "This is our mission, the indispensable mission of the Church. The task of all believers who work in the media is that of 'opening the door to new forms of encounter, maintaining the quality of human interaction, and showing concern for individuals and their genuine spiritual needs. They can thus help the men and women of our digital age to sense the Lord's presence'".

In related news:

Pope Benedict XVI is planning to create a Roman Curia department charged with overseeing the "re-evangelization" of traditionally Christian countries, an Italian newspaper reported.

The Pontifical Council for the New Evangelization will be announced in an apostolic letter being prepared by the pope and will be headed by Italian Archbishop Rino Fisichella, Il Giornale said April 25. The Vatican had no immediate comment on the report.

The step would represent the first major Roman Curia innovation under Pope Benedict, who has frequently spoken about the need to renew the roots of the faith in European and other Western societies.

Read more.

Noted pro-lifer Hadley Arkes comes home to Rome

Francis Beckwith has the story:

My wife, Frankie, and I were humbled to be among those who were present at the Mass in which our dear friend Hadley Arkes was received into the Catholic Church. It took place on the afternoon of Saturday, April 24, in the chapel of the Catholic Information Center in Washington, D.C.  His sponsor was Michael Novak, a dear man who truly lives the Gospel of Our Lord.

Read the entire post. Robert George also has a post on the occasion:

Hadley is an outstanding political philosopher and constitutional theorist who has dedicated much of his professional life to defending the dignity and rights of the child in the womb.  In remarks after the service yesterday, he explained that his faith in Christ had come through the Church.  The Church's moral witness, especially on the sanctity of human life and on marriage and sexual morality---a witness that has in our time made the Church a "sign of contradiction" to the most powerful and influential elements of the elite sector of contemporary western culture---persuaded him that the Church is, despite the failings of so many of its members and leaders, fundamentally "a truth-teaching institution."  In teachings that many find to be impediments, Hadley found decisive evidence that the Church is, indeed, what she claims to be.

Many of Arkes' articles can be found and read on the First Things site.

Life: Political, Endless, and Eternal

Life: Political, Endless, and Eternal | Fr. James V. Schall, S.J. | Ignatius Insight | April 25, 2010

"What would it really be like if we ere to succeed, perhaps not in excluding death totally, but in postponing it indefinitely, in reaching an age of several hundred years? Would tat be a good thing? Humanity would become extraordinarily old; there would be no more room for youth. Capacity for innovation would die, and endless life would be no paradise, if anything a condemnation."
-- Benedict XVI, Easter Vigil Mass, 2010 [1]
 
"When the Lord rose from the dead, he put off the mortality of the flesh; his risen body was still the same body, but it was no longer subject to death."
-- St. Augustine, Sermon on Octave of Easter [2]
 
"For Nietzsche, nature has become a problem and yet he cannot do without nature. Nature, we may say, has become a problem owing to the fact that man is conquering nature and there are no assignable limits to that conquest. As a consequence, people have come to think of abolishing suffering and inequality. Yet suffering and inequality are the prerequisite of human greatness. Hitherto suffering and inequality have been taken for granted, as 'given,' as imposed on man. Henceforth, they must be willed."
-- Leo Strauss, "Note on the Plan of Nietzsche's Beyond Good and Evil." [3]
 
I.
 
We distinguish life from death. The study of living things is different from the study of dead things. Moreover, different kinds of life can be identified. The vast majority of things have no life. Life is what moves itself to its own end. We generally distinguish between vegetative, sensory, and rational life. When all three of these sorts of life belong together in one life, we call it a human life. Man is the microcosm, the being in which all levels of being exist in an organized whole. Aristotle defined man in several ways, most memorably as a political animal and as a rational animal.
 
Man is a political animal because he is a rational animal. That is, he can move and be moved by his reason and will. He is a self-mover because he can think, will, and rule his members. He is a political animal, likewise, because he can speak and persuade. Force is not his only alternative. What is not himself, he can express in words. Those words can be understood by others. As a result, man can speak the truth. Every truth implies a relation to something else. In knowledge, that something else becomes ours, but after the manner of our way of being. The object we know does not change in our knowing, but we change because we know. We become both ourselves and what is not ourselves. Likewise, we are social beings who can laugh in all our relationships. We find lightsomeness about our existence.

In his homily at the Mass of the Lord's Supper, Benedict remarked: "Much to our surprise, we are told that life is knowledge. This means first of all that life is a relationship. No one has life from himself and only for himself. We have it from others and in a relationship with others." When I know something, I know that what I know is related to the thing that is known. I know what it is. And I also know that what it is is not something that I placed in it, but something I discovered already in it.

Read the entire essay...

Apocalypse How?

A Scriptural Reflection on the Fourth Sunday of Easter | Carl E. Olson | April 25, 2010

Readings:

Acts 13:14, 43-52
Psa. 100:1-2, 3, 5
Rev. 7:9, 14b-17
Jn. 10:27-30

Pop quiz: which book of the Bible describes black helicopters, high-tech warfare involving Russia and China, and computers chips embedded in human flesh?

Hopefully you answered, “None.” But you may know that some Christians believe the Book of Revelation, or The Apocalypse, describes soon-to-transpire, end of the world events in harrowing detail. And most people—even many Catholics—believe that the final book of the Bible is an unremitting work of doom, gloom, and bloodshed.

John the Revelator’s book undoubtedly contains images of doom and gloom, but not for those who stand for and with Christ. And while there is plenty of bloodshed in the Book of Revelation, the good news is that the blood of the Lamb, shed for the sins of the world, cleanses those who faithfully follow the Shepherd.

In other words, today’s reading from The Apocalypse is filled with joy. It proclaims that God will not only overcome evil, He will—at the end of time as we know it—bring together all of those who love Him. The great multitude witnessed by John consists of those who have been saved through suffering, just as Savior, the slain Lamb (Rev. 5:6), brought salvation through suffering and death. “The Church will enter the glory of the kingdom,” explains the Catechism, “only through this final Passover, when she will follow her Lord in his death and Resurrection” (CCC 677).

Those in the great multitude, from every nation, race, people, and tongue, are the Church. They make up the New Israel, which has gone through a New Exodus. While the first Exodus involved the people of Israel being saved from the tyranny of Egyptian slavery, this final Exodus consists of the people of the new covenant being saved eternally from the domination of sin and death. As Jesus states, in the reading from today’s Gospel, “I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish” (Jn. 10:28). The salvation of a multitude too large to be counted is a fulfillment of the great covenant made with Abraham: “I will make of you a great nation … All the communities of the earth shall find blessing in you” (Gen. 12:2, 3; cf. Gal. 3:7, 29).

Overcoming death and establishing eternal life is a constant theme in The Apocalypse. This can be seen in the imagery throughout the book, which is bursting with allusions to the Old Testament, especially the Pentateuch and the Prophets. The idea of being made “white” through perseverance in faith is drawn from Daniel, a book used often by John: “Many shall purify themselves, and makes themselves white, and be refined” (Dan. 12:10). White robes symbolize holiness and endurance. Priests in the time of Christ were examined for purity; if they passed, they were dressed in white robes, as was the High Priest. In the new covenant, those who have been baptized into Christ, the High Priest, and who endure to the end will be saved through the sacrifice of the Lamb on the Cross.

The palm branches allude to the feast of Tabernacles (cf., Lev. 24:39-40), which celebrated the harvest of crops and commemorated God’s divine protection during the Exodus. Palm branches were also used as symbols of victory (1 Macc. 13:51; 2 Macc. 10:7). In The Apocalypse they stand for God’s victory over evil, His protection of the Church throughout the time of tribulation, and the restoration of right relationship with God, as evidenced by the songs of praise before the heavenly throne.

John’s vision is also filled with a liturgical and sacramental perspective. The great multitude worship God in His temple, which ultimately is the Person of Christ (cf., Jn 2:19-22). Being washed and made white suggests the bath of Baptism, and the lack of hunger or thirst is Eucharistic in its promise of complete joy in the presence of the Lamb.

Thus, in the end—The End!—the apocalyptic truths of the Book of Revelation don’t involve helicopters and top secret technology, but the salvation of God’s flock, His people, through the death and Resurrection of the Lamb.

(This "Opening the Word" column originally published in the April 29, 2007, edition of Our Sunday Visitor newspaper.)

Related Ignatius Insight Articles:

• Eschatological Fact and Fiction: Catholicism and Dispensationalism Compared | Carl E. Olson
• The End Times: The Secret Hidden From the Universe | Fr. James V. Schall, S.J.
• 06.06.06 | Is the End At Hand? | An Interview with Michael O'Brien