Carl E. Olson's Blog, page 50
April 1, 2015
Clueless protesters in San Francisco prove Archbishop Cordileone's point
Archbishop Salvatore J. Cordileone of San Francisco, right, with Jesuit Father Paul J. Fitzgerald, in an October 2014 photo. (CNS photo/Shawn P. Calhoun, courtesy University of San Francisco)
Clueless protesters in San Francisco prove Archbishop Cordileone's point
The fact is, there is no contradiction or conflict between Jesus Christ, His Church, the teachings of Pope Francis, and the actions of Abp. Cordileone
A wise woman, commenting on the increasingly irrational ways of the post-Christian world, notes:
It is worse than useless for Christians to talk about the importance of Christian morality, unless they are prepared to take their stand upon the fundamentals of Christian theology. It is a lie to say that dogma does not matter; it matters enormously. It is fatal to let people suppose that Christianity is only a mode of feeling; it is vitally necessary to insist that it is first and foremost a rational explanation of the universe. It is hopeless to offer Christianity as a vaguely idealistic aspiration of a simple and consoling kind; it is, on the contrary, a hard, tough, exacting, and complex doctrine, steeped in a drastic and uncompromising realism. And it is fatal to imagine that everybody knows quite well what Christianity is and needs only a little encouragement to practice it. The brutal fact is that in this Christian country not one person in a hundred has the faintest notion what the Church teaches about God or man or society or the person of Jesus Christ. ... Theologically this country is at present is in a state of utter chaos established in the name of religious toleration and rapidly degenerating into flight from reason and the death of hope.
Considering the events of just the past few days here in the United States, it's hard to argue with her. However, the essayist, novelist, playwright, and translator Dorothy L. Sayers wrote those words in 1949, in England, and with an eye toward the Anglican Communion, to which she belonged. But, if anything, her essay, "Creed or Chaos?" (see The Whimsical Christian: 18 Essays), is more timely than ever—a searing (and often sarcastic) indictment of a Christianity that is ignorant, sentimental, and thoroughly secularized. I have in mind here those who protested yesterday in San Francisco, demanding that Abp. Salvatore Cordileone cease being a Catholic bishop and instead become a capitulating sentimentalist, like those in the emotional, moralizing crowd:
March 31, 2015
Feminist "Logic": Misogyny’s Ironic Ally
[Photos: Wikipedia and us.fotolia.com | © igor]
Feminist "Logic": Misogyny’s Ironic Ally | Carrie Gress, Ph.D. | CWR blog
When feminists sacrifice common sense for "reproductive choice," they deform the feminine genius and destroy the most vulnerable among us
A “deformed male”—that was Aristotle’s definition of women nearly 2400 years ago. For centuries, women have tried to conquer the misconception that they were mis-conceived, as Aristotle described it, and to prove they are as good as men. The feminist movement was suppose to finally drive that point home into the hearts of women who doubted themselves and of the men who had long propped up the lie that women weren’t smart enough to compete with them.
Somewhere during their hasty effort to prove men wrong, modern-day feminists allowed a misconception to guide them: that children ensnare women and keep them from realizing their dreams, therefore women alone can determine when their very small children should live or die. As a result, it has never been harder to be a child. Feminists have encumbered children with so many restrictions and loopholes that it makes the head spin.
A brief look at feminist arguments (which, unfortunately, far too many men also accept) to justify which of their tiny children live or die does little to highlight women’s intellectual dexterity. Instead, we encounter head-scratching realities that will—hopefully—cause people decades from now, when common sense has returned to this issue, to wonder what (or if) we were thinking. Feminist arguments, ironically, lend credence to much of the misogynist argument about the overly-emotional irrationality of the weaker sex.
Take, for example, last week’s brutal attack on Michelle Wilkins, the young mother in Longmont, Colorado, who was lured to a home through a CraigsList advertisement for children’s clothing.
March 30, 2015
History, Truth, and Politics
Left: Monument of Junípero Serra on plaza de San Francisco de Asis in Havana; right: Mission church of Jalpan de Serra, Querétaro, Mexico, built by Junípero Serra between 1751 and 1758 (Images: Wikipedia)
History, Truth, and Politics | Catholic World Report
Researcher and archaeology professor Reuben Mendoza seeks to clear the record on Father Junipero Serra
Los Angeles, Calif., Mar 29, 2015 / 04:22 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- California missionary Father Junipero Serra’s canonization is “long overdue,” says a university professor concerned that the priest’s history has been politicized and misrepresented.
“When he died, many native peoples came to the mission for his burial. They openly wept. Others of his colleagues and even colonists, believed that he would be made a saint, because of the way he had lived his life, a self-effacing life of a martyr,” said archaeology professor Reuben Mendoza of California State University, Monterrey Bay.
“Because of what he had achieved in his life, even then they had talked about his impending canonization,” Mendoza told CNA March 26.
Fr. Serra was born in 1713 on the Spanish island of Majorca in the Mediterranean. He left his position as a university professor to become a missionary to the New World, helping to convert many native Californians to Christianity and teaching them new and vital technologies. The Franciscan priest founded several of the missions that would go on to become the centers of major California cities.
The priest’s mission work often took place despite a painful ulcerated leg Mendoza said was caused by a spider bite soon after his arrival in Mexico. He died in 1784 at Mission San Carlos Borroméo del Carmelo in what is now the state of California.
St. John Paul II beatified Fr. Serra in 1988. In January, Pope Francis praised the missionary as “the evangelizer of the West” and announced his intention to canonize the Franciscan missionary during his scheduled 2015 visit to the U.S.
Mendoza learned from other researchers that Serra was “a very humble man and a man who had a great sense of humor.”
He said the “self-effacing” priest would sometimes insist on doing the work of young Indian boys who cleaned the Convent of San Fernando in Mexico City.
March 29, 2015
Palm Sunday: Glory flows from the obedience of selfless love
"Crucified Christ with Saint John the Evangelist" by Fra Angelico (1410-52) [WikiArt.org]
Palm Sunday: Glory flows from the obedience of selfless love | Carl E. Olson
A Scriptural Reflection on the Readings for March 29, 2015 | Palm Sunday of the Lord's Passion
Readings:
• Mk 11:1-10 or Jn 12:12-16
• Psa 22:8-9, 17-18, 19-20, 23-24
• Phil 2:6-11
• Mk 14:1—15:47
The readings for Palm Sunday, or Passion Sunday, are dramatic and demanding. They are excruciating in their raw depictions of violence and suffering. They also, as in the case of the great Christological hymn in St. Paul’s letter to the Philippians, are marked by exultation in the glory streaming forth from the pain and sacrifice of the Suffering Servant. Glory comes not from the power to suppress and enslave, but from the freely chosen obedience of selfless love.
St. Mark’s account of the Passion is terse and vivid; it is replete with unsparing descriptions of sort of sin, viciousness, and evil. “The behavior of men in the Passion account,” noted Fr. Hans Urs von Balthasar, “is portrayed with a realism bordering on gruesomeness. Any and all sins are committed against God himself in the person of Jesus.” And that inescapable fact, of course, is true today, for us.
The bloody drama of what happened two thousand years ago in Jerusalem is not safely stored in the basement of history, but confronts us in the course of our ordinary, daily lives. For we, too, have sinned. We also have been tempted and have failed. And we, at the foot of the Cross, are invited to admit our part in the death of Jesus Christ and to confess his name, his identity, his place in history and in our lives.
St. Mark’s account is also a marvel of literary economy and theological implication. Here I will just highlight some statements made within it, with the invitation to contemplate, for a few moments, the love, humility, suffering, and glory of the Son of God.
“Amen, I say to you, wherever the gospel is proclaimed to the whole world, what she has done will be told in memory of her.” The woman with the alabaster jar of perfumed oil is not named, but she is remembered. More than remembered, she is redeemed. More than redeemed, she becomes, through Jesus’ declaration, a sign of redemption. Why? Because she emptied herself of all she had to express her love for—and faith in—the One who emptied himself and took the form of a slave on her behalf. She did what she could. Will I? Will you?
“Amen, I say to you, one of you will betray me, one who is eating with me.” Judas walked and lived with Jesus for three years. And then he betrayed his apparent master. Yet Jesus was patient; he gave Judas every chance to come to his senses and repent. His love for the sinner endured the proximity of the sin, even while his respect for man’s free will allowed the damnation freely chosen.
“This is my blood of the covenant, which will be shed for many.” Fully aware of his approaching death, the God-man made clear he was freely giving his life and establishing a new and everlasting covenant between God and mankind. This “stream of gladness”, as St. Clement of Alexandria called it, is the Eucharist—not a symbol, but the true body, blood, soul, and divinity of the Savior.
“Amen, I say to you, this very night before the cock crows twice you will deny me three times.” How have I denied Christ in the dark hours of my life? When have I chosen the acceptance of strangers over being identified as a follower of Christ? Why?
When asked, “Are you the Christ, the son of the Blessed One?”, Jesus answered: “I am; and ‘you will see the Son of Man seated at the right hand of the Power and coming with the clouds of heaven.’” These are either the words of a lunatic who has lost touch with reality, or words from the Lord of reality. There is no alternative. Pilate, gazing into the eyes of the living God, turned away.
“Truly this man was the Son of God!” The Roman centurion—surely a witness of many gruesome executions—recognized deity in death. Gazing into the eyes of the dying God, he did not turn away.
March 27, 2015
The Shroud: Not a Painting, Not a Scorch, Not a Photograph
People view the Shroud of Turin on display at the Cathedral of St. John the Baptist in Turin, Italy, in this April 26, 2010, file photo. (CNS photo/Paul Haring)
The Shroud: Not a Painting, Not a Scorch, Not a Photograph | Jim Graves | CWR
“One of my favorite testimonials as to the authenticity of the Shroud,” says Barrie Schwortz, an expert on the Shroud of Turin, “actually came from my Jewish mother.”
This June, Pope Francis will be making a pilgrimage to Turin, Italy, home of the famous Shroud of Turin, which many believe is the 2,000-year-old burial cloth of Jesus Christ. The pope’s June 21-22 visit will include time venerating the Shroud at the Cathedral of Saint John the Baptist. Francis will then visit the tomb of Bl. Pier Giorgio Frassati, buried in a nearby altar. The trip will also include a commemoration of St. John Bosco, founder of the Salesians and patron saint of youth who worked in Turin; this year marks the 200th anniversary of his birth. The papal visit will take advantage of April 19-June 24 exposition of the Shroud, which was last displayed in public in 2010.
The Shroud, which is a 14.5’ by 3.5’ linen cloth bearing the image of the front and back of a man who has been scourged and crucified, has been kept in Turin since 1578. Barrie Schwortz is one of the world’s leading experts on the Shroud. In 1978, Schwortz, a technical photographer, was invited to participate in the first ever in-depth scientific examination of the cloth, known as the Shroud of Turin Research Project (STRUP). A non-practicing Jew at the time, he reluctantly agreed to be part of STRUP, fully expecting the team to prove that the Shroud was a painted image from the Middle Ages. But after many years of study and reflection he came to believe in its authenticity.
Troubled by frequent inaccurate media reports on the subject, in 1996 Schwortz launched a website to share the true story of the Shroud and scientific research that had been performed on it. Two decades later he still makes Shroud presentations in the media and to a variety of groups, including seminarians in Rome.
Schwortz recently spoke with CWR.
CWR: What are some of the most compelling arguments that the Shroud is authentic?
Barrie Schwortz (CNS photo/Paul Haring)
Barrie Schwortz: Thirty-seven years ago, when I went to Italy with STRUP to examine the Shroud, I assumed it was a fake, some sort of medieval painting. But after 10 minutes studying it, I knew it was not [a painting]. As a professional photographer, I was looking for brush strokes. But there was no paint and no brush strokes.
For 17 years I refused to accept that the Shroud was authentic. The last argument holding me back was related to the blood. The blood on the Shroud is reddish, but blood on a cloth, even after just a few hours, should turn brown or black. I had a conversation with Alan Adler, a blood chemist, on the phone and I shared my reservation. He got upset and asked, “Didn’t you read my paper?”
He had found a high content of bilirubin on the Shroud, which explains why the blood on the Shroud is red. When a man is beaten and has had no water, he can go into shock and the liver starts pumping out bilirubin. It makes the blood stay red forever. It was the last piece of the puzzle for me. I had nothing left to complain about. Sometimes I wonder why I hadn’t asked Alan Adler that question 17 years before, but I guess I wasn’t ready for the answer back then.
Although this was the final evidence that convinced me, it is no one particular piece of evidence that proves the Shroud is authentic. The entirety of evidence indicates that it is.
One of my favorite testimonials as to the authenticity of the Shroud actually came from my Jewish mother. She was originally from Poland, and had only a high school education. She heard one of my lectures, and afterwards we were driving home. She was quiet for a long time—you have to worry when a Jewish mother is quiet—so I asked her, “Mom, what did you think?” She said, “Barrie, of course it’s authentic. They wouldn’t have kept it for 2,000 years if it wasn’t.”
Now that was an excellent point. According to Jewish law, a blood-soaked shroud would have had to have been kept in the grave. To remove it, in fact, you would have been putting yourself at risk because you were violating the law.
The most plausible explanation to me for the Shroud, both because of the science and my own personal background as a Jew, is that it was the cloth that was used to wrap Jesus’ body.
CWR: What are some of the common falsehoods about the Shroud?
March 26, 2015
Join Renowned Biblical Teacher Steve Ray for a New Adventure in 2015!
presents
ABRAHAM
Father of Faith and Works
NEW YEAR – NEW FILM – NEW ADVENTURE WITH STEVE RAY!
And ready for the “BIG SCREEN”
in Your Parish in 2015!
Have you been following the Footprints of God from Ignatius Press and Steve Ray?
If you have, you already know there is nothing else like these fast-paced, entertaining, educational documentaries on our salvation history. If you haven’t, you’re in for a real treat!
These eight films combine the elements of a biography, travel documentary, Bible study and apologetics course all rolled into a remarkable, family friendly adventure! Each one is a 90-minute, stand-alone masterpiece taking the viewer to another time and place. With ABRAHAM you will travel with Steve back 4,000 years to Iraq, Turkey, Palestinian Territories and Israel. Have you ever seen a ziggurat? You will!
And now this much anticipated foundational film in the series, ABRAHAM: Father of Faith and Works , has been released as an exclusive parish screening program. Parishes, schools and organizations will be able to purchase a package that will include DVDs to have for sale or to gift, a free DVD for showing, promotional materials, and a 12-month site license to show the movie unlimited times in your facility or in a theater!
License holders will have 6 weeks of exclusive sales of the ABRAHAM DVD before general sales will start on March 17th.
FOOTPRINTS of GOD Parish Screening Program
And for those who would like to show all 8 Footprints of God DVDs now available: JESUS, MARY, PETER, PAUL, APOSTOLIC FATHERS, MOSES, DAVID/SOLOMON and ABRAHAM, we have packages that include a 12-month site license to show all 8 DVDs as well as a free copy of each DVD to use for showing, copies of all the DVDs to sell or gift, and promotional materials.
Both of these parish screening programs make great evangelization tools and can be used as a fundraiser as well.
Click here to see an overview of the Footprints of God films.
For more information on packages and prices available as well as the forms to order your packages, please go to www.IPMovieNights.com and click on SPECIAL SCREENING PROGRAMS.
Questions?
Contact Diane toll free: 866-431-1531 ext. 5;direct: 734-455-1973;
or e-mail: dhanson@ignatius.com .
These programs are available only in the U.S. and Canada.
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Copyright © 2015 Ignatius Press, All rights reserved.
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"The Noonday Devil": A book that will transform your spiritual life
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March 25, 2015
Inaugural Catholic Stores Month Announced by Catholic Publishers
San Francisco, March 25, 2015 – A group of Catholic publishers announced today plans to sponsor the first annual Catholic Stores Month, in July 2015.
Leading the initiative is Ignatius Press. Anthony Ryan, Marketing Director, said, “Ignatius Press is concerned about the plight of Catholic stores in an environment increasingly dominated by a handful of large online shops. We want to do our part to help keep the tradition of Catholic stores alive and well.”
Many distinguished Catholic publishers have already agreed to join Ignatius Press in this endeavor. Participating publishers will partner with independent Catholic businesses to encourage consumers to visit and support their neighborhood Catholic stores during the month of July.
Participating vendors and Catholic stores will provide a variety of special offers, and will sponsor customer events during the month of July. Specific offers are still in the planning stage, but likely will include bundles, special pricing discounts, and free items available exclusively from participating Catholic businesses.
By providing a concerted marketing and public relations effort through various media outlets, the businesses behind this initiative hope to raise awareness and support in the broad Catholic community.
“Initial reaction from the stores we have spoken to is very positive,” said Michele Sylvestro, Vice President of Sales at Catholic Word Publishing, “As a result, we are strongly encouraging our own publishing partners to join Catholic Word in this worthwhile venture.”
The Ignatius Press and Catholic Word sales teams will be spearheading efforts to involve Catholic stores in this new project. Stores can get more information and also register for Catholic Stores Month at the website for the program: www.catholicstoremonth.com
Interested stores should contact the sales office of Ignatius Press, at 800-360-1714 or via email at StoreSales@ignatius.com. Interested media should contact Ian Rutherford at 970-493-4840, or Ian@intrepidgroup.com
Five About Francis
Nuns greet Pope Francis during his meeting with religious at the cathedral in Naples, Italy, March 21. (CNS photo/Paul Haring)
Five About Francis | Carl E. Olson | CWR blog
A look at some recent stories about the Holy Father and his pontificate
The Holy Father is constantly in the news and there is never a shortage of stories about what he is saying and doing, as well as about what he might have said, should do, or won't say or do. Here are five recent stories about Pope Francis that caught my attention for various reasons.
1. On the occasion of the two-year anniversary of Francis' election, George Weigel spoke with Kathryn Jean Lopez of NRO about the current papacy. Here are a couple of excerpts:
KJL: You’ve written that he has “reanimated the papacy.” What does that mean for Church teaching?
GW: I hope it means that the new interest in the pope evokes a new interest in the Church’s teaching, of which the pope is the custodian. Francis ought to be taken at his word when he says, as he has often done, that he is a son of the Church who believes and teaches what the Catholic Church believes and teaches. If his media-generated popularity, fragile as that may turn out to be when the world discovers that the pope is really a Catholic, opens windows of possibility for explaining that divine mercy leads us to the truths God revealed to us (and inscribed into the world and into us), then his reanimation of the papacy will advance the “Church in permanent mission” for which he called in Evangelii Gaudium, which is the grand strategy document of his pontificate. ...
KJL: In that same article for the Tablet, a British magazine, you said, “All over the world, Francis is news, and when the Pope is news, so is the Church and the Gospel.” Is that still good news when the pope seems to be interpreted in different ways by different people? When the Gospel seems to be interpreted in different ways by different people?
GW: That’s the obvious challenge, perhaps even danger, here. By its very nature as a custodial office, the papacy can’t be a Rorschach test, into which people read whatever they like – whatever they fear or hope for. So when media “narratives” about Francis get set in concrete, and act as filters bending or distorting (or ignoring) aspects of his vision and his teaching that don’t fit the established story line, the Church has a problem. There’s an obvious investment in some media circles in the “narrative” of “the pope who’s finally going to get with it.” And as a friend at a major American newspaper said to me when I complained about this tendency in his own paper, “You know how these media narratives are. They’re like bamboo.” Meaning, once they start growing, you can’t kill them.
Perhaps the dumbest of these story lines is that Francis has re-opened conversation and debate in a Church that had been closed and claustrophobic for 35 years under John Paul II and Benedict XVI. I defy anyone who, over the last 35 years, has spent time on the campuses of Notre Dame or Georgetown, or who has read the National Catholic Reporter, or who has gone to a meeting of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious, to make that claim without experiencing a twinge of conscience that says, “I should wash my mouth out with soap.”
The most enduring of the false narratives is that the signature phrase of the early pontificate — “Who am I to judge?” — was a matter of the pope jettisoning millennia of Catholic moral teaching. It was not. It was a specific response to the circumstances of a man who had repented and was trying to live an upright life; it was, in a word, what any sensible pastor, facing that specific set of circumstances, would say. But ripped out of context, it has become an all-purpose filter through which everything else — including the pope’s multiple reaffirmations of Humanae Vitae, Paul VI’s encyclical on the morally appropriate means of family planning — gets airbrushed out of the picture.
And then there’s the trope about an impending “global-warming encyclical.” The pope is preparing an encyclical on nature and the environment, including the human environment (which includes the moral imperative of a culturally affirmed and legally recognized right to life from conception until natural death). So what happens? A low-ranking Vatican official with gauchiste tendencies and a marked talent for self-promotion gives an interview to the Guardian, one of the most consistently anti-Catholic newspapers in the world, in which he claims that this is a global-warming encyclical — which he couldn’t possibly have known, as the document wasn’t drafted yet. The Guardian loves it, because it fits the story line of the long-awaited Great Catholic Cave-In. So the story wafts across the Atlantic, where it’s picked up with glee by Catholic progressives and horror by some Catholic conservatives — and the battle of the blogs is on, full blast. No one bothers to ask whether there’s any basis in fact for the assertion that this is going to be a “global-warming encyclical.” So when climate change gets some attention in a 100-page document, the most important parts of which will have to do with the theology of stewardship and the theology of “human ecology,” it’s almost certainly going to be rapturously embraced, or bitterly opposed, as a “global-warming encyclical,” despite the evidence that it’s much more broadly gauged than that.
More pro-active Vatican communications might be able to do something about all this, but when the Holy See is constantly in the mode of, “No, what the pope really meant was . . . ,” the game has already been largely forfeited.
Read the entire interview on the Ethics & Public Policy Center site.
2. Veteran Vatican reporter Sandro Magister's most recent piece suggests that Francis is starting to shy away from his earlier support for Cardinal Kasper's proposals about Communion for some divorced and civilly remarried Catholics:
March 24, 2015
The Mystery of the Annunciation is the Mystery of Grace
The Mystery of the Annunciation is the Mystery of Grace | Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger (Pope Benedict XVI) | Ignatius Insight
The mystery of the annunciation to Mary is not just a mystery of silence.It is above and beyond all that a mystery of grace.
We feel compelled to ask ourselves: Why did Christ really want to be born of a virgin? It was certainly possible for him to have been born of a normal marriage. That would not have affected his divine Sonship, which was not dependent on his virgin birth and could equally well have been combined with another kind of birth. There is no question here of a downgrading of marriage or of the marriage relationship; nor is it a question of better safeguarding the divine Sonship. Why then?
We find the answer when we open the Old Testament and see that the mystery of Mary is prepared for at every important stage in salvation history. It begins with Sarah, the mother of Isaac, who had been barren, but when she was well on in years and had lost the power of giving life, became, by the power of God, the mother of Isaac and so of the chosen people.
The process continues with Anna, the mother of Samuel, who was likewise barren, but eventually gave birth; with the mother of Samson, or again with Elizabeth, the mother of John the Baptizer. The meaning of all these events is the same: that salvation comes, not from human beings and their powers, but solely from God—from an act of his grace.
(From Dogma und Verkundigung, pp. 375ff; quoted in Co-Workers of the Truth: Meditations for Every Day of the Year [Ignatius Press, 1992], pp. 99-100.)
The annunciation to Mary happens to a woman, in an insignificant town in half-pagan Galilee, known neither to Josephus nor the Talmud. The entire scene was "unusual for Jewish sensibilities. God reveals himself, where and to whom he wishes." Thus begins a new way, at whose center stands no longer the temple, but the simplicity of Jesus Christ. He is now the true temple, the tent of meeting.
The salutation to Mary (Lk 1:28-32) is modeled closely on Zephaniah 3: 14-17: Mary is the daughter Zion addressed there, summoned to " rejoice", in formed that the Lord is coming to her. Her fear is removed, since the Lord is in her midst to save her. Laurentin makes the very beautiful remark on this text: "... As so often, the word of God proves to be a mustard seed.... One understands why Mary was so frightened by this message (Lk 1:29). Her fear comes not from lack of understanding nor from that small-hearted anxiety to which some would like to reduce it. It comes from the trepidation of that encounter with God, that immeasurable joy which can make the most hardened natures quake."
In the address of the angel, the underlying motif the Lucan portrait of Mary surfaces: she is in person the true Zion, toward whom hopes have yearned throughout all the devastations of history. She is the true Israel in whom Old and New Covenant, Israel and Church, are indivisibly one. She is the "people of God" bearing fruit through God's gracious power. ...
Transcending all problems, Marian devotion is the rapture of joy over the true, indestructible Israel; it is a blissful entering into the joy of the Magnificat and thereby it is the praise of him to whom the daughter Zion owes her whole self and whom she bears, the true, incorruptible, indestructible Ark of the Covenant.
(From Daughter Zion: Meditations on the Church's Marian Belief [Ignatius Press, 1983], pp. 42-43, 82.)
Related IgnatiusInsight.com Articles and Excerpts:
• Mary in Byzantine Doctrine and Devotion | Brother John M. Samaha, S.M.
• Fairest Daughter of the Father: On the Solemnity of the Assumption | Rev. Charles M. Mangan
• The Blessed Virgin in the History of Christianity | John A. Hardon, S.J.
• "Hail, Full of Grace": Mary, the Mother of Believers | Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger
• Mary in Feminist Theology: Mother of God or Domesticated Goddess? | Fr. Manfred Hauke
• Excerpts from The Rosary: Chain of Hope | Fr. Benedict Groeschel, C.F.R.
• The Past Her Prelude: Marian Imagery in the Old Testament | Sandra Miesel
• Immaculate Mary, Matchless in Grace | John Saward
• The Medieval Mary | The Introduction to Mary in the Middle Ages | by Luigi Gambero
• Misgivings About Mary | Dr. James Hitchcock
• Born of the Virgin Mary | Paul Claudel
• Assumed Into Mother's Arms | Carl E. Olson
• The Disciple Contemplates the Mother | Erasmo Leiva-Merikakis
• Biography of Joseph Ratzinger/Pope Benedict XVI
• All books by or about Joseph Ratzinger/Pope Benedict XVI
• Excerpts from books by Joseph Ratzinger/Pope Benedict XVI
• Articles about Joseph Ratzinger/Pope Benedict XVI
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