There were a series of punishments for those who refused to obey, beginning with fines for those who would not make their “Easter duty” at the local state-sponsored church. While many chose to pay the fines, their increase over the years added a cumulative burden that led many to cave over time. The prospect of selling off entire properties to raise the required funds caused deep conflicts within families, who would likewise be unable to find meaningful work in the community.

English priests continued to be formed in French seminaries, returning home in disguise and being spirited from house to house to evade capture. The lives of both the priests and the lay faithful who harbored them were forfeit, though there were usually opportunities to repent: the first capture drawing a warning, the second leading to more dire consequences, with the ultimate price being hanged, drawn and quartered if they held fast to their “popish superstition.” The title of the book indicates the enthusiasm with which many embraced torture and death, which often became necessary in witnessing to the One True Faith.

While we are not presently living in such an age, I read the book with the troubling backdrop of our own generation, in which the foundational institution of marriage is in danger of being redefined. State after state is insisting that we change our views on what constitutes a valid marriage in order to leave behind its association with a life-long, fruitful union between a man and a woman. Other countries beyond our borders are doing likewise, despite deeply held beliefs to the contrary, with the Judeo-Christian view now considered to be bigoted and hateful.

To this end, a graduate student at a state school in Georgia was recently told that “her Christian beliefs are unethical and incompatible with the prevailing views of the counseling profession.” Thus she cannot share her faith with others, she must add intense remedial reading to her heavy load, write essays on her response to each piece and undergo diversity training. If she cannot bring herself to eschew what her faith teaches her about marriage and intimacy then she cannot be certified in her chosen field.

Similarly, in Spain the government has just imposed a heavy fine on a media group for airing a commercial supportive of traditional family values. For many years now, various Human Rights commissions in Canada have fined those who publicly defend traditional marriage, including priests, journals and even one local council of the Knights of Columbus. Many business owners in the US and Canada who cater to the various aspects of wedding celebrations are extremely apprehensive about their conscientious right to reject services to same-sex couples, fearing dire consequences.

Soon enough, the Elizabethan Age may be fully upon us, with the state standing ready to demand the suppression of the conscience of its citizens. No longer will only pharmacists wonder what they will be required to dispense, but every person may have to “diversify” his creed to accommodate what he finds objectively sinful— or suffer the consequences. It’s hard to relax this summer with such a looming mandate to relax the standards of our faith.

______________________

* kindly note that that the e-book is free, for there is no copyright to the text. Thus it and many fine titles may be downloaded without charge from sites such as this.

I wanted my body back. (And some wine)… I also wanted to give my boobs at least a chance to stay on my chest rather than dangling around my stomach…They’re part of my sexuality, too – not just breasts, but fun bags. And when you have that attitude (and I admit I made no attempt to change it), seeing your teeny, tiny, innocent baby latching on where only a lover has been before feels, well, a little creepy.

This is not just Mary Jane on the street giving a random opinion, but an editor at one of Australia’s leading parenting magazines, Mother and Baby. Despite the shock to readers–presumably mostly young mothers–she reveals a very twisted view of the human body, which can only have come about with a firm understanding that intimacy is only marginally related to commitment or procreation. My intuitive guess is that she is not alone.

This is igniting among readers the usual debate about bottle-vs-breast feeding for infants, but that is not the most important point. Women usually choose one or the other based on a host of factors–work schedules, success with nursing, health issues and often just plain stamina–but her frank refusal is different.

But even the convenience and supposed health benefits of breast milk couldn’t induce me to stick my nipple in a bawling baby’s mouth.

This is a refusal to give the gift of self because of a gradually shifting paradigm, which leads her to consider breast-feeding babies as just plain bizarre. I was familiar with the earlier phase of this attitude from my youth in a very WASPish environment. Nursing in the ’70′s was a matter of culture–and the bulk of those who did it were certain ethnic groups, hippies and Catholics. Not all Catholics, of course, but those who hadn’t jettisoned Humanae Vitae outright. Refined women from the suburbs didn’t breast-feed–witness Donna Reed, June Cleaver and Lucy Ricardo (and yes, I know that Lucy was in the city). They “nursed” us via television to value starched collars, trim waistlines and antiseptic rubber nipples–which in turn allowed daddy, mother-in-law and the pony-tailed baby-sitter from next door to share in the job of bringing up baby. How communal was that!

Eventually sterile sex and sterile bottles became so intertwined that a large portion of the female population lost touch with the entire fleshy understanding of their motherhood. While I can understand the shock that many readers received upon delving into Ms. Blundell’s piece, her honesty is a blunt and brazen bellwether that we should bear in mind when taking on the modern world.

We must be aware that not only do many editors share her disdain, but so do many teachers, legislators and medical professionals; and inherent in the newer approach to bottle-vs-breast is the sensuality factor. Whereas the earlier disdain was based on ethnicity and sophistication, her base-line view of the woman’s body reveals the essential further shift–believing it to be created primarily for sexual pleasure, and this view has gained ascendency in the youngest members of the next generation.

For all the buzz about “back to nature” in different areas of our life–food, clothing and herbal remedies–simply looking at the body and its construction is studiously ignored. Advertising campaigns, school curricula and the entertainment industry have converged on the one driving idea: the body was created chiefly for sexual gratification, and that means breasts must be shapely, soft and reserved for the lover-du-jour. Poor babies, poor mothers, and poor society crumbling for a fundamental loss of identity.

When asked by reporter John Allen about what her appointment says about the Church’s recognition of the talents of women, she answered, “Maybe it’s growing in what I might call a visible way, but it’s always been there, and anyone who knows the life of the church and its mechanisms, including its institutions, knows that women have always had a very important role. Now, I would say, that’s becoming more visible.”

Indeed, the faith is not about titles and power grabs, which is what some confused souls believe in their push for women’s ordination. She is absolutely right that women have always been extremely important, beginning with the foundational fact that all of our joy rests in the fiat of Our Lady. Priests are icons of the Bridegroom, which explains the proscription against women priests. Yet women find that being icons of Holy Mother Church, the Bride, allows them tremendous latitude in their own feminine service, as a story such as this illustrates.

It is particularly intriguing that one of the next major tasks of her office is to promote the beautiful message of Benedict’s encyclical, Caritas in Veritate. The relationship between love and truth, and justice and peace is profound and inescapable. As Aquinas put it so succinctly, “peace is a product of right order,” and the order of love demands a radical rethinking of how many secular observers look at peace in our time.

Mother Teresa was blunt in her assessment of the disorder of our day, blaming abortion for the woes of the world. In her address to the National Prayer Breakfast in 1994, she noted, “Any country that accepts abortion is not teaching its people to love, but to use any violence to get what they want. This is why the greatest destroyer of love and peace is abortion.” Elsewhere, she explained how that disorder at the heart of the family causes a ripple effect that covered the world.

The hearts of women are integral to the battle over abortion, but peace is broader in scope than their views on reproduction. Peace is founded in their receptivity to God’s invitation to love, which has an order of its own. Pope John Paul II explained this in “The Dignity and Vocation of Women,” where he wrote, “In God’s eternal plan, woman is the one in whom the order of love in the created world of persons takes first root” (MD, 29).

Thus, even the quiet lives of women — often hidden, humble, and limited by a variety of circumstances –can have a tremendous impact on how peace is manifest in the world. It begins when their receptivity of the love of God is translated into concrete expressions of love for those they encounter on a daily basis. Furthermore, their loving collaboration with men can transform corners of the globe that no government agency or corporate project can penetrate.

We should offer our heartiest congratulations Ms. Giovanelli for this ground-breaking honor, as well as our prayers for her effective service for years to come, but remember that this visible honor on the institutional level is only a mirror of what must be lived in every setting.

There are a number of factors to be considered in response to the burqa, and preeminent among them is the question of freedom. Since Christendom has given way to a Europe of the Enlightenment, the prevalent view of freedom is that of religious tolerance and equivocation among professions. Thus Mohammed and Jesus, the Buddha and Lord Shiva must all break bread with Voltaire and Rousseau and the only prevailing maxim is to give each his due. If moral confusion ensues, it is the price of accommodating every worldview as an equal and no confession as true.

At first glance, this interpretation of freedom seems to reflect the Catholic definition, which is found in the Catechism : “Freedom is the power, rooted in reason and will, to act or not to act, to do this or that, and so to perform deliberate actions on one’s own responsibility. By free will one shapes one’s own life. Human freedom is a force for growth and maturity in truth and goodness; it attains its perfection when directed toward God, our beatitude ” (CCC , 1731). These words leave no room for coercion or force, and would appear to allow men and women the autonomy to act without constraint according to their lights in daily life.

In this light, we can understand the stance of the French Catholic bishops, who have spoken against the imposition of a ban on wearing the burqa. In part, they were quote in the Daily Mail as saying: “If we want Christian minorities in Muslim majority countries to enjoy all their rights, we should in our country respect the rights of all believers to practice their faith… A dialogue in truth among believers will help us go beyond mutual mistrust.”

Interestingly, two points ground their appeal. The first is the concept of reciprocity — that the freedom Muslims have in the West to express their faith should be met with a similar freedom in Muslim countries, allowing Christians to live their faith without reproach. The second is their appeal to the pursuit of truth, and yet that seems to be overshadowed by their desire to embrace diversity. Whether or not the pursuit of the first is possible (or even wise given the intransigence of Muslim political leaders) that diplomatic effort is beyond the scope of this article. I do firmly believe, though, that it is undermined by the second consideration — the truth about human dignity which has been swallowed in confused notions of modesty.

In the same Daily Mail article cited above, Muslim leaders admit that the extreme form of modesty expressed by those who wear the burqa is not a requirement of Islam. It is a private interpretation embraced by a small portion of Muslims and indicative of a radical view of interpersonal relationships. Those who are familiar with the life of the prophet Mohammed, the Koran attributed to him and the traditions passed down — called ahadith — will recognize that he had firm ideas about women that are contrary to our modern sensibilities. Islam teaches that men are superior to women, that women are property of the men in their lives (fathers, brothers, husbands and sons) and women should not mix freely with men who are not related to them. Girding this worldview is the notion that women are temptresses and men are incapable of resisting their crafty wiles.

In terms of the dignity of the human person, this is insulting. Christianity understands men and women to be fundamentally equal and called to a fruitful complementarity. The virtues of modesty and chastity are grounded in the call to prudence and self-control, and freedom includes the ability to act in accord with God’s will despite our disordered passions and compromised will. To blame women for leading men astray and punish them by banishing them from visible society is what leads many to say that Islam must not be taken as an equal partner by those who value the gifts of women. And to add to the insult, there are those who suggest that the Virgin Mary herself gives credence to such misogyny.

Just as civilization has rightly marginalized racists and anti-Semites, the bigotry inherent in Islam has to be considered from a human rights angle. To consider diversity as a strict benchmark ignores the hard fact that some of the celebrated cultures brought into the circle of respect degrade certain persons and deny them authentic freedom.

Thus I respect the bishops’ grave concern for the safety and well-being of Christians in Islamic nations. I’ll even grant that diplomacy demands a measure of reciprocity on a secular plane. But I would warn that if a singular drive to co-exist is the fuel to their action, then authentic freedom is in grave danger everywhere. When the bishops choose to ignore the degradation and oppression bound up in shari’a — the application of Koranic values to everyday life — then Christianity is placing its salvific light beneath a bushel basket and denying many European immigrants their due respect.

Is it not possible to say that Europe so respects the integrity of its citizens that it defers to those who are insulted by the bundling of women into non-persons? Would it not make sense to say that the freedom France espouses is so important that interpersonal relationships must be founded on mutual respect among men and women? Doesn’t the acceptance of fully veiling women indicate that permitting some to exist as non-persons in Europe is an acceptable price to pay for negotiating abroad? What of the countless women who look to the West to honor their dignity and reject those who brand them as chattel?

The bishops can pursue a “tit for tat” strategy in good conscience if they only consider one angle. I think the wider lens must take into account their respect for those who suffer abuse merely because of their femininity. To insist on decency, integrity and respect for women-Christian, Muslim and other-requires that all forms of oppression be banned, both in Europe and abroad, from human trafficking to child brides. To this end, a soul-searching inventory of all elements of utilitarianism and objectification would enrich men and women and set a higher standard — and here France has an opportunity to take the lead. That’s the difference between the values of Christendom and the Enlightenment. It’s all about the non-negotiable dignity of every human person.

After two weeks of plunging into the waters of the Koran, I can finally come up for air — fresh air. After taking time to plow through the repetitive and garbled “revelations” given to Muhammad in the name of Allah, I can now proceed to rejoice in my Christian faith knowing with metaphysical certainty that Allah is not God. In fact, if Allah were truly God, I would be led to despair and self-destruction, for he is a tyrant and marauder of goodness, no matter what his “ninety-nine names” are. Praised be Jesus Christ!

I knew that I had to read the Koran, in all fairness, in order to proceed with a book project which now consumes me. Having spent twenty years writing about Christianity and women, I wanted to see how women have fared under Islam, since stories of honor killings and death threats to Muslim apostates have relentlessly filtered through the self-policing media in the West.  What is this faith that triggers such a reaction when attacked from within or without?

Is Allah God?

If we learned anything from the Banner Art Years of CCD, we learned that “God is Love.”  It may not have included the excellent detail of Fr Hardon’s Catechism — the most recent to carefully list and explain the fifteen attributes of God –  but we got that central point. We’ve been told that this was the one thought that captivated the apostle John — exiled to the island of Patmos, because once a person really delves into love, all the world is new. One falls in love with Love.

If you consider those classic attributes of God as understood through Christianity, the premise is that he is all those things simultaneously and can never contradict Himself. On one level, it’s like a detective game that posits some clues: the culprit was a left-handed woman, wearing glasses and a red sweater, etc. so that a variety of suspects have to be sifted through and eliminated. (Even a child knows that you have to abide by the rules, and cannot say in the end, “She was wearing a green sweater because, well, she changed.”) The challenge is to combine God’s attributes – such as personal and omnipotent, omnipresent and invisible — so that one can serve him with an informed conscience. To understand God is to understand man in His image and likeness.

Islam insists on no such inner logic, allowing Allah to be “Life-Giver” (Al-Muhyi ) simultaneously with being “Bringer of Death” (Al-Mumīt ). He can even capriciously contradict himself, if he feels like it, being both the “Truth” (Al-Haqq ) and the “Best of Deceivers” (al-Makr ) [i] Despite having all those creative and poetic names by which to describe him, not one names him “love.” Muhammad says that Allah does love (Al-Wadūd — “The One Who Loves His Believing Slaves and His Believing Slaves Love Him”[ii] ) but that explanation is rather limited in scope and even recognizably human in its confines.  “If you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? For even sinners love those who love them.”[iii]

So if Allah is not Love, then what is he? The entire Koran is firm in making the point — Allah is very, very powerful. Despite his inconstancy, he can do whatever he wants and will only smile upon those who commit to the Five Pillars of Islam. He is merciful and forgiving to Muslims alone. Those outside the fold will be subject to everlasting torment.  So this leads us to another striking difference.

There is no grace in Islam

Despite the age-old debates about faith vs. works, or the nature of salvation, Christians understand that the good we do is contingent on our openness to God, and a result of inviting him to work freely through us. The Catechism explains:

The grace of Christ is the gratuitous gift that God makes to us of his own life, infused by the Holy Spirit into our soul to heal it of sin and to sanctify it. It is the sanctifying or deifying grace received in Baptism. It is in us the source of the work of sanctification: ‘Therefore if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has passed away, behold, the new has come. All this is from God, who through Christ reconciled us to himself.[iv]

This is the communion we strive for, the hope we bear that God’s will can be done despite us and the limits we place on grace.

Not so in Islam. After having accepted that there is no god but Allah and that Muhammad is his prophet, one must prove his devotion through good works. In essence, from then he is obliged to work for his salvation. Objectively, it may look similar to Christianity but the premise is very different. A Muslim and a Christian may both begin with fearing God, but in Islam it ends there as well — for a Muslim is essentially alone. The Christian moves beyond fear (which is an appropriate premise given his inadequacy to save himself) and appeals to the salvific work of Jesus on his behalf. He does what he can to echo the loving work of his Creator, but knows that his works are nothing compared to the work of the Incarnate One. And this leads to the ultimate difference between the two creeds.

Adoration versus Submission

If God is love, than we can be assured that everything that He permits will be for our good — despite ourselves — and will culminate in the means of eternal happiness. Love requires a personal encounter on the deepest, purest level possible — and what is stilted and compromised on earth will be consummated in heaven. There, those who love will encounter perfect Love, which is to be adored for eternity.

If Allah is not love but power, then there will be no personal encounter either here or in afterwards. Romano Guardini summed it up this way:

In adoration angels bow before their divine Lord, the creature before his Creator. But how and why? Not as a man who journeys on the sea in a frail boat and is compelled to bow before a storm. Not as a physician who has fought for the life of a man and is obliged to acknowledge himself helpless before the advance of disease. In both cases this would mean bowing to a superior force, but certainly not adoration. If God were mere power, man, because of his natural dignity, would have to refuse to render Him complete homage, even if God were to destroy him for his refusal. The angels, the elders, the four living creatures prostrate themselves before God for a very different reason, only because He is all-powerful, but because He is worthy.

This thought it is which determines our relation to God, and we must understand it well. We are as nothing before Him, nevertheless we have the dignity of our personality. Not from ourselves, but from Him – yet a dignity which is really ours. And it places an obligation upon us. Before a God who were only power, we could not bow low, we could only submit.

But God is not mere power, He is Mind as well. As great as God’s power, just so great is His truth. As perfect as is His sovereignty, just so perfect is his justice. As truly as He is real, just as truly He is holy. God’s being, His power and His sovereignty are in every way equal to His integrity and His goodness. If the expression may be allowed, He is not simply God, He is worthy to be God. [v]

Islam means “submission” for a reason – because there is no room for adoration. “And unto Allah maketh prostration whatsoever is in the heavens and whatsoever is in the earth of living creatures, and the angels (also), and they are not proud. They fear their Lord above them, and do what they are bidden.”[vi]

Whereas the West has often proven itself incapable of deep reflection and mature restraint, the threat of Islamic aggression is different than other questions. It doesn’t require an understanding of medical principles, sexual ethics or theological disputes among Christians. It throws us back on our primal understanding of God and His essence. Will we choose submission to Allah or the God of love?  And if we can answer correctly, God grant the grace to live it every day.

[ii] Surahs 11:90, 85:14

[iii] Luke 6:32

[iv] Catechism of the Catholic Church , 1999

[v] Romano Guardini, The Faith and Modern Man , p. 8

[vi] Surah XVI, 49-50

While it grabbed headlines and some mild attention (and sent the writer into hiding for more than a decade) it was more of a distant curiosity to Westerners at the time, living as they were in what we now call the “9-10” world. After the attack on the Twin Towers in New York, we would dust off these disparate memories and expand our Islamic vocabulary to include jihad , hijab , Shari’a , Sunni, Shi’a and a host of other formerly unknown words. But was the attack itself an anomaly or part of a larger threat that we must take seriously?

Last week we looked at the case of Rifqa Bary, a teenager who has fled her family after their violent reaction to her conversion to Christianity. This follows on the heels of a rash of honor killings in the West, more fatwas and a host of legal disputes in which the status of Islamic observance in non-Muslim countries is drawing attention to the question: What is it about Islam that makes them treat people this way?

First of all, we must recognize that while Islam holds sacred the Qur’an — its one holy book — the interpretation of that book varies widely. It would not be out of line to compare it to the Protestant world, which similarly honors the Bible as the revealed Word of God. That same book is used by Amish and Unitarians, by Baptists and Mormons with wildly varying outcomes.[2]

Thus the first pillar of Islam, the profession of faith (Shahadah ): “there is no God but Allah and Muhammad is his prophet,” leads the Muslim faithful to the next set of writings, the hadith (or traditions) which shed more light on the intentions of Muhammad through anecdotes about his behavior and words of his earliest followers.[3] Thus, various schools of thought have grown over the centuries, leading observers to discuss and debate what Islam really requires of its followers.

In order that a given society might completely reflect the will of Allah as he made himself known to Muhammad, a practical application of Islamic belief to everyday life has been constructed, which is called shari’a . This legal framework, whose name means “path to the water source” regulates all elements of public and private life and names a host of capital crimes, which include insulting the prophet or leaving Islam. Both blasphemy and apostasy are punishable by death — and if we’ve learned anything about Muslims since 2001, we’ve seen that fervent believers take their responsibility towards Allah very seriously.[4]

How are we affected by the ways that Muslims interpret their scriptures as long as we don’t live under shari’a itself? To begin with, we must understand that while not all Muslims accept the same strict interpretation of the Qur’an , those who do will fight to the death for its tenets to be honored. That means that when we hear of death threats and charges of blasphemy we cannot dismiss them as unfounded. Rifqa Bary has been dumbfounded by the response in the media and the courts to her fears for her life. To understand the legal demands of Islam concerning her conversion to Christianity is to realize she isn’t simply acting paranoid.

David Rusin writes in Islamist Watch :

All major schools of Islamic jurisprudence stipulate that a sane adult male must be put to death for abandoning Islam, though varying interpretations persist on whether females should be killed or merely imprisoned. Many Islamic states outlaw apostasy and seven list it as a capital offense. However, freelancers such as angry relatives present the greatest danger to ex-Muslims, as Sunni and Shiite scholars largely agree that Shari’a empowers individuals to punish converts. This tradition has followed Muslims to the Western world.[5]

So the question isn’t whether she can leave Islam behind. The only debate is whether to kill or imprison her -– and an alternative to the latter is to bundle her off to her native Sri Lanka and marry her to a man who will then own her.

But there’s one more element –- the protests of her family, their lawyers, the Islamic representatives who are standing before the cameras and insisting that this is all an enormous misunderstanding. This is sanctioned by the faith as well. The Qur’an allows its followers to mislead and lie as long as the ultimate goal is to promote the faith, saying, “any one who, after accepting faith in Allah, utters Unbelief — except under compulsion, his heart remaining firm in Faith — but such as open their breast to Unbelief, on them is Wrath from Allah, and theirs will be a dreadful Penalty” (16:106). This is universally understood to mean that when there would be consequences to telling the truth, one is required to lie and it will not be held against him.[6]

Duplicity of this sort has been widely used to lure “blasphemers” or “apostates” back to their families, who promise to receive them calmly –- only to be ambushed shortly after arrival. Thus, Rifqa’s wariness over her father’s promises of tolerance and peace must be understood in context of a faith and culture that prize conformity to the will of Allah over family bonds, over the truth and over life itself. As she noted tearfully,

You guys don’t understand. Islam is very different than you guys think. They have to kill me. My blood is now halal , which means that because I am now a Christian, I’m from a Muslim background, it’s an honor. If they love God more than me, they have to do this.[7]

We pray for those who have converted to Christianity and are now in hiding, for those suffering persecution around the world and for those called to martyrdom for love of Christ. The ultimate sacrifice has been demanded often throughout history, but it’s hard to watch it unfold here where so many come to escape persecution. Last week’s hearing has allowed her to remain in Florida until the end of the month. After that, her fate is known to God alone.

Rifqa’s family immigrated from Sri Lanka to the United States in 2000 and since then their children have thrived in school and other activities — first in New York and later in Ohio. There, the father, Muhamed, chose a mosque among several in the area for its strict interpretation of Islam (which they refer to as “original Islam”) and the faith was very important to the family. There were the regular weekly gatherings, the youth groups and special presentations offered to enhance the understanding of how to live as Muslims today.[i]

In November 2005, Rifqa embraced Christianity. She had been positively influenced by the witness of Christians in her high school, had studied further through books and the internet, and even reached out to Christians online, who welcomed her into the faith.

The family had been vaguely aware of her interest in Christianity for much of that time and responded with a desire that she learn more about Islam. At times, they expressed greater frustration with her and often reacted badly — using very harsh words, threats and physical force — but Rifqa endured the persecution, only confiding to friends about the violence in the home. She was occasionally seen by a school nurse, but those visits were not properly documented nor reported to the child welfare agencies responsible for oversight. While her home life wasn’t pleasant, there was no reason for her to fear for her life.

Unfortunately, the Noor Islamic Cultural Center, the mosque to which the Bary family belongs (despite the closer proximity of other mosques) is headed by a man who associates with known terrorists, has guest speakers of a highly militant form of Islam, and whose institution has been under surveillance by the FBI for some time.[ii] There Islam is interpreted in its most extreme, fossilized form.[iii] The Bary children were required by their father to attend special sessions impressing on them this form of their faith, and many events were hosted in their own home.

When members of the mosque heard that Rifqa had become a Christian, they intervened and reminded her father of his responsibilities. Now whatever paternal affection had previously softened his response to his daughter’s apostasy was replaced with a heightened sense of duty, backed by the unrelenting pressure of the Islamic community to which he belonged. There may have been tears behind closed doors, pleas from Aysha, his conflicted wife, and anguish in his heart about his responsibility, but he had to act decisively in order to make his own priorities clear to the Noor Center. Rifqa’s mother even told her that she would have to be sent back to Sri Lanka as a result of leaving Islam.

There are indications that her father began liquidating assets, which may have indicated that he intended to move the whole family back to Sri Lanka. It was possible that he was arranging a marriage. There were the on-going discussions with the mosque leaders. There were the violent episodes in the home that revealed to Rifqa that her conversion was now going to have very serious consequences. Through a Facebook prayer group, she contacted a pastor and told him of her situation. He encouraged her to take refuge with him, and that triggered her exodus from Ohio to Florida. After initially being locked up in a detention center as a runaway and ward of the state, she was released into the care of a Christian foster family in Orlando.

Rifqa has secured an attorney, John Stemberger, who has extensive experience with abused children and the mechanisms in place to remove them from dangerous family situations. He is pushing for Rifqa to remain in the custody of the state of Florida until her eighteenth birthday, fearing that a return to her family will lead to injury or death.

His concerns are not unfounded. Rifqa’s own tearful plea expresses her genuine believe that her father is required to kill her, due to Islam’s firm directives about apostasy. The Bary’s have impressed on their children not only the demands of Islam, but the importance of their own family history, which only adds to the Rifqa’s trauma. She notes, “[I]n 150 generations of my family no one has known Jesus. I am the first one. Imagine the honor in killing me. There is great honor in that.”

There are others who have come forward to support Rifqa Bary in her quest to live apart from her family. W. L. Cati founded “White Horse Ministry,” after having divorced an abusive Muslim man who turned on his children when they chose to be Christian. She believes Rifqa’s fears are well-founded. “As far as Muslims are concerned, she should have the death penalty for converting to Christianity.”

There is also the sobering case of Aqsa Parvez, who at age sixteen was strangled on December 10^th , 2007. Her father and brother are charged with murder, “ Friends of the slain teen said she feared for her life and had been threatened by family members in the weeks prior to her death over a religious dispute.”[iv] Similarly, Amina and Sarah Said, 18 and 17 respectively, were both shot on New Years Day, 2008, a crime for which their father would be charged except that he has been at large ever since.[v] A quick internet search turns up many similar stories, showing that Islam is often tied to family disputes that end very badly for young women.

Today, there will be another hearing in Rifqa’s case, determining where she can live in the coming months. While she has not wanted to talk to her family even by phone, she insists that she loves them. She simply cannot trust that their family honor and interpretation of their Holy Books will not lead them to harm her for abandoning her Muslim roots.

Next week, we will look at their scriptures and the way in which they are interpreted. The most important consideration in viewing the Muslin worldview is how they choose to distinguish the will of God, how much they value human freedom, how they respond to the burning quest for truth. Please pray for God’s will to be done with Rifqa and all who seek Him with an open heart.

The decades between that first drawn breath and now have been complicated in ways, and yet remarkably straight-forward in others. The first maternal embrace and swaddled welcome gave way to an unforeseen abyss as death intervened, and the essential motherly tasks were undertaken by others. God provides, and yet the yearning for a reliable sanctuary has ever been with me, for those who are deprived feel keenly what others may take for granted.

God is good, and in His almighty plan the perfect sanctuary endures even when the smaller icons of it slip from our horizons. Thus if a person needs a mother, father, food, shelter and a lamp to light his path, then such things can be found — in both concrete expressions and the supernatural echoes that point their true meaning.

When it comes to the essential tasks of motherhood, the Church — the bride of Christ — stands ready to scoop up the wayward souls in search of peace and order, and to swaddle them in truth and love. The door is open, her arms reach down and she gives freely from her storehouse of nourishment to all who ask. The fact that this bride first “drew breath” in Jerusalem should draw special attention to the pilgrimage that the Holy Father is making to Israel this very week — for supernatural echoes abound in that holy place.

Benedict will see many things during his visit, and three faith communities will parse his every word and gesture. Interestingly, while all three look to Jerusalem as a city integral to their worship of God, only Catholicism puts weight on the maternal dimension of that place.

Layers of the mystery unfold when we recognize that the temple built by Solomon was precursor to both the bride of Christ and the heavenly Jerusalem to which all our churches here on earth point. There are also deep implications tied to Mary, the mother of God, who is herself related to that city. “Mary, in whom the Lord himself has just made his dwelling, is the daughter of Zion in person, the ark of the covenant, the place where the glory of the Lord dwells” (CCC 2676).

While Benedict XVI is privileged to walk in the footsteps of Our Lord, we must remember that every Mass is itself a pilgrimage. “In the earthly liturgy we share in a foretaste of that heavenly liturgy which is celebrated in the Holy City of Jerusalem toward which we journey as pilgrims, where Christ is sitting at the right hand of God” (CCC 1090). In each Mass we’re privileged to glimpse the wedding feast of the Lamb, which will take place at the consummation of the world.

Benedict has described his journey as a pilgrimage of peace — “the lasting peace born of justice, integrity and compassion, the peace that arises from humility, forgiveness and the profound desire to live in harmony as one” — and we pray that it bears fruit. Only through the blood of Jesus is lasting peace possible, and to that end Holy Mother Church offers her sanctuary of ordered love and humble service. She is the true witness — a signpost to the tranquility of heaven.

There were some rare evenings when the children in our house, all cousins and close in age, begged and cajoled my dear granny to let her hair down (after the grandpa had gone to bed, of course). When the kitchen counter was wiped and the last tea towel hung up for the evening, the quiet pleas would commence, and when we saw the twinkle in her eye, we knew the fun would soon begin.

Granny had left England as a teenager, but not before imbibing enough Gilbert and Sullivan to round out the decades to follow. Lifting the corners of her apron just an inch or two for effect, she swished about on stolid ankles, with our timid giggles soon turning to raucous laughter. D’Oyly Carte had nothing on our Mabel, and those private routines form some of our dearest childhood memories.

The recent sensation of Susan Boyle, Scotland’s chanteuse célèbre has caused many to recall similar hidden talents tucked around their own family trees. Following Miss Boyle’s stunning debut on Britain’s Got Talent were investigative pieces on the 47-year-old, revealing that she was the youngest of nine children, suffered from the usual setbacks attached to learning disabilities and was for years the primary care giver to her aging parents. She is a perfect example of humility, service and excellent priorities.

To add a bittersweet quality to the moving story, we learned that her mum always encouraged her singing, but despite investing in voice lessons, her subsequent grief over her mother’s death silenced all song. After two years of mourning, she took the stage, and within the first two measures of her chosen piece, the judges and audience were stunned.  Seconds later, they were on their feet roaring their approval. It was the perfect Cinderella story — goodness and virtue inspired her at that moment, and an unexpected gift was shared with the world.

Now many who have talent prepare themselves immediately to seek the venues that will showcase their gifts — usually the ability to sing, to dance, or to act. Some find fame; some fizzle; and others fall flat — with the finest becoming household names. Others, though, have different priorities; and what is unique about them is their choice not to shine.

It must be admitted that many who want to be discovered are constrained by family responsibilities, financial woes or cultural taboos, but what we have with darling Susan is her positive decision to put the needs of others first. She had dreams, but she also knew the value of filial piety — which made her eventual debut all the more delightful. Postponing it all those years didn’t make her bitter at all — but only added depth to her evident good nature.

While many assume that the inherent lesson is to avoid judging books by their covers, the more important consideration should be to assess how much of her captivating performance was technical perfection, and how much was actually the ineffable qualities that humility, self-abnegation and generous love added to her voice. Women who choose to serve others are gifts in and of themselves. If there are even more treasures to be bestowed, how much more will they be appreciated when deferred until after the washing up?

The Confused Notion of “Body as Art”

The latest example of this trend adds titillation to the usual theological mockery, as one of the foremost bikini models claims that her own career is a manifestation of John Paul II’s theology of the body. Joanna Krupa takes delight in noting that the high priests of fashion and the Pope of Rome have joined to marry the sacred and the mundane, so that human bodies (like hers) can be marketed worldwide for pleasure — both in the eye of the beholder and in her voluptuous bank account. That seems to make everyone a winner!

“Interestingly enough, these days,” she chirps happily, “you see nudity and toplessness in almost every critically-acclaimed movie, and whenever I pick up a French Vogue , I see bare breasts, and French Vogue still sets the standards.” Ah, yes, the honored critics and the revered standards. She deftly ties it together with the makings of a creed: “[T]he fact is Pope John Paul said, since we were born naked, it is art, and it’s just showing a beautiful body that God created.”

A direct quote from any papal document to that effect would have been a little too much to ask for, but she may have stumbled onto the Cliff Notes version of his Angelus messages of a couple decades ago. It’s her effort to baptize cutting-edge raunch, but of course it falls grievously short of the mark. John Paul II did mention the beauty of the body, but nakedness as a good was limited to our brief shining moment before The Fall. “In the state of original innocence, nakedness…did not express a lack, but represented full acceptance of the body in all its human and therefore personal truth” (TOB, 14 May 1980). Unfortunately, that innocence isn’t with us any more, and our disordered passions mandate regular trips to the mall to drape the body appropriately.

Imagining an Alternate Universe

Krupa’s simplistic view of the “body beautiful” hearkens back to Brooke Shields’ blockbuster, The Blue Lagoon (1980) — dubbed a “natural love story.” That film set out to give flesh to Margaret Meade’s thesis that cultures which haven’t attached shame to nudity and sex exhibit a healthier, more wholesome appreciation of carnal pleasures. And yet, people conveniently forget that Meade’s Coming of Age in Samoa was more wishful thinking than accurate anthropology, for original sin was truly present on that remote island — despite the pretty waterfall and Hollywood rewrite.

The same John Paul II who insisted that original unity between man and woman was an extraordinary gift also reminded us forcefully to guard that gift from objectification and abuse — a factor that even Adam and Eve recognized immediately upon falling from grace: “Then the eyes of both were opened, and they knew that they were naked, and they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves aprons” (Gn 3:7). Tan lines were a mandatory part of life east of Eden, though with the new work ethic that accompanied their change in status, they may have been too tired to notice.

We cannot glean much personal information about Krupa from this short interview (and strangely I find that I don’t have much of a drive to find out more). Suffice it to say that it doesn’t appear that she thinks much of the Church’s teachings on marriage and procreation, for neither are a part of her landscape. She says she’s “always been in committed relationships,” which is a peculiar contradiction in terms. Either committed doesn’t mean committed, or her sense of fidelity comes with an expiration date.

So where else does her theology on nudity and beauty lead her? Her apostolate is to other women, so that they might have “bikini-ready” bodies just like hers. Again, her limited understanding of the Church’s teaching hasn’t provided the depth necessary to consider how such a use of the body leads to the objectification of women and the temptation of men. Being attractive on a beach or the deck of a boat hardly exemplifies the personalist ethic, which promotes each person as a subject, capable of deep love and extraordinary generosity. In that vein, the complete gift of self would seem to exclude parading about as eye candy for the casual admirer, but rather compel one to live a life of modesty, integrity and receptivity to the other by means of authentic love.

Her theology is also remarkably deficient on the moral law, for she neglects to take seriously John Paul II’s ubiquitous reminders to live in solidarity with others, which requires each of us to look to the authentic good of our neighbor. Solidarity would rule out those transient sexual relationships — no matter how “committed” and would exclude offering her image to men as an occasion of lust. A quick Google search of her name indicates that such occasions blanket the Internet and news stands world-wide, not to mention those “visuals with a pulse” on beaches everywhere — courtesy of her body-perfecting apostolate.

The beauty of our original nakedness that Krupa uses to justify her disordered mission is actually a signpost to the deeper truth that man and woman were created for communion and being channels of new life. John Paul II writes, “Man cannot live without love. He remains a being that is incomprehensible for himself, his life is senseless, if love is not revealed to him, if he does not encounter love, if he does not experience love and make it his own, if he does not participate intimately in it” (Redemptor Hominis 10).

More importantly, her boiled-down theology ignores the reality that we are persons and settles for the warmed over lie of the day — that we are merely individuals. Reducing the beauty of persons to a base herd of individuals provides us with no accountability, no constraints — and no dignity. The dignity of persons, who are in the image and likeness of God, rests in our inherent freedom, which is what distinguishes the “body as sex toy” from the “body as temple of the Holy Spirit.” The body must be treasured as a sacrament, bearing within it “the interior freedom of the gift — the disinterested gift of oneself” (TOB, 16 Jan 1980).

Restoring Honor and Dignity

Concupiscence — our tendency to sin — is not insurmountable, although it is always with us. God is also with us, and His grace is sufficient if we turn to Him in humility. Jesus waged a battle over sin and won, and teaches us to imitate Him in the virtues that will rebuild communion. “Victory over that discord in the body… can and must take place in man’s heart. This is the way to purity, that is ‘to control one’s own body in holiness and honor’” (TOB, 4 Feb, 1981). Thus, the shame that accompanied our fall from grace must be channeled towards a joyful modesty and prudence in our approach to human sexuality.

So although Fox News trumpets the “dog bites man” headline that this wildly successful nude model is “Inspired by John Paul II’s Theology of the Body,” she is simply one more confused soul who wants to spiritualize a very earthy vice. Just as Satan quoted scripture to Our Lord in the desert, the wider culture has a penchant for wrapping its sins in fake piety. God willing, an errant, salivating fan might look this theology thing up, thinking it will confirm his every desire — only to be transformed by those words that lead us to more beauty than the editors of French Vogue ever imagined. Let’s pray for such a miracle.