Dear Catholic Exchange:
I was so heartened to read your estimate of 100,000 or more attendees at the March for Life event in Washington. [See “Official Estimate of March for Life Attendance: 100,000.”]
I am very irked by the mainstream media's ignoring or under-reporting this event. I am a subscriber to the New York Times, which devoted only one photograph to the event. The photo was of Catholic nuns (God bless them) and therefore left the reader with the impression that pro-lifers are all Catholic nuns, which is so untrue. Also the photo made no mention of numbers, thus ignoring entirely the fact that pro-lifers far outnumbered abortion supporters. I wrote to the Times with my comments and was told that they don't like to cover marches, since these are “staged events” designed for press coverage!
Can a lay person like me do anything to change this bias in coverage on the abortion issue? Thank you.
Malini Paye
Dear Malini:
I am so glad you appreciate Catholic Exchange’s coverage of the March! I am always encouraged by our viewers who take advantage of the information we provide.
The bias you have noticed is virtually everywhere. The best we can do is continue to point out such bias to our friends and family, and to the media themselves. And, of course, we must remain prayerful that God will move hearts and minds.
Thanks for writing!
Sincerely,
Mark Dittman
Associate Editor
Catholic Exchange
Excuse Me, Are You Worshipping Mary?
Dear Mark Shea:
In your email subscription [Words of Encouragement] dated Jan 22, 02 entitled “Eucharist: the Source of Life!” you address that argument about Catholics worshipping the Blessed Mother. I would like to offer my take on this.
As reported in his book “The Lamb's Supper” Dr. Scott Hahn writes, “Mohandas Gandi, who was a Hindu, called ‘worship without sacrifice’ an absurdity of the modern age.” So then we see that the fullness of worship involves an offering … a sacrifice. As we know, the Old Testament obligation for sacrifice was never rescinded, rather, it was raised to a higher power.
Some think that a religious service of prayer, scripture reading, and a sermon is worship. But how full is this worship if there is no sacrifice offered? Catholics do not offer sacrifice to Mary, and so therefore they do not worship her. The question then should be turned around from do Catholics worship Mary to – how can those who do not offer sacrifice come to think of this as the of worship of God? Without sacrifice their practice is the same with God as ours is in honoring the reverence of our Blessed Mother.
What do you think about this?
Sincerely,
A Viewer
Dear Viewer:
Truth to tell, I think it a dicey argument and not the first I would put forward. Worship certainly involves sacrifice, but worship is not Identical to sacrifice. I, for one, would not want to tell a Jewish person that he doesn't really worship God simply because he does not offer sacrifice. For, of course, the immediate reply (and one rather hard to refute) is “Oh yes I do!” To worship is, in Catholic parlance, to accord the highest honor proper to God (“latria”). If we love the Lord our God with with all our heart, soul, mind and strength, we are worshipping him. If we love something else more than God, we are worshipping that. To be sure, worship ultimately involves sacrifice and Jesus is the highest sacrifice (of God to God). But all who worship God offer him some form of sacrifice (of their wills, for instance).
Generally, I think it wiser to simply point to the fact that our honor of Mary (like our honor of our parents, or a football player, or a good knockwurst) is an honor paid to creatures and not to God. With creatures, Catholic theology calls this form of honor “dulia.” With the highest of creatures–Mary–it is called “hyperdulia.” But it is not “latria” the honor due God alone. Worship may involve liturgical sacrifice. But lack of liturgical sacrifice does not necessarily mean absence of worship. Neither does the presence of such creaturely honor mean that creatures are being worshipped.
Ultimately, the only way to find out if somebody is worshipping a creature like Mary is to ask them “Do you worship that?” If they say “No” then that's that. They don't. Unfortunately, almost no critic of Marian devotion thinks to try this relatively simple method of detective work. Instead, they often seem regrettably eager to put on little tin mind-reading hats and tell us who and what we worship, even in the teeth of our flat insistence that we do no such thing.
I've often fancied it would be entertaining to turn the tables on this form of clairvoyant theologizing and say, “I've noticed that many non-Catholics kneel before their Bibles to pray during their quiet times or even at church. That can only mean they worship their Bible, right? After all, kneeling is an act of reverence, so kneeling to your Bible must mean you think it is God, right?”
After the furious denials subside, one can then make the point that, just as non-Catholic dislike having the stupidest idolatries deduced from the flimsiest of bases so Catholics, being remarkably like human beings as well, also dislike being told what we think when it would ever so much easier to discover this by the elementary process of asking us what we think.
Thanks for writing!
Mark Shea
Senior Content Editor
Catholic Exchange
Greeting Cards: Still Got ‘Em
Dear Catholic Exchange:
I've enjoyed your articles so far. Got just a little highlight here, I realized that there used to be a free card service which post pretty cards with a prayer from some group that comes along with the card. When I recently went in again, the cards are not there anymore. Those are beautiful cards….Birthday, Christmas, Weddings cards etc which I could send to friends and they found it lovely. I would appreciate it if you could place those cards back into the site.
Thanks!
God Bless,
Elaine
Dear Elaine:
Thanks for the kind words.
Our free Greeting Cards are still down there — in our Community Box in the bottom-center of our homepage.
Click here for the Greeting Card link.
Enjoy!
Tom Allen
Editor & President
Catholic Exchange
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